The night escapes eventually had to come to an end. Rather it was for wanting to actually sleep or because of what happened on the day before, the thirteenth day since the Sully family arrived at the reef islands.
That day had been long, sharpening all my weapons after the previous day's hunting, taking care of Maitrey, the infirmary, volunteering to cook dinner along with Neytiri, and some other stuff. Neteyam and I hadn't talked much during the day, given that our schedules didn't make space for it, and we had to reserve what we wanted to say until it was night. Atswon was very aware of my routine, so he made sure to bid 'good night' after supper, knowing he wouldn't see me until the next morning.
Each night, the time I spent with Neteyam was longer, going from one or two hours of only training and partially talking, to four hours of mostly talking and a side piece of practicing sign language —which he ended up getting the hang of after a week—, the spear for him and bow and arrow for me.
The times we wanted to be by ourselves, we would sit in the shack, face-to-face or next to each other, with the water from the lake producing enough light for me to see the way he'd wrinkle his nose or how smile lines formed when he grinned, but dark enough that the freckles on both of our faces would glow. Neteyam looked like home.
On two or three nights from all the ones we spent together, we would sometimes go to The Caves. The Caves were underwater grottos, which you could get to from the north part of the island, and were only allowed to be used by teenagers and young adults. Every generation had had its time of going to The Caves for a certain amount of years. Whatever happened inside stayed inside. No parents would ever bother you there.
They were bigger than one would have thought, with all kinds of plants crawling up the walls, a massive bonfire, and some things to have fun with. All of those were inside the main cave, and two other smaller caves were empty, with exception of the natural pools that lay there.
Neteyam and I would sit close to the fire, I'd rest my head on his shoulder and he would sing his songcord to pass the time. It was long, filled with moments of sadness, joy, and an impressive amount of achievements you could only expect from the chief's son.
What happened the night of the thirteenth had nothing to do with that. We had been actually training, but the tiredness from lack of sleep got the better of us. The last thing I remembered was talking to Neteyam, both of us sitting on the floor with our backs to one of the mangroves. It had been about sign language, how to say something I didn't quite recall. My eyelids shut themselves close and I lost all sense of the notion.
When I woke up the day later, the sky still held its shiny stars, but the orange and yellow from the sun were very much visible. The first thing I noticed was a nice warmth spread throughout my body, stronger at my back. Then I felt some weight on my waist: a hand. A dark blue, manly hand. Realization struck me hard enough that I gasped and kept my mouth open.
Neteyam's arm was around my torso, his hand laying close to my belly, his thumb brushing on my skin. He was too close. I tried wiggling my way out of his grasp, doing slow and quiet movements to not wake him up. It only ended up with me touching him even more. When I turned my head to see if Neteyam was still asleep, I became breathless and felt warmth on my cheeks. I was less than an inch away from his face. His eyes closed, expression relaxed, lips parted, his soft breaths crashing with my face. Some of his braids covered his jaw and neck, the beads from them making the scene colorful. It felt wrong of him to not be awake to feel the moment.
I pulled away from Neteyam and stood up. The arm that was previously wrapped around me dropped to the floor. He frowned slightly and his whole body shrunk into a fetal position.
When he woke up, I did not tell him what had happened. He was only too worried about the clear skies and sun shining from above and told me that he should have been with his family by now. In less than five minutes he left to go somewhere.
BẠN ĐANG ĐỌC
A true seer | Neteyam
Fanfiction"We once used to be friends, Neteyam and I. We were more than that. If only my family had stayed in the forest, it could have remained that way. It must have been Eywa's will that we reunited ten years later, in my home in the Metkayina clan, and th...
