Chapter Text
“Come,” Neteyam grabbed at Alyara’s hand and began to pull her along, “Dad showed me how to hunt at the creek. I’ll show you how.”
“Is it far?” Alyara asked, only resisting a little.
“It’s just through the brush,” Neteyam promised. “Come on, Aly. I caught one yesterday, it was huge.” He let go of her arm and spread his arms as wide as they could go.
“Whoa,” Alyara breathed. “How did you do it?”
“I’ll show you, come.” He grabbed her arm and set off again, pulling Alyara along behind him.
Mother had warned her not to wander, but she was with Neteyam, so surely it was okay. He had said it was only a little way away after all. So, she followed him, jumping over the roots and ducking beneath branches until the sound of running water began to dominate the forest ambience.
There was a little slope leading down to a wide, shallow creek with large rocks all through the middle splitting the water’s path. Neteyam ran to the edge of the water, stopping short of it, and crouching down.
Alyara peered into the water, looking for anything. She heard a plop to her right and her ears perked up, then Neteyam laughed to her left, a rock in his hand. “Not funny,” she pouted, pushing at the boy as he laughed.
“I’ll show you how to spot them,” he said. He pointed to the rocks and she followed. “They like to stop behind them, where the water pulls and pushes less.”
Alyara peered in and saw nothing. She said as much, but then, as if a gift from Eywa, some of the dirt raised off the bed of the creek, and she saw a tail sweep slowly from side to side. “Do we get it?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “we don’t need to take it. So we don’t.” He crouched beside her, resting his hands on the ground. He lifted a pebble and let it land in the water, to fall slowly down. When it hit the bottom, the fish panicked and swam away, leaving a mass of muck all raised up in the water. “You try,” he said, guiding her to the waterside, “see if you can spot one, then drop a little stone near it.”
Alyara’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the disturbance of the flowing water and she peered into its depths, scanning the floor of it around the rocks. For a moment she excited herself, thinking she had found one. But it proved only to be a stray reed poling out from the sand, not one of the feelers the fish stuck out above their hiding places to look for predator and prey alike.
Neteyam counselled patience, so she was patient. She sat, utterly still everywhere but for her eyes which darted around looking for some telltale sign of movement. And there it was, a small cloud of sand rising and falling nearer the creek’s other shore.
Alyara was so surprised she had actually spotted one that she forgot she had to throw a pebble to rouse it until Neteyam pressed it into her hand. She threw it and watched as it struck the surface of the water and sunk, whooping when the animal was scared away from its hiding spot and vanished down the creek.
And just in time, there was a loud rustling behind them and out tumbled Neteyam’s little brother and sister, Lo’ak and Kiri with her own brother, Atan’tey at their sides. “Come on, Nete,” Lo’ak said, "mom wants us back now."
Neteyam nodded and stepped back from the creek. “Okay,” he said, “let’s go.”
Alyara’s eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed warily as they fell upon the small figure that seemed to be Lo’ak and Kiri’s shadow. Spider, she remembered Lo’ak call him. He was small, barely as tall as Alyara’s legs were long, and over his face he wore some transparent covering. His eyes looked too small, his nose looked too large, his hair was an odd, sandy colour. He was without the queue that she had and the tail too. He was alien. And yet he moved so well, nimble and light on his feet.
All she knew of humanity she knew from stories, terrible stories of great metal monsters that the sky-people made to do their fighting for them. They said the sky-people were demons who had come to kill Eywa and turn Eywa'eveng into a smoking ruin. Anger filled her at the sight of the sky-person child, and the confusion. Why is he here? Alyara knew some good sky-people remained, there was some odd sky-person word that Alyara couldn’t remember for what they were, but they were far away at the old human camp.
And yet he was here, in Na’vi territory, wearing Na’vi clothing, running around with blue stripes painted on his skin, playing and talking with Na’vi children, fluent in their tongue.
Neteyam must’ve seen her looking as the child tugged playfully at Kiri’s tail, because he whispered to her, “It’s okay, Spider is a friend.”
Alyara nodded. There were too many questions in her head for her to possibly ask, so she held her silence and followed the rest of the group back to the Omatikaya village.
When the dense brush gave way to the open space of the village and all its woven maruis dotted amongst the trees, Atan’tey came to her side as they made for the marui their family was borrowing for the visit.
“Enjoy your date?” he asked, grinning stupidly.
Alyara shoved him, muttering that it wasn’t anything like that. But he just chuckled and kept on grinning that stupid grin at her.
There were voices at the marui, more than just mother and father. Though she knew she shouldn’t have, Alyara snuck around the side of the marui and crouched to listen. Atan’tey crouched beside her, copying her as she listened.
“I cannot say when because I don’t know.” It was the voice of the Omatikaya Olo’eyktan, Jake Sully. “But the sky-people will return.”
“How can you know this, Toruk Makto?” her mother, Ikeyni, the Tayrangi Olo’eykte, said.
“Because I know them,” Jake Sully said, “because I know that they are desperate.”
“One of them said it wasn’t over,” came the voice of Jake Sully’s mate, Neytiri. “They speak falsely of much, but not this.”
“Surely you do not suggest we live our entire lives in fear of their return?” her father, Tsentey, asked. “Our eldest child is only nine years old, too young to spend her life fearing a distant war. I won’t have her live and grow like that.”
“Of course not,” Sully replied. “But we can’t afford to be unprepared for their return.”
Crack. Alyara spun to see Atan’tey had shuffled a little and stepped on a stick, snapping it. She scowled at him as their parents came to investigate. “You skxawng,” she hissed at him as he looked sheepishly away.
“Alyara,” she spun back, hearing her mother, “Atan’tey, it is rude to eavesdrop.”
“We were just-“ Atan’tey started to protest.
“Sorry, mother,” Alyara interrupted, bowing her head, knowing whatever excuse her little brother would come forth with would most likely fall flat.
“It’s all right, my wildflower.” Her mother swept down to them and must’ve seen the wide-eyed look on their faces, for she said, “Forget the things you have heard here, children. What we spoke of will not come, I promise.”
---
Five Years Later
That promise fell apart the night a new star began to shine in the sky, or so it appeared. But Alyara knew better, as did the rest of them. The elders recalled it, every time the sky-people descended upon Eywa’eveng, their machines burned bright.
As Toruk Makto had warned, the sky-people had returned, and with them would come fire and death.
Alyara watched from a jagged hilltop as the light brightened and then faded. Then, far away, a faint orange glow settled in place far over the horizon. She felt something tighten horribly within her stomach as she spun on her heels and swung herself into the saddle of her ikran, Ka'lis. Their tsaheylu melded their senses and intentions, and, without need for instruction, Ka'lis took wing and rose into the air. Ka'lis dipped her left wing and swung around the hilltop to make for the coast and her village.
They’re back. The demons are back. Alyara looked over her shoulder, a prickling feeling rising along the skin on the back of her neck. She willed Ka'lis to go faster, her fear crossing the bond that joined them and impressing an urgency upon the ikran.
Mother was addressing the people when Alyara approached their family marui, asking them for calm. “If our fears are true,” she said, “then the sky-people have returned.”
“Fight them!” a voice cried out from the throng, bringing a clamour of vocal agreements.
“We may have to,” Mother said. “We are not a people to seek war, but we must prepare for it should it come.” She said that of the hunters a number would always be patrolling their territory, making certain that they could never take them by surprise. More preparatory precautions were set in place and the people dispersed to see to all that needed doing.
Alyara worked her way through the people and into the marui where mother, father, Atan’tey and her youngest brother, Atxayni.
“Oh, sweetling,” her mother took her into her arms, pressing kisses against her forehead. “Where have you been?”
“I was at the grey hills,” Alyara said. “I saw the new star.”
“Do they come to fight?” Atan’tey asked.
“We cannot know,” father said. He turned his eye from son to daughter. “And we cannot assume. This war is not ours to start.”
“If it’s going to start eventually, why should we wait for it?” Alyara muttered.
“Because we do not know that it will, sweet,” Mother said. “When last the sky-people came it took years for conflict to begin. They came first in peace, before they became greedy. Perhaps the years have let their kind reflect.”
“Or prepare,” Alyara said, her hands itching to feel the familiar weight of her bow between them.
“Perhaps,” her mother conceded. “War might come, and if so we must fight. But we will not seek to make war unless we must.”
“How can we know?” Atan’tey asked. “How can we know what they want? How can we know whether there will be peace or war?”
“Because I will go and find out,” Mother said. “Jake Sully will, no doubt, call a war council with the other olo’eyktans. I will simply arrive early. Whatever is to come, I will not let us be in the dark about it.” She pressed a kiss to Atan’tey and Atxayni’s foreheads and commanded them to sleep.
When she swept over to Alyara, she said, “I want to go with you.”
“Of course you do, my wildflower. You are tall and strong and fierce . . . that is why I need you here, defending the people as I am away, defending your brothers. You’re in charge of them.” Her mother leaned in and, with a smile, whispered, “Even your father. Keep them all safe for me until I return.”
“I will.” Alyara stood straight and proud. “I promise.”
“I’ll be home again soon.” Her mother gave her father a quick kiss and murmured something in his ear. “Keep each other safe until I return.”
Alyara wanted to follow her mother as she mounted her ikran, she wanted to be astride Ka'lis beside her in the sky. She went so far as leaving the marui, but no further. Only one ikran rose, for Alyara had a job, a duty, to her people and to her mother. She re-entered the marui and, with her newfound authority, pointed at Atan’tey and said, “You heard Mother, I’m in charge now.”
He looked hopefully at Father, who simply shrugged with an amused grin on his face and said, “Olo’eykte’s orders. Listen to your sister.”
Alyara enjoyed being able to boss around her brothers, not that Atxayni needed much bossing. Atan’tey, though, grumbled and griped as he tidied the marui as Alyara had ordered. “This isn’t what she meant,” he mumbled.
“It’s exactly what she meant,” Alyara said, glad that father was allowing her this pleasure. Luckily for her brothers, there wasn't much that needed cleaning and soon they took to their sleeping mats.
Her father waited at the Marui’s entrance, sat with his legs hanging over the edge, looking out to the sea as the stars flashed in the night sky. He beckoned Alyara to sit beside him, smiling. “Come, sweet.”
“Father,” Alyara said as she lowered herself to his side, “do you think it will come to war?”
He cast a searching gaze over her and sighed. “This you keep between us, Alyara.”
“Yes, Father.”
“I think it is inevitable, if not imminent. As does your mother.” He rested a hand on her shoulder. “I did not want to believe they would return. I hoped you might grow and live in peace . . . but Toruk Makto saw the truth of it. He will have the right of it again when he will advise that we prepare for imminent conflict.”
“You are so sure that it will come to that?”
“It is not a certainty, but the way the sky-people are . . . their greed, it will push us back until we have no choice but to lash out from our corner. Unless they have come with a fight in mind, or unless we strike first.”
“You said we wouldn’t make war,” Alyara asked, “did you not?”
“Wars are made long before the first blow is ever struck. This one, I now see, was made the day we defeated the sky-people fifteen years ago. Perhaps we can delay it, or, by some miracle, find peace, but it is unlikely.”
“I will fight,” Alyara said quickly, “you can’t stop me. If they come I want to defend the people.”
“No, I can’t,” Father said. “I wish I could hide you from it all . . . from them all. But you are your mother’s daughter, and so you will face whatever is to come. We can only prepare you and be at your side.”
Alyara nodded. “What were they like? What was it like?”
“Terrifying. The sky-people may be small and weakly built, but their minds are sharp and their hearts are empty, so they make weapons of the forbidden metals that unleash death as we could never.” Father looked to her again, as though trying to see what her reaction would be. “Our strength lies in that we know the land, and that Eywa knows us. When we strike first, we strike fast, we move fast in great numbers; we can surprise and overwhelm them.” He pointed to his bow which lay within the marui. “Deadly as they are, they are also frail, one true strike will kill any of them. But you must be precise and powerful.”
“I can be,” she said quietly, then with more conviction: “I am!”
Father laughed. “No-one is more so. The demons will rue the day they meet you, I am sure. But even you need rest. Sleep, sweet. Tonight we are safe.” He pressed a kiss to Alyara’s forehead and stood, drawing her to her feet with him.
She pulled herself into his arms, safe in his embrace as she allowed herself a moment of fear that she knew she would have to keep hidden. Tonight we are safe, she thought. But how many more after that?