Flowing Melody || NETEYAM

My Aching Soul

Fae kept her distance.

It felt as though a dream, her heart numb again, the world colourless. Just like when he had left. It was all eerily familiar. The Sullys stayed in their hut together, na'vi whispered as Fae'voila ghosted past them, Reya would sit with her in silence whenever she could. No words seemed right at the moment, and Fae wasnt even sure if her voice would work.

It had been a day. A day and no one since kiri had mentioned him to her, she had not seen any of the Sully family.

She knew faintly she could go to their hut, she could find him and touch him and never let him go. But she did not know if she could survive if he slipped through her fingers. If it was just her mind broken beyond repair.

So she stayed away. She didnt think much, just going through the motions of life like the waves in the sea. She did not even consider eating until Roxto forced bread into her hands without saying a word, sitting in front of her, half in the surf as he watched her eat.
She broke the loaf in half mechanically, reaching out and pressing it into his warm hands. He smiled at her. And that was enough.

A warm glow symbolising the unity of their family, soft voicing coming from the hut. She wondered if he was in there, if he was laughing, or holding Tuk on his lap. If he had spoken to lo'ak about the guilt he held, if they had hugged and cried, if he had called Kiri magical like Fae knew he always did.

She hesitated, just mere steps from the opening. Mere steps from him. This life practically a breath away.

Fae went home. She went to sleep.

"I hear he wants to see you. He is hurt you have not come to see him." Tsireya walked up behind her, as Fae twirled fruitlessly with her fan, trying to find the familiar pattern that would set her free for just a moment. "He is worried."

Fae stopped, her body drooping as she turned on her heel, and walked back towards her hut silently.

"Fae!" Reya called after her, frowning, she rushed after her friend, grabbing her elbow and spinning her around. "Did you not hear me?"

Fae stared at the ground. She knew she was being unreasonable. She knew she was being childish, and selfish, and mean. She knew it. So why could she not bring herself to knock on that hut, to see him alive and breathing and well.

"Things like this do not happen Reya." There were tears now slipping, dripping onto the sand beneath her feet. "Those who die do not just- just come back!"

She looked up, meeting her friends wide eyes wildly.

Reya looked at her with a pitying gaze, causing Fae's cheeks to redden as she looked sharply away. She could not bare to be pitied for such a thing.

Fae knew full well that despite her curiosity, she was a coward. She was not intended for this internal war. She was quiet and meek and gently, it is what she had always been told, she was no more. Not a warrior or an adventurer. It did not matter how badly she wished to see the world, discover every inch of Pandora and the paradise Eywa had created for The People. She was too cowardly to leave, so instead she sang songs of the world she was destined to never see.

"i am not strong Reya! I am weak. He would shame to see me now, I bring shame to him, to his family and name. I had been foolish to think any different."

Her breathing was ragged, teeth bared and red eyed, she expected Reya to step back by the way she looked her friend, but instead she stayed.

Fae did not deserve such love.

"I do not know what is wrong with me, sister."

Fae whispered, anger draining out of her as the tiredness took over, her body sagging like all emotion was spent.

Reya pulled her into an unconditional hug, wrapping her arms around too thin shoulders, stroking back her hair, that was slightly knotted from the stress and neglect.

"There is nothing wrong with you, dearest sister. It is the world that is wrong."

"They say i am mad Rey...I can hear them whispering at night, they think i am callous for not jumping to him the moment he opened his eyes."

"You are not mad nor callous. Never to me. Never to him."

"I do not think i can look him in the eyes...what if he gets close and there is no heartbeat beneath my touch. What if i make him go cold again. What if he grays in my arms."

Fae was sobbing now, her entire body shaking, barely supporting her weight as she let Tsireya lead her the rest of the way back into her hut.

Closing the flaps behind them as she sat her sister on the bedding in front of them, Reya taking a spot behind her as she began the distantly familiar motion of uncurling and curling her waves, smoothing out and rebraiding. Adding flowers around her crown, each placed delicately and deliberately and purposefully, with all of her love.

Fae wrapped her body in on herself, reyas fingers in her hair soothing as she sniffled pathetically.

"i mourn the part of me that died with half of my soul."