Moonchild | Neteyam

33

CHAPTER 33

      Three days had gone by. Three days in which Erìhe refused to talk to Neteyam. He would try to speak to her - to apologize to her - but she would rarely even look in his direction.

Perhaps she was being dramatic. Still, she did not care. What he'd said had hurt her - it hurt her every time he got angry over her showing some sisterly love toward his siblings. Like he despised the thought of her being a part of his family.

But maybe she should be glad that he did not like it.

Children learned from their surroundings. Typically, a child would have parents who would be their role models and they would learn their behavior from them - as family was who you spent most of your time with.

Erìhe did not have this.

However, she had been fortunate enough to grow close to the Sully family. She had seen the dynamic between Jake and Neytiri, she remembered wishing to find love as real as theirs.

Erìhe wondered where this had disappeared off to when it came to Neteyam. She knew that Jake would never do anything to hurt Neytiri and vise versa.

So how come she and Neteyam could not refrain from doing this to one another?

Perhaps they were just not meant to be.

That's what Erìhe thought as she walked along one of the shores, kicking at the shallow water and watching as it splashed and created ripples on the surface.

She did not even know if Neteyam liked her or not. Maybe this was his way of showing her that he did not? It angered Erìhe. It was childish and stupid of her to be angry over her crush not liking her back - but then again she had to remind herself that nothing was sure.

They had never spoken anything along the lines of a relationship or romantic feelings for each other.

This made Erìhe regret the fact that she had done her very best to ignore Neteyam.

How could she walk along the beach, feeling sorry for herself when she had been the one to inflict this upon herself? Neteyam had tried to talk to her over the past days but all she'd done was turn her head in the opposite direction and walk away from him.

Suddenly she saw four figures racing across the water on their ilu. She saw that they were Neteyam, Rotxo and Ao'nung - upon seeing that Tsireya was among them, Erìhe quickly called upon her ride without another thought.

They seemed to be following someone.

As Erìhe grabbed a hold of her ilu and neared them, she was able to make out that it was Lo'ak. Though what she found intriguing was that the group seemed to not wish for Lo'ak to see them.

As she got close, Tsireya turned her head to look at her. The others were diving under the water to go undetected by Lo'ak and the girl beckoned Erìhe to follow behind.

Now under the water, Erìhe followed the others' lead and let go of her ilu, allowing it to swim off as she joined the group in hiding behind some larger underwater plants.

"What is happening?" Erìhe signed to Tsireya, a frown on her face.

"We suspected that Lo'ak came to see Payakan," Tsireya responded.

Erìhe turned her head to look through the gaps of the leaves. Sure enough - a large tulkun floated in the water near the surface. When she squinted and ignored the sunlight seeping through the water, Erìhe was able to see Lo'ak diving under the surface.

The group watched as he made his way to face the tulkun before shrugging his shoulder in question. Payakan opened his mouth wide and Erìhe watched the interaction unfold with a disbelieving expression.