Italicize - someone's thoughts or a story from the past
Bold - sign language
Neteyam awoke to his mother gently shaking him, telling him it was time to get up. The young boy groaned in pain as his injuries had only recently begun to heal. Rubbing the sleep off his eyes, Neteyam sat up and stretched out his arms.
"Can you wake up your brother? I'll wake Tuk and Kiri." Neytiri asked, yawning, not fully awake herself. Neteyam nodded and made his way over to his brother, who was on his bed softly snoring.
Lo'ak looked peaceful.
"Lo'ak," Neyetam said, in a quiet voice, softly nudging his brother. Lo'ak didn't move or make a sound, causing the oldest to groan. Although, he would much rather have a hard time waking Lo'ak up than being the one to wake Tuk up.
The youngest child was a holy terror in the morning. Anytime Neteyam thinks back to what happened the last time he had to wake Tuk up, he shivers in fear. Tuk had their mother's temper, and she was not a morning person. Put those two things together, and you have Tuk jumping on the boy's back, pulling his hair for waking her up before she was ready.
"Lo'ak!" He said, raising his voice. This time, pushing his brother with more force, hoping to receive a reaction. The only thing Neteyam received was an annoyed groan, and Lo'ak turned over onto his side.
"Let me wake Lo'ak up, Teyam!" Tuk said eagerly.
That was all the motivation Lo'ak needed to open his eyes, proclaiming that he was up and ready to start his day. Neteyam softly laughed when he saw the pout appear on Tuk's face as she was disappointed that Lo'ak woke up before she could jump on him.
Neteyam, Lo'ak, and Tuk made their way over to the rest of the family, who were already sitting down, awaiting their arrival. Neteyam sat down between Neytiri and Kiri, with Lo'ak and Tuk across from him. His father, of course, was right beside his mate. The morning was going quite smoothly until his father started talking.
"Neteyam, there's a mission that you are going to be attending with your mother and me in a couple of weeks," Jake said, glancing up at his son before looking back down at his food.
"Yes, sir," Neteyam nodded, not even curious as to what the mission was about.
"Lo'ak, you'll stay here with your sisters. No leaving camp without telling someone where you're going, and be back before eclipse. Got it?" Jake said firmly, giving his youngest son a pointed look to prevent him from protesting.
"Yes, sir," Lo'ak said, his ears falling in disappointment. Neteyam felt bad for his brother, sure he made a stupid mistake, and surely he would make plenty more in the future, but that didn't mean he deserved to be excluded from missions.
Everyone sat in silence, occasionally making conversation here and there to break the quietness. The young boy looked at his siblings, noticing that Tuk seemed to be thinking about something. He'd barely heard his little sister speak all morning, and Tuk was usually a chatterbox.
"Mama?" Tuk says, looking at her mother hopeful.
"What is it, baby?" Neytiri softly says, looking at her youngest with curious eyes.
"Can we invite Marali over? So that you could braid her hair? They were really messy yesterday, and I know how she feels about looking messy." Tuk says, giving Neytiri the biggest puppy eyes anyone had ever seen.
Kiri and Lo'ak nodded in agreement while Neteyam sat there unbothered. He didn't want Marali to come over, the mornings were dedicated to family time, and she wasn't family. The boy didn't even consider her a friend.
Neytiri looked at her youngest child in pride. She was proud of Tuk for suggesting the family invite Marali over. Neytiri was going to suggest they invite Marali over herself, but she wanted to wait until everyone had finished breakfast.
"Of course, baby. That's an amazing idea." Neytiri says, smiling at her daughter.
"Why don't you and Neteyam ask Marali if she wants to come over?" Jake says. Neteyam fought the urge to scoff and roll his eyes. The boy didn't want to disrespect his father, but he didn't understand why he had to go with Tuk. Why couldn't Kiri or Lo'ak do it?
His parents knew of the rivalry the two had. They thought it was good for both of them to have healthy competition. What the two parents didn't know was that the two hated each other when their parents weren't around, at least, that's what they both told themselves. They could barely be in the same area for five minutes before the constant bickering and nit-picking started.
"Come on, Neteyam! Let's go get Mara!" Tuk says, eagerly pulling her brother with all her might toward Marali's tent.
Neteyam allowed his sister to pull him to the girl's tent.
While one part of Neteyam didn't want to see Marali, another part was excited and glad that his father decided to send him with Tuk. The boy just pushed it aside, figuring that it was his inner child who wanted to see Marali. When Neteyam was little, he had the biggest crush on Marali. He would pick her flowers, let her play with his toys, slow down when she was falling behind, and comfort her when she was sad. At one point, the two's parents even talked about matching their children up to mate in the future before deciding that it was their kid's choice who they mated with.
But as he grew older, his admiration for her soon grew to annoyance. She was always wherever he looked, and it drove him insane. It hurt him to see her every day, knowing that she would never reciprocate his feelings.
Marali would never be in love with him. She would always be in love with Lo'ak.
Of course, the girl had never confessed her feelings for Lo'ak, but Neteyam could tell. When Neteyam, Lo'ak, and Marali's training started, she would always stand beside Neteyam, but as time continued, Marali would stand beside Lo'ak more and more.
He knew he should be happy for his brother. Marali was a beautiful girl and an extraordinary warrior. Anyone would be lucky enough to be her mate.
But there was a small part of him that wished she was in love with him instead of Lo'ak.
So selfish.
"We're here." Tuk cheered.
~~~~
Marali looked at her reflection in the mirror her father had given her with a disgusted look on her face. Her appearance was tragic. Hair that had come out of the braids were all over the place, her eyes were still swollen from her crying, and the smeared paint from the raid the day before remained.
I look like I got run over by a sturmbeast.
Walking over to the bowl of water she had prepared, she picked it up and made her way back over to the mirror, taking a seat in front of it. She took the rag her father had given her, dipped it into the water, and brought it up to her face, gently wiping off the paint. Wiping the paint off was more difficult than the girl had anticipated, although it should've been expected since the paint had been there since the morning before.
As Marali finished cleaning the paint off her face, she heard two distinct voices outside her tent.
Slowly walking to the entrance of her tent, she saw Tuk and Neteyam.
"Hey, Tuk." Marali greeted, smiling at the young girl.
"Hey, Mara! Do you want to come to our tent? Mama says she'll braid your hair for you!" Tuk exclaimed, jumping up and down, hoping that Marali would agree. Marali looks at Tuk and then at Neteyam and sees an unfamiliar look on his face. When he noticed her looking at him, he glared, resulting in Marali rolling her eyes.
"Of course, I'll come over, Tuk," Marali responds, causing Tuk to squeal in excitement. Before Marali knew it, Tuk was already dashing back to her family's tent, leaving Neteyam and Marali to walk in awkward silence.
The two teens walk side by side, matching each other's pace. Everything was going well, except that Neteyam had been staring at her the entire time.
"What are you looking at?" Marali asked, annoyed that his eyes hadn't left her since they started walking to his family's tent.
"I was observing how ugly your face is up close." Neteyam shrugged, causing Marali to scoff. Since when had Neteyam become so childish? His words reminded her of what Tuk would say when describing someone she didn't like.
If I wasn't already grounded, I would punch him.
Instead of firing back at the boy, she kept her mouth shut. She knew if she said anything, it would cause an argument that wouldn't be finished by the time they made it to the tent. The girl decided to focus her attention on anything besides the boy standing beside her. After walking for a couple more minutes, both teens made it back to the tent before walking inside.
"Hey, Marali." Lo'ak and Kiri both greet. She smiled brightly at both of them and then made her way over to Neytiri. Neytiri had set out all of the necessary tools needed to make sure that she could braid Marali's hair. In the Omatikaya clan, it was essential for men and women to have their hair pulled back so that it couldn't get caught, and wouldn't be blown in their face when flying.
"Hey, Marali," Neytiri says, looking at the teen with a soft smile.
"Hey, Neytiri. Tuk told me that you wanted to braid my hair for me?" She asks, finally getting Neytiri to look her in the eyes. As Neytiri nodded her head, Marali sat down in front of her and allowed Neytiri to get to work.
"Can I help, Mom?" Tuk asked, desperately wanting to help her mother braid her friends hair. Tuk loved watching her mother braid hair, she just didn't love getting her hair braided. Her mom often pulled when braiding, and, in Tuk's opinion, it took too long. The little girl didn't want to sit around for hours on end getting her hair braided, she wanted to play and explore the forest.
"Of course, Tuk. You start at the front, while I work on the back." Neytiri said, softly taking out the braids from the back of Marali's head. When Tuk reaches for the braids that have Marali's beads on them, Marali gently grabs Tuk's hand.
"Can we wait till the end to re-braid these? I don't want to lose these beads, they're very important to me." Marali asked, speaking gently to the little girl in front of her. Tuk started to protest, knowing that she wouldn't lose Marali's beads, but stops herself once she sees her mother looking at her.
"Okay, Mara." The little girl said, picking out a different section of braids to undo.
"Thank you, Tuk," Marali thanked, grateful she hadn't fought her on it. Whenever she had gone to someone else to get her braids done, they always threw a fit when she said she wanted to wait to have those braids undone. She never understood the big deal of it, no matter how many times and excuses someone gave her.
Closing her eyes at the feeling of Neytiri and Tuk taking out her braids, Marali felt herself relax in the presence of the Sullys. They were her second family, her home away from home, and she was thankful for how accepting they were.
It was always so peaceful in the morning.
Marali ran her hand over the injury on her rib cage and hissed. "We should probably reapply medicine." A voice said, causing Marali to open her eyes to see Kiri sitting beside her. Marali lets out a sigh. "Yeah, we probably should." She mumbled, grimacing at the thought of having to feel the stinging of the paste being applied to her cuts.
"Don't worry. I'll use yanglabark," Kiri said, causing Marali to giggle, catching the reference from the conversation last night.
After a few minutes, Kiri returned with the yanglabark. Taking the bandage off Marali's wound, Kiri inspected the injury to make sure it wasn't infected. Kiri applied the yanglabark to Marali's wound as gently as she could, knowing it must hurt to have it touched.
"You're right, Kiri. Yanglabark does sting less." Marali confirmed in delight, happy that the application of the medicine wasn't as uncomfortable as it had been last night. Kiri looked at Marali with an appreciative smile and looked back down, furrowing her brow in concentration. When the brief conversation between Kiri and Marali ended, it had been quiet in the tent, besides the humming that sounded from Neytiri and Tuk, who had finally finished unbraiding her hair.
"Mom, I told Dad I would go help him with his Olo'eyktan duties," Neteyams informed, telling his mother where his headed before getting up to leave.
"Okay, be careful." His mother said as she looks up to see her oldest nodding his head, letting her know that he always was. After Neteyam leaves, Lo'ak walked over to sit beside the girl. Marali looked at the boy to see that he was already looking at her, causing her to jump slightly.
"What?" She questioned, confused as to what he was looking at.
"You still wear the beads Neteyam gave you?" Lo'ak asked, making her flush in embarrassment.
One day, when she was younger, she was playing by the river with Neteyam when he showed her a beautiful stone he had found. She told him the stone would make pretty beads, and Neteyam asked her, if she wanted him to make her beads from the rock. Neteyam made four beads, two for each of them. After he gifted them to her, she had never taken them off.
"Yeah, so?" Marali said, hoping the boy wouldn't say anything in front of his mother, as Neytiri gently undid those braids and handed the beads to Kiri. She had been able to hide her feelings for Neteyam from everyone besides Lo'ak, Kiri, and Spider. Those three knew everything about her, as she knew everything about them.
"Neteyam still wears those same exact beads as well," Lo'ak said, giving Marali a suggestive look. Marali scoffed, praying to Eywa that Neytiri wasn't listening to the conversation going on. Neytiri was, of course, listening to the conversation, but she wanted the children to think she had them completely tuned out.
"Of course, he does, Lo'ak. They represent our friendship." The girl says, gritting out the last word. Marali heard him say, 'Friendship, my ass.' under his breath resulting in Neytiri slapping him upside the head for cursing in front of Tuk.
"Whatever," Lo'ak says, pausing before looking back at Marali. "Do you want to go with us to the lab later today?" Lo'ak asks, finishing his sentence.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm down to go to the lab, but I have to ask my Dad first. I'm grounded." Marali sighed.
"I'm sure he'll be okay with you going to the lab, Mara. It's not like you will get hurt." Kiri says, comforting the girl. Marali nods, thoughtfully. She knew her Dad would let her go to the lab, but she wanted to ask, just in case.
"How long are you grounded for?" Tuk asked, a sad look in her eye.
"Not very long, Tuk," Marali said, lying through her teeth. Marali knew it was wrong to lie to Tuk, but she didn't want to make her even more sad. Whenever Marali was grounded she couldn't go with them to explore the forest, and it made Tuk very sad. The last time she was grounded, she remembered walking in on the younger girl begging her father to unground Marali so that she could explore the forest with her. It only took a few minutes for her father to crack under the pressure.
Norm had always been a softie for Tuk's puppy dog eyes.
"There you go, Marali," Neytiri says, standing up and holding a hand out to help the girl up off the ground. Marali ran her hand over her braids, sighing in relief. She turned around and hugged Neytiri, thanking her in the process.
~~~~
Marali walked over to her friends Kiri, Lo'ak, and Spider after the talk she had with her Dad. She was disappointed that her father wouldn't let her train until her injuries healed.
It's not fair. Neteyam is still allowed to train, even though he's injured too.
"Hey, Mara. Feeling better?" Spider questioned, not having seen the girl since the day before
"Yes, I'm feeling better. Anyway, let's head to the lab." Marali confirmed, linking her arm with Kiri, and noticed the blue paint on her hands.
Spider must have wanted his stripes repainted.
For as long as she could remember, Spider had insisted on painting his body in blue stripes, claiming that it made the animals respect him more. The girl knew the truth, though. Spider wanted his body painted blue because it made him feel like he fit in better. The human boy had always struggled with fitting in with the others, so he convinced himself that if he could look more like the Na'vi teens in the clan, more people would want to be his friend.
"You know those stripes don't make you any bigger, bro." Lo'ak teased as the Na'vi teens made their way to the laboratory with Spider. "Yeah, well, I can still kick your ass." Spider fires back, causing Kiri and Marali to look at each other and roll their eyes.
Walking into the laboratory, Marali saw her father coming out of his link unit. She decided that she would greet him later.
"Yeah, haha guys, real hysterical. You know what really sucks, though? Is that, you can breathe Earth air for hours, and I can only breathe your air for like 10 seconds." Spider said as the three Na'vi teens grabbed the masks that provided the human's air, taking in deep breaths.
"Yeah, monkey boy, that really sucks for you," Kiri said, pushing Spider and then turning around. The human boy grabbed Kiri's tail and slightly pulled. Marali snickered when she heard Spider hiss at Kiri.
These were the best parts of Marali's day because she wasn't going into battle, she wasn't stupidly following Lo'ak to prevent him from getting injured, and she didn't have to train. She enjoyed moments like this, where she could relax, joke around, have fun with her friends, and be a kid.
"Hi, Max." Kiri greeted.
"Hey, Kids," Max responded. Max was like Marali's Uncle, and he was also someone the girl considered to be her best friend. She could talk to him about anything without any fear that the information would get back to her father. Max was the young girl's shoulder to cry on.
"Hey, what's up, Max?" Lo'ak said, walking over to the scientist. Marali noticed that Kiri left the group, so she followed the girl, knowing that Kiri was going to see Grace's Avatar.
"Hey, ma," Kiri said, smiling fondly at her mother's Avatar, hugging the glass, trying to get as close to her mother as possible. Marali watched in silence, not wanting to break the moment. She smiled at her friend, knowing this was one of the only times Kiri truly felt at peace with herself.
After Kiri finished looking at Grace's Avatar, she turned one of her video logs on. This was something Kiri did quite often, as it was the only way to hear her mother's voice. Marali observed Kiri, who had a longing look in her eyes. She knew that Kiri loved Jake and Neytiri. They raised her. They adopted her, but she couldn't help but wish that her mother was still here. The moment was ruined when Lo'ak and Spider came back from talking with Max and her Dad.
"So, who do you think knocked her up? Pretty sure it was Norm." Lo'ak said nonchalantly, causing Marali's jaw to drop in shock, and Spider to chuckle.
"Totally," Spider laughed, agreeing with Lo'ak. Marali whipped her head over to look at Spider, shocked.
"You do not deserve to live," Kiri said, looking back and forth between Lo'ak and Spider.
"No, no, no. Think about it, right? I mean, he's the teacher's pet. He's out at the lab with her all the time." Lo'ak said, continuing to tease his older sister.
"I would kill myself. I would drink acid. No offense, Marali." Kiri said, scrunching her nose before sending the girl an apologetic look.
"None taken," Marali shrugged. She already considered Kiri her sister, blood relation or not. The teens looked at Grace talking on the screen, seeing her Dad appear in the background. Norm glanced at Grace before looking back at the paper in his hand.
"Bro, you're right. He's, like, in every shot. Bro, look, look, he's giving her the looks." Spider says, looking down, covering his face with his arm. "Hey," Kiri says, giving Spider a pointed look, but that doesn't stop Lo'ak.
"See, I'm thinking their two Avatars were out in the woods all alone," Lo'ak says, causing Marali to gag at the image that appeared into her head. "Gross." Both girls say at the same time, Kiri going up to Lo'ak, slightly pushing him. Marali looked over to see that Spider had suddenly gotten serious.
"Guys. I mean, sometimes it's not so great to know who your father was." Spider says.
All three teens stare at him.
"Whatever. Don't even remember him," Spider mumbled, jumping off the metal bar, turning to face Grace. Marali's shoulders slumped. While Marali had Norm to take care of her, Spider didn't have anyone. No one wanted to step up and raise him, so he was often on his own, unless Marali or the Sully kids asked their parents to have him over.
"No, Spider," Lo'ak tried to comfort his friend.
"Dude," Spider grumbled.
"Spider... You are not him." Kiri said, putting her arms around the boy.
"Besides, if you were, I would have kicked your ass by now," Marali joked, hoping it would lighten the mood. She smiles when she sees Spider look at her with a smile.
"Anyways, it's getting late, and I'm sure my Dad wants me back for dinner." The girl says, looking at the other teens, who nodded in agreement. She saw Spider's mood dampen. He didn't want the night to end yet.
"Yeah, Kiri and I should probably get back before I get into any more trouble," Lo'ak said as he and Kiri made their way out of the lab. Marali looks at Spider, who's looking at the ground. Marali grabs his hand and drags him along with her.
"Where are we going? I thought you wanted to leave to have dinner with your Dad." Spider asks. The girl looks down at him with a smile.
"I am, but you're coming with me. No one deserves to eat alone. So be quiet, put your mask on, and follow me." She says, dashing out of the lab, giggling when she sees Spider following behind her.
Unedited. 05/13/23
Edited. 07/06/23
Word Count: 3,887
Hey everyone! Hopefully you enjoyed - I hate this chapter. This is the longest I've ever spent on a chapter.
I know I said I would do an author's note every other chapter, but I felt the need to do one this chapter. The next two chapter's won't have one though, promise!
This chapter is the longest one yet! Feel free to point out any grammatical errors!
If anyone would like to make a cover for the book, please feel free to reach out! The one on the book is generic because I have no artistic skills.
Have an amazing day!