Where's My Love? - Lo'ak

Chapter 16: Such Young Kids

"Help her dad. Please." Lo'ak pleads out, his hands going to keep the girls hair out of her face when the wind blows.

Lo'ak looks at Jake, tears falling rapidly down his face, his hands shaking with the girls blood covering them, and in the moment Lo'ak looks so young.

He is young.

Too young be be experiencing this.

Jake is looking at Lo'ak and he looks like his baby boy again.

The boy that didn't learn how to hiss properly until he was nine.

"Okay, so you know what me and mom taught you, right?"

"To hiss when someone is mean to me or the ones I love. Like how you and mommy do it when someone is mean to us?" Little Lo'ak who is six says.

"That's right. Do you know why we do it?"

"To show that we aren't scared? That we are strong." Lo'ak says, not knowing if his answer is completely right.

"Mhmm, that's right. Good job. Now, do you want to try it out for me? I need to know my mighty little warrior sounds scary." Jake says, his smiling growing at the memory of when he first taught Neteyam how to hiss.

Neteyam got it on his first try.

"Okay... okay sure." Lo'ak mumbles out, before standing tall and puffing out his chest to look bigger.

"You got this, my strong protector." Jake supports, giving Lo'ak a smile.

Lo'ak takes a deep breath and -

"Rawr!" He tries to hiss out.

Jake looks at Lo'ak for a second, and he has to cover his mouth with his hand to not laugh. That was a roar, a cute little roar that sounded like a little lion cub was attacking.

"Umm... Okay, nice try buddy but that was more like a roar. We want a hiss like.... Ssss... Like the sound of water running down in a river but more aggressive." Jake would say like a snake, but then he realizes there weren't many snakes here on Pandora and the ones that were there were far too dangerous for Lo'ak to every go to.

"Oh... okay. I got this daddy." Lo'ak says, trying to reassure himself.

"I know you do buddy."

"Owooo." Lo'ak howls out, causing Jake to actually let out a few chuckles that time.

That was a howl, like a wolf, and Jake realized him and Lo'ak would need to work on his hissing so he doesn't get bullied in the future.

Lo'ak looks so young there, so afraid, so sad. Like the time he went to Jake for support when he got his first fish.

"Look daddy! I did it!" Lo'ak yells out proudly, grabbing the fish that is in his arrow out of the pond.

"Good job buddy!" Jake says, going to give Lo'ak a hug when he see's his son look at him with tear filled eyes. "What is it? Did you get hurt?"

"Why isn't he moving?" Lo'ak cries out, not yet grasping the concept that fishing results in killing which results in the fish no longer moving.

"Buddy, its... it's dead." Jake says, already knowing that was a terrible choice of words because Lo'ak is soon on sobbing, dropping the fish and arrow and running towards his dad to be picked up.

Jake easily picks up the boy and holds the boys head in comfort, trying to soothe him as he cries.

"It's okay buddy. It's okay."