Blood and Water | Neteyam

Over Treetops ∼ 3

It didn't take Tcelia long to find out where Lo'ak had disappeared off to. They'd been living in the cave for almost a year now and Tcelia still remembered the first time she had found Lo'ak up here.

It had been after an incident where Lo'ak had followed his father on a mission without him knowing. When Jake had seen Lo'ak hiding in the forest as the sky people had been attacking the small Na'vi group that had been chosen for the mission, Jake hadn't taken it lightly. He had hauled Lo'ak's ass back to the base and yelled at him in front of the entire clan, asking him why he couldn't be more like his older brother, and afterwards given him the silent treatment for almost an entire week.

Tcelia had found Lo'ak sitting at the top of the mountain that their base was located in, staring up at the night sky. He had explained to her why he had done it; he had been scared for his father's safety and had only followed him to make sure nothing happened to him, since it was the first mission that Jake was going on after 17 years of peace. Tcelia's heart had clenched when she had heard Lo'ak's reasons for disobeying his father and had slipped down to the base and informed Jake of what Lo'ak had told her. The silent treatment had ended the next day.

Now he was sitting on the same large rock he had sat on almost a year ago, leaning back on his arms and looking up into the night, not really seeing, but in deep thought.

Tcelia walked over to him slowly. She had always loved being up here. She felt she could see the entire world from here, the floating mountains surrounding her, the forest expanding into the vastness of the horizon below, the rivers weaving through the landscape, meeting each other and rushing into the ocean that she knew lay past the horizon. The night sky was full of the old stars she had grown accustomed to watch and she quickly located the star that Jake had come from. She suspected she could find it with her eyes closed now, since Lo'ak so often pointed it out.

Hearing Tcelia's feet scuff against the ground, Lo'ak's ears twitched, indicating that he knew she was there. He didn't lower his head to look at her but he shuffled over on the rock so that there was space for her to sit. She jumped up, heaving herself up with her upper body strength and settled down beside him, legs dangling over the edge. They sat in silence for a while, watching the stars.

"I know it was stupid to go down to the ground," Lo'ak broke the silence, "but I just feel like I can do so much more than what he allows me to do. I could actually help." He was looking down at his hands now, twisting them. Tcelia stayed silent in case he wanted to say something else.
This revelation wasn't exactly something she hadn't heard before. Lo'ak had mentioned it a bunch of times before, how he felt about his dad treating him like a kid.

When Lo'ak didn't speak up again Tcelia took his hand in hers to make him stop wringing them. She looked down at their intertwined fingers. She had always liked looking at his and Kiri's hands, and when the three of them were together she could almost forget that they were different from all the other Na'vis. Her father's DNA had also left her with five fingers instead of the traditional four fingers a Na'vi usually has, and she had created a special bond with the two siblings because they too felt like her, different and strange.

"Do not blame yourself for what happened to your brother, Lo'ak," Tcelia sighed, "Jake was too harsh on you." She tried to catch his eyes, but he kept staring down at their hands, refusing to make eye contact with her.

"Besides," She ventured on, "Nothing happened to him. He is safe and sound and probably worrying about what punishment was given to you."

"Yeah, I know that, but it just keeps replaying in my mind," He finally met Tcelia's gaze, and she was surprised to see tears forming in the crook of his eyes. He angrily wiped them away with the back of his free hand. "What if something had happened to him?" The question wasn't more than a whisper.