invisible string ↝ ao'nung

XVI ; Willow

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞
I'm like the water when your ship rolled in that night
Rough on the surface but you cut through like a knife
And if it was an open-shut case
I never would've known from that look on your face
Lost in your current like a priceless wine
The more that you say
The less I know
Wherever you stray
I follow
I'm begging for you to take my hand
Wreck my plans
That's my man
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

This was no longer a fight for resources. This was war. And Quaritch had somehow gotten the deadliest clan in Eywa'eveng history to rally with him. With the Sky People.

Using Sylwana as bait.

This attack on the village was simply a distraction, so they could take her.

"Easy as pie," Quaritch mused, in English. Peylak didn't seem to care, his eyes intently on Sylwana. She tried not to back down from his gaze. "Pretty, for an Omatikaya," he muttered, moreso to himself than anyone else. The woman shot him a glare, which he either did not notice or did not care about.
"That's to be expected, as the future tsahík," he finished, approaching with slow, menacing steps. "Let go," he said roughly to Quaritch, like he was supposed to have done so already. Quaritch grunted and let go of her kuru, but he didn't move away, standing uncomfortably close to her. His accent was rough and almost slightly difficult to understand; Sylwana supposed thousands of years of isolation meant their Na'vi had taken its own shape.

"You understand what is happening?" He leaned forward, his almost greying hair swinging in front of his eyes. He batted it away without taking his eyes from hers. "My father will fight. And he will win. Just as he did all those years ago," Sylwana whispered, her strength so depleted from terror she couldn't muster enough to yell. She wondered if the Txepìvam had heard of her father; of the most recent Toruk Makto. If they knew who they were going into war against.

Peylak grinned, but his eyes didn't sparkle the way her fathers did, they were black, bottomless pits, ready to swallow everything she loved whole. "Toruk Makto. Do not think we do not know." So they were fools. Sylwana didn't dare voice this.

"You belong to us now. You will be ours to use, and draw your father out. And then, once we have captured him." Peylak paused, an explosion on the other side of the village sounding out, accompanied by more screams and shouts. Sylwana wanted to close her eyes, to be anywhere else, but Peylak's gaze was a prison; she was drowning in the neverending onyx sea. Nothing like the shimmering blue oceans she was used to. "We will torture you, in front of him. Make you beg us for mercy, for your life, in front of him. And when he is broken beyond any semblance of sanity, we will kill you in front of him." Peylak nodded, his expression one of false sympathy when tears ran down Sylwana's cheeks. Not only at his threat to hurt her, but of what and who that would turn her father into. Neteyam- she visibly grimaced at the mention of his name in her head- had made her father miserable. Though, some long quiet, hidden away but still very much present part of herself argued that death would be a long awaited gift. To see him again, be with him again, and never have to live another day separated, with a constant, dull hole in her soul. She tried to shake it away like she always did, but it was locked in, and her despair only grew when Peylak ran a disgustingly grimy finger down her cheek and yelled something she couldn't fully discern.

Two Txepìvam warriors grabbed her aggressively, and her struggles to free herself were embarrassingly weak. Eywa, what did these people eat?
The two warriors kept along the edge of the village strategically, far away from the chaos centred in the main areas, where most of the village's supplies were kept. In fact, not a single Metkayina warrior was anywhere near this close to the forest; because they knew that's where they were sending villagers and children. Where was Spider?