Counting Stars - Aonung x Neteyam

Part 1

So Aonung had become expert at lying to himself and telling himself that maybe he wasn't the kind of person who would find someone like that. Maybe he just had to find a girl who understood him enough and have as many children as he could.

That was his responsibility. All of this started to waver in the water boy's head, he didn't know exactly when the idea started in his head, but suddenly he couldn't imagine ending his life with a faceless girl. Suddenly, one night in the care of an outsider, the son of a sky demon, he realized that perhaps what others felt was also meant for him.

- I'm not going to leave you. - Neteyam whispered with his eyes closed. He had been doing this for hours. He spoke in the middle of his dreams, his voice soft and almost intelligible. He would turn and writhe until I had to put a hand on his forehead or on his chest to calm him down. In this way he would relax and it almost seemed as if he was not sick.

After talking for an hour with my mother, I calmed down a bit. When I had heard what his diagnosis was, I was almost frenetic. I had seen it happen to people who had bad reactions to syrups. They wouldn't last more than a night or maybe two. They would stop breathing and there was nothing to be done.

I cursed myself for feeling what I felt, as if Eywa was mocking me. I couldn't possibly have saved the eldest Sully from a demon weapon to kill him over a stupid plant. I hadn't been able to calm down until my mother had explained that I would just have a bad night. The plants that killed people in a few hours were not in any healing syrup.

She spent a long time with more patience than she had at other times explaining to me that those other cases were people trying to make syrups without knowing enough about the plants. That I could rest assured.

Then she had looked at me with a half-smile and asked me to stay with him, that she should rest. My future brother or sister was strong and asked for much more energy than usual. I could see how my mother hardly hunted and asked for help with more daily chores. The day when we would meet the future member of our family was near.

After Neteyam woke up startled and asked what was going on, it didn't take long for him to fall asleep again. His breathing leveled off quickly and his right hand rested firmly on my thigh. I spent much longer than necessary staring at that hand, wondering why in the name of all that was holy that Eywa had created I had to feel this way about him.

I knew I was stubborn enough to deny it for a while, especially to myself, but I also knew it wouldn't take the other boy long to notice. I had never been one to hide my feelings, never needed to. But now I felt more out of place than usual. I looked up at the sky and thought that just a few moons ago, I was thinking how to hurt the very person who was now resting on top of me.

At the time I hated his family so much for bringing their problems with them, that everything I did was to avenge the families who had suffered because of people like his father. But I had soon realized that was just an excuse. His father had suffered just as much if not more and had fought on behalf of all of them. Even when they all hated him, he had given his life for one of them.

I was tired and starting to get cold, I decided it would be best to leave this train of thought for another day, I leaned back against the wood and put my hand on his. I let the light of the stars be my only thought and as a game to pass the time, I started to count them. Trying to remember all their names. Soon I realized that the game had worked, because they began to fade away, overshadowed by the sunlight that was beginning to shine on the horizon.

I looked down to see that Neteyam had moved in his sleep and now rested his head on my stomach. Without much thought as to what it meant; I gently stroked his hair away from his face. I noticed in turn that his skin temperature had dropped. I relaxed and began to feel really tired. Now that I knew he was okay, my body was screaming for me to give him a rest.