Neteyam x Ao'nung: in the cover of the leaves

3- Conflict in the water

Ao'nungs POV:

I awake with a startle to Tsireya dumping a bowl of water on me.

"Come on, we're going to teach the Sullys how to ride ilus. You already slept in sleepy head." Tsireya looks down at me, clearly a little fed up. I just stare up at her in shock for a moment before standing, rubbing my eyes as I walk towards the exit, Tsireya close behind.

They're already at the beach, all of them. Neteyam shoots me a little smile and I lift one corner of my mouth ever so slightly in return.

Small time skip

"These are ilus. If you want to live here you have to ride." I say while raising my arms. Neteyam looks away from me, breaking eye contact, to look at the ilu I called to the shore.

Lo'ak goes first, I look at him with a smirk as he holds on with one hand, and watch him set off. He falls off within seconds. I burst out with laughter, and Tsireya even lifts her hand to giggle for a short while before Lo'ak comes up looking degected. What a little loser. Tsireya should raise her standards or eywa help me.

Neteyam goes next, I watch as he sets off from under the water. For the first few seconds he struggles against the force of the water, clearly he didn't go in with correct diving form, but he quickly readjusts himself into a better position, his chest flatter to the ilu and his legs squeezing its sides. I don't know if it's because he's stronger or what but he holds on much longer than Loak, causing the shorter of the two to look even more upset. Neteyam though, he's... Impressive.

Eventually Neteyam resurfaced on his ilu, cheering. Tsireya clapped lightly and I just smiled at him.

A short while later we were done with the ilus and went our separate ways.

Time skip

Im walking along the beach when I see that freak, Kiri, laying like a dead fish in water. At first I approach her, conserved, but I quickly realize that shes just doing weird shit. She needs to stop that, she's scaring the village folk.

"She's just looking at the sand!" One of my buds laughs.

"Huh? What's you say?" Kiri asks innocently, sitting up in the water.

"Are you some kind of... Freak?" I ask.

"He asked if you are a freak." One of my friends repeats.

Kiri sighs in response, rolling her eyes and beginning to walk away. "No." She responds.

"Are you sure? I mean you're not even real Na'vi; look at these hands. I mean, look at them." I grab her hand as I speak. I don't trust them and their alien blood, sky people only hurt us Na'vi.

"Hey! Back off fish lips!" Lo'ak calls as he emerges from the wooded area. I don't have fish lips.

"Oh, another four fingered freak!" I laugh at him.

"Look at his little baby tail." A friend of mine teases while grabbing at his tail.

"Don't touch me!" Lo'ak pushes him away.

"Aww baby tail."

"Leave us alone!" Kiri demands. It's kind of hard not to listen to her, she has a very firm voice.

We're continuing to tease him when I feel my shoulder pulled back from behind me, shoving me to take a few steps back. It's Neteyam, the normalish one.

"You heard what she said. Leave them alone." He places his hand on my chest, holding me at a distance. My heart beat speeds up at this... Am I... Scared of him? No. Never! I fear nothing, I will be a good clan leader. But my heart won't stop beating.

"Oh big brother coming-" I cut off my short as friend by raising my hand.

"Back off." Neteyam seethe, his sharp teeth barred, "now." He pokes my chest again.

I raise my hands in surrender, taking a few steps back. I can play this off cool, even if my heart can't.

"Smart choice." Neteyam responds, "and from now on, I need you to respect my sister." I can't take my eyes off of him. The guy beside me begins to hiss and I shove him away, my eyes fixed on Neteyam. He's the only admirable one of this group, if it weren't for their demon blood he'd make a great leader.

Kiri sticks her tongue out at us.

"Let's go." Neteyam tells Lo'ak, grabbing the back of his head and beginning to walk off with him, holding eye contact for a while before turning away.

"Bye bye." The dude beside me begins to wave sarcastically, but I turn him away from them.

"Look at them. They're all freaks, the whole family." I utter.

"Lo'ak." Neteyam urges as Lo'ak turns to face us.

"I got this bro." He replies, raising a hand and walking towards us. "I know this hand is funny." He raises his pinky, "look, I'm a freak. Alien." I continue to smirk down at him, I wonder what he's trying to do. "But I can do something really cool, watch." By now I'm intrigued, and I watch his hand as it moves. "First I ball it up real tight like this, okay. Then-" he cuts himself off and a searing pain runs through my cheek, causing me to grunt. I open my eyes to look at him but he hits me again, with the other fist this time. Mother fucker. He hits me once more, this time sending me to the ground where my friends rush to help me up. I feel blood start to leak from my nose. This bitch.

"It's called a punch bitch!" He calls back. He's not getting away with this.

Neteyams POV

I hear Ao'nung laughing in the distance. He has a nice laugh, it would be much nicer if I didn't hear Lo'ak flipping his shit as well.

Little time skip

"Don't ever touch my sister again!" Lo'ak announces. As the some time Aonung is up one his feet, crouched and bearing his long fangs whole hissing. His little posse follows suit. Ao'nung runs to tackle Lo'ak, taking him down into the low tide. They roll around for a short while and Lo'ak is able to land a punch square to Ao'nungs face, again. That's gotta hurt. I shouldnt join the fight... I really shouldn't...

Two of them pull him but his tail (ouch) and another one does a fucking 360 no scope and hits Lo'ak with his tail.

That's it. I have to join in. Reluctantly, but also a little gift, I join the brawl taking place in the shallow water and sand. First I punchthe one that just whipped Loak and he goes down immediately. Weaker than I expected. I can hear Kiri telling us to stop but it's too late, I grab one with ugly ass hair by the shoulders as he runs at me and knee him in the groin. He falls down immediately as well. Damn, these are the ones making fun of us? A third catches me off guard and tackles me to the ground, landing on top of me with my legs going up in the air. The wind is knocked out me for a moment and in my gasp to inhale I feel a spray of water coat the inside of my throat. I'm able to flip him over and I start punching him in the face as I straddle atop him. Over. And. Over. Again.

Once I'm content with the amount of blood escaping his eyes, nose, mouth and other... Less standard openings on his face I decide to take down one of the other boys ganging up on Lo'ak, pulling him by his tail.

It takes me until I'm straddling over him, holding both of his hands down with one of mine to realize who it is.

Ao'nung.