𝐓𝐖𝐎 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐒; neteyam

CHAPTER THREE

THREE

"Always coming and you'd never have a clue."
-oblivion, grimes

NETEYAM AND NAMAOYI walked. Every night of everyday, they would walk and speak and bathe and leap, all to just escape the forever-loud Sully family and the demons that seemed to chase them wherever they went. It was a thing, an unspoken thing, that they just found one another and disappeared alone, together. They never said anything as they left, never asked each other if they wanted to leave, they just did.

On that day - that one, singular, but ending day - when the two were returning from one of their saving walks, Neteyam pushed Namaoyi against one of the crates.

"Net- what?" She asked with furrowed brows, looking at him as her head pressed against the back of the wood, pinching her long hair. The boy was beside her, peering out from the side of the box, as his hand stayed loosely held in front of her torso.

"They are fighting," he whispered, watching what Namaoyi couldn't see of his parents arguing before their tent. What he didn't know was that his siblings were doing the exact same thing, peering beneath the material of their flapping hut to listen to their parents voices and watch their fidgeting feet.

"About what? Jake and Neytiri never fight," Namaoyi said in a hushed voice, looking down at the floor with furrowed brows as she tried to understand. They were perfect, a love story meant for the pages, so why were they fighting in front of their children?

"I don't know, we have to get closer," Neteyam said as he moved back behind the box, looking down at the girl. She stepped forward to move around him, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "That way," he muttered, pointing behind her to the other side of the crate.

"Why can we not just-"

"They will see us, then they will stop fighting," Neteyam said as he directed her forward, moving slowly from crate to crate to get closer.

"Is that such a bad thing?" She asked, looking at him and his concentrated face as he guided her between the boxes. His invisible brows were tied in a knot at the bridge of his nose, forehead slightly creased, as his lip breathed in and out with the air.

"Yes," he sighed out in a quiet laugh, stealing a swift glance at the smiling girl before focusing back in on the box they were walking around. He pressed himself back up to it, fingers wrapped around the edge, as his head peaked around the corner. He could subtly - only subtly - hear what his parents were discussing, and he didn't like it.

"No," he muttered beneath his breath, it being quiet enough for the girl stood beside him to miss. "No way."

"I still cannot hear them," Namaoyi said as she furrowed her brows, leaning closer to the boy as she tried to hear what the adults were arguing over. She only gathered words, and that was enough. It would always be enough, simple words.

Leave. Tomorrow. Unsafe. Ocean. Namaoyi. Home.

Home.

She knew, at the single word, the four letters, that they were going to a place the girl once called home. Not anymore, her home was the forest, Pandoras forest - like it would forever remain. It could be a person, the person beside her, but place-wise, the trees would call her name. She was built for the water, like her parents and the rest of her ancestors, but not really. Her skin flourished beneath the waves, her nose taking in the sweet scent of the underwater nature, but her mind was crafted with twigs and leaves and Neteyams voice.

"They are wrong, we cannot leave," Namaoyi muttered, backing away from the box as her voice spiked and wavered. Neteyam looked at her.

"Mao, we must. I want to stay, but you heard them. It is not safe anymore," he said, stepping towards her with his hands reaching out. Forever reaching.

"Teyam, I cannot go back," she pleaded, his palms finally landing on her shoulders. "You must understand, this is my home."

He sighed, ducking his head as he let out a quick breath. He met her eyes. "They know you, Namaoyi, they know you. They will hunt you like they hunt us."

"But they will follow everywhere we go, always!" She cried with her voice, but without her teary eyes. They were dry, like her mind, as she replayed the words within her racking brain. Ocean. Namaoyi. Home.

"Mao," Neteyam whispered, his hands sliding up her neck to rest on her bright cheeks. "We are not safe here. We need- I need you to be safe. You must come."

She looked at him, really looked at him, and sighed. It was a breath passing through her parted lips, sounding like a sigh and feeling like a sigh, but not a sigh. Just her internal thoughts passing through. "I know, I will, I just loathe it."

He moved his finger, it brushing pieces of her fallen, dark hair behind her left ear. "I loathe it too, my parents loathe it, we all do. But we will be together. That is something, right?" He smiled, watching her face slowly come back to life from its once miserable ways.

"It is everything," she whispered, her voice a mere speak in the darkness.

"As it will remain," they muttered together, voices mingling in the air before them. They smiled, letting laughs slip between them as they stayed int he unnerving darkness. They were one, never apart, just like the darkness and the light. They made each other who they knew they were.

"Are they still fighting?" Neteyam asked, his eyes fixated on the girl before him, like they always were.

She peered over his shoulder, catching sight of the parents. Neytiris head was rested on the mans shoulder. Namaoyi imagined the tears slipping from her cheeks, Jake holding himself together as his partner fell apart in his arms. It hurt the young girl leaving, breaking the womans heart twice as hard. Namaoyi, with her weak mind and overpowering thoughts, watched as she witnessed the womans cracked heart be thrown across the cave floor and trampled on, shattering to pieces. Jake and her children were all that could make up for the sacrifice.

"No, they are sad," she said, her eyes crinkling at the sides as she watched the strong lady cry. "They do not want to leave."

"We will be fine," Neteyam said, pulling the girl back towards him with his words. Her sight flicked back to his moving eyes. "We are strong, all of us."

"I know," she whispered, eyes falling from his to the small length of ground between them. "We will be fine." But it was to herself. 

Neteyam frowned, watching her head duck, before his hands from her cheeks fell to her back and wrapped around her. Like father like son, they all would say. Holding themselves together for someone else, someone they valued more important than their own fractured hearts, which made sense once you watched the girls hearts shatter on the rough ground.

Their hearts. Their chests. Two girls. Two holes.