Author's Note: A little bit of inspiration for this story! Sorry about the long wait! Enjoy!

Tsyeyk's new normal is more and more of a joy than he could ever imagine would come from him. He was never alone anymore. He barely ever got a moment, and he was more than fine with it. He spends time learning from Grace - the language, both English and Na'vi - and to have proper manners. To read and write and count. To craft and built things for himself and others. Those beautiful things that his mommy used to bring back to him, Grace knew how to make too. But when Tsyeyk tried to fray the blankets and tweng like mommy's gifts or scuff up the tools so that they were the same, Grace would softly tell him not to. That they didn't need to be altered that way.

"But mommy's was like this, Grace," Tsyeyk had said, looking up at her with big blue eyes.

Grace leaned into his side, kissing the top of his hair. "Yes, I bet they were like that. But they don't have to be anymore, okay?"

"Okay," Tsyeyk had said, accepting it as fact. Grace knew everything.

Tsyeyk also spent a lot of time with Daddy. He would go away sometimes, for a long time during the day, but morning or night, he was always there. He would wrestle with Tsyeyk, tickle him until he was begging for it to stop through mirthful tears. They would wander the forest with daddy's friends, flying back and forth on the scary monster that he didn't like but would be brave because everyone else was.

Daddy was also learning how to speak to Tsyeyk, learning the words that he knew. Tsyeyk was excited every time his daddy would practice on him but easily get flustered when Tsyeyk yammered back too excited to speak slowly. Daddy would hold his hand or carry him around. They would play games and star gaze and the longer he spent with his daddy, the harder it got to remember his mommy. He would talk about her, from the bits that he remembered, but even those faded more and more with time. Before she really started to fade from his mind, whenever he spoke about her, daddy's expression would harden and that sad look would cross his face, but he would only pull Tsyeyk closer, hug him and pet his wild hair.

Oh, and tell him that he loved Tsyeyk.

No one had ever told him that before. He had to ask what that meant, which only seemed to make his daddy and his daddy's friends sad. But when his daddy told him - through Grace as they were both still learning the words - that it meant that they would be together forever and that his daddy's heart was always his, Tsyeyk cried. On one hand, he didn't understand. He didn't want his daddy's heart outside of his body; he couldn't live without it and the thought of losing his daddy was horrible. But on the other hand, the idea of being together forever was an appealing one. Maybe Daddys don't leave like Mommys do.

But daddy didn't mean that his real heart would be removed from his body, so he smiled anyway, kissing the top of Tsyeyk's head as he softly begged his daddy to keep his heart.

The more Tsyeyk came to understand the word, the more he liked it. And daddy would always tell him that he loved him. It was one of the first phrases that Tsyeyk mastered in his daddy's mother tongue. He would quietly practice it to himself at night or early in the morning before daddy's human spirit entered his body. And daddy's smile when Tsyeyk managed it was worth the anxiety that he had leading up to that moment.

And in those times where his daddy was busy and couldn't be with him, Tsyeyk spent it with his daddy's friends. They told him that they were family. That they would be with him forever too. He loves them. And they love him. They would play with him and feed him and give him all the cuddles he asks for. They made sure that he wasn't lonely when his daddy wasn't there. He was so excited for each morning, not at all worried about going to sleep and wondering if someone would be there when he woke up.

There always was.

Tsyeyk was with his daddy for almost three months - he's learning how to tell time now! - when they found what they had been looking for out in the forest when they accidently came across Tsyeyk. A space for a school for Grace to teach other children. There is a clan of Na'vi nearby that Grace is in good with that she wanted to build a school and teach them the human ways as well.

The Omatikaya, Grace called them.

"Omatikaya?" Tsyeyk echoes, holding one of Grace's hands and one of Daddy's as they left him up over a log. He kicks his legs out so they pass over top of the log before he's lowered back to the ground to keep walking.

"Don't you want to meet them?" Grace asks, looking down at him with a smile. "They are Na'vi, like you."

Tsyeyk frowns, shaking his head. "No. I want to stay with Daddy." He liked his life now. Three months taught him enough. It's better to stay with daddy and the others.

Grace faulters a bit, surprised. She looks over at Daddy, who shrugs his shoulders. Daddy knows the language better than he speaks it - according to him.

Grace pulls them to a stop, lowering to a knee and taking both of Tsyeyk's little hands with her own, looking down into his blue eyes with her golden ones. "Tsyeyk, there will be other kids your age to play with. And you won't be leaving your daddy. He'll still be around. You'll come home with us every night."

Tsyeyk's tail flicks anxiously as he shrugs. "I don't know. I want daddy." He doesn't pull away from Grace, but he does rest against his daddy's leg, feeling that large hand gently cards through his hair, pushing the long bangs from his eyes.

"Don't poosh him, Grace," Daddy says, voice even as strands of his hair slide back onto Tsyeyk's face. "If he dosent wahnt too gow he dosent hav too."

Grace nods, a crease between her eyes as she squeezes Tsyeyk's hands. She smiles after a moment, moving to stand once more. "Let's go, baby boy. I know you've got to be getting hungry."

Tsyeyk perks up, tail twirling. "Yes, please!"

"Tsyeeeeeeyk..." Lyle stresses.

Tsyeyk, who was sitting on Lyle's chest, playing with the two flat metal pieces - dog tags, he's come to learn - and all of daddy's friends had them. Grace and her friends did not, and that was because they were different. Grace and her friends weren't like his daddy and his friends. His daddy was a warrior. Lyle and the others were warriors. And warriors, had dog tags.

"Tsyeeeeyk," Lyle calls again, poking Tsyeyk's ribs.

Tsyeyk smiles down at him, leaning closer to the older male from where he was lounging back on his bed - the nests that they sleep on - while waiting for Tsyeyk's daddy to finish with a "meeting". Whatever that was. And while Tsyeyk would like for his daddy to be here with him, he doesn't so much mind being with Lyle. Or Uncle Lyle, as they say. Daddy's bestest friend in whole wide world.

"Wyyyyyllllle!" Tsyeyk stresses, giggling when the other male grins at him.

Tsyeyk giggles, leaning back so that he can keep playing with the dog tags. He runs his little fingers along the grooves in it. They were words, but he didn't know what they were yet. He knows that it is going to be on the list of things that Grace has been planning to teach him in the future, so he doesn't mind waiting until then. Still, like with daddy's, Tsyeyk liked to run the tips of little fingers along the grooves, wondering what the words were exactly. Maybe he should ask Daddy and hope that the answer isn't too complex enough for both of them to understand.

"Tsyeeeeeeeeyk!" Lyle teases, fingers tickling at the little boy's ribs. He keeps stressing Tsyeyk's name in different ways, making it sound different but still close enough to his name. He liked how funny it sounded.

The blue-eyed boy busts out laughing, squirming a bit and pushing at Lyle's hands. "Wyle!"

"What?" Lyle laughs, golden eyes bright. His own Na'vi was getting better. "What's wrong? Tsyeyk, speak to me."

"It tickles, Wyle! Tickle Tsyeyk!"

Lyle's fingers run over Tsyeyk, making the little boy squirm more, but he doesn't move from the man's lap like he would if it was actually bothering him.

"Tsyeeeeeeyk! Tsyeeeeeyk!" Lyle teases as Tsyeyk giggled away. His little hands wrap around Lyle's trying to keep them from his ribs when his laughing started to hurt a little bit, but too happy to actually fully stop it. Even with the mirthful tears sliding down his cheeks, he was enjoying the attention too much to be upset. Eventually, Lyle stops, laughing a bit himself, as Tsyeyk curls up on the older man's chest, nuzzling close while turning his head over to the side.

Daddy was sitting up, watching them with this strange look on his face. Tsyeyk leans up a bit, tail curling up in joy as he smiles widely. "Hi Daddy!"

Daddy blinks a bit, flustered as Lyle looks at him. Then with a strained, almost pained smile he murmurs back, "Hi baby."

Tsyeyk carefully pulls from Lyle, who lets him go, and moves over to his daddy's nest, crawling up into his welcoming arms. He giggles a little, feeling the ghostly tickles from Lyle's fingers, as he wraps his arms around his daddy's neck and legs around his daddy's waist. His daddy holds him closely, quietly. Tsyeyk can feel a tension in his daddy's shoulder, and from where his chin rests there, he can see his daddy's tail was stiff. Having grown to be very good at reading body language in order to make sure he could read his mommy's moods, he knew something was wrong.

Daddy holds him close, as if sensing his distress, and runs a hand up and down Tsyeyk's back, while the other supports him and keeps him close.

A creak from the nest behind Tsyeyk as Lyle sits up. After a few beats of silence, Lyle quietly asks, "What's rong?"

"Tsyeyk..." Daddy murmurs, shaking his head.

Tsyeyk clutches his daddy close, worried something was really wrong. "Daddy?" What had he done? Was daddy mad at him? Will daddy punish him? Take away the things that he liked? Bring him back to his mommy? Or, at least, where his mommy would one day come back for him? Leave him there so that he could wait again because he was such a bad boy?

Daddy turns, kissing Tsyeyk's hair. "Lyle..."

"Yeah..?"

"Tsyeyk. Jake. Shee naymed him aftur mah bruther."

A long silence, a whispered sound stressing Tsyeyk's name. Then a whoosh of air. "Hiz nayme dozent meen nuthing. It'z just noht Na'vi."

Grace likes her little school. She was getting it built over the last few weeks and was excited to start utilizing the space. She goes early in the mornings to see the Omatikaya, and while Tsyeyk knows that Grace wants him to come with her once it is completely built, he's not sure about it. He thought for sure when his daddy shook him awake early one morning, that today was going to be the day that Grace had talked him into at least brining Tsyeyk around despite his apprehensions about it, but instead, daddy and all his uncles and aunts brought him out into the forest to play.

They spent the whole day wandering the forest and did everything that Tsyeyk wanted. Anywhere he wanted to go, they went. They took him to a beautiful waterfall with a lake at the bottom. While some of his uncles would stand around the rocks surrounding the water to keep an eye out for the beasts of the forest, they all took turns playing with him. Even daddy put down his weapon - gun, he had learned - onto one of the rocks so that he could get into the water and splash Tsyeyk and chase him around the pool. They brought him all sorts of fruits and meats for their midday meal, and Tsyeyk was so happy to sit in Maria's lap and laugh as Fike and Brown play argued for his amusement.

Daddy kept smiling at him, kept gently running the back of his fingers over the growing curve of Tsyeyk's cheek. The cough that he's been fighting since he first met his daddy and came to his new, favorite home, has finally gone away and Grace has stopped closely monitoring his leg owie and seemed very happy with how it all turned out. It didn't make Grace hover over him any less, but at least she looked less worried about him, which he was happy about. He liked the attention well enough, but he hated that Grace would be unhappy with him by any measure.

At some point during the day, Daddy had pulled Tsyeyk onto his lap and carefully took the knife from the pouch on Tsyeyk's side to hold it up for the little boy to see. Tsyeyk recognized it. It was one of the few possessions that he had since he lived with his mommy. His daddy looks at it sometimes, cleans it for Tsyeyk, promising to teach him how to when he's a little bit older. And while Tsyeyk is very protective of it, he'll let his daddy look at it, but no one else. Not without asking. But daddy was okay, especially today.

Daddy held the blade level, bringing Tsyeyk's finger to the small engraving on the metal near the handle. Then, he pulled off his dog tag, bringing it to Tsyeyk's hand, drawing his little fingers along the engraving there. Tsyeyk leaned back into his chest, curiously. He doesn't understand what his daddy was trying to show him.

"The same," Daddy said, in broken Na'vi. "My knife."

Tsyeyk's brow furrowed as he traces the engraving on the blade, something he did for comfort for as long as he can remember. Then the engraving on the dog tag. Daddy used Tsyeyk's finger to trace one symbol on the knife, then one on the dog tag, then the second symbol on the knife, and the second on the dog tag. Then, after a few repetitions of this, Tsyeyk understood.

"Daddy's?" He leaned back and looked up at his daddy, eyes wide. "Daddy's knife?"

"Yeah, baby. Daddy's."

All along. Without knowing. His daddy has always been with him. A source of comfort that he's had for as long as he can remember. It was his daddy. His daddy has always been with him even when he didn't know that. Whenever he was scared or lonely, this knife has always been there for him. And it was a piece of his daddy that stayed with him. Before Tsyeyk ever met him, his daddy has been there.

He cried, asking his daddy if he wanted the knife back, but he didn't. Daddy laughed, kissing Tsyeyk's wet cheeks and hair, murmuring words of love and affection. He didn't want the knife back - it was Tsyeyk's and had been his whole life - but he wanted Tsyeyk to know that no matter what, before they met and after he was gone, his daddy would always be with him. Tsyeyk didn't understand, but daddy didn't mind. They hugged and sat in companiable silence, just basking in the presence of the other. Tsyeyk was relieved to have this moment. To have his daddy here with him.

After a few minutes, Daddy takes the dog tags and takes the piece of the metal that connects both sides and makes it smaller before putting it around Tsyeyk's neck. It's still long, resting against his stomach but it felt good to have. Two pieces of his daddy to keep with him. With the knife back in the sheath, and the dog tags resting against his stomach, he was so happy that he cuddled with his daddy.

Their day of fun came to an end back home, with Grace, Daddy, the few of Grace's friends and all of his uncles and aunts gathered around Tsyeyk's room, singing a song to him that celebrates his life and putting a beautiful, sweet treat in front of him with a single pillar of fire for him to blow out at the song's end. The treat had overly sweet frosting with a single number in the middle of it.

A six.

"We will go for a small time," Daddy says carefully a few weeks later.

What Tsyeyk had initially worried about with Grace and the school has finally happened. He wasn't sure he wanted to go. It wasn't that he didn't, it was just that he was scared to. What if the other Na'vi saw him as his mommy did? His eagerness to see his mommy has transformed more and more into anxiety. What if he found her again and she deemed him good enough to come with her and he had to leave his daddy? What if she took him away from his home? His family? They said that they would never leave him, but what if he had to leave them?

Tsyeyk doesn't want to leave his daddy, or his home. They have to hide him, he lives under in a way where most of the people that live there don't even know about it, but he was okay with that. He was with the people that he loved. He was with his family and didn't mind having to hide away from the rest. They had fallen into a routine that Tsyeyk enjoyed. He got to learn more Na'vi and English in tandem, growing more and more proficient in both, while his family that didn't know Na'vi, learned to speak it with him so that he could get an ear for both languages. At this point, he'd spent six months learning from Grace and Max, and he was getting quite good at it.

But today, Grace finally broke him. After weeks of asking, Tsyeyk tentatively agreed to come to see the school - just to see. He's not sure what he's supposed to see, but he agreed, if only to make Grace happy and to put it behind him.

Daddy promised to stay with him, seeing how anxiously this makes him.

As they make their way through the forest towards the school from their landing site. Tsyeyk kept a hold of his daddy's hand, keeping pressed into his side as they go. It was just the two of them and Uncle Lyle making their way to the school. If Tsyeyk didn't want to stay, then they could go out and spend the day together.

"I am scared," Tsyeyk says, holding tightly to his daddy's finger. This is the first time that he's been anywhere near other Na'vi since... since his mommy left him. He would sometimes watch others from a distance, but he was always scared to get too close in case they realized he was there. He was scared that he would get into trouble if mommy came back and learned that he was seen by other Na'vi. And at that time, disappointing Mommy had been the worse thing that he could have ever done.

"Don't be scared," Daddy murmurs in English, running his thumb over the back of Tsyeyk's little hand. "I won't leave you, baby. I promise."

Tsyeyk chews on his lower lip, worried as his eyes scan the forest ahead of them, just waiting for the break in the trees to appear that will bring them to the school. "I don't want to go back to Mommy."

Daddy moves his gun to his back and grabs onto Tsyeyk, lifting him up and into his arms. Tsyeyk hugs him tightly as his Daddy sternly says, "You will not be going back to her ever again, beautiful boy. You don't belong out there with her, with them. You belong back at Hell's Gate with me. That's how it's always gonna be. You and me against the world. You're stuck with me, baby. Forever."

Tsyeyk nods, smiling. He curls up around his daddy, listening to the loud sounds of their footsteps through the forest. With their shoes on, they are always so loud. Tsyeyk has tried to tell them that they need to be quieter, but Daddy has always assured him that they can handle whatever comes their way. Tsyeyk has never doubted that for a moment. He tried the shoes - many sizes too big for his feet - and while they were both clunky and unnervingly disconnecting from the dirt, they were next to impossible to move stealthily in. One of the lessons that Tsyeyk remembered from his time with his mommy was the importance to always be quiet.

At some point, Tsyeyk could start to hear the sounds of children laughing and adults talking. His little ears press back as his tail twirls with a hint of anxiety.

Daddy runs a hand up his back. "You're alright, baby. We leave when you want to."

Tsyeyk nods, resting his cheek on his daddy's shoulder. "Yes, daddy."

The voices get louder until he can tell they are directly behind him. There is some shift in the talking, as if the three of them were being noticed. Tsyeyk hears a whinny and glances over to peak through his hair to see a few pali all gathered around with three adults and a child. They send him looks. The child tilting her head as she looks up at the female - her mommy? - who has her hands on the little girl's shoulders. His eyes trail over the three pali, mystified by their beauty. He had seen some in the forest from a distance, but daddy didn't let him get any closer, which he understood, but they were so pretty. He liked seeing them.

"Tsyeyk!"

The little boy looks away from the Na'vi watching him to look over his shoulder at Grace. She's smiling, pleased.

"Thank you for coming. Did you want to meet some of the other kids?"

Tsyeyk shakes his head, holding tighter to his daddy. These Na'vi felt too close. He was so used to see them from a distance, unaware of his presence, but even beyond Grace, he can see golden eyes watching them. He appreciates his long bangs falling into his eyes so that they wouldn't know that he was staring back at them. He felt a little plain looking at the other Na'vi. He didn't have all the hair accessories or necklaces and bracelets and arm and leg bands and anklets that the rest of them did. He had his tweng, knife, daddy's dog tags - which he had a replacement for the next day - and a simple twine bracelet that Grace made him that he absolutely loved. But everyone else looked so different from him. More intricate and flashy. He felt so small, so plain, so... inadequate.

He feels like... like whenever he was with his mommy. He feels less. He doesn't... he doesn't like this feeling.

"Tsyeyk?" Grace asks, shifting closer to place her hand on his back. "Sweetheart, do you want to play ball with the other kids before school starts?"

Tsyeyk shakes his head again, burying his face into his daddy's neck.

"Baby," daddy murmurs, kissing his hair, "you shy now?"

"Bad," Tsyeyk murmurs, pulling back to look at his daddy. His ears press back at Daddy's confused frown. "I'm not like them. I feel like I'm with mommy again. Bad."

Grace pulls her hand back, frowning, while Daddy scowls at his words. He leans forward to press his forehead to Tsyeyk's. "Talk to me, baby. Why do you feel bad?"

He doesn't know how to explain it. In his faint memories of his time with his mommy, he thought that he was happy. He thought that things could never get better than the time that they were together, but the more time he spends away, the more difficult it is to look back on those times with the same fondness he did before. He missed his mommy, he really did, and he'll be so happy to see her again, but... thinking back on their time together with the feelings he has at Hell's Gate with his daddy and his family... it's not the same. He was happy back then because he didn't know any better. Now... now he's very happy and when he looks back at those time - even as they blur with time - he's finding less and less to be happy about.

"Mommy makes me sad..." Tsyeyk finally says, looking at his daddy. "Being with daddy makes me happy. They... they are more like mommy than daddy..." He didn't know these people, but he was... scared. He didn't want to be treated like he remembers mommy treating him. He just wants to be happy. With his daddy, who has never made him sad like his mommy did. He wants to ask her, when he sees her again, why she wasn't nice to him. Why she...

Why she didn't like him?

How can he make it so that his mommy will like him like his daddy did? He isn't sure what he did wrong the first time that he didn't do the second time, but he's sure that if he apologized properly to his mommy, she would forgive him and like him like his daddy does.

Daddy's face does something complex. Tsyeyk feels bad for whatever it was that he did to make that look appear on his daddy's face.

"Don't let your mommy stop you from interacting with other Na'vi," Grace says softly, rubbing at Tsyeyk's back again. "You have to give people a chance to get to know you. I know you're scared, but you don't have to be. We are here."

"Yeah," Lyle says, leaning close to look at Tsyeyk from over his daddy's shoulder. "We're here for you, buddy. We won't let anyone hurt you like she did. You're one of us. Semper fi."

"Ooh rah," Tsyeyk says softly. Lyle smiles at him, reaching forward to tuck a few long strands of hair behind his ear. Tsyeyk leans into the touch, looking into Lyle's eyes, happy to have the other male in his life. His first uncle. His daddy's best friend in the whole wide world. Tsyeyk has never had one of those before, but he never had an uncle either before he got Uncle Lyle.

"If you aren't ready yet, we can go," Daddy says, staring intently into Tsyeyk's eyes. "We can come back again another time."

Tsyeyk nods, relieved to have the choice. "I want to go away."

Daddy nods, kissing his cheek. "Then we'll go." His eyes flicker to Grace's over Tsyeyk's shoulder. "We'll try again the next time you want to, beautiful boy." They communicate with just their eyes. Tsyeyk knows that it isn't what Grace wants - she wants him to interact with other kids his age, with Na'vi children - but she doesn't fight them. She just nods in understanding, still petting down Tsyeyk's back and his wild mane of a head of hair.

"Next time," Grace says, smiling a bit when Tsyeyk looks at her. He knows she's unhappy, and he feels bad about it, but she leans in to kiss his forehead. "Don't look at me with those beautiful blue eyes, Tsyeyk, you're gonna break my heart." She smiles more. "It's okay. Thank you for trying."

Tsyeyk nods, reaching out to touch her cheek. She kisses his palm as a child steps up next to her, placing a hand onto her side.

"Mother?"

Tsyeyk perks a bit, looking over at his daddy in surprise. "Grace is a mommy?" He asks in Na'vi, not realizing that he had been speaking English most of the time. The languages were becoming so fluid in his mind that he's been mixing them together.

Daddy rolls his eyes, kissing Tsyeyk's cheek. "It's just the name that the kids call her, baby. She's not their real mother." Tsyeyk's brows furrow at that, a spike of jealously in his gut at that. He's not sure why that was, so he tried to shake it away, holding tighter to his daddy.

Grace pulls away to go down on one knee so that she could speak more on his level. "Yes, Tsu'tey?"

Tsyeyk feels eyes on his back, making his tail curl a bit in discomfort as the other little boy asks, "Who is that?"

"Oh, that's Tsyeyk."

"Tsyeyk?" The little boy echoes, voice wrapping strangely around the blue-eyed-boy's name, making his shoulders pull tight. "What does that mean?" His question made Tsyeyk's whole body flinch, making his daddy give him a long look.

Nothing. Tsyeyk's name meant nothing. He had asked Grace, as all names had meaning in his mother's culture, but his did not. Grace had been so sad to tell him and Tsyeyk, at that time, simply didn't understand why his name meant nothing. But now he did. Now he understood a little bit more than he did before.

"Protector," Daddy says in Na'vi, making Tsyeyk look at him confused. "Tsyeyk is the Na'vi version of the human name Jake, short for Jacob. Jacob basically means protector rooted in Hebrew."

Tsyeyk's eyes widen, staring as his daddy in surprise. His daddy was staring hard down at the child in front of Grace before smiling gently at him. "Sorry, baby. I didn't know you were insecure about that, or I would have told you earlier."

"Tsyeyk means protector?" Tsyeyk asks, eyes widen. His daddy had flipped back and forth between Na'vi and English so it takes a moment for the other boy to figure out what it was that Tsyeyk's daddy had said.

Daddy nods as the little boy says, "That's so cool! I want a name like that!" Grace laughs a little. "Tsyeyk? Do you want to play?"

Tsyeyk jolts in surprise at the offer but is still too anxious to do that. "No," he says, turning a bit in his daddy's arms to look down at the other boy.

The boy's smile faulters a little, then the ball in his hands just falls to the ground as he stares up at Tsyeyk, golden eyes widening enough to bug out of his head. The ball rolls away, Tsyeyk tracking it a few feet with his eyes before looking back over at the other boy, probably only a few short years older than him - although it's kind of hard to tell from this high up - with a mostly shaved head and long braids down his back.

Tsyeyk peers through long strands of curly black hair at the other boy, tilting his head a bit, wondering what was wrong. Could he tell that Tsyeyk wasn't like him? He was told by Grace that other than his kuru being too low on the back of his head - something that he hadn't noticed before she mentioned it - he could pass completely as a full Na'vi.

The other boy, Tsu'tey, stares at Tsyeyk with his little mouth hanging open a bit as he just... looks at Tsyeyk. The blue eyed boy frowns a bit, a little tilt to his head. Grace looks between them, first in confusion, then a dawning realization crosses over her face and she lets out a little laugh.

Lyle chuckles as moment later, as if coming to the same realization while Tsyeyk's little tail flicks in confused embarrassment.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Tsyeyk asks, frowning.

Tsu'tey stiffens, eyes widening and cheeks darkening. His tail twirls behind him as he kneads his fingers at his stomach. "I...I..." Tsu'tey looks around, then immediately up to Tsyeyk's eyes. He brings up a hand to wave it from his forehead to Tsyeyk. "I see you. I am Tsu'tey te Rongloa Ateyitan." His tail sways excitedly as he eager looks up at Tsyeyk.

Remembering his manners, Tsyeyk mimics the other boy. He looks over at Grace for a moment, realizing if he was allowed to introduce himself as he has spent months hiding at Hell's Gate.

Seemingly understanding, she smiles. "Go ahead, sweetheart."

A second, more tentative nod from his daddy is all he needs to look back at Tsu'tey. "I see you. I am Tsyeyk te Quaritch Milesitan."