Shells | Lo'ak Sully

Part 5 - Spirit Tree

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Thing's seemed to be looking up for Ni'teya within the Metkayina clan; Roxto and Aonung were much nicer to her now, helping her make neckpieces and headpieces out of her shells, just as she wanted to do. She'd used her favourite shell to centre her headpiece, and she wore it practically everywhere. The crown came down onto her forehead, dangling and glistening as she walked.
Aonung complimented it, saying it suited her well.

She'd come to realize that when she'd look at her favourite shell underneath the water, it would shine ten times brighter than before, making her proud she'd found such a beautiful one compared to all the others - not to say the others weren't beautiful of course - and that she'd kept it safe all this time.

However, something that either pleased or displeased Ni'teya - she honestly couldn't decide which description was more accurate - was the fact that Lo'ak had left her alone completely since the incident. He never bickered with her, despite her making a few comments about how he was a slow swimmer, he never so much as even looked at her with unpleasant looks or scowls. In fact, Ni'teya started to question whether someone had swapped their soul with Lo'ak's, and the real Lo'ak was out there somewhere, huffing and puffing as he'd normally do.

.

The sun had just risen above the waves and Tsireya had suggested an outing to see their clan's most sacred place. Ni'teya and Kiri were more than happy, Kiri especially since she was the one who had the strongest connection to Eywa out of the two of them and even the whole Sully family. It worried Ni'teya sometimes, how Kiri would comment on how she could feel her breathing closely and say that it felt like she was right there.

The five of them met up with Tsireya, finding out that Aonung was going to be coming as well, which only Lo'ak seemed to mind. By now, everyone had bonded with their own Ilu, Tuk calling hers TukTwo, which made Ni'teya snicker everytime she heard her say it. Ni'teya didn't know what to name hers yet, so she held off on that activity for the time being.

Once everyone was strapped in, they set off, following Tsireya and Aonung closely from behind.

When Tsireya said that she believed the Spirit Tree to be the single most unbelievable sight to behold, she wasn't lying. Kiri couldn't hold herself back, she dove down almost immediately after spotting the tree, causing a congo-line to form behind her consisting of Ni'teya, Tuk and Tsireya to begin, shortly after adding Aonung, Neteyam and Lo'ak to the mix.
Kiri attached herself to it, as did Tuk, however Ni'teya held off on it.
She thought she'd let Kiri share her discoveries on her own this time, as she knew she'd been looking forward to this for a while (mainly due to the fact Kiri hadn't stopped talking about it since they arrived).

A few minutes had passed, and Kiri had not come out of her meditative state, which was strange since these visions didn't tend to last too long for anyone.
After a few more minutes, Ni'teya grew even more stressed and asked if she could try and wake Kiri up. Tsireya was almost able to suggest a way to help her, when Kiri began to shake uncontrollably in front of us. The immediate reaction from Ni'teya was to lift her body up to the surface, letting Tsireya and Neteyam aide her with it, as it wasn't an easy task.

Even though they had reached the surface, Kiri was still seizing and shaking, maybe even more by that point. Ni'teya began to push up Kiri's body high enough to get her onto her Ilu's back, however she wasn't successful the first time. When she tried again, Aonung yelled "Do you need help? Hey!" beside Ni'teya, asking her an impossible question. Ni'teya continued to struggle with lifting Kiri's body onto her unnamed Ilu without answering him, before watching as two darker blue hands came into focus from the other end of the Ilu, pulling Kiri's arms up and successfully getting her up safely.