Avatar: The Return of The Songbirds

Prologue

       Looking back on the past holds nothing but pain and heartache for me and my family now. We were once a part of the beautiful Tìk'nui clan, but my people were better known as the songbird clan. We were neighbors to all and to no one at the same time, virtually unseen by most due to our innate ability for staying hidden in plain sight. I do believe that the only reason we were known by other clans at all was due to us singing the songs of our ancestors every night. We kept ourselves buried deep within the trees of the forest, and hunting was really the only time we would leave the comforts of the tree tops. Our home's and walkways were all built on top of tree branches and reinforced by the tree bark of our Kelutral...our home tree. Our home tree was mighty. She was the center of our village. Everything we were was structured around her. We lived in what most would call a paradise. We were relaxed and simple people. Family oriented and caring. We were never violent...but that all changed the day they arrived.

       From the first moment we laid eyes on those...aliens we became recluses. Silent. The once melody filled trees were now filled with nothing but the sound of leaves blowing in the wind. Leaving the home tree was no longer allowed for most. We learned to live off of the bare minimum. Only a select few were allowed to go down and hunt for food, and even that was restricted to only once every few weeks. So whatever they brought home...was what we had. We hated living this way, but it was the only way to keep us safe from those monsters. They destroyed the forests surrounding us. In the end we were the only cluster of trees left standing, and we knew that wouldn't last much longer.

       Our elders were trying to come up with a plan...a solution to this unwelcomed problem, but that solution would never get the chance to play out. Our home tree was neighbored to a massive volcano that resided to the east. Not far from us. We called it Rey'eng Fmongyu...the balance of life thief. We never once felt worried about the volcano erupting because we respected its power. We respected it for what it was...dangerous. But the aliens didn't. They had these...my father called them machines. And these machines would dig deep into the ground, and on the day of the fall...they dug too deep. An eruption of magma broke through the ground. So powerful it set off a chain reaction all the way up to the epicenter of the volcano. Rey'eng Fmongyu whipped out our home. The only good thing to come out of our loss was that Rey'eng Fmongyu killed every last alien as well...or so we thought.

       My family and I made it out...but just barely. We were the only ones left. We were alone. We lost everything. We had no idea if the rest of our clan was still alive, or if they perished with our village. We had no idea what struggles laid ahead of us, but one thing we did know was that we would make sure we ran far away from anything that could hurt us like that again. We restarted, rebuilt. My mother was pregnant when we lost everything. My little sister was the only child who did not know the beauty of our fallen home. She was raised in isolation. Our family was the only thing she knew. But even though she did not know life outside of us, she held onto the hope that our clan was still out there somewhere. She believed that one day we would find our home again, and in turn she gave the rest of us hope that the Tìk'nui clan would begin again.