Through The Valley • Ao'nung

Chapter VIII

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̶̶̶̶  «̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ «̶ ̶̶̶ 　Will we ? 　 ̶ ̶ ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ »̶ ̶̶̶  

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At'anau looked in the dark woods where she had just returned from and bit the insides of her cheek. Neteyam wasn't around the scene he would have been assigned to without a doubt so he'd have abandoned the Ikrans to fight alongside his father. Which he wouldn't have approved, she was sure of. 

Estimating the time her parents arrived to the battle ship and how much time was between that for Neteyam to discreetly follow their trail made her think there was still a chance he hadn't arrived at the location just yet. 

Dropping the restrains of the Ikran she was holding the girl sighed and grabbed a handful more arrows her mother had crafted before dashing back towards the sounds of confrontation in search for her brother before he would make it towards the site if he hadn't already. 

As the sounds of cries and shots got louder without having found his brother yet the girl got warier of her surroundings and decided to approach a different side of the encounter with her bow and arrow set between her fingers. 

Orienting herself she realised she had made it back towards the first tree her mother was hiding behind and knew getting back on high grounds again would risk pull too much attention. Especially now that it had become earnumbingly quiet. 

Holding her breath, lowering her heart rate the girl held herself closer to the ground, luring through the vegetation of her surroundings. Her brother had to be close now as she had already made it back, but he was nowhere in sight. 

Rain started to fall, washing down on her back and shoulders, into her eyes trying hard to disturb her vision, but once she caught movement in between trees she refused blinking even once. 

It weren't their shoulders At'anau could recognise him from, but the way they pulled back the arrow. At'anau lowered her own, spotting the direction his brother's release target was set on and silently inching her way to him on the tip of her toes. 

A man with a gun raised towards a tree she didn't stand far from, which was the one her mother held herself behind was the only thing in Neteyam's vision, missing their colleague who was crouched down settling up an automatic heavily armed riffle. Which they would set off the moment Neteyam would release his arrow. 

As her two dots connected the spark they forged set off Neteyam's wrist letting the bullet fly in its bull's eye. Quarritch lifted himself and the riffle he installed on the thick tree branch, aiming it directly to the kids, cocking the weapon in a swift.

"Na'Vi!" 

She bolted towards her brother, who was installing his next shot in plain sight as the girl teared her feat through the damp forest ground and tackled him to the ground. Bullets flew past her ears like she had never seen before and she didn't allow herself to recover from the air kicked out of herself and her brother as she covered her head pointlessly with her hands. Heat rose in her whole body as she screamed for Neteyam to get up and run.  

The two jumped of a small cliff as a tail of bullets shadowed them, At'anau sensed the heat from them and it pumped more adrenaline through her veins as she let herself slide down the grass unfazed by twigs and leaves engraving small cuts in her skin. She looked behind her quickly to confirm Neteyam having followed, but by doing so was immediately caught off guard by a second force throwing both of the kids against a tree. 

"Are you okay!" Bullets against the tree they hid behind muffled their father's screams for confirmation. 

At'anau opened her mouth to answer before a bomb exploded behind them, shaking the tree and blinding the girl as she only saw blotches and moving dots covering her vision as blood rushed back to her head.