~~~Superstes~~~UNDERGOING MAJOR EDITING

The unlikely adventures of

Jake sighed heavily and placed his hand on his firstborn's knee. "Neteyam, I need more than that. You came to us yesterday and something was wrong. Tell me about what happened—tell me what's on your mind. I want you to talk to me."

"What do you want me to talk about? I don't have anything to say. I'm home now, and I'm fine." Neteyam continued to tinker with the bead, his gaze downcast. He knew his dad was staring at him, but he refused to meet his eyes. Home.

When nobody spoke further, Jake treaded carefully with his next words as if he were stepping on shards of glass. "When you were asleep, after you'd been brought back, Iwa told me about the avatars you killed. Fike, and the ones in the helicopter when you were first taken." 

Neteyam instantly tensed up at the memory of that horrid experience. Despite how hard he tried not to demonstrate the fact that the killing of those avatars was a sensitive subject, he felt his ears go flat and his chin and mouth curve into a pout. He looked down. The marui was a safe place, cozy and warm, but he felt so uncomfortable inside it now. "I was trying to escape and protect my siblings. I was—I was angry." 

"Do you feel okay about it now?" Jake paused, searching for the right words. "I know how much killing can affect you. It gets easier, depending on how you look at it. But I need to know if you're okay emotionally. Understand?"

"How does it get easier?" Neteyam blurted, finding his own tongue betraying the desire inside him to stay quiet and just agree with his father. But he found his emotions were too strong and overpowered his will to stay silent. However, he really wanted to understand how taking lives got easier—that was a stretch of the mind to Neteyam, even if he knew why killing was necessary. 

Jake's eyes softened drastically and he shook his head. "I don't mean it gets easier like you don't care. It just—" he sighed, "Over time, you almost get used to it. The feeling after you kill someone isn't such a shock to your reality anymore. That is if you're killing the bad guys."

"It's all so awful." Neteyam felt his throat tightening up with a thick wax of emotion. "Sky-people are evil, but not all of them. None of this should be happening. It's wicked and unfair."

"That's the unfortunate thing about all this. War is nasty and gruesome, and it doesn't show much mercy. But we have to fight for what we love, and we'll be alright if we have each other's back's." Jake reached over and rubbed his knuckles across his son's cheekbone, a gesture he did often when he was feeling sentimental. "Got it?" 

"Yeah." Neteyam smiled at his dad. 

"Alright, then. I'm going to find the rest of our family and then I'll be back." Jake rose to his feet with a grunt and exited the marui, his presence vanishing as quickly as it appeared. Neteyam stretched out his arm and grabbed the bowls in order to continue washing them, escaping back into his quiet, reserved self. As he was cleaning, he felt a hot tear slipping down his face but he instantly wiped it away. 

He didn't know what it was. He had no clue why he was starting to cry, but he hated it. And in a spur of the moment, Neteyam's heart flooded with a surge of overwhelming emotions and he hurled the bowl across the marui, shouting in frustration. The clay dish smacked into the wall and shattered into a million pieces, breaking like a thin sheet of glass. It made a loud clattering noise that he knew would be heard somewhere. His body jolted back at the sound, before he realized the mess he caused and all he wanted to do was run away.  

Neteyam dissolved into quiet but racking sobs, his body curling in on itself. He buried his head into his knees and cried, his mind scattered and unorganized and left in complete shambles. He never cried and he never allowed himself to break down, so this was an extremely unknown territory and completely unlike himself.