AVATAR TWOW: Torn between the 2

Chapter x| TUKTIREY

T H I R D P O V
Wä'olu
Special: PT3

"THAT IS NOT how you catch fish!" A boy yells, scalp braided in cornrows with a tiny low bun at the scruff.

He's got a round face, a wide button nose, and full plump lips. He wears an armband and perhaps he's stolen it from his parents. He's a bit taller, just by a few inches.

Tuktirey turns her head and sees that it's the exact boy that had run to her that one day—the boy that got yanked away by his mother and stared blankly after, wanting to reach out. The boy seems around her age.

"How do you suggest I do it then?" she asks him.

He waddles over to her and yanks her wrists, dousing them in the water. "You feel," he says.

Tuktirey frowns. Her ears twitch as she is attentive to any sounds—she listens and listens, but the water is still. She doesn't feel, see or hear anything. Her yellow eyes wander to every Metkayina child in these waters; boys and girls, having merriment hooking fish. The fishes wriggle in their small clasps before they gurgle back with a plop. Tuktirey yanks her arms away.

"It's not working," she tells him with gloom.

"'Cause you're not feeling," the boy says. "Pops always says to feel the wavers of the water; any slight movement and any swish of the fish."

With every word brimming with perspicuity and mastery, Tuktirey feels like facepalming. She wants to rive her face off and yank her twists from frustration.

"This is too hard!" she whines, kicking her long lithe legs.

The boy laughs; it's high-pitched and hiccupy. "How old are you?" he asks her.

"Eleven—almost twelve," she says with pride, puffing out her chest and pursing her lips like in glory. He points a finger at her and laughs once more.

"I'm twelve," he says. "I'm older."

"So?" Tuktirey juts her tongue and wobbles her head taunting. "You want a cookie?"

"Coo...kie?" The boy asks, pronouncing each syllable with bafflement.

"Yeah! It's a desert—my dad's favorite is chocolate chips! He says they're yummy."

"Cho...co...late? You guys have that at home?"

Tuktirey shakes her head. "It's an Earth thing. You wouldn't understand 'cause you're not dope like me."

"' Dope'? You mean I'm not half like you?"

"Exactly!" she beams, "You get it!"

She peers at her reflection and her nose scrunches with dismal. At every taunt of gliding fish, she reaches and grabs; clutching onto nothing as her arms simply flail. She yanks and yanks, but only water trickles from her fists. She groans with annoyance and her lustrous eyes sadden. Her big ears drop limply.

"This schooling sucks," she says, her voice soft and dejected.

The boy looks at her and cocks his head to one side. "School...ing? What's that?"

"It's where you learn—again, an Earth thing," Tuktirey merely answers.

Her eyes glare but they don't budge from the fish beneath—so colorful with admirable shapes and schemes that she desires to just hold one. At least one. At least once.

"What's your name?" The boy asks her.

"Tuktirey," she turns to him, "Yours?"

"Wä'olu. Nice to meet you, Tuktirey," The boy Wä'olu says, holding out his hand.

Tuktirey shakes it and grins, delighted to have made another friend. Wä'olu grins too, though shortly after, he tugs her hand hard, and she faces plants into the water. Tuktirey chokes out a muffled scream, but she isn't scared, as her big eyes opened. She gets engrossed by the grandeur of the sea.

There are startling neon corals, green slithering seaweeds, and big and small fishes with unusual patterns; swirls and zigzags, and dotted. One fish traverses her sight and she attempts to poke at it, but it rapidly scurries away.

Wä'olu ducks his head right next to Tuktirey's. He signs and gestures; luring fishes in and they orbit upon his palm. He grins with his tiny fangs on the array and his eyes crumpled almost shut. He shifts his hand and lets Tuktirey see the placid fish.

He appears to sign things as his fist unclenches and clenches and his fingers entwine jointly, making numerous alien motions, gestures, and shapes all too fast that Tuktirey doesn't even comprehend. She can only think that perhaps he wants to...he wants to...she doesn't know what to think.

She frowns once more and hauls her head out of the water as her throat was starting to burn.

"You okay?" Wä'olu asks her, his face trickling with torrents.

"Breathing is too hard...and I don't know your finger language," Tuktirey tells him, coughing a little.

"Oh, it's okay," Wä'olu deadpans.

"But it isn't! I feel left out. My siblings are learning and I'm falling behind."

"Hey," Wä'olu lets out, grabbing her little hands.

Tuktirey looks at him with wide eyes—wider than her normal doe—and nearly yanks her hands away. But she doesn't as Wä'olu grants her a reassuring smile.

"I'll teach you, Tuk," he chirps, bouncing their fused hands with glee. "We'll learn together."

"How'd...how'd you know my nickname?"

"Your name is pretty short and sweet. I can call you 'tirey or Tukti, but Tuk sounds better—and cooler. It's charming."

"Charming?"

Wä'olu nods firmly. "Now, Tukti, what do you want to learn?"

"Teach me the curse words first!" Tuktirey chirps with a puckish glint to her lustrous yellow.

Wä'olu drags her to the shoreline, bit by bit, the water carving around their toes. The sand is wet, clumping beneath, and carved with their feet prints as they walk, leaving their trail.

Tuktirey laughs as Wä'olu jerks away from their locked hands and sprints. Tuktirey sprints too, after him, but her efforts aren't needed as she quickly passes him.

Wä'olu grins, "Mischievous. I like that," he declares, panting with short breaths.

"Slow, I don't like that," Tuktirey taunts, sticking out her tongue. "You haven't run a day in your life."

"I am a water boy," Wä'olu remarks, eyeing as Tuktirey's ears perk to the sky.

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