Chapter Text
Neteyam looked down from his ikran, and a world of blue unfolded beneath him. Awa’atlu. The village that held their last hope for uturu. The air that rushed past him felt foreign, holding none of the familiar, comforting scent of the damp earth he was used to.
He allowed his gaze to sweep over his family. A heavy, suffocating silence had settled over them all. His usually troublesome brother, Lo’ak, looked down, uncharacteristically quiet. Tuk’s wide eyes were filled with a mixture of fear and awe as she tried to take in the landscape, while Kiri seemed to have the hardest time leaving the forest behind. He felt the pain on her face as a physical ache in his own chest, a reflection of her sorrow that he, unlike her, would never let surface. His mother looked tired, not in the sense that she needed sleep, but in a deeper way. She looked exhausted, with grief carved into the lines around her eyes. And his father, the mighty Toruk Makto, now looked weathered and aged, as if the war had stolen ten years from his spirit.
A sigh built in Neteyam’s chest, a pressure he forcefully swallowed down. If this place can give them peace, it is enough, he thought. My own happiness does not matter. He poured all his hope into this single desperate wish that here, his family would finally find a lasting happiness. Neteyam had long ago accepted that he did not need it for himself. If his family could be safe and content, he would sacrifice himself without a second thought, without a single doubt. His family always came before him. As the oldest child, his father kept reminding him of his responsibilities: to look out for his siblings, to always keep them safe, to protect them and watch over them.
Neteyam’s gaze shifted back to the village below. Awa’atlu was different. Way different. Of course it would be. The village was beautiful, truly and undeniably beautiful, yet that very beauty made him long for home even more, a constant reminder that this place was not it.
His soul was still tied to the forest. It was there that he had learned how to use a bow and the patience of a hunt. He had completed his ikniyama there, earning his ikran in the Hallelujah Mountains. His best moments were lived among those trees. Secret hunts with his stubborn brother, patient moments helping his little sisters, and the simple yet joyful chaos of goofing around with all of them together. But the person he ached for the most was his grandmother, Mo’at. He missed the sound of her steady and wise voice that had always grounded him. As their grandmother, she loved all her grandchildren with an equal heart, but as her firstborn grandchild, Neteyam held a special place within it. She had always seen the burden he carried, and her gentle hands were the only ones that could soothe the tension from his shoulders.
If his own sense of loss was this hollowing, he could not bear to imagine what his mother felt. The forest was her entire life, her home. She took her first breath in the forest, her first step. She proved herself as a hunter there, experienced her greatest joys and her most devastating losses there. She had met the love of her life there. She was destined to lead her people there as future Tsahik, for Eywa’s sake! To leave was to tear her away from her clan, her home, and her entire history. Every memory, of both good and bad, was tied to that place. Thinking about the weight of her sacrifice made his own grief feel small and selfish.
A deep feeling of hopelessness tried to take over, but he clung to one truth, and the only one that had ever truly mattered: Sullys stick together. As long as they were together, they could survive anything. His own heart could break a thousand times, could shatter into a million pieces, as long as it kept theirs whole.