A soft hand gently stroked his face while a loving and maternal voice gently silenced him as the last muffled screams of protest escaped from his slowly awakening lips. Spider still didn't dare to open his eyes, he already knew that he had only been dreaming but he had felt so but SO real... a part of him feared that if he opened his eyes again he would then find his worst nightmare staring at him. But that soothing voice that right now hummed a beautiful lullaby was from a woman. And he was still in his own bed inside his hammock in the Mauri de los Sully where he was safe.

Neytiri: I know you're not asleep anymore, Spider

Neytiri told her while she felt how her teenage adopted son tensed up but did not move to turn around and face her.

Neytiri: It seemed that you had had a nightmare and I could hear you crying and scared while you slept and were muttering about being taken. ¿Would you like to talk about it?

Normally I would have said no. In situations like this, all adoptive parents from their past could offer him empty words. But Neytiri wasn't them. She was frank, intuitive and determined. Spider didn't even think he was capable of making him an empty promise.

Spider: I was having a nightmare... about the RDA, Ardmore and my da... I say Quaritch taking me

Neytiri nodded as she circled the hammock to get in front of him so she could see her son's eyes

Neytiri: that's something quite understandable Spider... I also see his face in my nightmares

Spider's eyes widened and he looked at the yellow eyes to turn to his adoptive mother

Spider: ¿Really? But you beat him ¿No?

Neytiri: yes we did it Spider. But before that he destroyed my house and killed my father. No victory will be enough to heal from those losses

They were silent for a while, Neytiri's eyes far away, Spider couldn't say a word. When Neytiri finally spoke again, his voice carried a serene and reverent power that captivated Spider very much:

Neytiri: Pain is something terribly beautiful. Years have passed and yet there is still a hole in my heart for his loss. I will go to my day as usual and then a memory, a small insignificant memory, of my father will enter the eye of my mind. I smiled at him for a moment. And then, just as quickly, that happiness will become devastation. The pain is unbearable. But it is a pain born of the deepest love. To love and be loved so fiercely that the loss of that love would motivate you to kill... No victory will be enough. It's just something you learn to live with.

Spider felt tears in his eyes because of the suffering his mother had gone through. Words of comfort would be a loss of breath. Nothing would be enough to relieve the type of pain that Neytiri was talking about. It was completely contrary to his instincts and yet Spider now found himself sitting shoulder to shoulder with his adoptive mother. Then, with surprisingly little hesitation, he put his head on her shoulder. Neytiri instantly hugged him holding him close to her putting a kiss on his forehead and then putting it under her chin. Spider finally started crying. It was something so abrupt that he didn't even have time to think about it. The usual shame and feelings of weakness that always accompanied her tears were nowhere to be found.

While Neytiri stroked her hair while she was still crying. She didn't shut him up or offer him words of comfort. She simply gave him the space she so desperately needed to let out all the pain she had been burying all her life. The pain of never having had a real home since I was a baby. The fear that covered each of his apparently happy moments. The devastation of being abandoned again and again. To never be loved. Everything went to the pouring. Because Neytiri's words made him realize that he had never experienced such deep love before. Not until now. He loved the Sully family. I really felt like I belonged to them. And if someone ever tried to get him away from them, well, then he imagined that the pain would motivate him to do some quite desperate and terrible things after a few moments of having been crying Spider was still in his mom's arms while Neytiri was carrying him between them and now she was carrying him as if he were a baby while Spider snuggled up against her to which Spider then felt how her mother had laid on the floor with him and Spider told her the following.

Spider: ¿What will happen if the RDA captures me again?

Neytiri: Then they'll have to go over me... I won't make the same mistakes I made before with you, Spider

Hearing her say that before Spider fell asleep again, then she told her mom the following

Spider: I love you mommy

Neytiri: I love you too Spider, my baby