Chapter Text
When it had happened, Tamtey had not even noticed.
There was almost no pain. Just a sort of hazy awareness that something was terribly, terribly wrong with her. Her mind was foggy, clouded. And she was floating in and out of consciousness like she'd been drunk on zangke. The smell of ash and burning wood, the sight of bright cinders floating downwards like wrathful petals; the image of Hometree, as it burned, was seared into her brain, haunting her restless slumber. Her breaths came in pants. Her right arm felt numb. Her head was spinning.
“Prepare for blood transfusion STAT! Hurry!”
“You’ll get through this, ma’eveng. Hold on.”
“Give me two deciliters of–”
Darkness.
Her eyes opened to an unrecognisable scene, panic making her chest feel like there was a zakru sitting on top of it. She did not know where she was. But every sight around her was wrong. Grey. The colour of the one thing sky people loved the most; metal. She was surrounded by it.
“She’s freaking out. It’s too soon; give her some more-”
“By Eywa, no.” Two hands framed her face, but Tamtey could not see, her eyes cloudy as her mind fought to stay present. “Tsamsiyu, look at me and count. One, two, three, breathe in… and out.”
Tamtey tried to do as the stranger told, but her head was screaming. Her whole body, normally so strong, felt weak; her limbs barely listened to her command, her lungs constricted with every breath she tried and failed to hold. Her eyes unfocused. All she could see was metal. Bukowski. Wukula. Hometree on fire. Screams.
The hands on her cheeks stroked her with careful, gentle movements, still counting out loud as Tamtey struggled to get ahold of herself. The touch soothed her. “Breathe, child.” The hands. They were Na’vi hands. Four fingers. Holding her as if she was precious. Safe. The knots in her chest began to untangle themselves, slowly.
It was then that her eyes regained focus, her breaths slowly steadying as awareness flooded her. A Na’vi woman - a tsahík - was crouched in front of her, cradling her face, her dreads creating a curtain that blocked out all else. Her face carried the lines of many years, her bright-yellow eyes kind and filled with worry.
Tamtey struggled to speak. The woman sensed her trouble and gestured behind her. A cup of water appeared, with a thing Tamtey recognised as a straw; as Alma had once taught her. Another useless, human thing. But now it helped, the strange, fragile device carrying water through Tamtey’s lips, soothing her parched throat.
“You have been through quite the ordeal,” the woman spoke, her voice having a sort of hoarse-quality to it. She leaned back a bit, her hands leaving Tamtey’s face and instead giving her some space, time to adjust to her new surroundings.
Tamtey barely felt awake still, struggling to adjust to the bright lights that filled the room, the scent of human medication, her body feeling numb, her head swimming.
“Where am I?” Tamtey asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
“You are in the Hallelujah mountains,” a new voice spoke to her right, making her turn her head. A man stood there - a human - with no mask, with soft brown hair and a kind look on his face as he fiddled with his hands. He was wearing one of those white lab coats the scientists in the resistance favored. “We found you on one of our patrols,” he paused, “well your ikran guided us to you. She’s very protective.”
“Telisi?” Tamtey croaked. “Where is she?” she asked, eyes wide, struggling to move. “Is she safe, I-”
“Shhh,” the Na’vi woman interrupted with a kind smile. “She is cared for. Eagerly awaiting your return.” Tamtey felt relief flood her, her chest easing somewhat at the knowledge that Telisi was unharmed. But to carry her all the way here, to the Hallelujah mountains? What had happened for her to do that? To stray so far from home?
“It must be such a shock,” the Na’vi woman continued, her eyes flitting over Tamtey’s form, clouding with sadness. “But you will adjust. You have a strong heart. I know you do.”
Tamtey felt confusion flood her senses, her eyes flitting from the tsahík to the human man standing to her right, who also looked forlorn as the words were spoken. “Wha-”
It was then that Tamtey slowly regained control over her body, the numbness which kept the pain, the exhaustion, at bay ebbing away as if someone drew a heavy shroud away from her limbs. Her eyes blinked wildly as she gazed down at her body and lifted her right arm, the motion pulling at her shoulder. Her chest hollowed out at the sight.
“We tried to save your arm, but…” the human man began, his voice soft. “There was nothing we could do.”
Tamtey could do nothing but stare at her right arm, now ending in a stump below her elbow, her breath steady despite her heart thundering in her chest. The limb felt strangely numb, almost tight, but there was no feeling, not really. She could almost still feel where her hand used to be, her fingers, so accustomed to drawing back the string of the bow, to peeling her favorite fortune fruit, to reaching out to hold Ri’nela’s hand, but there was nothing there. The sensation crashed into her like a tidal wave.
“You were bleeding out when your ikran carried you here. Do you remember anything about what happened?”
Tamtey heard him speak the words, but she was still staring at her right arm, her eyes fixated on the place where her hand should be. Her hand was gone. It was just… gone.
“Leave us, NormSpellman,” the Na’vi woman said, her voice softening; her gaze still on Tamtey. “We must speak.”
The man named Norm looked like he wanted to protest, but at the look the tsahík gave him, he quickly nodded and left them, leaving through the hiss of an opening airlock.
“You will be alright, child, even when this seems like an impossible loss” the woman spoke, reaching out to cradle Tamtey’s left hand in her own, her eyes soft. Tamtey met her gaze, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. There was no pain. None. But there was. Still, there was. A hollow where her heart used to be. “You will be.”
“Irayo,” Tamtey said, because what was there to say in the face of the woman who had saved her, selflessly, even though the word felt like ash in her mouth.
The woman simply nodded, eyes never leaving Tamtey’s. “Mo’at,” she spoke. Her name, Tamtey realised quickly, and felt ashamed at not asking it sooner, as if she had not been delirious moments before. "Tamtey," she replied softly, to which Mo'at smiled.
"It is my honour to help one of the Sarentu."
“Irayo, Mo’at,” Tamtey murmured in reply to that, her voice hoarse. “I… I can’t seem to remember what happened…” Her head hurt even trying to remember how she got here; how Tellisi had saved her, had brought her here. She was grasping at straws, her memory a black void filled with ash and soot. She tried to remember, anything to distract her from the loss on her right side, the place where her limb used to be a sight she did not want to look at any longer.
Mo’at looked troubled. “I cannot say that I know either, child. You arrived on the back of your bonded, heavily wounded, unconscious. Besides your arm, you had some bruises and cuts on your body, and some badly healed broken bones, but child, you lost a lot of blood. If your ikran had not carried you here…”
Tamtey shuddered at the thought, though, looking at her arm made her wonder, a small voice in the back of her mind said viciously, if it was worth being saved. “I remember being captured by the RDA, the Mangkwan…” Mo’at hissed at the name, apparently familiar with the strange and hostile Na’vi clan. “I was being kept at the Hometree of the Aranahe, but they… I remember them transporting me, somewhere. A base.”
“Beta Echo,” Mo’at murmured, looking troubled. “Most likely. It is a cursed thing, a metal contraption that pumps ash and soot into the sky. Close to the border of the Western frontier. It is not far from here.”
Tamtey had no recollection of ever entering Beta Echo. Her head throbbed at her feeble attempts at recollection. But when Mo’at said Western, she sat up, despite the pain that shot through her right arm, her heart pounding.
Mo’at reached out to steady her, eyes widening slightly at Tamtey’s actions. “Child-”
“The resistance - my… my clan, t-the Sarentu, are they alright?”
“I fear I do not know, child. The tsahík’s face contorted into a frown. “But we can find out.”
They had to be alright. It had been the only thing keeping Tamtey alive when she was held captive, threatened, tortured. When they broke her fingers, kicked her when she was down, cut into her… she locked herself up in a place in her mind that was filled with memories of them. A safe haven within herself that reminded her of a simple truth. One that kept her going. That Teylan was alright. Ri’nela, safe. And So’lek… Her chest tightened at his name, of her fellow Na’vi warrior, hardened by his past but so gentle, so patient, when he was with them… with her.
Her eyes couldn’t help but wander back to her right arm that was no longer whole, when she thought of So’lek, her mouth tightening. Would he think of her as lesser? Incapable? Would he look at her with pity?
Tamtey, who was supposed to be olo’eykte of the Sarentu, mighty Death on Wings, now a Na’vi with one hand, who could no longer hunt, or shoot; who could not provide for the clan. Who was reduced to something she was not.
The thought made her feel numb inside once more, even as Mo’at spoke softly to her of the resistance base she was in, reassuring her that it would be easy to find out how things were with her clan, if they were safe; that they could come see her, if she would like. That she could arrange for them to visit, or for her to travel, when she was recovered enough to do so.
Instead of feeling elated, feeling relief, at the thought of seeing them. Seeing Ri’nela, Teylan, Rasi, So’lek… she felt dread. Her chest was hollow, her head swimming with something she could not name.
“No,” Tamtey said, suddenly, the word tasting like sand on her tongue. “Not yet.”
Mo’at, with a single look at the young Sarentu, seemed to understand completely. Tamtey, in that moment, never knew if the tsahík really agreed to her distance, to her shutting herself off from her clan, to not letting them know she was alright. But she did, nonetheless.
“As you wish, ma’eveng.” Mo’at sighed, squeezing Tamtey’s hand and meeting her gaze, a sadness creeping into those yellow depths. “As you wish.”
two months later
“As much as it pains me to admit it, we must face reality. Tamtey is gone.”
Nor’s voice echoed out through one of the hollows of Hometree where the Sarentu now stood, gathered by the news that there had been, once again, no sight of Telisi. Or Tamtey.
So’lek hissed at his words, almost involuntarily, a hot surging feeling gripping him as his nostrils flared. He shook his head curtly. No, he thought. There was no doubt in his mind that Tamtey lived. The memory of her being taken, right in front of his eyes, while he was powerless to stop it, still haunted his dreams every single night.
“This is useless,” So’lek grounded out through his teeth, eyes narrow with fury, fists clenched. “Standing here debating whether or not she is…”
Ri’nela gently laid her arm on So’lek’s shoulder. “It pains me, too,” she said, softly, her usually bright eyes sorrowful and dull. “But it has been months since we received any word, So’lek.”
So’lek shook her hand off, face set in a harsh scowl. “It is Tamtey. We should not give up on her.”
He eyed every single one of them in this room. Teylan, sitting with his back against the bark, poking a stick uselessly at the ground, eyes shuttered off to the world by his cap, his mouth drawn downwards into a frown. Rasi, standing with her arms crossed, mouth set in a tight line, looking away. Ri’nela, looking worriedly between Nor and So’lek, wringing her hands. Nor, hands on his hips, starting to argue - yet again - that they should move on, choose an olo’eykte, as if Tamtey was not, by any reasonable margin, the only candidate suitable for the role. And…
Rimu, her hand meeting So’lek’s back in a comfortable gesture, her eyes kind as they looked at him. His shoulders dropped, somewhat, but even she could not comfort him. Not now.
“So’lek is right… he…” Teylan spoke up, almost stammering, eyes meeting the group’s. He dropped the stick in the dirt next to his feet, leaning forward on his knees. His eyes were pleading, looking a little wet. “We shouldn’t give up on Tamtey. It isn’t right.”
Nor threw his hands up in the air with a frustrated noise, one they were all accustomed to hearing quite often these days. “Tamtey has comms. She would have reached out by now if she was alive. She was trained, instructed, to do so.” His head swiveled to the side, looking at the eldest Sarentu. “Have you heard anything, Rasi?”
Rasi was startled out of her brooding by the question, her frown deepening. The older Sarentu looked surprised that she, specifically, was being asked first, as if there was no logic in it. And So’lek knew there was none. This was one of Nor’s games, yet again. So’lek’s scowl deepened. “No. But that doesn’t-”
“And you, Teylan?”
Teylan shook his head, crestfallen, and started poking at the ground with his stick again, a restlessness clinging to him. So’lek felt for the young man, who had relentlessly searched the whole frontier with him on his ikran, Ada, with whom he had only bonded two months ago, shortly So’lek had defeated Wukula at Hometree and had not found Tamtey.
He was shortly drawn into a memory of that cursed day. When the rain had been pouring down his face as he had pressed his knife to the Mangkwan’s throat. He had the audacity to laugh, even in the face of certain death.
“Where is she?” So’lek had growled at him, his words barely legible through the urge to hiss and snarl at the man who had taken her. His Tamtey.
Wukula had coughed, blood splattering So’lek’s chestguard, and had laughed again, almost pressing his throat against the knife So’lek held there. So’lek’s gaze sharpened. He realised, with a curse in his thoughts, that Wukula was already dying.
“Ask your precious Eywa,” he had mocked, his voice rasping. “Only she can help you now.”
He had died before So’lek had any answers, and So’lek had cursed his recklessness, his foolishness. If only he hadn’t stabbed his side, not cut his achilles heel, if only. Then he might have known where Tamtey was. Might have found her. Brought her home. Where she belonged.
“So’lek?” Nor looked almost smug as he gazed at the older Na’vi, arms crossed in front of him, his head tilted slightly to the left. So’lek shook his head out of the memory that haunted him, his palms hurting slightly. He hadn’t realised he had been digging his nails into them. He let out a breath, his fingers easing from his flesh.
“What?” He snapped, his gaze meeting Nor’s, eyes cold as ice.
Nor’s gaze was just as frigid. “You know what I asked.”
So’lek refused to answer, his mouth tight, an unspoken reply in the way his scowl worsened at Nor’s remark. With a scoff, he turned on his heel and left. The silence deafening in his departure.
His hideout looked just as he left it. Tamtey’s things, untouched; her hammock still strung in the corner by the water, because the sound of it soothed her. He shook his head at the fond memory, when she struggled to hang it up without the bottom touching the pooling water. Her strange quirks. He exhaled softly as his fingers grazed the empty space in his weapon rack, for her bow. It was strange, to see this space every day and not hear her teasing voice.
She had often crashed here, after hunting, or when the resistance base grew too loud, too filled with boisterous noise, or when the nightmares came to close. It soothed her, like him, he realised, to be in the sky, with nothing but the stars for company.
So’lek missed her. Her absence was like a void that weighed on him like stones, with every single day without her adding another to the unending pile that sat on his chest. The silence of the cave was deafening. There was no laughter. No voice calling him ‘chicken’. No soft snores to remind her that she was there, alive and breathing.
He did not believe her dead. He would know in his heart if that were the truth, he fiercely believed that, his fingers resting on her not-so-secret stash of RDA rations by the stove. It was her ‘guilty pleasure’, he remembered her saying it. He still did not know what it meant. But whenever he had scouted a base, or drill site, he had looked for them, and had, without saying anything, added packet after packet to the pile.
The sight of it now left him feeling strangely numb. He rubbed his bare chest with his fingers, as if to soothe an invisible ache that lingered, but the motion did not help. The feeling remained, rigid and relentless, with him at all times.
Here, where no one saw, he let the scowl drop from his face, his body sagging under the weight of the knowledge that she was still not found, that they had searched for months and had found nothing, not a trace of her. And surely if they had killed her, though the thought was a curse in his mind, the RDA would have loudly proclaimed her death for all to know. For where he was the Dog Tag Warrior, she was Death of Wings, their nicknames bounties for all RDA to hunt and collect.
So’lek made his way outside with his collection of sticks in hand, a knife in the other, and sat next to a slumbering Íley, who lifted his head at his approach and softly chirped.
“Tam tam, Íley,” he soothed, sitting on the ledge of the floating rock and dropping his things beside him, his hand caressing his ikran’s leathery hide.
Íley crooned, content, and settled back down, though his eyes were now open, watching the sky in front of them unfold into a thousand stars and colours.
So’lek followed its gaze, his hand now absentmindedly stroking his bonded’s side. A sigh left his lips.
“I know,” he murmured, his eyes following the ikran’s to the open sky, the sounds of Pandora floating around them. After months of ashes and soot, the land had slowly but surely healed, and the evidence of that was now before and around them, in the sounds of the animals and the lights of the bioluminescence.
And though the world around them was healing, a wound inside So’lek was left open and vulnerable, a gaping tear that would not close until all was well. Until she was well and safe.
“I miss them too.”