Chapter Text
"Fuck this shit for the love of—! Agh!"
A feminine growl ripped through the humid air as she swung her short sword with more spite than precision.
Left, right, up, down.
The blade sliced through thick, waxy leaves and glowing vines that had the audacity to exist in her personal space. One plant withered into itself at her touch, while another retracted into the ground with a wet shloop sound.
"Stupid Eywa, Stupid Pandora, Stupid Na'vi, Stupid RDA," she grumbled, her grey, feline orbs darting around her surroundings. Her eyes, silver and predatory, were currently narrowed into slits of pure irritation.
Pandora was beautiful—She’d realized that early on, but she wasn't going to give it the satisfaction of a compliment right now—It wasn't like Earth 21, that gray, choking dust-ball she’d left behind.
No, this place was loud with color.
Everything was a vibrant, tacky neon assault on the senses—electric purples, deep cyans, and greens so obnoxiously bright they looked like they were plugged into a socket.
It was a world of riches and landscapes that looked like someone had dropped an oil painting into a blender: floating mountains that defied physics, massive fern-trees that breathed with the wind, and rivers that looked like liquid starlight.
Pandora is the kind of place people paid millions to see in movie theaters or on VR headsets back home. her home. The view was pure "breathtaking majesty".
By all accounts, this moon she stands on was stunning.
not to mention, her sisters would’ve called this place pretty.
if they ever stepped foot here, that is.
Her mind halts as she scoffs.
"Pretty my ass..." She stabbed a succulent-looking plant, watching it spurt a neon-blue sap. She couldn't even bother to remember its name.
Honestly, who cares if it even had a name? Who cares if they had mystical trees that whispered to the dead or giant flying banshees that looked like dragons? Who cares if literal glowing jellyfish drifted through the air like drunk ghosts?
(Just this rewon(morning), she had to deal with the magnetic fields that made her hair frizz. and if that weren't bad enough, the glowing seeds—the woodsprites got in her face! and the bioluminescence made it impossible to even get a good night's sleep! this place, was really not that great. she doesn't get the hype.)
And most importantly: who cared about a "living planet" if there wasn't a single way to cook a piece of crispy, golden fried chicken?
She came to a halt, the tip of her sword digging into the mossy floor. She reached up to rub her right shoulder, trying to ease the deep soreness blooming there from hours of playing lumberjack.
"Shitty ecosystem... doesn't even have a proper replacement for chicken..."
She let out a long, dramatic exhale and scanned for a place to collapse. Finding a reasonably dry stone, she sat down with a huff that echoed through the trees. She pulled a handmade jug of water from her side and took a long, lukewarm swallow, staring blankly at a cluster of pitcher plants.
Her mind then began to drift away from the giant ferns and back to things that actually mattered: Asian street food. Spicy ramen with an egg. The metallic, filtered taste of Earth water that didn't taste like "nature." Real spices. A medium-rare steak that didn't come from some six-legged hexaped.
She missed her comics. She missed the blue light of a phone screen. Most of all, she missed her cotton bed—the specific, cool feeling of the sheets against her skin. She’d been on this world for so long she was starting to forget what "soft" even felt like.
Snap.
The sound of a branch breaking was like a gunshot in the quiet grove.
Her relaxed energy vanished in a heartbeat.
Next thing she knew, she was on her feet before she even realized she’d moved. She turned sharply toward the sound and she dropped into a low crouch, her left arm reaching out to track the movement while her right hand pulled the sword back to her chest, the blade angled up and lethal. It was a textbook stance, her eyes never leaving the trembling leaves.
She approached the sound with slow and careful steps, cautious, because why wouldn't she be? predators lurked everywhere.
Her eyes locked onto a bush-looking thing that was trembling. Her breath hitched. She stared at it, her knuckles white on the hilt.
The bush shook violently.
"Gotcha!" she hissed, slashing the blade through the foliage in a silver arc.
A small, four-winged Pandoran bird shrieked in terror and exploded out of the leaves, flapping its way into the canopy.
She stood there for a second, her sword still raised, her heart hammering against her ribs. Slowly, she let out a long, shaky breath, her shoulders finally dropping.
"Ugh, jump scare," she muttered. She started to sheathe the blade when a new sound froze her—the unmistakable, heavy creak of a high-tension bowstring being drawn to its limit.
She turned her head slowly. There, perched on a thick mossy limb, was a Na’vi. He was tall, lithe, and—wow, okay, hello—really cute in a 'I'm about to end your life' kind of way.
"Hi," she blurted out in English, then immediately winced. Seriously? Hi?
The Na'vi’s eyes narrowed, his golden pupils shrinking to pinpricks. He didn't speak. He looked at her sword and clothes, then at her fingers, then back to her face. He gestured sharply with the tip of his arrow. Drop it.
She pouted, holding the sword a little tighter. She smiles at him nervously.
“Can I not?” She says, again in english, because she’s an idiot.
"Drop it," he commanded in perfect na’vi, his voice a low, disciplined rumble. "Do not make me let this string go."
With a shrug, she threw it far in disappointment.
"You know, it’s considered rude to point an arrow at someone," she said, her na’vi coming out almost flawless, save for a slight, human tilt. Her eyes straying a bit downwards. Ah, look at those muscles, it's tense.
Focus, girl. Death is staring you in the face and you’re checking out its biceps. She tried to swallow the dry lump in her throat.
"Do you think this is a joke?" he demanded, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating with a cold hatred so pure it made the air feel heavy.
Is it a joke? God, I hope so, Her mind hysterically whispers.
"Well, you tell me," she countered, her voice pitching up with a false bravado she didn't feel. "You're the one pointing an arrow at me, and I'm unarmed—"
Shut up shut up shut up girl i need to shut the fuck up—
"Silence!" he hissed, the muscles in his blue arms tensing. "We do not listen to the jests of demons."
The word "Demon" struck her with the precision of a serrated blade, twisting in the cavity of her chest even as the adrenaline began to level out and as the echo of the word faded.
'Demon' he says.
Her tongue moved faster than her reason, lashing out with barbed instincts before her mind could catch up.
"‘Demon’ is a harsh word, don’t you think?" She mused, a heavy coil of dread tightening in her chest.
"It is a fitting description for your kind."
"Of course," she nods sarcastically. "sure, why not, but do you wanna hear something funny?"
God, I'm going to get myself killed, her MIND and laughs.
"I am not interested on what you find humorous" he spat, the words curling like smoke. "I would prefer if you do not give me a reason to shoot you."
Buddy, i think that arrow has long been over due to be shot at me ever since you've been watching me, why haven't you even shot it?
Coward?
nah who cares, this dude called me a "demon". whatever i would say next, he had it coming.
"well, doesnt matter, cause i heard something you know? did you know that your mother, your Great Mother, rarely answers to the call of her warriors, letting their homes burn as the ones you call demons rain down upon them," She leaned in, a dangerous glint in her eyes that mirrored the cold steel of the ships of the sky people.
okay maybe I'm going too far i should back down a bit-
"You-"
shut up shut up holy shut up already-
"If I am truly the Demon you think I am, then your warriors must be even more fragile than the roots they worship--"
Thwip.
The arrow was a blur. It didn't hit her head, but it hummed past her ear, the fletching grazing her skin. She did not flinch as it grazed her, but she had instead touched the warm sting on her cheek and looked at the blood on her fingers.
He doesn't laugh. His eyes remain fixed on the cut he just gave her, his expression hardening into something cold and old.
The air seemed to thin, stripped of its oxygen by the sheer weight of his stare, until the only thing left in the world was the rhythmic thrum of her pulse.
that was a warning shot.
The sting of the arrow was a calculated mercy, a cruel reminder that he had the power to end her--but chose, for now, to merely mark the page.
Then, the warmth of the blood on her cheek turned icy. A cold dread veils over her, a feeling close to a shiver, but also not-- no- it was like a heavy, leaden weight sinking into her bones, pinning her to the forest floor.
Did he just-
She suddenly felt the heavy, awkward presence of her own hands.
[Internal Monologue in coming, feel free to skip]
Ah, I'm going to die by this man's arrow. She muses, a tad dramatically. she only got nicked.
you wouldn't know if the next one would be used to shoot a hole through your throat.
Her smirk had slid right off when she had realized the warning shot. the cold, obsidian tip of the reloaded arrow that was now pointed at her windpipe becoming her sole focus. And as the silence stretched, the absurdity of her own bravado began to curdle in her stomach.
Am i actually actively antagonizing him? this scout? just cause he called me a demon??
She wanted to laugh.
This doesn't make sense, why was i so pissed off? why am i over reacting? why am i antagonizing him?
("We have created a demon, Doc... Her stats... Its- i cant even begin to fathom what sort of horror we are putting them through-" "Don't say that! You know we had no choice! This is the best break through we have had in years- we cannot let our mere morals dictate the advancement of science, nor can we let it stop us from meeting our deadlines." "but Doc-" "No more of this nonsense, Soliva! I shall have none of it!")
This was so dumb, she was dumb, of course she was going to get shot, provoking him like that.
maybe she should deescalate? make friends instead of being nervous and intentionally pissing this guy off?
shit shit shit shit.
she wanted to run away, far far away. it wouldn't make sense to be friendly or even mock a guy holding lethally sharpened arrowhead through her throat. why was she doing this?? she doesn't- understand.
Nevermind that.
She starts to assess her situation, absurd as it is.
She was in uncharted territory--of course she was, she was bad at navigating and was just swinging her sword around, which was funny, considering she was travelling a lot in pandora and no one liked her here, what more if she's holding a metal sword-- treading on hallowed ground, and by her own guess, she was right next to some doorstep of some sort of hideout.
it does not bode well.
Because as far as she remembered, the forest dwellers lost their homes the moment the sky people--and her-- landed on their space.
ah shit.
as far as she knew, the natives here? well, they didn't take kindly to trespassers who looked like her to begin with, if she really was near their camp. Because hypothetically, if that were the case, if she was teetering at the edge of the Omatikaya Camp, she would be as good as dead.
and honestly? she would not blame them for not welcoming her, if ever she was brought in by this scout to their camp.
it would make sense, for the scent of ozone and charred earth was still fresh in their memories, and she was standing there wearing the face of the very arsonists who had set their world ablaze.
it would make sense for them to want to execute her the moment they would set their sights upon her very being.
And this Na'vi, who was pointing a reloaded bow at her, did not owe her any sort of kindness. So what was she doing, letting her mouth run its course around an active threat?
What was she expecting from a creature who has all but lost their home?
Was she so deprived of connection she decided to grab unto whatever form it took? antagonizing others?
well that's funny, because if she were the scout, she really would have shot her mouth the moment she opened it. idiot, such an idiot that she is amiright.
("Her mouth would be her ruin and her words would be the noose around her neck, always so fast to speak, and slow to think. it is odd." "Do you consider this a fail?" "No, we only have to tweak her a bit... can't have an asset be like that")
she was an antagonistic being, so it would make sense that her only connection after weeks of depravity would be something like this, an arrow at her neck, and her antagonizing the one pointing it at her cause her tongue didn't know any better, and she let her emotions run high without thought. She was a synthetic legacy of the desperate, the depraved had forged her with their very hands, as poetic as that would be, it might be the only reason why she is how she is, might be the only explanation.
she is nothing but the handiwork of a species so starved for survival they would trade their humanity for a second chance, fleeing a corpse of a world only to desecrate one that was still breathing.
she will admit to the fact that she was a walking, breathing abomination.
(Her skin was a sickly, pale blue, a fleshy stain against the vibrant blues and greens of the forest. It didn't glow properly, no, it was different, too different- not the result everyone was expecting. her skin was not pulsing with the bioluminescent heartbeat of the world. The subject's skin was too jagged from the surgical scars, a result from the consecutive experiments done on it. and the reports said that it was feeling immense phantom pain. none of it was a good sign, and thus the only thing they can do was note the subject down as a fail, another million dollars down the drain yet again.
"PROJECT M was a fail," The notes entailed.
the doctor clicks his tongue.
"This Project is considered a fail, dispose of it."
She was a Frankenstein project, an unnatural giant who was too tall to be human, but too "dead" to be Na’vi.)
And under his clinical, hateful gaze, the jagged lines where her flesh had been fused began to throb, a phantom heat radiating from old wounds as if her very body was trying to reject its own existence.
Ah, hell.
She’d harbored the sheer, stupid nerve to believe she could mask her status. She had played dress-up in pxen, imagining she would be able to slip by unnoticed in this forest, unaware of this scout that was watching her.
It was a fool’s gambit, she had draped herself in a stolen cloak but neglected the most damning evidence of all—leaving her face exposed, a stark, artificial brand for the forest to judge. Her hands, ungloved, was also an obvious tell.
She really should've thought her plan through.
The sheer, unfair stupidity of it all made her stomach turn.
[Systems scanning: threat detected.] The thought echoed in her brain—a cold, mechanical ripple in the back of her mind that she chose to ignore. She shoved it down, clinging to her humanity even as it failed her.
[Annddd back on business]
She let a dark, sharp chuckle escape her throat, one that didn't reach her eyes.
"Ah, Great warrior...you amuse me. You really shot me a warning." She wiped the blood from her cheek with a slow, deliberate thumb, smearing her blood across her skin like war paint, "I should keep you to myself, steal you from your Goddess."
"You do not speak of the Great Mother that way, nor her warriors," he snapped. The tip of his reloaded bow lowering by just a fraction, not out of peace, but out of a pure, vibrating disgust for the words spilling from her lips. Then he tenses it up again, seeming to catch himself in the act.
She caught the way his voice tightened, a sharp contrast to the lush, melodic hum of the forest. He adjusted his stance, shifting those long, blue legs of his, but she didn't miss the stiffness in his fingers as they gripped the bowstring.
God, he’s so tense, she thought, resisting the urge to tell him to take a deep breath.
She scoffs, the emotions inside her slowing down from a frantic heat to a quiet, poisonous boil.
The shift was almost clinical—the desperate, jagged need to hurt simply dying out.
Why bother being hysterical when the verdict was already reached before she even opened her mouth? The exhaustion of the days course was finally consuming her, leaving her a something shallow shell, she's starting to care less and lesser. If he wanted to kill her or even take her as hostage, then by all means, he can be her guest.
So speaking of the guest...
He clearly had a script for how "demons" were supposed to act—screaming, begging, or maybe shooting back with something loud and metallic. He definitely wasn't prepared for her to just stand there and give him a performance review. It was almost fascinating.
The fact that he was currently a masterpiece of Na’vi aesthetics—all lean muscle and glowing skin—was almost a distraction. Almost.
She shifts to a more relaxed pose, just to fuck with him.
"Yeah, yeah, 'Great Mother.' Eywa is so great she grants all sorts of wishes, right?" She sighs, her voice dropping to a low, dangerous purr that mimicked his own. She closes her eyes as she cups and leans her hand on her now injured cheek, looking entirely too comfortable.
"Then explain the Mangkwan. They aren't exactly sending her thank-you letters, you know?"
She looked back at him just in time to see his stoic warrior mask actually crack, just a tad.
His brow furrowed, and for a moment, the warrior in front of her disappeared, replaced by a confused predator. She watches the transition with a flicker of amusement; it was like watching a high-end AI glitch.
"You speak as though you have seen them," he said, his voice losing some of its edge.
Her ears flicker, hearing hints of tactical curiosity in his tone.
"Seen them? Well, if you could call it that, their company was a bit overwhelming," she drawls, thinking back to the Mangkwan with the same energy she’d use for a bad online shop review when she was still-- ah enough of that, too much thinking would make her head evaporate. "Complicated bunch."
"Complicated?"
"Too much chanting, not enough food to snack on. Seriously, they need a hobby that doesn't involve so much... staring."
There was a beat of silence.
"You are... alive," he breathed. The tip of his arrow dipped a full inch, and she felt the tension in the air slacken just enough for her to actually breathe. "No one survives seeing the Mangkwan and lives to tell of it."
Well, aren't you just a ray of sunshine, she thought. of course no one would survive them, they just took a “liking” to me, fucking psychos.
"Thank god for that," she muttered in English, then looked him dead in the eye.
"Look, boy scout," she said, leaning her head back a bit as she watches him, looking entirely too relaxed for someone at the business end of a heavy-draw bow with her hands on her back. too relaxed for a woman who's thoughts were running fast.
Her gaze traveled from his intense yellow eyes down to the bow.
Ah, would you look at that.
She tilts her head.
When the words 'boy scout' left her mouth, she didn't see the blank stare of someone who didn't understand. Instead, she caught a tiny, almost invisible twitch in his jaw.
Oh, he knows, she thought, a smirk threatening to break through her exhaustion. He knows English. That also makes sense, Sully is their chief.
She pointed at the bow with her chin, her voice smooth as she switched back to his tongue. "You really should stop pointing that arrow at me if you don’t plan to shoot me."
His ears flattened against his head, and a low, guttural hiss vibrated through the air—a sound so primal it made the fine hairs on her arms stand up.
"It's got good craftsmanship," she pushed on, her words stumbling over each other in a desperate bid to fill the silence., gesturing vaguely at the fletching. "The balance is probably perfect. It’d be a waste to use it just because I’m being a little loud."
She watched his knuckles go white against the dark wood of the bow. He looked less like a boy playing at war and more like a judge about to pass a sentence.
The way he looked at her... it was definitely not simple rage.
It was like a- deep, ancestral revulsion? To him, her praise probably sounded like a grease stain on a holy relic....
God, just pull the trigger already, she thought, the sarcasm in her head curdling into a cold, heavy lump. Being hated is exhausting.
I'm not even the one who burned their tree down jeez.
"Why do you know of the Mangkwan? Why do you speak with such familiarity?" He asks,
"I went to them."
His eyes widened in raw disbelief. Then, his gaze flickered, the gears visibly turning as he chased a sudden thought until—just as quickly—it all clicked into place
"You wish for death," he stated, his voice regaining its warrior-edge, though his eyes were still searching hers for some kind of logic. he doesn't understand.
"I wish to go home, actually," she countered, a cold, hollow ache blooming behind her ribs.
But where is home? Her chest tightens. Eywa couldn’t even help me find my way back.
A sharp, rhythmic flick of a tail caught her eye, snapping her back to the present.
“You speak the Sky Tongue,” He commanded, his golden eyes pinning her in place. “Tell me why you are near our borders, demon.”
She let out a breathy, jagged laugh that she didn’t quite feel. "Passing through? Exploring the local scenery? Honestly, you’re the one who decided to jump out of a tree and attack me," she managed, gesturing vaguely at the fresh sting on her cheek. "I was just minding my own business."
He stood there for a long beat, his eyes searching her face, likely looking for the malice he’d been taught to expect from her kind.
Finally, he let out a short, sharp breath and lowered the bow. The lethal tension hesitantly shifted from his frame, his bowstring going slack as he unnotched the arrow with a practiced, fluid motion.
He didn't trust her, but he seemed to realize that executing her here would be like killing a confused animal that was in need of help. It would have no honor.
Ouch, she thought, her fingers twitching at her side. I’m not sure what’s worse: being a ‘demon’ or being a charity case.
He seemed to reach a silent, begrudging conclusion, his jaw tightening as he forced his throat to form the harsh, metallic vowels of a language he clearly didn't use often.
"You are far from your metal cities," he said, the English words sounding jagged and heavy. "Why wander where you are not wanted, Sawtute?"
So he can speak English-- and he doesn't just know it, looks like he's been trained. damn sully's lackeys.
It wasn't just that he spoke and understood the language—the way he used it was uncanny, like he had mastered it specifically to dismantle her kind's excuses. He was fluent, bitter, and entirely unimpressed by her.
he knew it and he's using it like a weapon.
If she wasn't on the verge of tears earlier, she certainly would be now.
this is so shit.
"I just told you," She muttered. "I wish for home."
The Na'vi's eyes narrowed, his tail giving a sharp, agitated flick. “You are Sawtute,” he retorted, his voice dripping with a cold, mocking disbelief.
He gestured with a sharp chin toward the sky where the faint glow of the RDA ships sat like a scar. “You came to us. You crossed the stars to take what is ours, and now you whine that you wish to be elsewhere?”
He's calling me a hypocrite.
She blinked, the weight of his gaze hitting her harder than the arrow graze.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” she chuckles, her voice sounding thin and raspy in the sudden silence of the clearing. She let her hands drop to her sides, the adrenaline leaving her body in a cold rush that made her feel even more exhausted than before.
“My people eagerly go here,” she said, gesturing vaguely at the towering canopy and the distant, invisible ships in orbit, “and little old me gets here and I’m already whining.”
His expression didn't soften, but the murderous edge was gone, replaced by a weary sort of disdain. He stepped closer, his tail flicking behind him in a sharp, rhythmic motion.
“Your people always whine,” he countered, his English crisp and flavored with a heavy Na'vi lilt. “They burn forests, they dig metals they should not dig. They cry when the forest bites back.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said, her shoulders slumping.
She didn't try to defend the RDA or the burning forests. She was too tired for politics, and honestly, he wasn't wrong. She just stood there, feeling the damp heat of the jungle seep into her bones, looking at the blue, blue jaggedly stitched hands that didn't feel like hers.
He didn’t respond immediately. He just looked at her, his head tilting with a predatory curiosity that slowly curdled into something else.
The lethal, rigid mask of the warrior wasn't just slipping, it was corroding, revealing a heavy, unsettling quiet.
but what replaced it was worse.
It wasn't the kinship of a Na'vi, nor the respect of an enemy. It was pity, the kind of look one gives a hexaped born with a twisted limb, or a spirit-tree withered by drought.
His gaze traveled over the jagged, raised seams of her skin, lingering on the places where the blue didn't quite meet the scars.
His gaze, it was burning her.
Oh, don’t do that, she thought, her stomach twisting. Don't look at me like I'm a wounded hexaped.
She’d rather he point the arrow at her again than look at her with those soft, golden eyes. Pity meant she looked as pathetic as she felt—a girl with no home, and a cheek that was bleeding onto the dirt floor .
"You speak of the Mangkwan," he said, his voice quieter now, stepping into the dappled light of the clearing. "You speak of your desire for home. But you are here, in a body that bleeds blue."