Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The light that flickers across his eyelids as he blinks is warm, heavy with the weight of sunrise. Lo’ak squints, then shifts from where he’s lying on his mat, turning onto his side to avoid the beams of light streaming through the gap at the bottom of the marui’s canvas. He lets reality filter back in slowly, even as he is aware of almost nothing around him.

The memories sit solid in his mind. Lo’ak tries to sift through them, but with each attempt at a careful look-over, he finds his breath shortening.

The scouting party comes back and Ronal is sobbing, and Lo’ak understands when they’re told what happened because that’s- that’s her sister, who’s dead in the water somewhere beyond the reef, baby still and lifeless, eyes rolled up right alongside her, and Lo’ak thinks that if that happened to Payakan he’d be screaming too—

And then it is happening to Payakan, or almost, because Lo’ak’s there to help and so are his siblings, and his friends, and Lo’ak swears he won’t let anything happen to any of them—

His wrists burn against the weight of his cuffs but he keeps pulling, tugging at the restraints and begging Eywa for them to break, but the only thing that breaks is skin, and warm blood rushes down his wrists—

The gunfire is loud, so loud, and Lo’ak’s ears instinctively pin back against his ears without his permission like he’s a scared little kid, but then Neteyam is gasping and bleeding and oh Eywa they’re all just scared little kids—

Neteyam’s blood keeps spilling and spilling and spilling and he’s begging to go home, until he isn’t saying anything at all and Lo’ak suddenly can’t breathe—

He saves his dad and Kiri saves their mom and Tuk, but—

The blood won’t wash out.

The funeral is at night and Neteyam’s body is lowered slowly—

The blood won’t wash out.

Lo’ak goes to make tsaheylu with the Spirit Tree, to see his brother, but—

The blood won’t wash out.

Lo’ak blinks again, and stares at his hands. Blue. Blue only, no crimson, no stink of iron and death. Outside, he can hear Awa’atlu beginning to stir, the seabirds calling joyfully to each other in the morning air, the murmurings of the Metkayina as they wake for the day. The waves splash gently against the mangrove tree roots that support their marui, and nothing is wrong.

Somewhere deep inside him, Lo’ak begins to scream.

- - -

He tells himself it was all a bad dream. He goes out for his spearfishing lesson with Neteyam and Rotxo but not a word reaches his ears. When the time to give it a try comes Lo’ak barely avoids spearing his own foot, and while everyone laughs good-naturedly and Lo’ak attempts to convey embarrassed amusement, Neteyam watches him quietly with a knowing look.

Lo’ak averts his gaze, because he can’t stop thinking about how those eyes looked as the life bled right out of them. 

- - -

He tells himself it was all a bad dream. But then the rainclouds roll in at midmorning, and the horns sound at noon, signalling an emergency.

Lo’ak watches silently from the docks as his dad and mom go with Tonowari and Ronal and a few others to scout the problem out, but he does not wait until their return. He knows what they will find.

He knows.

- - -

He tells himself it was all a bad dream, but then he’s speeding off to warn Payakan about the markers and he finds his brother already marked, the demon ship bearing down on them.

- - -

He tells himself it was all a bad dream, but then his wrists are bloodied and rubbed raw against restraints, and his brother comes and saves him, and they go back for Spider.

- - -

He tells himself it was all a bad dream, until Neteyam is dead on the rocks, his last words double-edged and ringing in his ears in two different memories, and Lo’ak is still the one to blame.

- - -

The light that flickers across his eyelids as he blinks is warm, heavy with the weight of sunrise. Lo’ak squints, then shifts from where he’s lying on his mat, turning onto his side to avoid the beams of light streaming through the gap at the bottom of the marui’s canvas. 

Then he bolts up and heaves, a dry series of sounds that bring nothing up and only leaves Lo’ak’s throat aching and raw. Eventually, the retching stops, and Lo’ak leans against a pile of baskets, breathing shakily, images layered in his mind like two sunbeams shining onto the same patch of sand.

An indeterminable amount of time later, he’s disturbed.

“Woah baby bro, you okay?” A hand settles against Lo’ak’s shoulder and he has to stop the flinch that steals across his spine.

Lo’ak does not look up, but he can see his brother’s knees shuffle closer across the floor of their marui, concern practically radiating off of him. Lo’ak squeezes his eyes shut and rubs them furiously with his fists, willing the afterimages to go away. 

“Lo’ak?” Neteyam prods again, lightly shaking Lo’ak’s shoulder. “You’re really starting to worry me now. Should I get Dad?”

“No!” Lo’ak exclaims, and then his head is shooting up along with his protest and suddenly he’s looking into his older brother’s eyes, eyes that are wide and bright, creased in worry, and very much not blank and lifeless.

A shudder works its way through Lo’ak’s frame, and he drops his gaze back down before he can drown in the memories. “I’m fine, bro. Just a… just a bad dream.” And he wants the lie to be true, but Lo’ak isn’t so sure that that’s what’s going on anymore.

“Aw, baby bro,” Neteyam coos, and if it were anyone else Lo’ak would punch them. But Neteyam manages to make the noise sound comforting rather than patronizing. “We are safe here, don’t worry. Tonowari said no one has told the humans where we are, and even if they did, you know Dad wouldn’t let anything happen to us.”

But he does, Lo’ak wants to scream. He does, he does, he does, and you die and it’s all my fault.

“Right,” he says instead. “I know.”

Neteyam claps him on the shoulder and offers him a hand up. “Come on then, we have to get to our lesson soon. Mom left breakfast; seems like someone was a sleepyhead this morning!” 

Lo’ak grumbles but brings his eyes back up, meeting his brother’s gaze and doing his best not to let his expression crumble into the agony he feels in his chest as he sees the bright grin on Neteyam’s face. Neteyam, he wants to say, wants to wail, wants to collapse to his knees and let his older brother hold him and feel his skin, warm and not frozen cold in death, lying on the rocks.

Instead, he lets Neteyam get him breakfast, but does not follow him to the spearfishing lesson.

“I’m not feeling very good,” he begs off, putting a plea into his eyes that he knows makes him look sadder than Tuk after being told it’s bedtime. He’d stopped doing it years ago, but he needs to get out. He needs to get away from his brother so he can stop seeing him dead. He needs to figure out what the fuck is wrong with him. “I’m going to stay back and do some of the chores here, you go on without me.”

Neteyam lets him go, but not without another one of his concerned glances, eyebrows sloping and mouth pressed into a thin line. Lo’ak feels bad for making him worry, but as soon as Neteyam is out of the line of sight Lo’ak doesn’t care anymore, because then he’s running.

He runs until he’s deep in the mangrove trees, their towering branches sending only the occasional shimmer of sunlight through to pierce the shade of the grove. He runs far enough until there’s near-solid ground under the roots of the trees, until the sounds of the village life fades completely, then further, until he’s gasping for air and can’t run any longer.

Lo’ak collapses to his knees, slouching against the roots of one of the mangroves, digging his fingers into the sandy, wet dirt and feeling it until he can breathe again. He looks up, and his eyes catch one of the shafts of sunlight beaming through to the ground.

“Eywa,” he begs, “what is happening to me?”

Silence answers him.

- - -

He figures out that the loop has a set time. It always begins with Lo’ak lying on his mat in the family marui, and it always ends the next day as he connects to the Spirit Tree at Neteyam’s funeral. 

Nothing changes, and Neteyam dies. And dies, and dies, and dies. 

Is this his punishment? Is this Lo’ak’s penitence for causing his brother's death, for killing Neteyam like his dad always said he would? To relive it all, over and over and over again?

Is this his fate, for all of it being his fault?

Neteyam dies for the fifth time, and Lo’ak walks back into the trees and screams.

- - -

Upon waking up to the sixth loop, Lo’ak stays lying on his mat and breathes. Obviously, he’s not here for no reason. Eywa is sending him back in time, over and over, for something. It can’t just be for punishment; Lo’ak knows their goddess isn’t vengeful in that way. She must want something from him.

So, Lo’ak picks the event that he’s sure is sending him here, and he tries to change it.

- - -

“Hey baby brother,” Neteyam says, water slicking off of him as he crouches to cut Tsireya’s restraints. “Need some help?”

Lo’ak’s wrists are bloody again, but he doesn’t respond with his usual “shut up.” Instead, he lets himself sigh with relief and then tense as his own bonds are cut. Now or never.

“Who’s the Mighty Warrior? Come on, say it.”

“You are,” Lo’ak replies, rolling his eyes. 

A bark of laughter escapes Neteyam’s mouth, surprised and pleased at Lo’ak’s easy acquiescence. “Come on, let’s go.”

And Lo’ak follows him off the ship.

- - -

Later, when they give Neteyam and Kiri to Eywa, Lo’ak will curse himself for ever trying in the first place.

- - -

He finds his mom in the morning, weaving new fish baskets with Tuk by the shoreline. He stands a ways off for a while, watching them work in the warm rays of sunrise, admiring how the pink-orange light makes the blue of his mom’s skin seem like the radiant purple of dusk. He watches Tuk get distracted and wander off, likely in search of shiny shells, before he makes his way over and sits beside his mom.

She says nothing and neither does he, but when he leans into her side with quiet trepidation, she only shifts to accommodate his weight.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, and Lo’ak finds comfort in watching her hands work, solid and assured. His gaze skips to where Tuk has found her friends, where they splash in the shallows in some kind of game. 

“My son,” Neytiri begins, “you are troubled.”

Lo’ak does not reply, but he does not deny it either.

“What is weighing on you?” She says the words like an invitation, like she will not judge him for what answer he gives, but neither will she reproach him for silence. Lo’ak has always loved his mother for that; for the way she cares softly, letting them come to her, without force or anger. So different from his father, who loves like fire and fear.

“I keep dreaming,” Lo’ak begins, “these terrible dreams. Where terrible things happen and I can’t do anything to change them.” It is the closest to the truth he will ever give anyone, he thinks, then swallows, waiting for the reply.

His mom hums, thoughtful, and continues weaving for a few moments before setting her work down and placing a hand on Lo’ak’s head, stroking through his hair gently.

“We all dream, maitan. Sometimes, they are good dreams. And sometimes, they are not. Do you believe these dreams were sent by Eywa?” She turns her heavy gaze to him, and Lo’ak sweats because he does not lie to his mother, but now he must.

“No,” he replies, managing a cool, if not a little tight, tone. “I don’t think so.”

Neytiri stares a little longer into his eyes while he wills himself not to fidget, before nodding and returning to her work. “Then they are just dreams, and mean nothing in the waking world. Focus on now, Lo’ak. Focus on what can be done here, where the living dwell.”

“Okay.” He only accomplishes a whisper in his reply, but that doesn’t seem to phase his mom, who nudges him with her shoulder.

“Now go on, find your brother. I am sure he is waiting for you somewhere.”

And isn’t that just the center of it all.

- - -

He makes a list. Things that always happen. Things that change with him. 

Things that always happen: Roa and her calf always die. Payakan is always marked. Tsireya, Tuk, and him are always taken to the ship. Spider always crashes the ship. Neteyam always dies.

Things that change with him: how or if Spider is saved. Whether or not more of his family die with Neteyam. 

The difference in the two lists makes Lo’ak flatten his ears to his head until he takes a second look at the first list. Things that always happen. Always. But he hasn’t tried to change some of them, now has he?

This is how Lo’ak finds out the second way to end a loop.

- - -

He picks the simplest event out of the bunch. Or, what he thinks is the simplest. It’s easy, really: if he warns Payakan to leave before Roa and her calf are ever killed, then Payakan will never be marked and he, his siblings, and his friends will never have reason to get caught by the humans.

He tries to skip out on spearfishing practice again, but he can’t duck out in time before Neteyam catches him and drags him there by the arm. It’s a few hours before Lo’ak can escape, and by then he’s wasted precious time.

The rain had already started long ago by the time he gets to the docks and jumps on an ilu, speeding away before anyone notices. He hopes he’s not too late, that he’ll have enough time to warn Payakan and return before anyone notices his absence. He rushes through the waves, intent on his goal, hopeful that maybe, just maybe, this will finally change something.

He finds Payakan by the rocks, and his brother is overjoyed to see him as always, the sun now peeking through the clouds.

“Brother!” Lo’ak shouts, diving off of his ilu and gliding smoothly through the water to rest on Payakan’s shortfin. The sea around them is quiet, and for the first time in almost two weeks of looping Lo’ak can exist with his spirit brother in a moment of peace. He can only blame that on his voice cracking and hands shaking when he says and signs, “I missed you.”

We saw each other yesterday, comes Payakan’s amused thrum, but I missed you too.

For a minute, Lo’ak simply rests his head against Payakan’s brow, breathing shakily and feeling his brother breathe underneath him. Alive and well, not marked for death, not being chased down by death-hungry humans.

Brother? What is wrong? The vibrations of Payakan’s vocalizations make the water shift around them, and Lo’ak laughs wetly. Of course Payakan can sense something is up. 

“Nothing, I-” Lo’ak’s voice breaks again, and he clears his throat. “I’m just happy to see you.”

You are different. Heavier. You bear a new weight that is crushing your shoulders. Come, share the burden with me. 

And Lo’ak wants to. He wants to so bad. But he doesn’t know the rules of these loops, doesn’t know what Eywa wants, if this is something he has to bear for himself or not. He doesn’t want to risk the consequences of speaking the truth. And he doesn’t want to be looked at like he’s crazy.

“I can’t,” Lo’ak finally responds. “Eywa gave me this task, and I need to finish it. One day, I’ll tell you. For now, please trust me?” He feels bad leaning on their bond in order to make Payakan stop questioning, but he doesn’t have any other choice.

If that is what you wish. I am sorry, for whatever it is. It does not seem an easy thing to hold.

Lo’ak laughs, just a bit broken. “No. It isn’t. But I don’t have a choice.”

Payakan sings a sorrowful note of understanding, and Lo’ak leans against him again, taking in the steady presence of his spirit brother. They drift in comfort and each other’s company for a while, before Lo’ak remembers what he’s there for and he snaps to alertness.

“Payakan, you need to leave,” he says. “The humans are coming, and they’ve been hunting Tulkun around here, just like with your old pod.”

Payakan whistles in alarm. The hunters are here?

“Yes, so you need to leave,” Lo’ak insists. “Please, they’re coming here and when they find you, they’re going to kill you.”

They will not kill me. I will kill them. Payakan’s deep, angry hum reverberates through Lo’ak’s body until his teeth hurt. They will not harm more of us.

“No, you don’t understand! If you don’t leave, terrible things are going to happen! People are going to die!” Lo’ak resists the urge to start pushing on his brother, as if that would do anything. Why does Payakan not understand the stakes here? “Please, Payakan. Just trust me, you need to go.”

What about you? And your family? The hunters want you, do they not?

“Yes, but,” Lo’ak says, throwing his hands up in the air, “they’re not going to tag us and hunt us down before blowing up our stomachs with explosive depth charges!”

Payakan is quiet and Lo’ak winces, feeling the weight of his words in the air suddenly.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “That’s not fair of me, to use your memories against you. But you need to understand that while they’re after me, they’re not going to kill me. They need me alive. You? They just want to kill you to get to us. By staying here, you’re playing right into their trap.”

After a moment, Payakan lets out a low drone, almost like a sigh. I understand. I do not wish to put you in further danger. I will go.

Lo’ak breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he murmurs, rubbing his hands gently across Payakan’s brow. “You do not know how much this means to me.”

Maybe not. But I see you, brother. I will listen, if this is what you ask.

Lo’ak tries and fails to stifle the lump growing in his throat. “I see you too, brother,” he returns. “Please-”

Whatever Lo’ak had been about to say next dies in his throat, as the shrill pitch of a ship engine whines over the surface of the water and reaches his ears. He looks up sharply and feels his heart freeze in his chest as he sees the demon ships crest the waves a few hundred meters out.

How on earth had this much time passed?

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit!” Lo’ak slides down until his chest is against Payakan’s shortfin, his hands holding tight to the ridge, panic lacing his throat. “We gotta go!” 

Hold on, is all the warning Lo’ak gets before Payakan dives into the water and the game of viperwolf and direhorse begins.

They duck and swerve through the coral and rocks, before Lo’ak realizes that his presence will directly hinder Payakan’s abilities to escape. They’ll need to surface for air eventually, but that will put Payakan directly into the humans’ line of fire. He tries to sign for Payakan to leave him, but he can’t sign without letting go of his grip on Payakan’s fin, and doing so would result in being swept away. Without Payakan understanding why, he’ll come back for Lo’ak which would bring him closer to the ship.

It’s a lose-lose scenario, and as they surface for air Lo’ak realizes how royally and utterly screwed they are. 

The demon ships had gotten closer, enough that Lo’ak sees them readying the harpoon holding the signature red mark of death.

“Dive, dive, dive!” He hollers at Payakan, looking back just in time to watch in horror as the mark is shot. It lands true, earning a pained and enraged groan from Payakan as the sharp needle digs into his skin and holds fast.

“Shit!” Lo’ak yells, before they’re diving again. 

But it’s already too late.

With Lo’ak unable to get the tracker out of Payakan’s skin, his comm forgotten at home, and the demon ships closing in, they’re dead.

Lo’ak feels fear creep up his spine at the speed of lightning, taking hold of his lungs and squeezing, but there’s no time to think. Small canisters begin to whiz into the water around them and a second later they explode, the loud sound and the proximity of the explosions sending Payakan and Lo’ak reeling.

Please, Lo’ak thinks, help us.

But no help comes, and the next shot is the hooks Lo’ak remembers from Payakan’s memories. They inflate and buoy Payakan up to the surface, Lo’ak going up with him.

Lo’ak, swim! Payakan shrieks into the water. Leave me!

“No!” Lo’ak shouts, holding onto Payakan’s fin with a deathgrip. “I won’t let you die here!” I won’t let you die alone.
Payakan bellows a deep, mournful cry, and then the final hit lands, the explosive harpoon releasing and shooting up into Payakan’s stomach.

It ruptures, and Lo’ak swears he can feel it. 

“Payakan!” He screams as his brother screeches in pain. They rock wildly for a moment and Lo’ak is certain he’s about to lose his grip, before Payakan levels out and continues swimming weakly.

You must leave, Payakan groans. Please, brother. Tell the others what has happened. What has become of me.

“No,” Lo’ak cries, “please. Please.” He doesn’t know what he’s begging for, until Payakan’s eyes roll upwards and he thrums out a final song.

Goodbye, Lo’ak. Brothermine.

Then Payakan goes still.

“No. No, no, no! Payakan!” Lo’ak screams, frantically trying to wake his brother from a state he knows all too well. “Please no! Don’t leave me! Payakan!”

His pleading falls on deaf ears, and then Lo’ak can only hear the buzzing of the approaching ships. He turns slowly and watches as the demon boats bounce along the waves towards him.

And then grief turns to rage, and as one of the boats draws near, Lo’ak jumps upon it, knife in hand and fury in his eyes as he slashes through the throat of one of the men manning a harpoon-shooter.

He makes it through two more men before he hears the thunder of a gun, and he feels piercing pain enter his stomach and leg. He collapses, his vision going grey as he cries out from the agony ripping through his body.

Voices surround him, harsh and grating, laughter rolling in waves, and then hands descend on his body. He wants to snarl, to kick and fight, but he’s too busy gasping for air and wondering is this how it felt for you, Neteyam?

He catches a few sentences, but soon his vision is darkening, fading in and out into a black beyond he is so, so scared of.

“-should we do with him?”

“-leave him. . . another message-”

“-dumb kid.”

An indeterminable amount of time later, Lo’ak is roused by the feeling of the cool edge of water against his skin. He blinks, trying to see, and finds himself lying against familiar, rubbery skin. 

“-at’ll teach the bastards.”

“-ome on. . . need to get going-”

And then he is alone, the quiet lapping of the water teasing at the wounds on his body that he knows from experience are weeping deep crimson into the gentle waves to form a sickening cloud.

But he is not alone for long.

“Lo’ak!”

There are hands on him, but these ones are not rough or harsh. They are gentle, familiar.

A face appears in his vision. 

“Baby brother,” Neteyam weeps, “what have they done to you?”

Lo’ak grunts, blood spilling from his lips as he tries to speak. “N-Nete-eyam.” It’s the only word he manages to get out around the hurt burning through him. He raises his hand to his brother’s blurry face, where it’s caught in Neteyam’s firm, comforting grip. 

“Lo’ak please,” Neteyam sobs, his normally composed posture crumbling into raw fear. “Stay with me, stay with me! Help is coming, please, just hang on!” He looks out to the water and shouts to someone, “Get my dad! Hurry!”

But the world is fading in and out again, and Lo’ak knows he’s not coming back from this one. So he tries for a grin, knows it’s bloody but doesn’t care, and tugs Neteyam’s gaze back to him with a whine. “S’rry,” he slurs. “‘M s’rry.”

“No, no, no, you have nothing to be sorry for baby brother,” Neteyam soothes. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

With the last of his rapidly failing strength, Lo’ak breathes out a soft, “I love you.”

He stays long enough to hear his brother’s devastated response. “I love you too, Lo’ak. So much. Stay with me, stay with. . .”

And then everything simply. . . fades away.

- - -

Lo’ak revises what he knows. The loop always begins with Lo’ak lying on his mat in the family marui, the waves gentle against the mangrove roots, the warm sunlight greeting him through the gaps in the canvas. It ends two days later as he connects to the Spirit Tree at Neteyam’s funeral, his family weeping around him and the glow of the Spirit Tree a damning yellow. 

Or it ends when he dies himself.

- - -

The waking from his first death is ugly. He wakes and immediately is on his knees, retching. He can still feel the bullet holes, the phantom pain screaming at him that he’s dying he’s dying, oh Eywa, he’s dying.

It takes a few minutes of hyperventilating until he can calm himself down enough to pat himself over. He feels nothing but smooth, warm skin, no hint of blood or gore or death anywhere on him.

Another minute later, and he’s running, back out into the trees, away from the village full of eyes that will judge, away from the memories that desperately cry for his attention; Payakan’s last note, the bullets entering his body, his brother crying above him-

He mistimes a jump and falls, landing face-first into the shallow waves still sucking determinedly at the mangrove roots. The water lapping at his skin only pulls him further into the memory, the cool flow of it stinging his wounds and swallowing the blood seeping from his body. 

He gags again, then begins to weep, all the while beginning to feel like this truly is a punishment from Eywa after all.

- - -

He tries again.

This time, he steals out of the marui immediately upon waking and avoids all familiar faces, managing to slip out of the village on an ilu before anyone can stop him.

He arrives at Three Brothers Rock, and finds his brother there. Before Payakan can whistle a greeting, Lo’ak is pushing at him, turning them both towards the open sea.

“We’ve got to go, you’ve got to leave, Payakan.”

His brother does not understand, and even when he does, even after Lo’ak explains and convinces him to flee for his life, it does not work.

The buzzing whine of the demon ship pierces the horizon, and Lo’ak feels his stomach sink.

He does not even make it to the point where he is found, where the comfort of his brother can ease him into the next loop. A bullet tears through his head, and there is pain, and then there is nothing.

- - -

He tries again.

He does not understand why the humans come early, but he tries again. They come, again, relentless and burning with greed, reeking of death, but this time Lo’ak and Payakan make a stand and fight.

Lo’ak brings a spear and uses it to impale two of the men on the nearest boat, before jumping off and letting Payakan breach over it and crash onto it, crushing it beneath his body and leaving it to sink. They repeat the process twice more, until the humans catch on and Lo’ak feels the sting of bullets rip through his stomach and throat. 

He has enough time to hear Payakan’s enraged, grief-stricken wail before the world goes dark.

- - -

He tries again.

He and Payakan attempt to outright flee, but they are dragged back by the whir of the ships and the weight of the harpoon lines. 

They die.

- - -

He tries again.

They dive to hide from the lines, but there is nowhere near that’s deep enough to escape and Lo’ak needs to come up for air eventually. 

They die.

- - -

He tries again. He fails. The now-familiar bite of the metal, human-made bullets sink into his flesh and he loses his grip on Payakan’s fin, the current sweeping him back and away, sinking him into the waiting arms of the ocean.

Lo’ak watches the ripple of light dance across the surface of the sea, a mirror to the way the sunlight used to frolic across the forest floor after finding its way through the swaying branches of the trees. It’s quiet now, under the water, the hunt speeding away into the distance, leaving Lo’ak to watch the red of his blood blossom around him into the cool blue of the water.

Lo’ak eyes flutter, and he doesn’t even feel the pain of the water entering his lungs anymore.

This isn’t working, he thinks distantly, the blue fading to grey, fading to black. Payakan will always be marked. The demon ships will always come. 

And Lo’ak, if he leaves early, will always die.

- - -

He tries one more time.

This time, as he leaves the marui, Lo’ak clips his comm onto his throat, brushing the metal with five fingers and hoping that maybe, this will work. Maybe, calling his father and the Metkayina early will provoke the fight on their own terms. Maybe, he will not have to die again.

Just before reaching Payakan, Lo’ak slows his ilu and drifts in the water a ways off. He takes a deep breath, reaching back into his mind, into the memories of his deaths that he would rather forget. But he needs the weight of them, needs the experience of the horror and pain to come through his voice so his father believes him. It takes a little less than half an hour to reach Three Brothers Rock when riding at top speed, and he and Payakan are going to need a headstart if they’re going to survive long enough for help to arrive.

He reaches his hand up to his comm and clicks it on.

“Dad?” His voice shakes, trembling along with his hands as he forces himself to focus on the vivid images of his deaths. “Dad, are you there?”

“Lo’ak?” His dad’s voice crackles to life along the line, and Lo’ak could faint with relief. “Lo’ak, where the hell are you boy, what’s wrong?”

“Dad, the humans are coming. I’m at Three Brothers Rock, with Payakan, and the demon ships are here and they’re coming for Payakan, please you gotta help, please Dad!”

A brief moment of silence, and Lo’ak has enough time to think that maybe his dad doesn’t believe him after all, maybe he’ll leave Lo’ak alone to die again, thinking this is all some sort of elaborate prank from his useless son. But then his dad replies, and fear lives in his tone.

“Lo’ak, you listen to me right now. You get away from Payakan and you swim as far away from those ships as you can, do you hear me?”

“I- I hear you.”

“And then you hide and you wait for us to come, okay? We’re coming, just hold on okay? Don’t let them see you.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. We’ll be there as soon as we can, I promise. Do not do anything stupid.”

Lo’ak almost rolls his eyes. Trust his dad to make this about Lo’ak being stupid again. But, he muses, he is about to do something monumentally stupid. Has been doing that already for days.

With the line going quiet Lo’ak pulls himself out of the memories, hands still shaking, and dismounts his ilu, waving it off to return to the village. He won’t need it here, and perhaps it might be able to direct the coming warriors to his location faster. Then he swims a ways to join Payakan, calling a greeting and pulling himself onto his brother’s shortfin.

What is wrong, brother? Somehow, Payakan always knows. It’s a comfort, in that Lo’ak has someone who knows him so well, who loves him so dearly that he recognizes as soon as something is amiss. But it’s also irritating, because Lo’ak cannot tell him the truth and has to brush him off every time.

“No time to explain, we have to move,” Lo’ak replies shortly. “There are humans coming, and they’re going to kill us.” Us, he says. Us, not you. Because Lo’ak has tasted death alongside Payakan now, time and time again. Each time his own fault. It’s always his fault, and he cannot stop the thought before it blooms: Payakan never died before. You have caused him this pain. You have killed another brother again and again and again.

It takes convincing, it always does, but Lo’ak knows the right words now, so Payakan quickly relents and agrees to begin fleeing in the hopes that they can outlast the humans until help arrives.

A minute later, the familiar drone of the demon ships reaches them, and Lo’ak’s ears flatten against his head. Time to go.

The chase lasts for some time. Despite the pain of the deaths he’s had to endure at the hands of the humans, Lo’ak has learned much from his time being hunted by them. He knows how they think in this chase, how they turn, how they move, what they want from them. He’s able to better predict what they will do in response to Payakan’s movements, and as such he’s able to direct Payakan away from getting trapped in by the boats.

They avoid the lines, until they don’t. All it takes is one small mistake. One wrong turn, one slight direction shift, and the red pinger, the signal of death, buries itself into Payakan’s back and begins singing its beeping, dooming song.

The humans make quick work of them then, the process of it all now uncomfortably, intimately known by Lo’ak, who has died by its hands time and time again. They send their ballooning traps, heaving Payakan to the surface even as Payakan screeches, thrashing against the restraints. As they breach the water Lo’ak yells assurances to his spirit brother, even as he knows.

Across the horizon, the yips and battle cries of his people come as they round the bend of the rocks; the Metkayina have arrived.

But they are too late.

Payakan stills in the water, succumbing to the explosive harpoon lodged in his chest, wailing out his last words to Lo’ak, apologizing and wishing him farewell. Lo’ak wishes he didn’t know those words so well.

Even with help coming, Lo’ak crouches against Payakan’s body, tense and gripping his spear with white knuckles. He watches as the demon ships circle around him, closing in as they always do, like akula smelling weakness and blood. Except akula hunt for a purpose, for survival. The humans hunt for greed. They hunt because they want to, because they can. 

Lo’ak bares his teeth and snarls as one of the boats comes near and stops in front of him as he crouches against Payakan’s body, defiant. Several of the humans raise their guns and he readies himself to launch over to the boat and take as many of them down before dying once more.

But instead of firing, one of the humans gestures to the others, who lower their guns.

“Boss wants to take him in,” the human in charge says. “Hurry, before the rest of those savages charge at us.”

Oh, hell no. 

The humans raise their weapons and bring the boat closer and Lo’ak hisses, before darting up to stand on Payakan’s back instead of his shortfin. He crouches, then sees one of the humans raise a gun larger than the ones he’s used to seeing. Instinct takes over then, and he launches his spear with all his might, hitting the human square in the chest and launching him to the back of the boat, the spear digging into the metal of the ship’s side and pinning the human’s body there.

Quiet descends for a moment, the only sound in Lo’ak’s ears the desperate pounding of his heart, and then the humans explode into movement, the uneasy stillness of confrontation shattered by their anger. 

A few of the men leap over the side of the boat and jump onto Payakan, and Lo’ak snarls at them for daring to disrespect his brother’s body by standing on it with their demon boots, but his rage goes unheeded.

He unsheathes his knife as he’s surrounded, but the fight is regrettably short. Lo’ak is surrounded, outnumbered, and already exhausted from the chase. All it takes is one wrong step and he stumbles, allowing one of the humans to sweep his legs out from under him. He falls hard, the wind knocking out of him and leaving him unable to fight back as the humans swarm him, pinning him down with their rough hands, shouting in their rough language, and binding him like an animal.

Lo’ak fights. He struggles and bites and leaves every human around him bleeding as they drag him back to the boat, but it’s no use. Soon enough, they’re speeding away back to the main ship, and Lo’ak can only stare back at the gathering Metkayina and pray that he does not get anyone else killed.

They dump him out onto the deck, a violent shove sending him sprawling onto the ground. He smacks his head onto the hard floor and he groans, his vision whiting out for a brief moment before he’s back, gasping and shivering and watching a pair of large, blue legs approach him.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the Sully brat. Guess today’s my lucky day.”

Dread shoots through Lo’ak chest and he looks up as best he can. Above him towers the man who’s been hunting them all these months, the avatar of a man Lo’ak’s parents seldom talked about, and then only in hushed whispers they thought would not reach their children’s ears. The demon that haunts his father’s eyes and his mother’s heart, the one who has killed his way back into their world. 

The one who has killed Lo’ak’s brother again and again and again. 

Quaritch leans down and leers at him, a predatory smirk on his face as he reaches out to grasp Lo’ak’s chin. Before he can touch him, Lo’ak snaps his teeth and tries to bite him, hissing as Quaritch retracts his fingers in time. 

The man tsks like he’s scolding a child, and Lo’ak has never been violent but suddenly all he wants to do in this moment is wring the man’s neck until he’s pale and lifeless beneath him.

“Now, now. Let’s all just play nice, hm? Be a good little hostage while I talk to daddy.” Quaritch moves fast and pins Lo’ak’s head to the ground, pushing it into the concrete floor against the spot he’d banged it earlier. Lo’ak snarls through the blinding pain, thrashing in an attempt to dislodge the humiliating pin, but it’s no use.

Quaritch yanks the comms off his throat and the earpiece from his ear, then stands up and moves back. “Cuff him to the rail,” he commands sharply. 

Two men haul Lo’ak to his feet and Lo’ak tries to fight back, but the sudden change in position combined with the pain in his head combine to assault him with intense dizziness, and the men have to half drag half lead Lo’ak to the side of the ship. They slap the orange restraints onto his wrists around the rails, and once again Lo’ak is held prisoner on the ship he can’t stop returning to, the ship he can’t stop getting his brother killed on.

Always the failure. Always the one at fault. Never in the right place, never at the right time, always always always screwing everything up.

The dizziness subsides, and Lo’ak begins tugging at his restraints wildly, some deep, primal part of him recoiling in horror at the all-too-familiar feel of steel on his skin, pinned to the side of the ship. It’s no use and the restraints don’t budge, but Lo’ak can’t quite seem to stop himself from splitting open his skin as he struggles. Maybe it’s a punishment. Maybe it’s his way to at least try. He doesn’t know, but he keeps going anyway.

He half listens as Quaritch gives the same deal as he always does to his dad, the words identical to the ones he gives when Lo’ak, Tsireya, and Tuk are on the ship. But this time, it’s just Lo’ak, and even as he feels the intense paranoia at being alone surrounded by enemies, the relief of the girls being safe washes over him in a heady wave.

“Do not test my resolve, corporal. I will not hesitate.”

The cold metal of a gun muzzle settles against the back of Lo’ak’s head and he stills his struggles. They’ve become acquainted, he and the gun, the feel of the steel against him, the quiet threat of death. He knows, intimately, the way each bullet feels as it buries itself into his flesh, the impersonal way it rips through him and brings him back to that cloying darkness, how that darkness gives way to sunlight and brings him back to the beginning.

Just shoot me! Lo’ak wants to scream. Just do it! This loop feels wasted, pointless. Payakan is dead and the Metkayina arrived early, but Lo’ak got himself captured and they’re back in the same position they always are. Just let me start over again!

But he bites back the bile and the words and watches as the distant blue figure of his father peels off from the rest of the Metkayina and makes its way forward. The journey is slow and tense, and as his dad gets closer than he’s used to seeing, Lo’ak’s heart drops as the realization hits.

Payakan is dead. He’s not here to charge the ship, to give the Metkayina an opening to attack, to give Jake a chance to slip away in the chaos. 

His father is going to board this ship. And then he is going to die.

Lo’ak begins struggling again, yanking and yanking and yanking at the restraints, throwing his whole bodyweight against his wrists and feeling the way they creak and protest and split open anew, but he can’t stop. Not when he’s condemned another family member to death all over again.

“Quit struggling boy,” Quaritch barks, shoving the gun more firmly against the back of Lo’ak’s head. “You’re not gettin’ outta here.”

But Lo’ak can’t stop. He pulls at the cuffs as his father draws near, he pulls at the cuffs as his father boards the ship, and he pulls at the cuffs as his father’s knees are kicked out from under him and he’s pinned to the floor of the ship just like Lo’ak was minutes ago.

“Dad-” Lo’ak says, his voice breaking, “Dad, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I-”

“Oh shut up,” Quaritch says from behind him. The gun muzzle disappears from Lo’ak’s head, but swiftly after it comes a violent strike from the butt of the gun. It hits right at Lo’ak’s temple and he cries out, his whole body jerking from the force of the blow and slamming against the railing of the ship. 

His ears ring as his body slumps and falls, his mangled wrists shrieking anew with pain as they take most of his weight. 

“Lo’ak!” The yell comes distantly, and Lo’ak fights to remain upright, to open his eyes and watch with blurry vision as his dad tries and fails to struggle out of the hold of the many humans that hold him back. “Don’t touch him you bastard!”

“‘M okay,” Lo’ak slurs, blinking rapidly to clear his vision. “‘M good.”

Then comes a vile voice, drawling, “This is sweet and all, but we have business to attend to.” Quaritch leaves Lo’ak and stalks towards Jake, who’s managed to raise himself to his knees. 

Lo’ak watches, weakly trying to get to his knees as well, as his dad glares with eyes of iron at Quaritch as he approaches him.

“We made a deal, Quaritch. Me for him. Let him go.”

Quaritch grins, tight and ruthless. “Yeah, I know what I said. But now, I’m not so sure if that’s what I want to do.”

Jake snarls and tries to lunge at Quaritch even as he’s held back again. “You bastard! We made a deal! Marine to marine!”

“But Jake, I’m not a marine anymore, remember? It’s a whole new me,” Quaritch sneers, fierce satisfaction writing itself across his face.

Lo’ak feels sick. How did he manage to screw this loop up so badly? 

“In fact, I think we’ll keep the both of you. Imagine the headlines: Traitor Jake Sully and Half-Savage Son Captured! I think it’ll make good press, hm?”

“You’re sick,” Jake growls, and Lo’ak hopes he’s the only one that can see the fear curling itself around his dad’s spine, present in the smallest tightening of his shoulders.

Quaritch shrugs, unbothered. “I’m efficient. Now let’s get going boys!”

The deck bursts into movement around them as the ship begins to move slowly away from the Metkayina. Quaritch gestures to the men holding Jake and instructs them to take him and Lo’ak to the brig, but just as one of the men comes forward to grab Lo’ak, the whole ship lurches and suddenly begins to speed towards the rocks.

Lo’ak stares, hope beginning to blossom in his stomach as he remembers.

Spider always crashes the ship.

The humans around them begin to scream and move more frantically, but there’s no stopping the coming reckoning. Lo’ak braces himself as much as he can in his current state, praying that his dad doesn’t get sent flying since he’s not secured to anything except the humans holding him down.

They hit the rocks and go flying into the air. Lo’ak’s body rises into the air like it always does, weightless for a moment, and he squeezes his eyes shut. If he doesn’t listen, if he doesn’t think about what’s going on around him, it’s almost like he’s back home flying his ikran with Neteyam, swerving through the mountains back when nothing was wrong and everyone was alive.

The moment ends as soon as it begins, and Lo’ak slams back into reality as his body slams back down into the railing and the floor. Pain shoots through his head and knees as they make contact, and the screeching of metal becomes so deafening around him that he pins his ears to the sides of his head, praying it’ll be over soon.

It is, and he tentatively opens his eyes to assess the damage as he always does. It’s much the same as it always is, but Lo’ak is really only searching for one thing.

“Dad!” 

Jake is sprawled out a few meters away, hands still cuffed and struggling to get to his feet. He looks alright, save for the small trickle of blood coming from his hairline, but they’ve all got head wounds at this point and it seems a trivial matter right now.

“Lo’ak!” His dad shouts, meeting Lo’ak eyes, struggling to his feet and beginning to make his way over to him. 

And Lo’ak begins to hope. Maybe, they can get the cuffs off. Maybe, they can disappear over the side of the ship, let the Metkayina come and fight, kill the humans and their demon ships. Maybe, this loop isn’t wasted. Maybe-

A gun cocks behind him, and Lo’ak should’ve known.

“Stop right there, Sully.”

Jake freezes, and Lo’ak turns his head. Quaritch, the ever-living bastard, stands steady, his rifle aimed true right at Jake’s head. His eyes have gone feral, almost Na’vi-like in the way the pupils have constricted in the heat of the hunt.

“Quaritch,” Jake says, voice low and cautious. “I’m leaving, one way or the other. But you don’t have to die here again. Just let us go.”

Quaritch barks a laugh. “Oh that’s rich coming from the guy with no gun. No, corporal. It’s the end of the line for you.”

Lo’ak watches Quaritch’s finger tighten on the trigger and he shouts “Dad!” just in time for Quaritch to let loose a volley of shots. 

Jake dives out of the way, still as fierce and competent even with his hands cuffed in front of him. He weaves towards a skid of equipment, where he ducks behind it for cover, even as Quaritch keeps shooting as he stalks closer to Jake’s hiding spot.

“Come on out Sully! We don’t got all day!” Quaritch shouts. 

Jake appears over the top of the equipment in a sudden whirl of limbs, launching himself at Quaritch, and the two go tumbling to the ground in a pile of fury and screeching.

Lo’ak tries to follow the fight, but it’s hard when his vision is still wavering and the two warriors are so fast. They trade blows like they were born for it, like they were always going to be enemies, like they were always going to be the one to end the other.

Unfortunately, Jake is still cuffed, and that’s a major handicap in a hand-to-hand fight. In a brief moment of grappling, Jake’s hands slip from the lack of leverage he can get due to being restrained, and Quaritch takes the opportunity to flip them over so he’s pinning Jake to the ground.

“No!” Lo’ak shrieks, his feet getting purchase against the rails and pushing as he tries with all his might to break free from the damned cuffs still holding him in place. “Dad!”

Neither men pay any heed to his cries, and Lo’ak can only watch as Quaritch unsheathes his knife, able to pin his dad’s hands with only one of his because of the bindings.

“End of the line, Jake,” Quaritch growls, eyes alight with vicious pleasure as he watches Jake struggle underneath him. “Say goodnight.”

And he brings the knife down, sinking into Jake’s ribs with a final shout.

Jake goes still, and Lo’ak half expects him to roar with pain, but he doesn’t. He stays rigid and still, and only lays there gasping.

Quaritch laughs, then twists the knife, and then the screaming starts.

Lo’ak is startled to hear two separate sets of screams, but then he realizes one is coming from him and he can’t stop it. He can only sit back and wail, an observer as Quaritch rips the knife out of his dad and stands, all the while still laughing as he stares down at Lo’ak’s dad, who lays gasping and writhing in pain.

“It was always going to end this way, corporal. I’m just sorry it had to end so soon. I was startin’ to have some real fun. Now, if you don’t excuse me,” Quaritch smirks as he turns away and calls for his ikran, who swoops down and lands upon the ship, “I’ve got a death to pay back. I’ll make sure to say hi to the missus for you while I’m at it.” And he takes off, leaving Jake dying on the floor and Lo’ak a few meters away.

“Dad, dad, dad,” Lo’ak sobs, his lungs hitching and stuttering as he watches, helpless, as his dad twitches, bleeding out just out of his reach. He yanks against his restraints as hard as he can, not even caring when he can feel the bones in his wrist creak. “Dad, please, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Dad-”

Jake coughs, then grunts and turns onto his side so he’s facing Lo’ak. One of his hands raises weakly to press against the wound to try to stop the bleeding, but they both know what this kind of wound entails. “Lo’ak,” he rasps, blood spilling from his lips as he speaks, “it’s okay, son. I’m okay.”

“No you’re not!” Lo’ak yells. “Dad, I’m sorry, it’s all my fault, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

“It’s not your fault, Lo’ak,” Jake coughs out, twitching weakly at the effort it takes to communicate. “It’s- it’s not your fault. It was always-” he coughs again and wheezes- “going to end this way. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

And Lo’ak can only sob, realizing with a wail that his dad is lying to him, trying to comfort him in his last moments because he doesn’t want Lo’ak to feel guilty. But they both know it’s Lo’ak’s fault. It’s all Lo’ak’s ever known, all he’s ever been sure of. The sky is blue and the forest is green and everything has always only ever been Lo’ak’s fault.

“Dad, I’m sorry,” is all he can say, trying to make his dad see how guilty he truly is, for getting Neteyam killed, for getting him killed, for failing at this again and again, for being a failure again and again. 

“It’s okay,” Jake whispers again. Then he smiles, and he reaches out a hand as if to gently trace Lo’ak’s face. “I see you, son. I see you.”

And then the hand falls, going limp, and Lo’ak watches as his dad’s eyes go wide and lifeless, and he fades away.

“No!” Lo’ak’s grief wells up into rage and bubbles forth into a screech, and he wrenches one last, final time against the bindings keeping him from his dad and feels the bones in one of his wrists groan, then crack. His screech of rage turns into a wail of pain, but then he’s falling to the floor, and he realizes that his efforts have finally snapped the bindings as well, though sacrificing his wrist for it.

He doesn’t care. He barely even feels the pain as he scrambles over to his dad, collapsing to his knees next to him as his hands hover, unsure of what to do.

“Dad,” Lo’ak sobs, shaking him. “Dad, wake up! Wake up!” 

But it’s no use, and Lo’ak knows it. His dad cannot wake from this endless sleep, and his eyes, still open but unseeing, confirm it.

So Lo’ak can only curl up against his father, wrapping one of his limp, lifeless arms around him in a parody of a hug, and weep, clinging to his body and shaking apart.

It’s the sound of the battle around him that brings him back to the present, and it can’t have been longer than a few minutes that he was lost to his grief because eclipse still hasn’t come upon them like he knows it will soon.

His tears slow, but don’t stop, relentlessly tumbling down his cheeks even as his sobs have tapered off. He’s numb, shivering against his dad’s dead body and blinking slowly as he looks around.

His gaze comes to rest on the gun Quaritch had used in the fight earlier, tossed aside in the scuffle and abandoned on the floor of the ship.

And Lo’ak realizes that he can’t do it. He can’t live through his father’s funeral, and whoever else’s funeral - because Neteyam always dies - and he can’t save anyone, and he can’t live through the following day as clean up begins and bodies are found, and the people he loves are buried and buried and buried.

He can’t do it. He can’t.

So instead he gets up, slow and unsteady, and stumbles over to the gun. He grabs it, checks the chamber, loads it; all movements mechanical and silent, the pain of his broken wrist feeling like a faraway pinprick against the numbness that has settled over him.

His dad taught him how to use a gun. Back in the forest, a lifetime ago. When the war had just begun and Lo’ak was young and it all felt a little like an adventure. When everyone was alive and Lo’ak hadn’t gotten most of his family members killed in a variety of ways, over and over.

He ensures the safety isn’t on, and then Lo’ak flips the gun around, resting the butt of it between his knees and the barrel right beneath his chin.

The steel is cold against his skin. Familiar. Like an old friend whispering, it was always going to end this way. And Lo’ak has gotten so used to the feel of bullets entering his flesh, stealing his life, so it’s really no trouble at all.

He looks at his father’s dead, empty body, and pulls the trigger.

- - -

He wakes up. 

Chapter Text

The next few loops are listless. Lo’ak does nothing much, choosing to sit back and watch it all happen with a numb, distant facade. He doesn’t try to change anything, doesn’t try to save anyone, doesn’t try to do much of anything at all. With the echo of a bullet lodging itself in his brain, he goes through the motions and purposefully doesn’t feel anything at all. It’s almost automatic, how he responds to quips or questions, the actions he takes; a ghost in his own body.

It’s almost automatic, holding his hands against his brother’s wounds, fighting not to remember his family dying like this over and over.

It’s almost automatic, burying Neteyam over and over.

It’s almost automatic, letting it all play out, like it was always going to end this way anyway.

- - -

Lo’ak figured out early on that there are only ever two periods of time when they aren’t fighting for their lives. Only two stretches that ever hold any amount of quiet in them. Not peace, not rest. Just quiet. Moments when the battle is not raging, moments when Lo’ak’s family is not dying around him.

The first is the morning before, in the few hours before the alarm is sounded and Roa and her baby are found dead a few kilometers from shore. When Lo’ak is expected at a spearfishing lesson he finds himself skipping more often than not and the sunrise is pink and perfect. When everyone is still alive.

The second is the morning after. When the battle is done and the bodies are collected and the dead are counted and named and laid to rest in Eywa. So many dead, so many bodies, and not just Lo’ak’s brother or some other family member he’s managed to kill in his attempts at saving them.

There’s Ngahuma, one of the female warriors Lo’ak remembers watching help his mother in the beginning, when Neytiri was still trying to bond to an ilu before she gave up. She was short but fierce, like an arrow in the water, with tattoos covering her entire body in swirls and complex patterns.

Then there’s Sänga, a tall, imposing Metkayina who wore hundreds of seaglass beads in his hair that clinked together softly when he moved so you could always hear him coming. Lo’ak had asked Tsireya about it once, and she’d said that the rumour in the village was that he’d started collecting them as a teen and added a new bead for every successful hunt he completed for the clan.

Lusying, too, perishes in the fight, one of the warriors who was also a dancer for the many festivals and traditional ceremonies of the Metkayina. She was one of Tsireya’s dancing teachers, and Lo’ak always watches, helpless and lost, as Tsireya cries when Lusying is lowered into the sea.

Ka'e, Soetxìn, Fäey, Ewuti, Utsllì, the list of names grows and grows. All in all the Na’vi casualties number in the dozens, which is far less than the humans, but each death is felt. Each loss, a valued member of the community, a member of a family, a son or daughter or father or mother or spouse. 

So much death. And for what? Human greed, their desire for violence and blood. Their need to conquer and claim and kill. No true reason. No reason at all besides senseless bloodshed.

Sometimes, during the burial ceremonies, Lo’ak stares at his fourth finger and contemplates severing it from his hand. 

He cannot save them all. He wants to. He wishes he could. But he is not Eywa, and he was only sent back for his brother, for his family; this he knows. He’s not sure how he knows, but it’s there in the back of his mind, a constant litany whispering save him save him save them. 

But he’s tried and he’s tried and he’s tried. And he’s failed every single time. He is already tired and wishing that it could all just be over.

But it’s not, so as Lo’ak gets up once more from his mat in the family marui and steps out into the morning sunshine, he walks. The leather of the village pathways gives way to sand that shifts under his feet, and he walks. The soft sand gives way to wave-sprayed cliff rocks, and he walks.

Eventually, he stops and looks up. He’s wandered a great deal from the busy village and the popular fishing or gathering spots, across the beach to the east of the island where the rock rises up to form a natural cliff face that buffers the sea. The waves pound the rocks around him, the roar of the sea drowning out all other sounds and Lo’ak sinks to his knees, uncaring of how the rough stone digs into his skin.

The view is beautiful. The waves crash against the rocks not too far below him, white spray occasionally showering his skin in cool droplets, and the seabirds swoop down every now and then with a faint cry to fish. To his left and right the island sprawls out, seashell-white sand and vibrant emerald trees practically shining in the sun. He can see the village, a distant cluster of brown-taupe leather curling around the roots of the massive mangrove trees. In front of him, the sea rises to meet the horizon, blue on blue, Metkayina turquoise to Na’vi cerulean, a stretch of expanse so wide that Lo’ak sometimes forgets that beyond them lies his home. Or, his old home. His forest? 

It’s been so long now that Lo’ak struggles to remember life past the reef, struggles to focus on the before. Before they were hunted, before they fled, before they came to the Metkayina, and before he was trapped in a never-ending loop trying to save his brother and his family. 

Would they ever make it back? Would Lo’ak ever make it back? Could he? After everything, after months of living in this world, does he even want to? Does he want to leave the shore and the sea and Payakan and Tsireya?

He doesn’t know. The thought scares him.

It’s Tsireya that finds him. He doesn’t turn to greet her when he hears her quiet footsteps approaching, and he doesn’t say anything when she kneels beside him.

For a time, the only sounds are the thundering rolls of the waves below and the occasional faint seabird calls. Lo’ak’s mind, usually so in turmoil and frazzled with Tsireya this near to him, is quiet. For the first time since this all began, he feels his racing thoughts and frantic heartbeat go quiet and small, small ripples on the shore instead of pounding surf. 

He leans against her before he realizes it, his shoulder brushing against hers and pressing skin against warm skin. It’s grounding, and Lo’ak lets out a shuddering breath, before he registers what he’s doing.

“Sorry,” he stutters out as he sways away from her. “I didn’t mean-”

“It’s alright, Lo’ak.” Tsireya turns to meet his eyes, her voice soft, her own eyes even more so. “I do not mind.”

Lo’ak feels a purple blush creep up his neck, and is only mollified when he sees a similar shade blooming across Tsireya’s cheeks as they both glance away from each other. It’s cute. She’s cute. Lo’ak wants to reach out and tuck her lovely, curly hair behind one of her ears, but he doesn’t.

Instead, when neither of them say anything further, he presses their shoulders together once again, and a small spark of warmth flickers in his heart when she leans against him in return.

It’s peaceful for a while, before Tsireya speaks again and all the warmth in Lo’ak’s chest turns to ice.

“You are different.”

Lo’ak is retreating before he can think about it, removing himself from where their skin had contact, and the sudden movement seems to make Tsireya panic.

“Not that- not in a bad way! That is, I mean to say that-”

“It’s okay, Tsireya,” Lo’ak says, trying to hide the hurt by avoiding her gaze. He’d thought after that night on the beach. . . well it doesn’t matter what he thought. “I know I’m different. Demon blood. Alien.” Words he’s heard his whole life. Words he’s spoken to her before, words she’d refuted.

She does so again, to Lo’ak’s surprise, as she says, “No, Lo’ak, that is not what I meant!” 

The distress in her voice tears his eyes away from the ground and back up to her, a magnet. Her eyes are wide, sincere. Her mouth curls down into a sad frown, and the thought to lift his fingers to her lips and smooth it away flashes briefly in his mind before he pushes it away. 

“You are not different in that way. I mean you are, but that is not- that does not matter, not to me! You know that.”

Lo’ak nods. He does, even if it’s sometimes easy to forget and fall back into the pattern of thinking that everyone only ever sees the bad in him.

“When I say you are different, I mean that there is something different about you now. Different from before, as if something has changed. Oh,” she huffs in frustration, “I’m sorry, I do not know how to say it in a way that makes sense-”

“It’s okay, Tsireya,” Lo’ak repeats. With a sinking feeling, he thinks he knows what she’s talking about.

“No, it is not!” She exclaims. Then she gently grabs his hands in hers, holding them together and turning her full, sincere gaze on him in that way of hers that he hates. That he loves. “You are hurting.”

When Lo’ak does not respond, she continues. “I saw you leave your marui this morning and I called out to you, but you did not respond. You always respond to me.” She pauses as she seems to register her own words and blushes, looking away for a moment. But then she snaps her attention back to him and continues on, expression determined. “So I followed you. And do you know what I saw, Lo’ak?”

His throat is dry and his tongue is sticking in his mouth, but he manages to croak out, “What?”

A breath. She smiles, sad. “I saw you. But you walk like something is crushing you, and you look at the world like it is not really there. And I am worried, because I see you, Lo’ak, but you are looking at me right now like you cannot see me.”

And Lo’ak can only stare at her, at her beautiful sea-green eyes that are so filled with sorrow as they gaze straight into him, at the furrow in her brow, at the way she has just dismantled him and left him split open upon the rocks.

Unbidden, tears well in his eyes and he tries to blink them back, but she has already seen them.

“Oh, Lo’ak,” she whispers. 

And then she’s reaching out, gentle and cautious, fingers asking for permission in the way they touch him softly. He gives it in the way of leaning towards her and she pulls him to her, one hand against his shoulders and the other pressing his head into her shoulder.

He wraps his arms around her almost desperately, clutching at her like a lifeline and breathing heavily into her skin. She smells like sea-salt and the sweet oil she uses in her hair. Her arms hold him tightly against her, and he feels secure, safe. Like she’ll never let him go.

And she doesn’t, not when he begins to shake, not when hot tears spill from his eyes and drip down her shoulder, not when he can’t keep a few broken sobs from escaping his mouth.

Tsireya holds him until he has gone still, until the sun has moved in the sky a fair bit, until mid-morning has tipped into near-noon and Lo’ak has nothing left in him to cry out. She lets him grieve for something she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t push or ask questions as to why he trembles like the world is ending. She merely holds him close and whispers reassuring words of comfort into his ear.

He pulls back then, an apology on the tip of his tongue. It’s unbecoming to use her like this, to take advantage of her kindness. She’s the daughter of the olo’ekyktan and the tsahìk, he should not be weeping over her like a child.

Except, when he pulls back and meets her gaze, there is nothing but kindness there. Tsireya is not disgusted or ashamed of him, she doesn’t pull away even as they break their embrace and instead switches to merely holding his hands, her thumbs brushing lightly over his knuckles. All four of them.

So he doesn’t apologize. Instead, he whispers, “Thank you.”

“You do not need to thank me for this, Lo’ak. You are very dear to me, and I wish to see you safe. And happy.”

He tries to smile at her, but he can’t. Not when she looks at him like this, with sincerity in her face, and innocence still in her that he knows will be gone by this time tomorrow. The apology he’d halted before slips from his lips without him realizing. “I’m sorry, Tsireya.”

Her brows furrow. “What for?”

He opens his mouth to say something, though what exactly he’s not sure. For making her follow him into battle, for getting her captured on a demon ship, for making her watch his brother die, for bringing the sky people to her village in the first place.

For getting them all stuck in this unending loop, this repetition of death and destruction that none of them are aware of, but that they are still experiencing nonetheless. For getting his brother killed again and again. For getting his father killed, for killing himself.

He’s ready to say it, damn the consequences and damn whatever shame he may feel about it, because Tsireya is looking at him with such concern, such care, and he thinks that maybe she’ll believe him and not look at him with hatred for what he’s done. He opens his mouth and-

The clear note of the alarm conch sounds, and the moment is broken. Tsireya gasps and leaps to her feet, an automatic, instinctive response, and Lo’ak quickly rises to stand next to her.

“Something is wrong. We must go!” She makes to run down the rocks, then stops. Lo’ak sees the hesitation in her eyes.

“Come on,” Lo’ak says, beginning his own run back to the village. “We’ll talk about it later!”

And Tsireya nods and follows him, but later never comes. Roa and her baby die, and Lo’ak goes to warn Payakan, and she follows him with her brother and her friend and his siblings, and they are captured and Neteyam dies. 

And as Lo’ak connects with the Spirit Tree and the darkness begins to take him, he mourns what maybe could have been his only chance to reveal the truth.

- - -

His talk with Tsireya, though ultimately cut short and resulting in another failed loop, wakes something in Lo’ak. He remembers, suddenly, that he must try. That listlessly following the patterns that brought them to failure will only result in the same thing, will only bring death.

It’s clear that this will never end, not if Lo’ak can’t fix it. 

So he picks himself back up after loops of hopeless drifting, grieving people who are alive around him, seeing death everywhere he turns.

He picks himself back up, reevaluates, and chooses a different event on his list to try and prevent from happening in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, it will put an end to this. 

- - -

“Come on!” Neteyam shouts, readying to follow the girls off the ship and back into the safety of the water. 

“I’m coming bro,” Lo’ak replies, and makes as if to follow him. 

Instead, he hesitates at the last moment and watches as Neteyam turns and dives over the side of the ship, ensuring that his brother makes it into the surf okay, before turning around and heading inside the ship. He scoops up the gun on the way and slings it around his back before dropping into a crouch behind a crate of supplies as a group of humans pass by.

Around him, the sirens pierce the air with their shrieking wail, loud enough that Lo’ak’s ears flatten to the sides of his head. The ship has started listing to the side ever so slightly, only noticeable to Lo’ak because he’s become so finely attuned to the movements of this horrid piece of metal during the loops. As soon as Spider crashes the ship, he begins the timer in his head. 

He ignores the sirens and keeps going, ducking inside the twisting hallways of the ship and weaving around the pipes and piles of equipment stacked around every corner. It’s an ideal environment for sneaking, the steel making no sound under his soft footsteps, so used to the forest floor where every leaf and branch may crack under any weight. All the industrial pieces also make for good cover, allowing him to shimmy through small spaces in order to hide or take shortcuts.

He follows the same path as always, and, as always, he finds Spider being led by four humans, each armed and dangerous. Lo’ak steels himself, taking a deep breath because he’s never done this without Neteyam before, and drops.

The first guy goes down hard as Lo’ak lands on him and purposefully smacks his head against the floor. With the element of surprise, he’s able to swing his gun around and shoot another human, the gunfire accompanied by a shout of pain and a dull thud as the force of the shot causes the human to hit the wall and slump down.

Lo’ak is distantly aware of Spider taking on another guy, which leaves him one more. He turns to face his last opponent and is met with the end of a gun barrel. He has just enough sense to dive out of the way before a spray of bullets pings rapidly against the floor where he was just standing.

He ducks behind the cover of a bend in the wall and pants harshly, readying himself with his gun to turn the corner again and take this guy out. He puts his finger on the trigger, breathes in, and then leaves cover, his gun up and a snarl on his face.

“Woah, baby bro! Don’t shoot, it’s just me!” 

Lo’ak drops the gun as his heart drops in his chest.

Neteyam stands in front of him, a small smile on his face and the last human lying unconscious at his feet.

Anger quickly takes over the shock and Lo’ak hisses, furious. “What the fuck are you doing here Neteyam?” His brother is supposed to be far away, off this ship and away from Lo’ak and bullets and things that get older brothers killed.

Neteyam frowns, the cheerful disposition dropping. “You didn’t get off the ship. I had to go back for you, obviously. Dad would kill me if I lost you. Plus,” he says, smirking a bit, “it looks like that was a good idea. Hey Spider.” 

Spider grins at Neteyam as he rejoins them. “Neteyam! Thanks for dropping in. With the three of us, we should be able to get out of here no problem.”

Lo’ak furiously reigns in his urge to snarl at his brother and friend. All this effort to get his brother off the ship, to figure out a way to free Spider on his own, and it’s all for nothing. He’s back in the same position he’s always in, with a brother who keeps dying and a friend who refuses to be rescued cleanly.

Whatever. Lo’ak shakes his head to try and dislodge the rage. It’s not their fault, and it’s no use now. Maybe he can at least try to get them off the ship faster, before someone gets shot.

“Come on,” he snaps, “we have to get out of here.”

If either of his companions are surprised at his sharpness, they don’t say anything. They simply follow after him, Spider taking the lead after a second with a wave of his hand, saying “this way” because he doesn’t know that Lo’ak knows the way out as well as him by now.

Lo’ak hurries them along, keeping them at a fast, jogging pace rather than the usual creeping, ducking-behind-corners stealthy way they usually adopt while trying to escape the ship. If they can just get to what Spider calls the ‘moonpool’ fast enough, if they can just escape in time-

They get to the moonpool and Lo’ak practically pushes Spider and Neteyam towards the edge, muttering, “Come on, come on, come on, let’s go!”

Then he hears a shout and he whips around just in time to see one of Quaritch’s avatar buddies raise his gun and aim. Lo’ak shouts in warning, and then suddenly he’s being pushed over the side of the railing, freefalling for a moment as hears gunshots ring out.

He hits the water without having prepared, too preoccupied in the split second of falling with watching, wide eyed and horrified, as his brother dove in after him with his eyes screwed shut in pain. Bubbles erupt beside him and he turns, lungs already aching, to see his brother flailing in the currents, his movements jerky and uncoordinated in the way they never are, unless it’s in these last moments.

Lo’ak wraps an arm around his brother, hauls him to the surface briefly for a breath of air, before they dive back under and swim out to freedom.

“I got you bro, I got you,” Lo’ak murmurs as they break into air once again on the other side of the ship, but he knows as Neteyam’s weight begins to drag them down that this loop is another failure.

They bring Neteyam to the rock. Lo’ak pins his ears to the sides of his head as if that might block out the sound of his mother’s wailing, his father’s useless reassurances, and the way Neteyam’s breath heaves and heaves and then finally stops.

He hears it all anyway.

- - -

This time Lo’ak follows Neteyam off the ship, but in the moment of chaos where Neteyam is looking for Tuk and Tsireya to make sure everyone stays together, Lo’ak slips away into the currents, a lifetime of practice at dodging his older brother’s careful protectiveness serving him in good faith.

He makes his way underwater to the entrance to the moonpool, like a reverse of what they normally do while escaping the ship. He clambers up the side of the ship, hauling himself over using the railing and strange metal piping that lines every part of the ship. Then he makes his way, panting and dripping, through the ship in a backwards route, stopping every now and then to listen for the stomping boots and loud complaints that always herald Spider and his guards.

Lo’ak comes across them a little earlier than usual, farther away from the moonpool, but that doesn’t matter because before he can jump down and rescue his friend, a hand descends onto his shoulder and he whirls around, teeth bared, only to see Neteyam behind him, holding his hands up in reassurance.

“It’s just me, baby bro.”

Lo’ak can’t even find it within him to berate his brother, the familiar snarl of frustration dying in his throat as he realizes.

Neteyam will always follow him. This is a truth as old as Lo’ak, as old as Neteyam, a truth that has never once been contradicted in all their years together.

Where Lo’ak goes, Neteyam follows. Lo’ak will not be able to change that now.

So they jump down and rescue Spider and begin making their way to the moonpool once again, and instead of impatiently hurrying them along, Lo’ak treads silently at the back of the group, watching. He keeps Neteyam in his line of sight every moment and his ears sharp and perked up, listening for the moment before they are spotted and hell is unleashed upon them.

They reach the moonpool and Lo’ak glances up through the piping to see the familiar blue of his brother’s killer. 

“Get down!” He hisses, and Neteyam and Spider obey just in time. The avatar spins around slowly, and where before he would’ve spotted them, now there’s only empty air. He turns his back to them after a few moments, and Lo’ak breathes a sigh of relief.

“Okay, go, go, go!” He whispers furiously, and the three of them scamper to the edge of the moonpool. 

Then there’s a shout and Lo’ak heart stops as he sees a human spot them from a different angle on the ship and gesture at his companions to raise their weapons.

This time, in the split second before gunfire rains down on them, Lo’ak practically throws his brother over the railing and into the water below. Spider is quick to follow, and Lo’ak is given a brief moment to feel the sweet relief of success once he sees his brother hit the water, no red blooming in sight, before he feels a familiar sting hit his side and he goes tumbling over the railing.

He has enough strength in him to swim himself to the other side of the ship, but once he surfaces and feels the way each breath burns in his lungs, the way his limbs are beginning to slow, the way his vision is going spotty, he knows.

“Lo’ak!” Neteyam cries, when he notices Lo’ak’s struggle to keep his head above water. “What-”

His sentence is cut off as Lo’ak assumes he notices the blood beginning to stain the water red around Lo’ak, the wound in his side leaking red into the blue of the sea in a damning way.

“‘Teyam,” Lo’ak says breathlessly as he feels his brother’s arms come up to hold him and keep him afloat. “Sorry.” Sorry for saving you but dying instead. Sorry for making you watch again. Sorry for failing again.

“Hey, it’s okay baby bro, you’re fine,” Neteyam soothes, outwardly calm and in control, but Lo’ak knows his older brother. Neteyam’s eyes are blown wide with terror.

“Shit, what do we do?” Spider swims over and joins Neteyam in helping to support Lo’ak’s body, and then Tsireya is there, helping them haul him onto the ilu as Neteyam and Tsireya sandwich him between them and Spider hangs off the side.

Then they start speeding away towards those awful, damned rocks where Lo’ak knows he will die. Despite knowing this, he takes the short time during the trip over there, while his blood coats them all and leaves a sickly, crimson trail behind them, to enjoy the way his brother has looped one of Lo’ak’s arms around his shoulder, gripping his forearm tight. The way Lo’ak’s torso is pressed against Neteyam’s back, the skin warm and comforting and so, so alive. The way Tsireya’s arms have come up to his waist, curling carefully around him to keep him held tightly against her instead of falling off the ilu. The way one of Spider’s hands is resting against his thigh, holding it tight like that will keep Lo’ak here.

It’s nice.

It’s nice, even when they begin to haul him off the ilu onto the rocks and the pain rips through him, causing him to gasp and choke. It’s nice, when his dad is suddenly there, strong arms carrying him to the place he will die, resting him upon the rocks, calloused, familiar hands stroking his face as he wheezes.

It’s nice, Lo’ak thinks through the pain and the fog of his encroaching death, as his mom appears in his vision and holds his shoulders with a gentle ferocity, like she could keep him here just by will alone.

“‘Teyam,” Lo’ak chokes out, hazy eyes turning to his brother, who’s still gripping one of Lo’ak’s hands in his. Probably hasn’t stopped doing so since Lo’ak got shot. “Safe?”

Neteyam lets out an ugly sound that must be a sob and it’s Jake who answers.

“Yeah, Lo’ak, your brother’s safe. Spider’s safe. You got them out, baby boy. You did good.”

And it’s maybe the only time he can remember his dad praising him in the past couple of years, so he smiles, because it’s nice. He’s used to dying alone in these loops, but it’s nice to go out surrounded by his family, surrounded by proof that they do in fact love him even though he’s a screw up and a failure and keeps getting them killed.

“Sorry,” Lo’ak manages to say around the pain leading him towards the endless dark. He knows he’ll be awake soon enough, back in the marui, but his family doesn’t know that. They only know that Lo’ak is dying in front of them. “Dad, I’m-”

The last thing he hears is Neteyam’s quiet sobbing and his mother’s wail, and then he fades once more into the black beyond’s familiar, cold embrace, grateful, at least, that he will not have to bury anyone this time around.

- - -

Lo’ak joins his mother once again in the morning on the shore, fish baskets coming to shape under the careful guidance of her hands. The sunrise is once again beaming down on them, the rays of pink and orange as familiar to Lo’ak now as the way each Na’vi around him moves the same as they always do on this morning before it all goes to hell.

“Teach me?” He asks Neytiri quietly as she looks up at the sound of his footsteps on the sand. 

Her eyes question him for a moment, but the flicker of confusion comes and goes in an instant so fast that Lo’ak might have been imagining it. While it’s not typical for warriors to participate in activities like weaving on the regular, it’s something everyone on the reef must eventually learn. Lo’ak, even before the loops had started, had put off the lessons, always choosing to swim with Tsireya or learn hunting with Ao’nung and Rotxo. He’s never been one to enjoy sitting still, or learning ‘boring’ jobs back at home.

But he needs something simple to steady his shaking hands, so here he is. Thankfully, his mom only nods, then gestures to the pile of razor palm fronds beside her. “Come.”

Lo’ak spends the morning sitting on the sun-warmed, white sands of the shore, learning how to weave baskets with the guiding hands of his mother on his own, and the sound of peaceful village life and surf surrounding him, the sight of Tuk playing with her friends just a few meters away.

It’s nice. He settles back into his body with each fold of the fronds, each tuck of one leaf under another. The rhythm of his hands creating something for once instead of destroying it allows him to breathe in and out, to reacquaint himself with the lack of bullets lodged in his body.

Lo’ak is tired again, the deep ache in his bones growing with each loop. Even so, he refuses to allow the despair to grip him with cold, dark fingers and drag him back into apathy. He’s got a job to do. He will do it.

So he sits on the shore and weaves with his mother and watches Tuk shriek happily as one of her friends splashes her with water, and he breathes. 

One day, he silently vows, he will return to this moment. When everyone is saved and everyone is alive and the demons are gone, he will return here to weave baskets with his mother and watch the sun rise on a village at peace.

- - -

The seaweed around them gives way, and Tsireya and Tuk are scooped up by the net. Lo’ak holds on as always, gripping the netting with pale knuckles, his tail lashing behind him to try and keep balance. They’re lifted into the air and Lo’ak brings his knife up to the sound of Tuk screaming and Tsireya pleading.

But instead of holding on all the way to the ship, he pretends to lose his grip. He flails for a brief moment, making a show of struggling for purchase, before letting gravity take him and going tumbling down into the water below.

“Lo’ak!” He hears Tsireya scream, but then the waves swallow him and all sounds of the chaos around him become muffled and low. Above the surface, the blurry image of Tsireya and Tuk in the net speeds away toward the demon ship, and Lo’ak takes a brief moment to beg for their forgiveness. He knows what it’s like to be on that ship, alone and scared and not knowing what’s going to happen, feeling like you’ll die there.

But they won’t die there. Neteyam will come for them and free them, and they’ll leave the ship safe and sound, none the wiser to Lo’ak sneaking his way aboard and rescuing Spider.

His brother will be off the ship and far, far away, safe with the girls.

Lo’ak turns and clicks for ilu. One comes spinning through the water and he grabs on, letting his body whirl along beside it as they make tsaheylu and Lo’ak directs it where he needs to go. He knows from the previous loops that it will take some time before the girls are restrained to the rails, his dad and the rest of the Metkayina arrive, attack, and Spider is able to crash the ship.

He needs to wait for that moment, for the chaos of battle to descend, before he has a chance of sneaking onto the ship undetected. With this in mind, he guides his ilu away from the machines still searching for the others in the seaweed and hides out in a small alcove of rocks that form a small underwater cave.

He can hold his breath for some time when he’s not moving around in the water, so simply sitting on his ilu and waiting is not an issue. He’s barely even feeling the lack of air by the time muffled booms and yells begin to reach his ears from under the water. Then an ear-splitting, metallic screech echoes through the ocean and Lo’ak covers his ears with his hands to block it out.

The ship has crashed. Time to move.

Lo’ak and his ilu speed through the water, and where Lo’ak once had so much trouble staying on his mount and not letting the currents of the sea batter him this way and that, he now moves with an ease that he’s won through months of practice, and then weeks of looping. Again and again he’s stormed through the waters of the ocean on an ilu, to fight, to die, to try and save them all, and he finds that all of it has produced in him a deftness of movement that he’s only seen in the Metkayina.

It would be satisfying if it didn’t remind him of how long he’s been stuck in the loop. How many times he’s failed.

But he shakes the thoughts from his mind and focuses, because as he hits the battlefield he starts having to dodge demon boats and Na’vi-ridden-tsuraks as the two sides tangle with each other in sprays of seawater and blood.

Lo’ak makes it to the ship after a close call with a harpoon from one of the demon boats, and his heart pounds in his chest as he surfaces as quietly as he can in the moonpool. He imparts the impression on his ilu to wait for him here out of sight, and he gets the general sense of understanding in return before he once again heaves himself over the side of the railing and onto the ship he knows far too well.

From there he finds Spider and he crouches above, waiting for the right moment to strike. Neteyam is not here as backup and Lo’ak doesn’t have a gun, so he’s not sure exactly how he’s going to get Spider freed when they had trouble even with three of them and a gun. But he has to try.

So he readies himself, knife unsheathed, and pounces. Again, he takes one of the humans down as he lands, knocking him out with a blow to the head and leaving his body to sprawl limp on the floor. Then he turns to the second, charging fast and lodging his knife in the man’s throat and yanking it out with a hot spurt of blood that sprays onto Lo’ak’s face. He fights the urge to gag and drops the body, turning at last to the third man, who already has his gun up.

Lo’ak dives, but not behind cover; instead he dives to the side and towards the human, hoping his large size and speed will throw him off. The pinging bullets continue, but Lo’ak is able to get in close and low and sweeps the man off of his feet. The gun falls, still shooting, and Lo’ak feels a burst of pain on his bicep, but he ignores it in favour of grappling the downed man and smashing his head against the ground until he stops fighting back.

He kneels back, hovering over the still body, and pants. 

“Dude.”

Lo’ak looks up, and finds Spider staring at him, wide eyed. He’d taken care of the fourth man, who lies unconscious at his feet, and Lo’ak shakes himself out of his brief post-fight stupor and climbs to his feet.

“You okay?” He asks Spider, who responds in the affirmative and then does a double take, grabbing Lo’ak’s arm with a hiss.

“Your arm,” he says, and Lo’ak looks down as the pain registers.

The bullet only grazed him, thankfully, but it hurts like a bitch and Lo’ak groans. “Of course,” he mutters, but doesn’t say anything further while he rips a piece of fabric from the bottom of his loin cloth and ties it tight around the wound. It’s annoying, but it’s better than anyone else getting hit and dying early.

Spider watches quietly until he’s finished, and then he smiles at Lo’ak and pats him on the back. “Thanks for the save, bro. I was starting to wonder if someone would come get me or if I’d sink to the bottom of the ocean with these assholes.”

Lo’ak feels a brief sting of guilt as he remembers that his family had left Spider with the RDA for months while they escaped to the Metkayina. While it’s true that they had absolutely no way of rescuing him with their amount of firepower against the RDA’s, it still feels like a betrayal of trust.

But Lo’ak can only shake off the feeling, knowing that their time is ticking. “No problem, cuz,” he replies. “Come on, we’ve got to get going before more of these bastards show up.” As he speaks, he grabs the gun off the guy who tried to shoot him and checks the chamber. Almost full; perfect.

“Right, follow me.” Spider takes off, and Lo’ak follows close behind, paranoia starting to creep up his spine again as they get closer and closer to the moonpool, causing his shoulders to hunch and his eyes to flick over his shoulder again and again. Even with the weight of the gun now in his hands, he’s nervous.

It can’t be this easy, right?

It’s not. They make it to the moonpool and are spotted like always. Before Lo’ak has a chance to drag Spider over the railing with him to try and get into the water before the shooting starts, Spider grabs his arm and pulls him behind the wall for cover. The familiar rat-tat-tat of the guns and the pinging of bullets of metal begins, and Lo’ak snarls a curse under his breath. Of fucking course. 

Pinned, Lo’ak turns to Spider and grabs him by the shoulders. “Listen,” he says, rushed and urgent. “I’m gonna shoot at these guys and give you some cover fire, and you’re going to run and get in the water, okay?”

“What?” Spider says incredulously. “No way bro, I’m not leaving you here by yourself!”

Lo’ak growls in frustration and shakes Spider slightly. “You don’t get it, Spider! I’ll be right behind you, but we have to go right now! I promise, I’ll be right behind you!”

As if sensing he’s not going to win this argument, Spider nods with a huff and steps back, awaiting Lo’ak’s signal. Lo’ak nods to him in thanks and takes up the gun, resting it against his shoulder and taking a deep breath. 

He’s gotten better at using them during the loops, so as he takes aim and begins laying down cover fire, the recoil doesn’t surprise him or make him stumble like it used to.

“Go, go, go!” He shouts at Spider, who obliges and starts sprinting towards the water. 

Once he’s sure Spider has made it into the water, Lo’ak ducks out from behind the wall as well and runs over to the moonpool even as he keeps shooting. Right as he reaches the railing his gun runs out of bullets, and he holds his breath that it’ll be enough. 

As he flings himself over the side of the railing and into the water and feels no steel bite his flesh, he thinks that maybe he’s finally managed to do it.

And then he looks down and sees Spider, limp and sinking into the sea as scarlet bursts into the water around him in clouds that Lo’ak knows only mean death.

His heart screams inside his chest as he frantically swims down, arms carving wide swathes through the water as if trying to push it aside, to make it down to his friend faster. 

Lo’ak reaches Spider and scoops him up, and as Lo’ak clicks for his ilu, who had faithfully remained nearby, and mounts it with Spider tucked carefully into his arms, Lo’ak can only think about how small his friend truly is. Like this, lax and so, so still in his grip, it’s easy to see that Spider is human, that his bones are weaker, his skin easier to break, his organs easier to pierce.

Lo’ak remembers, abruptly, a time back in the forest, when they were all young and bright and had not yet tasted real war. Lo’ak had managed to convince Spider and Kiri to join him in a quest further out into the forest than usual, intent on exploring their home and bringing his mother back one of the glowing, blue flowers he’d overheard his dad talking about the night before.

They’d stumbled off, rough and still a bit clumsy, into the woods surrounding their Kelutral, only to be quickly joined and scolded by Neteyam who’d told them that they weren’t allowed to wander off without dad with them.

Lo’ak remembers sticking out his tongue at Neteyam and continuing anyway, Kiri following behind, which meant Spider followed behind, which meant Neteyam had to follow as well to make sure they didn’t get into too much trouble, as he’d said. But Lo’ak caught the glint of curiosity in his eyes, and he’d been secretly smug about getting his big brother to join them on one of his usually-considered-stupid adventures.

The day had ended when Spider, in attempting to keep up with the fast pace that Lo’ak, Kiri, and Neteyam had not yet learned to slow to accommodate for their human friend, had tripped over a root while they were vaulting through the high-up branches of some of the larger trees, and had fallen some distance down. 

Lo’ak remembers the unholy screech he’d let out upon regathering his breath after hitting the ground, the way the sound had had him and his siblings hissing in fear and racing down to him, the way his elbow had been bent and wrong, the way they’d carried him home on Neteyam’s back and gotten the biggest scolding of their lives at the time for endangering Spider.

It was the first time they’d realized Spider wasn’t like them, the first time they’d had to grapple with the differences between them and him in their child minds. Even with the new lesson learned, it had never really made a difference. Spider was Spider, not human, not alien. He was Spider, their best friend.

Now, though, with Spider silent and lifeless in his arms as they breach the surface away from the ship, Lo’ak has never been more aware of how human Spider really is. How fragile. How breakable.

He gets to the rocks, a rote response ingrained into him after loops of ending up here with a dying family member, and carefully lifts Spider onto the harsh stone, laying him out with the tenderness his mother used to use to tuck them into bed with.

He goes to check for a pulse, praying that Spider is only unconscious, but then he sees it. The bullet hole bleeds, sluggish and steady, right through Spider’s neck. A fatal blow. An instant death. Spider would’ve never even felt it, Lo’ak thinks, as he bows his head and tries not to sob over the corpse of his best friend.

Another failure, another death, another face to haunt him.

Then he hears a shout and he looks up to see his dad dismounting a tsurak and clambering up the rock to join him.

“Lo’ak what-” he begins to say, but stops when he sees the body laid out beneath Lo’ak, coming up short and kneeling slowly down beside them.

“We were- we were leaving the ship and one of the avatars had a gun. I told him to- I tried to give him some cover fire but-” Lo’ak’s voice catches in his throat and he has to clear it before continuing- “he got hit anyway. And there wasn’t anything I could do, I mean, he was already-”

“Yeah, I know, I see,” Jake says, not unkindly, but not gently. His hands come up to take hold of Spider’s face, stroking his fingers delicately across Spider’s cooling skin. “Oh, Spider.”

The heartbreak in his dad’s voice causes a whine to build up in Lo’ak’s chest, a low keen of distress he tamps down on and refuses to let out. Instead, he chokes out, “I’m sorry. It’s my fault, I went back for him and I didn’t get him out, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Spider-”

His dad hushes him, a hand curling at the base of his neck by his kuru and squeezing gently like he used to when they were kids and thunderstorms were the scariest thing to ever happen to them. It makes Lo’ak shake even more, a few tears leaking from his eyes as he squeezes them shut, a new face to add to his collection of people he loves who he’s gotten killed.

“Son, where are your siblings,” his dad suddenly asks, voice gone deadly serious.

“W-what?” Lo’ak looks up at his dad, and fear shoots its icy fingers through his spine as the unnerving, wide eyes of his father meet his own. 

“Where are your siblings,” Jake repeats. 

“I don’t, I don’t know,” Lo’ak replies, breathless. “Tsireya and Tuk got taken to the ship and then Neteyam got them out, I think, I hope- but I thought they’d gotten out after that, where did-?”

Jake growls in frustration and stands abruptly, pacing a ways away and calling Neytiri on the coms. “Neytiri, come in. Quaritch has Kiri and Neteyam. I repeat, Quaritch has our son and daughter. I need you with me.”

Lo’ak pales. 

Kiri and Neteyam? How did his brother get on the ship? He was supposed to have freed Tsireya and Tuk and gotten the hell out of there, what on earth would possess him to-

Kiri. All of a sudden, the memory of Tuk describing how she had managed to get recaptured on the ship surfaces, how she and Tsireya had seen Kiri get plucked from the water and brought to the ship, how they’d gone to rescue her but Tuk had gotten caught and Tsireya had been tossed back into the sea.

With Neteyam with them, Tuk and Tsireya never would’ve been allowed to return to that ship. No, Lo’ak knows his brother. He would have told Tsireya to get Tuk back to the village, or at least away from the fighting, and he would have gone to get Kiri instead. And he would have gotten caught, just like Tuk usually did.

As his father moves towards his tsurak to mount, Lo’ak moves from his place beside Spider’s body to follow. “Dad, please,” he says, “let me go with you. I want to help, I know how to get to-”

“No, Lo’ak,” Jake says, voice firm and hard and filled with the thing that Lo’ak dreads most in the world. He opens his mouth, and Lo’ak knows what the next words out of his mouth will be even before he says them. It seems Lo’ak earns these words in every loop he does not die in. “You’ve done enough.”

Lo’ak does not move as his dad mounts his ride and takes off into the sky, Neytiri’s graceful form atop her ikran joining him a moment later. He watches, numb, as they swoop towards the ship, eclipse beginning to darken the world as they land atop the metallic beast. 

As darkness descends across the ocean, Lo’ak does not follow. He goes back to Spider’s body and picks him up, once more cradling him in his arms, because his dad is right. He’s heard the words so many times, and his dad is right every single time.

Lo’ak has done enough. He’s done enough wrong, he’s done enough damage, he’s done enough stupid, stupid, stupid shit and gotten everyone killed again and again. And he knows it’s all his fault, he knows, but part of him always thought that maybe someone would refute it if he spoke it out loud, that maybe, just maybe, he could put down the guilt and shame and self-hatred.

But his dad hadn’t said a word against it. Had, in fact, affirmed it as he gave Lo’ak the words he’s always given him when somebody dies on that ship.

You’ve done enough, you’ve done enough, you’ve done enough.

It’s your fault.

Lo’ak spends the whole eclipse there, on that rock, holding Spider and watching the ship. Some explosions rock it at the beginning of the darkness, and Lo’ak remembers the same thing happening in the regular loop as his dad and mom tried to make their way to his sisters.

He wonders if they’ll get to Kiri and Neteyam. They don’t know their way now, not without Spider’s guidance or what little help Lo’ak could’ve given them. Then again, Lo’ak probably would’ve gotten them all killed anyway, so maybe it’s better that he’s here instead of with them.

You’ve done enough.

He sits with Spider until his legs have gone numb, until the blood has stopped leaking from Spider’s wound and settled, red and sticky and smelling of iron, onto most of Lo’ak’s skin, until the light returns to the world and the ship has finished sinking beneath the surface, down to its watery grave.

He sits there some more, trying not to think about anything at all, before an inkling of fear begins to grow in his stomach. Where is his family? He’s in the middle of a failed loop, he knows, but where is his family? Where is his dad, and mom, and Neteyam, and Kiri? They should have surfaced by now and rejoined him at the rock, where he would’ve had to explain to Kiri and Neteyam how he’d gotten their best friend killed.

But no one comes, and Lo’ak waits, alone on the rock with a dead body in his arms and a terrible feeling growing in his gut.

- - -

“Lo’ak!” 

Tuk barrels into Lo’ak as Lo’ak finally stumbles onto the rocks where he’d seen all the Metkayina gathering once the din of the battle had settled and it became clear that the humans were defeated and retreating.

“Tuk,” Lo’ak breathes a sigh of relief and sinks to his knees, scooping his little sister into his arms and breathing in, some of the shaking subsiding once he has at least someone he loves safe in his arms. “You’re okay.”

“Of course I’m okay!” Tuk exclaims, for once not wriggling out of Lo’ak’s hold. She sounds fine, but the shake in her voice and the way she clings to Lo’ak gives her away. “Neteyam rescued us from the ship, and Tsireya made sure we got here safe.” Tuk’s voice drops into a conspiratorial whisper that’s able to be heard by all as she says, “She’s really cool. I’m glad you picked her to like.”

If this were any other time, Lo’ak probably would’ve dumped his sister into the sea with a furious purple blush on his face, but as it is he can barely find it in himself to give a half-hearted chuckle. “Yeah, she is pretty cool Tuk.”

Speaking of Tsireya, Lo’ak looks up and sees her making her way over to them, a relieved smile on her face as she sees Lo’ak and waves.

“Lo’ak!” She cries, picking up her pace and racing over to them. She kneels beside them and places a hand on his cheek, rubbing it gently in what Lo’ak needs to assume is an unconscious gesture. “Oh, thank you Great Mother, thank you.”

Lo’ak gives himself a single moment to lean into her hand, his eyes fluttering close and the sharp pain of grief spiking in his chest, before he pulls away and stands back up. He pushes Tuk towards Tsireya and says, “I’m glad you’re okay, Tsireya, but please, where’s your father? I need to talk to him.”

Tsireya doesn’t respond, too busy staring past him, and he’s confused for a moment before he realizes she’s staring at where Spider’s body is laid out on the rocks behind him. 

He sighs, heavy. “Yeah. That. But also,” he drops his voice into a whisper so Tuk doesn’t hear, “I can’t find the rest of my family. I need to go search for them.”

Tsireya, ever the beautiful and kind soul she is, turns Tuk’s head away into her torso so she doesn’t see Spider’s body just yet. She also understands his words immediately and nods. “Come, I will take you to him.”

Lo’ak turns and picks up Spider once again, and they make their way through the temporary camp towards Tonowari. They pass by many places where mats have been laid out where the wounded are being treated, and also some mats where bodies have begun to be gathered, delicately placed so they curl into themselves in the traditional post-mortem position, the way babes are meant to be curled inside their mother’s womb.

Lo’ak looks down at the boy in his arms and wonders if the Metkayina will allow them to bury him as a Na’vi. He hopes so. Spider, more than any other human, deserves it.

They find Tonowari directing a group of divers back out to sea to search for more wounded. The group leaves as they approach, and Tonowari turns his attention to them. They make an odd group: the chief’s daughter carrying a sobbing forest Na’vi girl on her hip, and a forest Na’vi boy carrying a dead, human boy in his arms. Tuk had, of course, seen Spider’s body on the way over and had begun crying earnestly in the way only children do, open and unafraid to express her grief.

Lo’ak hadn’t had the energy to comfort her quite yet, so Tsireya had picked her up and shushed her, rocking her back and forth like Tuk was a baby in need of soothing. Just another reason why Lo’ak is so, so grateful for Tsireya.

“Tsireya,” Tonowari greets. Then he turns to Lo’ak and frowns. “Lo’ak, who is this?”

Lo’ak swallows and lowers his eyes. “His name is Spider. He was- he is part of my family. He was held captive by the RDA and forced to work for them. I tried to help him escape, but.”

And Lo’ak is so grateful for Tonowari, because the chief only nods in understanding when Lo’ak cannot finish and places a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Peace, Lo’ak. You may place him with the others.”

“Thank you, sir. But there’s something else.” He steps away from Tuk and Tsireya once again so his little sister doesn’t hear, and lowers his voice as Tonowari leans in, sensing the need for discrepancy. “I can’t find my family. I last saw them on the ship, and I’m going to look for them once I. . . once I leave Spider here. But I thought I’d let you know that they’re missing.”

“I see,” Tonowari frowns, concerned. “It is dangerous to search the ship already when it has not yet settled in the ocean currents.”

Lo’ak is already shaking his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going, whether it’s dangerous or not.” It’s disrespectful for sure, but Lo’ak can’t quite bring himself to care at this moment. He’s holding his best friend’s body in his arms and the only family member accounted for is his little sister, who is still weeping in Tsireya’s arms after seeing said best friend’s body. He doesn’t have the energy for respect, and if Tonowari tries to stop him from going, from finding what they’re both thinking they’ll find, he’ll fight him every step of the way.

But Tonowari seems to realize this. “Of course. I will see if any experienced divers want to accompany you. Please, lay your friend to rest with the others and then come find me.”

“Thank you.” Lo’ak doesn’t know where his family would be without Tonowari and his kindness, the way he’s welcomed them so fully into his clan. 

Tonowari leaves Lo’ak to his current task of finding Spider a temporary resting place, turning his attention to a pair of Metkayina who have been patiently waiting for him and Lo’ak to finish their conversation.

“Come on, Tuk,” Lo’ak says softly, facing Tsireya and his little sister once more. “Let’s go find Spider a comfortable place to rest for now.”

“Can- can I stay with him?” Tuk asks around her tears, and Lo’ak’s heart breaks all over again. He can’t find the words to reply to her around the sudden warm lump in his throat, so Tsireya responds for him.

“Yes, of course you can,” she says, giving her a gentle smile. “I am sure he would enjoy the company.”

So they trek off towards one of the mats for the fallen that has room, and Lo’ak ever so carefully sets Spider’s body down on the far edge of it, as far from the other Na’vi as he can. Everyone is mourning here today, mourning their family members who have been killed at the hands of humans, and Lo’ak doesn’t want to start anything or make anything worse.

Before rearranging Spider’s limbs into the resting pose, he reaches down and tenderly eases the mask off of his face before depositing it away from his body.

“Guess you won’t be needing that anymore, hey bro?” He tries for lightheartedness and lands somewhere between heartbroken and guilty. He pauses to swallow down the tears before Tuk can see him and places a hand across Spider’s forehead. “You’ll get to see Eywa soon. Just like you always wanted.” Another pause, and then he brings his face down and whispers in his friend’s ear, even though Spider can’t possibly hear him, “I’m so sorry, brother.”

Then he stands and lets Tsireya and Tuk sit beside Spider in his place. “You’ll look after them?” Lo’ak asks Tsireya, aware of how big of an ask it is, and doing so anyway. She’s the only person he trusts to keep any angry Na’vi away from Spider’s body and keep Tuk safe as she grieves.

“Of course,” she replies, taking his hand and squeezing it. “Go. They will be safe here with me.”

Lo’ak squeezes her hand once in return. “Thank you.” Then he lets go and turns, heading back to Tonowari to leave and find his family.

- - -

In the end, he’s joined by three other divers, all volunteers, as they head back to the dangerous ruins of the ship, still shifting and groaning under the pressure and currents of the water.

They split up when they reach the wreck, each taking a quarter of the area and beginning the search. The other three Na’vi split off to search the area surrounding the wreck first, to check for where his family or any other survivors might have managed to reach after escaping the wreck, but Lo’ak doesn’t bother. 

He knows. He tries not to, he tries to ignore the deep-seated feeling in his gut telling him the truth, but he knows.

He takes a huge gulp of air and tries to slow his heartbeat like Tsireya taught him. It works only somewhat, the promise of what he will find below like a terrifying shadow engulfing him, but it’ll do.

Lo’ak dives. It does not take very long to find them. 

He finds Kiri first, floating, caught at the edge of the ship, a long knife buried in her chest and her limbs swaying slightly in the water, as if Eywa herself is trying to rouse her. Lo’ak crushes the sob before it can erupt out of his chest, his tears joining the seawater as he swims towards his sister and frees her from her steel prison. 

He clicks for his ilu and ties her carefully to the back of it, ensuring that her body doesn’t fold oddly or unnaturally. Kiri is still and pliant as he does so, so not like her and how she was always moving, always looking, always wondering at everything around her, and a sob slips from him unbidden. 

He swims up to the surface for more air and brings the ilu with him, directing it to stay as still as possible and wait for him to come back. He tries to impart the image of being careful with his sister, but he’s not sure how much the notion gets across.

He dives back down, not even bothering to signal the other three divers that came with him. This is his job, to find his family one by one, to recover them from this unholy grave he’s damned them too. This is his punishment for failing them as badly as he has.

He finds his parents next, inside the ship with their limbs tangled together and their bodies pressed so close that it makes sense that the currents couldn’t drag them apart. His dad’s arms are still wrapped around his mom, like he was trying to shield her from the water, like he could’ve saved her with his love.

Lo’ak shuts down after that. He goes to that numb place where everything hurts, but only distantly, like a storm on the horizon instead of a hurricane tearing everything apart right inside of him. He maneuvers his parents free from the twisted and warped metal surrounding them, but has to separate them in order to bring them up to the surface and to his ilu. 

It’s painful breaking them apart, but Lo’ak has been hurting his family since he was born so what’s another thing to add to the list? Just one more thing he can’t do right, one more thing he’s not strong enough for, not good enough for.

One more thing that’s all his fault.

Once he’s brought his parents safely up he dives back down for Neteyam, and it takes much longer than the other three. Eventually he finds him deep at the back of the ship, trapped by a long bar of metal that has him pinned against a wall. 

As he begins to free his brother, Lo’ak wonders if that’s how he died; trapped and scared as the water rushed in around him, unable to move and swim to freedom, knowing he was going to die and feeling every moment of it.

Then he stops wondering, because if he keeps doing that he’ll start screaming, and then nothing will ever get done.

Gently, he cradles Neteyam’s body to himself and starts to guide him out of the ship. He takes his time, his lungs not yet aching, irrationally not wanting to hurt his brother in the process. Like he’ll wake from a peaceful slumber if Lo’ak bumps him. Like he’s not already far, far away from anything else Lo’ak could do to him.

He breaches the surface a final time, finally facing what he’s done to his family. His dad, mom, Neteyam, and Kiri all float, lifeless, before him, each one dead by his hand. Each one another tally on his long list of failures, each one another death that’s his fault and his fault alone.

He mounts his ilu, Neteyam cradled in front of him and his parents and Kiri laid out and bound to his ilu behind him. It’s a lot of weight for one ilu, but they’ll take it slow. He won’t have anyone else touching them. This is his task.

Lo’ak calls out to the other divers for a few minutes, giving the signal for a find, and the three Na’vi eventually ride over. They stare for a moment, horror and pity filling their eyes as they see Lo’ak surrounded by his dead family. 

Lo’ak wants to snap at them to stop looking, but that makes no sense, so instead he says, “I’m going to head back,” his voice emotionless and dead. He can’t afford to feel right now or he’ll break. “You should keep searching, there might be others around.” 

Then he turns, not waiting for a reply, and begins the slow ride back to the camp.

- - -

He thinks about ending the loop early, but he can’t. He can’t leave Tuk alone like that, can’t let her find his body and realize her last living family member gave up on her. Even if she’ll never remember this, and even if it all will reset once Lo’ak connects to the Spirit Tree, he can’t do that to her.

And maybe he wants to watch it all play out. He deserves it, doesn’t he? To see what he’s done to his family, to go through the pain of burying them one by one, to have to watch Tuk realize everyone is gone and dead and gone. It’s his fault anyway, so why shouldn’t he have to see the consequences of his actions?

He returns to the camp with the dead weight of his family. As he reaches the edge of the rocks, a few of the Metkayina meet him there. One gasps as they realize who he’s bringing back, and another one turns away completely with a hand on their mouth.

But one of them comes forward, and Lo’ak recognizes him. Ohìn, one of the Na’vi who’d offered to help them learn to spearfish. Lo’ak had attended their lesson this morning, one of the few loops that he did so.

“Come boy, let’s get them out of the water.” Ohìn’s voice is kind and firm, so Lo’ak nods and dismounts the ilu. He carries Neteyam out onto firm ground with him, then turns to watch as Ohìn carefully picks up Kiri and gestures for another two to take his parents.

“Can you-” Lo’ak’s voice breaks and he clears it, the rough quality betraying how he’d silently wept the whole way here- “Can someone go and move my sister away from the resting mats? I don’t. . . I don’t want her to see them get carried in.”

Ohìn nods and sends someone off to do so. He gives another instruction, but Lo’ak doesn’t pay attention to it. He’s too busy looking down at his brother’s face, soft and peaceful in death, almost like he’s sleeping. If only Lo’ak could wake him. Maybe then he could apologize. Maybe then he could take this whole loop back and never have to learn what his whole family looks like in death.

Lo’ak, Ohìn, and the two others carrying his parents begin to slowly make their way to the resting mats. The crowd of warriors, healers, and wounded part as they pass, some staring and others redirecting their gazes out of respect. Truthfully, Lo’ak doesn’t care that everyone is watching him bring his dead family in. He’s beyond that at this point, his mind a desperate kind of blank with one thought at a time, one goal leading to another to keep him on his feet.

Find his family. Bring his family back to camp. Bring his family to their resting mats. 

Lo’ak leads them to the resting mat where he placed Spider, and Lo’ak finds Tonowari and Ronal both waiting there for him, his sister and Tsireya nowhere in sight. Thank Eywa for small mercies.

Lo’ak does not meet Tonowari or Ronal’s eyes. Instead, he settles Neteyam on the mat with a care he usually only dedicates to precious tasks, like carving a necklace bead for his mother or patching a scrape on Tuk’s knee. Then he lays out his brother's limbs in the resting pose, the quiet curl of the body inward to represent returning to their Great Mother, and he manages to hate it only a little.

Then Ohìn carefully hands him Kiri, and Lo’ak does the same for her, then his mother, and then his father. It’s customary that if a family member is present they are the ones to handle their loved one’s body, so Lo’ak does it for each member of his family; his sister, his brother, his dad, and his mom, just like he’d done it for Spider.

Then he kneels beside them in the row they make, the five of them resting beside each other and so, so still. He’s briefly aware of Tonowari sending Ohìn and the others away and laying a hand on Lo’ak’s back, but he doesn’t move and doesn’t respond when he distantly hears his name being called.

“Lo’ak?” 

And then Tsireya is there and he blinks out of his haze to meet her gaze from where she’s suddenly kneeling beside him.

“Tsireya,” he rasps. “When. . .” he trails off, the strength to speak escaping him as his eyes drift back to the bodies of his family.

“Oh, Lo’ak.” Tsireya says it in the same tone his dad had used when he’d seen Spider’s body, the same way she’d say it when she’d found him on the cliffs a couple loops ago, and Lo’ak wants to snarl at her, to push her away and scream that he doesn’t deserve this tenderness, this concern, this love. 

But he doesn’t have that kind of energy, so he lets her guide his head down to lean against her shoulder and her arms come and wrap around his shoulders and stroke the skin there. It’s just like back on the cliffs, except this time they’re past the battle and everyone is dead and it’s all his fault. 

He feels bad, briefly, for making her have to care for him in this way again and again; why can’t he just pick up and move on like his dad always seemed to be able to do? Why can’t he push it all away for a while so he can deal with the things that have to be dealt with? He’s useless like this.

But no one bothers them here. The camp bustles around them, Na’vi treading too and fro, the faint sounds of groaning from the wounded, weeping from the family of the fallen, healers calling out to each other and warriors keeping things moving, but no one says a word to Lo’ak and Tsireya. Lo’ak is sure Tsireya has other things to be doing, given that she’s the tsakarem and a talented healer, but she doesn’t move from her spot beside him and he’s grateful for it. He’s not sure he wouldn’t simply blow away with the wind if she left.

Hours later, when Lo’ak’s cheeks are soaked in silent tears, Tonowari comes back and kneels beside them. Lo’ak’s legs have gone numb and he’s sure Tsireya’s had too, but they haven’t moved. Not once. Not until Tonowari speaks and Tsireya shifts to face him. Lo’ak doesn’t, he simply traces the patterns on Kiri’s face with his eyes for the twentieth time, trying to memorize their exact detail before Eywa takes her back.

“It is time to move the dead back to the village and prepare for the ceremonies. And it is time for your sister to know what has happened.” Tonowari places his hand on Lo’ak’s shoulder again, and Lo’ak finally turns to meet the olo’eyktan’s eyes.

They are filled with sorrow and sympathy, but no pity. Only the sincere grief and regret that follows a tragedy. Lo’ak is grateful for it, and nods in agreement with the chief. Tuk will find out eventually, and it will be from his mouth. He will not give this burden to another, not when he deserves to bear it, not when it’s all his fault that their family is dead.

So Lo’ak stands and Tsireya stands with him, a steadying hand reaching out to grasp his forearms when he stumbles a bit after sitting motionless for so long.

“Where is she?” The words are hoarse and broken, the first words he’s spoken since Tsireya sat down beside him.

“This way.”

Tonowari turns and begins to lead them towards Tuk, through the crowds of people that are preparing the dead to be moved. Tsireya follows close behind, and Lo’ak doesn’t know how to express how grateful he is that she’s here with him. It’s going to be hell telling Tuk that their family is gone, and she doesn’t need to be here with him while he does it, but she’s choosing to be anyway. Lo’ak doesn’t know how he feels about it, only that he feels a lot.

They reach the other end of the rocky island the camp is situated on, and Lo’ak spots Tuk sitting with a couple of the women, helping make tinctures and herbal poultices for the wounded. His lips briefly twitch, as if they want to make a smile, before they still and Lo’ak remembers why they’re here.

“Tuk,” he calls softly once they get close enough.

Tuk’s head whips up and she’s on her feet in a heartbeat and sprinting towards Lo’ak. She slams into him with a strength he hadn’t known she possessed, and it’s only Tonowari’s firm hand on his back that keeps him from stumbling onto the ground at his sister’s weight. 

“Lo’ak!” Tuk cries, clinging to him ferociously. He picks her up and settles her against him in the way she’d stopped letting him do years ago, but she gives no protest, only snuggles into him further. “Where were you? Where are Mom and Dad? And ‘Teyam and Kiri?” She asks. “It’s been hours and no one will tell me what’s going on!”

And Lo’ak’s heart breaks anew, because his little baby sister has no idea what’s happened and he is about to shatter what little remains of her innocence.

“Yeah, I’m sorry Tuktuk,” Lo’ak manages to say. “It’s been busy, but we’re gonna go and see Mom and Dad and Neteyam and Kiri now, okay?”

“Yes! Let’s go, let’s go!” It’s telling, that Tuk doesn’t hop down from Lo’ak’s hold and begin tugging him away, even though she has no idea where they’re going. She’s scared, and she’s sad. She knows Spider is dead and she’s been alone for hours without knowing what’s going on, and Lo’ak suddenly feels the crushing guilt of having left her here for so long.

They start walking slowly towards the resting mat where their family lies, Tonowari and Tsireya both acting as steady presences on either side of them, and Lo’ak licks his lips, trying to brace himself and find the words. “Tuk,” he begins, “there’s something you need to know, before we see everyone.”

Tuk leans back to look at him. “What is it?”

The Metkayina part around them, some staring, some looking respectfully away as Tuk stares patiently at him awaiting his answer, and Lo’ak doesn’t think he can do this.

But he has to, so he opens his mouth and says, “Tuk, you know how there was just a really big battle?” She nods, and he continues. “Well sometimes, when there are big battles like that, people get hurt. You remember how Dad and Mom used to tell us about the big battle they fought in before we were born? And how a lot of people got really, really hurt? It’s like that.”

“Did Mom get hurt? Or Dad? Or Neteyam or Kiri?” Tuk’s eyes are wide and scared as she asks her questions, her voice small in the way it rarely is.

Lo’ak grimaces. He’s no good at this, but he’s trying to ease her gently into it. “Yeah, Tuk. They all got hurt pretty badly.”

Tuk’s eyes well with tears, but Lo’ak continues on because if he doesn’t keep going, he’ll never finish.

“And you remember how Mom and Dad told us about Uncle Tsu’tey and Aunt Trudy, and you remember Kiri’s mom, Grace? How they got really hurt during Mom and Dad’s big battle. And they got so hurt that. . . that they couldn’t wake up, so Mom and Dad had to give them back to Eywa to rest. You remember that?”

Tuk nods, silent, and she’s so young but she knows what death is. They’d all been born into a world screaming with the aftermath of it on a scale unseen by the Na’vi before the humans came. They’d all been told the stories. Tuk knows death and Lo’ak is pretty sure she knows what he’s getting at, but he keeps going.

“Well, this battle was big too. And a lot of people got so hurt that they can’t wake back up. And a lot of big battles don’t care who gets hurt. And sometimes,” he chokes on the next words but keeps talking anyway, “sometimes the people we love get hurt. And we can’t really do anything about it.”

You’ve done enough. You’ve done enough. You’ve done enough.

“Lo’ak, you’re scaring me,” Tuk whimpers. “What’s wrong, why are you crying now?”

Lo’ak cringes. He hadn’t realized he’d started again, but there’s no use for it now. He can’t wipe them away, and Tuk has seen them. He takes a deep breath and focuses on Tonowari’s hand on his back and Tsireya’s hand on his shoulder. 

“Tuk, our family got really hurt during the battle. They got hurt like Spider. They’re not. . . they’re not going to wake back up.”

Tuk stares at him. And stares at him some more. “They got hurt like Spider?” She whispers, voice trembling in the way it never should have had to. 

I’m so sorry, Lo’ak wants to scream. He put that pain in his baby sister’s eyes. He’s done this to her, to them all. “Yeah, Tuktuk. Mom and Dad, and Neteyam and Kiri. They all got hurt like Spider.”

And Tuk knows what that means. So as they finally reach the place where their family lie still and cold and she sees their bodies, Tuk begins to wail.

- - -

The funerals begin at the start of the long eclipse. First, the bodies of young warriors who had yet to find mates, then those with mates and no children, then those with families, and finally, any children who perished in the battle as well.

Neteyam and Kiri are the only two child casualties of the battle, so Lo’ak’s family is the last to be given back to Eywa. Their bodies have been lovingly prepared by Ronal, Tsireya, Lo’ak, and Tuk for the ceremony, wrapped in funeral cloth and gently bound into the resting pose to return to their Great Mother. Each shell holding their bodies is filled with soft white lily flowers that spread through the water as the shell moves, leaving behind a trail.

Lo’ak and Tuk, too, have prepared themselves for the funerals. They’d sat in the heavy, heavy quiet of their family’s marui, a silent grave filled with reminders of what had still been just twenty-four hours ago. Lo’ak had painted the mourning dye onto Tuk’s face and body as gently as he could, wiping away her constant tears as he did so, trying to reassure her in any way that it was going to be okay. It hadn’t helped much, but Lo’ak had never been the emotionally supportive brother anyway. That was always Neteyam. 

Tuk had tried to help Lo’ak with his own paint too, but it had made more of a mess than anything else, and Tsireya, when she stopped by in between her duties, had helped him fix it.

As their turn for the burials begin, Lo’ak and Tuk take their dad first, as is custom. His body is heavy and limp in the water as they ease him from the shell, and Lo’ak takes most of his weight so Tuk isn’t too burdened.

Normally, the parents would bury the child. Or the adult children would bury their parents. But these are not normal circumstances, so Lo’ak at fourteen and Tuk at seven take their father and gently lower him into the sea, taking him down, down, down, until the glowing yellow of the anemones wrap their arms around him and bring him safely to Eywa. 

They repeat the process four more times. With their mom, and then with Spider, then Neteyam, and finally, with Kiri. It had been a brief struggle to convince Ronal to let them bury Spider with their ancestors, but Tonowari had been on Lo’ak’s side so it only took an hour of convincing and begging for her to finally relent.

As Kiri’s body finally fades from sight, Lo’ak guides Tuk back up to the surface, holding her close as she weeps, and bringing them back to the edge of the circle to rejoin the rest of the village. 

They stand with Tsireya’s family as the procession begins, the short swim from the yellow anemones to the Spirit Tree where each Na’vi who has lost someone may come forward and commune with them for the first time in Eywa. It’s a slow swim, meant to give the families a brief time of mourning before seeing their loved ones again. 

Lo’ak doesn’t think any amount of time would prepare him for this, but then he has to remind himself that this is a loop. This is a loop that he has spectacularly failed at, which means he’ll connect to the Spirit Tree and see nothing but the new beginning of a loop. He will not get to hug his father or mother or brothers or sister, he will not get to beg them for their forgiveness, and he will not get to experience them in any way that reflects this loss. He will never get to talk to them about this in any way that matters.

But he will also not have to live with the knowledge that he robbed Tuk of her family for the rest of his life, and he will not have to raise Tuk, which he would surely fuck up royally, so he puts his own confusing grief aside and begins to swim to the Spirit Tree.

Tsireya does not leave his and Tuk’s sides on the way, much like the way she’d stuck close by since he’d found his family’s bodies. She’d had tsakarem duties to attend to, of course, but every moment she could be, she was with Lo’ak and Tuk. It helped. It’s still helping.

They reach the Spirit Tree, and Lo’ak and Tuk float down to one of the branches. Tuk looks to him for a moment, as if looking for his permission or reassurance, and Lo’ak tries to give her a smile and nod.

He must succeed, because she reaches for her kuru and carefully connects it to the Spirit Tree, her eyes sliding closed a moment later.

Lo’ak sighs inwardly and places a loving hand on her head for a brief second. Tuk will never remember any of this. No one will ever remember any of this. None of this will ever matter. His family is not dead, has never been dead, will always be dead. 

And Lo’ak will not be here, will never have been here, will always be here, watching his family die and die and die, and being the one at fault every single time.

He connects to the Spirit Tree, and lets Eywa take him away.

- - -

The light that flickers across his eyelids as he blinks is warm, heavy with the weight of sunrise. Lo’ak does not move from where the beams of light hit his face. He lets the warmth of it seep into his bones, and attempts not to think about how tired he is of trying.

But then he gets up, because he remembers that this is the start of a new loop, which means every single member of his family is alive again. They have never actually died. Have never been buried in the sea.

Lo’ak sprints first to the shore where he knows his mother will be weaving her baskets. How many times now has she made those baskets? How many times has Lo’ak broken that peace?

He’s lost count, he realizes, with a distant sort of horror that he refuses to acknowledge because then he sees his mom, moving, breathing, alive, and he’s running toward her.

“Lo’ak? What-” 

Lo’ak cuts off Neytiri’s speech as he throws himself at her in a hug, clinging to her and trying not to cry thinking about how Tuk had clung to him like this after everyone else was gone. 

Thankfully, his mom doesn’t question the hug, at least for a minute, letting Lo’ak cling and embracing him in return, running a soothing hand up and down his back like she used to do when he was small.

But his mother is smart and doesn’t let things like this go, so she pulls back after a time and makes him face her. 

“Son, what is the matter? Why are you running around here like a pa’li being chased by a palulukan?”

Lo’ak glances away, the intensity of his mother making him shift in place. “I had a dream,” he says, going with the excuse he’d given to her in a past loop and hoping she takes it again. “A bad dream.”

Neytiri frowns, and from there the conversation plays out much the same as it had once before. Lo’ak is only half paying attention anyway, drinking in the way his mother’s eyes are bright, the way she moves and shifts with each breath, the way her hands are warm against his shoulders. And then he’s not paying attention at all, because he catches sight of Tuk in the shallow water, playing with her friends like nothing is wrong.

And nothing is wrong. No one has died. No one has been buried. Tuk and Lo’ak are not the only ones left standing, and they never have been, and they never will be. 

But Lo’ak remembers. And he can only stare at Tuk, imprinting her laughter and shrieks of joy into his mind and trying to drown out her heartbreaking wails with the sound of how happy she is now, before Lo’ak can fuck it all up.

- - -

After he escapes Neytiri’s watchful gaze and ensures Tuk is safe and sound and happy, he makes his way through the village trying to find Kiri with a burning desperation crawling just beneath his skin.

He finds Tsireya before he finds his sister, and he’s quick to wave her down. She comes, as always, and Lo’ak promises himself that when this is all over, he’ll. . . well, he’s not sure what he’ll do, but something. Something that the warm and bright, flutteringly fond thing that blooms to life inside of him when he sees her is quietly insisting on.

“Tsireya,” he says. “Do you know where Kiri is?”

“Lo’ak,” Tsireya cheerfully greets in response. “No, I don't know where she is, but she has been frequenting the healing tents. Perhaps she's there?”

“Awesome, thank you Tsireya!” Lo’ak dashes away before he does something stupid, like hold her hand or thank her over and over for everything she’s done for him in this hell.

He does find Kiri in the healer tents, but he doesn’t intrude to speak to her. She’s clearly busy, bustling about with one of the healers who’s teaching her how to treat the sting of a sea scorpion, with the unfortunate hunter lying before them acting as the lesson’s subject. 

It’s enough to watch his sister move around, peppering the healer with questions and trying not to laugh as the young warrior boasts loudly about how he’d gotten his injury. It’s enough to see her alive and breathing, not dead and still and silent, trapped in steel or lying on the resting mats with the rest of the people he loves.

He ducks out before she can catch a glimpse of him and see right through him. Of all his siblings, she’s always been able to read him the best. He’s closest with Neteyam, even with all the weird rivalry that’s settled upon them in the past year, but Kiri understands him the best. She would take one look at him and know something was wrong and not let him hide.

So he leaves and makes his way back down to where the village hangs over the sea and observes the beginning of the spearfishing lesson he’s skipping out on yet again. He’d feel bad, except he’s attended the class at least a few times during the loops and he’s sure he knows how to do it by now. There’s no more use in the lesson, so instead he watches Neteyam as his older brother struggles for a few minutes with the spear before getting the angle right.

Alive. Moving. Breathing. Lo’ak leaves a few minutes later, reassured as he’ll ever be. If he doesn’t keep moving he’ll watch his family forever, and he doesn’t have time for that. He’s still in a loop. Things will still go to shit in a few hours. He hasn’t got forever to bask in the peaceful morning, where everyone is still alive.

He’s not sure where his dad is, but he knows a few places he might be. He checks the olo’eyktan’s marui only to find it empty, then he clambers his way to the edge of the reef to see if Jake is out with a few warriors practicing with the tsuraks. The cove is quiet, however, and Lo’ak doesn’t see the familiar flash of orange wings anywhere.

After half an hour of increasingly frantic searching - what if it didn’t reset correctly, what if he’s still dead, what if Lo’ak killed his dad forever - he finds his father in one of the warrior maruis, disassembling and cleaning his gun. 

Lo’ak halts abruptly in the entrance of the marui where his father sits, out of breath from running all over the village in search of the man before him, who’s now looking at Lo’ak with a mix of confusion, exasperation, and annoyance.

“Lo’ak,” Jake says, “what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be at your spearfishing lesson?”

The rebuke stings, but only insomuch as it brings Lo’ak back to the other reproaching words spoken by his dad over and over.

You’ve done enough.

Lo’ak flinches, a tiny movement that he hopes his dad doesn’t catch but knows he does when Jake’s frown deepens.

“I just wanted to- you were-” Lo’ak has no excuse ready for his dad, having thought he wouldn’t be talking to his dad. He’d planned to observe him from a distance, just like he’d done with his siblings. So he stutters awkwardly for a couple seconds before giving up and going silent.

His dad sighs, a damning, familiar thing, and Lo’ak flinches again.

“You’re supposed to be pulling your weight, son, not skipping classes and running off to do who knows what,” his dad berates, and Lo’ak shrinks away with each word.

He just wanted to see his dad. To reassure himself that he was okay and alive and not motionless in a grave that Lo’ak had condemned him to. But then, as Lo’ak thinks about it, he probably deserves this too. Of course his father is pissed at him. When has Lo’ak ever done anything right?

So he stands quietly and takes the lecture, going willingly when Jake drags him back to the spearfishing lesson. And it’s a rough grip, but Lo’ak takes comfort in the way his dad’s hand is warm where it holds his arm.

Chapter Text

Lo’ak takes a few loops to observe and make plans, running over in his head what he knows.

The humans will always come. Payakan will always be marked. Someone will always be shot on the ship, whether that’s Neteyam, Spider, or Lo’ak himself.

He’s tried to go after Payakan on his own and he’s tried to warn his brother early, but it’s clear that neither of those things will work. The echo of bullets piercing his skin over and over serves as a direct reminder of that. 

He’s also tried to get back to the ship on his own in a couple of different ways, but the truth stands that Neteyam will always follow him onto the ship if he knows that Lo’ak is on it. And when Lo’ak had tried to board the ship without his brother knowing, he’d just gotten Spider and the rest of his family killed.

Lo’ak needs to get them away from trying to escape through the damned moonpool. Surely, there’s another way off the ship, one that doesn’t take them deep into the boughs of it and into enemy fire?

He turns the thought over in his head for a time, letting the loops play out as they always do and trying to find a point where he can change the timing of their escape, doing his best to dissociate his way through the latter half of the loops after Neteyam is dead and gone. He’s thought about ending the loops early again, but the taste of bullets on his tongue is too fresh. He avoids the guns for now, and tries not to think about how much steel he’s touched.

And then after loops of searching, he finds what he's looking for.

- - -

“Listen, Payakan,” Lo’ak leaps from his ilu and onto his brother’s fine, keeping his panic at a simmer as the clock begins ticking. The demon ship roars ever closer behind them, and Lo’ak’s friends and siblings are coming up from behind to help take the pinger off, so Lo’ak needs to make his instruction quick. 

Brother, they are coming! Payakan whistles urgently.

“I know, but I need you to trust me, and not ask me how I know what I’m about to tell you.”

Payakan gives a thrum of agreement after a moment, and Lo’ak is eternally grateful for the easy trust of his brother.

“Listen, after we get the pinger off of you, me, Tuk, and Tsireya are going to get captured by the humans and taken to their ship. I need you to attack the ship, but I need you to wait until right at the moment my dad boards it. As soon as he steps on the ship, attack. He’ll be on the lone tsurak that separates from the others in order to come out. Wait until then, and then attack to give us a chance to escape. Does that make sense?”

With Jake on board during the beginning of the battle, Lo’ak, Tsireya, and Tuk can hopefully be freed of their bindings sooner. Then Jake can fight Quaritch with his hands free, Tsireya and Tuk can slip into the water, and Lo’ak can wait until Quaritch and his dad are done fighting to go get Spider with Jake.

Yes, brother, Payakan replies. I can do this for you. You will tell me what is going on later?

“I will,” Lo’ak promises, and then his siblings and friends are there.

Things play out as usual. They heave the pinger out of Payakan’s skin, and then quickly scatter into the seaweed. He, Tuk, and Tsireya are captured and tied to the ship's railing, Lo’ak wrenching at the cuffs in the way he always does, in the way that he hasn’t ever quite managed to stop doing.

As blood begins to well against his wrists, Lo’ak listens to Quaritch giving the same ultimatum as always and the distant figure of Jake upon his tsurak peels off from the rest of the Metkayina to make the lone journey onto the boat.

Lo’ak holds his breath, praying that his instructions were clear and that Payakan follows them. Even the smallest mistake here will send the whole thing spinning off in a variety of horrible directions that Lo’ak doesn’t want to think about.

His dad gets closer to the ship, then closer, then closer, until his tsurak leaps up out of the water and Jake jumps off of it, landing in a crouch on the deck of the ship.

He takes a moment to look over at them, his eyes performing a quick scan to look for injuries, before his focus laserpoints onto Quaritch, who has given two of his avatar buddies the orders to cuff him. Lo’ak’s heart threatens to stop as he watches his father snarl at the two avatars as they approach him with the damning orange binders, sure for a moment that his plan has failed.

And then, right on time, Payakan breaches the surface with a shrieking wail, his body arching through the air and coming down with a deafening crash upon the demon ship.

Chaos descends immediately. Humans begin to scream and shoot at Payakan, who fights back and slaps down against the bullets and humans attempting to get at him. Quaritch and his men become suitably distracted by the massive tulkun now causing mass amounts of damage to their ship, and begin to fan out around Payakan to try and get a good angle.

Lo’ak tries to take in as much of the new scenario as possible and plan for his next moves, but snaps out of his rapid, panicked observations when his dad appears out of the mayhem with his knife unsheathed.

“Dad!” Tuk shouts, tears upon her cheeks as she sobs in relief when their dad reaches them and begins to cut their restraints.

“Tuk, hey baby girl you’re okay, you’re okay,” Jake soothes as he frees her and she barrels into him. “Tuk, you gotta let me get the other two out.”

Tuk moves to accommodate, still clinging to their dad’s back like a limpet as Jake cuts Tsireya out, then Lo’ak. As he finishes freeing Lo’ak, he puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Get them out of here, son,” Jake says.

“Dad, we need to get Spider too,” Lo’ak argues. “He’s on the ship, I know where they’re taking him, I can lead you there!”

Jake shakes his head sharply. “No, no way. You need to get the girls out of here, and then I will find Spider and bring him back.”

“Dad, you’re not listening-”

“No, Lo’ak, you’re not listening!” Jake snarls, frustration radiating off of him. Lo’ak flinches. “I’m giving you a direct order and I expect it to be obeyed! Get Tsireya and Tuk out of here and do not, under any circumstances, come back to the battlefield. Do you read me?”

Lo’ak wilts under his dad’s glare, and doesn’t meet his eyes when he says, “Lima Charlie, sir.”

“Good.” His dad stands and turns back to the battlefield. “Now get out of here!”

Their brief argument had already taken up too much time. As Payakan begins to heave himself back into the ocean, the humans start to redirect their attention back to Lo’ak, the girls, and Jake.

With nothing else to do but follow his dad’s order, Lo’ak scoops Tuk into one arm, grabs Tsireya with his free hand, and runs, tugging them behind him until they reach the edge of the ship. Then he throws Tuk over the side and he and Tsireya hop the railing together, still gripping each other’s hands, and plummet after Tuk over the side of the ship into the water below.

They slip under the waves with a splash, the sudden rush of water going up Lo’ak’s nose since he hadn’t fully prepared for the dive in his haste. Lo’ak swims up to the surface as fast as he can, coughing roughly to clear his throat, and calls out to his companions. “Tuk! Tsireya!”

“I’m here!” Comes the faint voice of Tuk as she paddles towards Lo’ak from a few meters away.

Tsireya pops up right beside Lo’ak a moment later and brushes her hair from her face. “Come, we must hurry and get off the battlefield!”

Lo’ak shakes his head. “No, I need to get back on that ship.”

“Lo’ak, your father said-”

“I know what he said!” Lo’ak snaps, then feels guilty as Tsireya’s ears lower. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have time for guilt. “I know what he said, but he doesn’t know what I know. Spider is on that ship and if I don’t go after him-”

My dad will. And my dad will die, because he doesn’t know that the ship is a deathtrap and if they go the way that Spider suggests, someone always dies.

“I need to go. But please, take Tuk and get out of here,” Lo’ak says, pushing his little sister towards Tsireya. “Get to safety. Do not let Tuk get back onto that ship! I mean it, get her far away from here! I’ll find you on the other side!”

Then he turns and swims back towards the ship, not looking to see if Tsireya listens, because she always does. That much he can trust. Tsireya, he can always trust. 

He makes his way to the side of the ship where a series of yellow handles make a ladder up to the deck. He starts climbing, and upon reaching the top, peeks his head over the side to assess the situation.

The deck is still in shambles, debris and bits of destroyed metal scattered everywhere, the aftermath of Payakan’s attack leaving destruction in its wake. Humans rush around, probably trying to salvage what they can and get the ship back up and running, and Lo’ak can’t help the stab of vicious satisfaction that runs through his gut.

Lo’ak’s head snaps to the right when he hears a familiar shout, and he sees his father and Quaritch snarling and snapping at each other while they fight against the backdrop of cold steel. They’re both bleeding in multiple places, but from what Lo'ak can gather, his dad is winning. He grins, and gets ready to hop the railing and get closer.

And then the ship jolts, and Lo’ak almost loses his grip on the handles as they begin speeding towards the rocks at full tilt.

Spider always crashes the ship.

Lo’ak braces himself, no time to get better situated on the deck itself. This is going to hurt.

They hit the rocks and the ship goes flying, and it’s all Lo’ak can do to hold on as he once again becomes weightless for a brief moment. Then the ship crashes back down, and Lo’ak’s body slams against the awkward angles of the handles. He bites back a scream as something in his chest cracks.

His vision whites out for a moment, and then he’s back, gasping and panting against the pain of a definitely cracked, possibly broken rib or two. 

Well that’s a new injury, Lo’ak thinks sarcastically to himself. It’s almost novel, feeling his body hurt in a new way after collecting the same injuries over and over again. He wants to do a damage assessment, but there’s no time for such things, not when each second holds value in the loops. He’s got to get to his dad and fast, or this will become another failed attempt.

Lo’ak carefully hauls himself onto the deck, bracing his chest with one arm and unsheathing his knife with the other. The few humans who’d managed to stay on board during the initial crash don’t even look at him, too busy scrambling towards the back of the ship as the alarms begin to wail. The one human who does start to approach him, Lo’ak downs quickly and without hesitation with a quick slash of his knife through their neck, leaving them behind to bleed out on the deck floor as he continues on.

He finds his dad and Quaritch shortly after, not far from where he’d seen them fighting last, the both of them still duking it out. He tries to creep around the continuing battle quietly and he mostly succeeds. That is, until he feels strong arms grab him by the shoulders and yank him backwards.

Lo’ak shouts in pain as the movement shifts his injured ribs, then grits his teeth as he tries to fight back against the hands making to pin him down.

It’s not much use in the end. He’s been grabbed by two of Quaritch’s avatar lackeys and can’t fight back at full capacity with his ribs screaming at him every time he moves. They haul him up between the two of him, holding him by his arms and putting all of his weight onto his chest. The strain has him wheezing, his chest spasming as he tries to get enough air in without dislodging a rib and making it puncture a lung. The pain, too, makes him dizzy, until he can’t tell up from down and he’s no longer sure what’s going on anymore.

Then he’s being dumped onto the floor, one moment airborne, and slamming into the concrete the next. He gags on a scream and chokes on his next few breaths, and only comes back to awareness when a rough hand yanks at his kuru until he’s on his knees and furiously forcing his vision to come back into focus.

His blood turns to ice when the spinning blurs in front of him concentrate into a clear picture. 

His father kneels across from him, hands bound and growling, Quaritch standing behind him with a gun to his head. Lo’ak can feel another gun pressing to his own temple, but he’s not bothered about that. He’s bothered that he’s gone and fucked it all up again, that they’re right back into another loop where he’s going to get his father killed right in front of him.

He doesn’t want to watch it again.

“Dad,” Lo’ak chokes out, “I’m sorry-”

The hand holding his kuru yanks at it and Lo’ak cries out at the pressure, tears stinging his eyes at the sudden pain.

“Shut up, brat,” comes the voice of his captor, at the same time Lo’ak hears his dad snarl.

“Don’t touch him!”

“We’ll do whatever the hell we want, Sully.” Quaritch’s voice is smooth and edged with a disgusting pleasure, like he’s enjoying watching Lo’ak writhe in pain as Jake is unable to help him. The guy makes Lo’ak sick, bile rising in his throat and wishing with all his might that he could shoot Quaritch dead right now.

But it wouldn’t stick, so Lo’ak contents himself to watch his dad as Quaritch gives his speech about how Jake betrayed him and the human race and how all of this is just justice.

Lo’ak wants to snort. Yeah, right. Justice on whose terms? Certainly not Eywa’s. And as far as Lo’ak is concerned, as far as all the Na’vi are concerned, as far as anything living on Eywa’eveng is concerned, Eywa is the only one who gets to dole out justice. Quaritch is nothing but a parasite, a disgusting blood sucker who’s trying too hard to play at something he isn’t.

Quaritch will get his due one day, Lo’ak vows, as the man in question sighs and says, “Normally, we’d take you in, but after all this trouble command wants to get rid of you while we can. Can’t have you escaping on the way back to Bridgehead, now can we? And I can’t say I’m not happy to finally settle our score.” 

He’ll pay for it all, Lo’ak vows, as he watches Quaritch level the gun at Jake’s head and put his finger on the trigger.

He’ll die slowly, and painfully, Lo’ak vows, as Quaritch pulls the trigger and splatters his dad’s blood across the deck in a single shot. 

And he’ll die by Lo’ak’s hand, this Lo’ak swears, as Quaritch and his lackeys saunter away after having gotten what they wanted, once again leaving Lo’ak with his dead father’s body.

Lo’ak doesn’t even bother grieving this time. He can’t, doesn’t want to, can’t, so he scrambles to his feet, desperate and uncoordinated in his movements, stumbling towards a discarded gun lying a few meters away.

He slams to his knees, levels the gun to his chin, and pulls the trigger as fast as his shaking fingers can manage.

- - -

After a few more tries of the same strategy, Lo’ak is tired of putting a bullet in his brain. He accepts that this one is a bust, that Jake being on the ship any earlier than the final confrontation always ends in his father’s death.

So, Lo’ak figures, if Payakan can’t attack later, why not try earlier?

- - -

Lo’ak brings a sharper knife with him to the reef, and he relays to Payakan a new set of instructions; to follow him, Tsireya, and Tuk to the ship and attack it the moment they’re set down on the deck. This way, they won’t be bound to the ship at all and they can escape straight off of it from the very beginning, allowing the adults to fly in without having to bargain for the lives of their kids.

He’s hoping that the earlier onset of the battle and the lack of hostages will allow the Metkayina and his parents a bit of a headstart in the fighting. Plus, if Lo’ak can get back onto the ship quicker, he can find Spider at a different point in the ship and they can escape a different way other than the moonpool.

As Tsireya and Tuk are scooped up by the net and Lo’ak hangs onto it with pale knuckles, he can only start hacking at the net and praying that Payakan gets the timing right.

They’re set down on the ship and Lo’ak doesn’t even bother snarling and lashing his knife at Quaritch’s avatars as they approach, shouting and waving their guns. He continues sawing at the net and untangling Tsireya and Tuk from its coiling clutches, his heartbeat like gunfire in his chest as he keeps praying.

And, of course, his brother comes through. Payakan leaps out of the water and onto the ship right before Lo’ak is about to get grabbed, and Lo’ak uses the very effective distraction technique to his advantage by finally managing to pull Tsireya and Tuk out of the net.

“Come on, come on!” He yells at them, tugging Tuk by the hand and ushering Tsireya to run in front of him. Both of them are a bit disoriented and Lo’ak can’t blame them; if this is your first rodeo on the ship and you have no idea what’s happening, it’ll be overwhelming.

But they haven’t got time for that, so he sheathes his knife, grabs Tsireya’s hand with his free one, and pulls both the girls away from the chaos and towards the edge of the ship.

He takes a moment to look behind them as they get closer to the railing and swears as he sees a female avatar rushing towards them with her gun up. 

“Move!” He shouts, yanking Tsireya and Tuk to the side and trying to keep the balance for all three of them as bullets ping against the floor they’d just been standing on. They dodge around a few of the equipment skids, finding cover for a brief moment from the thundering gunfire, before Lo’ak checks their route, finds it clear, and shouts, “Go!” and they sprint out into the open to make a dash for the railing.

Lo’ak’s heartbeat hammers in his chest, his feet slapping painfully against the ship deck’s concrete as he counts the distance down to the edge of the ship. Five meters, four, three-

Another glance back shows him that their hunter is gaining on them, and he puts on an extra burst of speed. Two, one-

They reach the railings and Lo’ak hoists Tuk into his arms, over the railing, and tosses her into the churning sea, away from the ship and all the horrors it holds. Then he turns and hisses at finding that Tsireya is still beside him and hasn’t leapt from the ship herself yet. 

He reaches for her and she must sense his intentions, because she reaches back and intwines their fingers and they get ready to jump to safety-

And then suddenly Tsireya’s hand is jerked away from his, and he hears her scream in surprise. He whirls around in an instant, and a bolt of raw fear shreds through his spine as he sees Tsireya, flailing and fighting against the female avatar who was chasing them as she pins Tsireya’s struggling body against her camo equipment with a snarl. 

“Tsireya!” Lo’ak shouts, and dives towards them, trying to push the visceral panic away so he can focus. 

The avatar begins to back up rapidly, taking Tsireya farther away from Lo’ak as she does so, and that is unacceptable. Lo’ak unsheathes his knife and snarls, furious and ready to take out the bitch’s eyes.

You don’t get to touch her.

He’s just a few steps away from them when Tsireya bites the avatar’s arm in an attempt to loosen the grip on her, causing her captor to screech in pain. 

And then he hears the words that will never leave his mind, not for as long as he lives.

“Whatever, she’s not even a Sully kid.”

And then the avatar removes the knife from her belt and sinks it into Tsireya’s chest.

Time freezes in place. Sound stops, motion halts, and for a moment, the whole world ceases to exist. Lo’ak thinks he might’ve stopped existing alongside it, his whole body gone frozen and still as he meets Tsireya’s gaze. Her eyes, usually soft with wonder and kindness, eyes that are always looking at him with such gentle fondness, are blown wide with terror and pain. She looks briefly surprised, her mouth forming a small ‘o’, as if she’s unsure as to what exactly just happened. 

And then the moment shatters as her eyes roll into the back of her head, and the avatar dumps her body to the ground with an annoyed huff. 

Tsireya lands rough, her body limp and sprawling against the unnatural concrete, her usually graceful limbs so lifeless and uncoordinated. Blood splatters from her wound and onto the ground in a deep, crimson puddle that grows and grows and grows.

For a moment, Lo’ak can only stare at her. He can only stare at her eyes, open and unseeing and empty, and realize. 

She’s already gone.

Time speeds back up, and all Lo’ak has left is rage.

He launches himself at Tsireya’s murderer with a piercing, bloody wail, all sense of restraint fleeing from his mind as he drives his fist into the avatar’s face. She falls back a step and Lo’ak goes for her again and again and again, scratching and biting at any bit of skin he can reach, the ferocity of his attacks and the unholy howls escaping his mouth causing the avatar to falter in her defense a moment.

Then she seems to restart, pushing against Lo’ak and throwing him to the ground, but Lo’ak doesn’t even register the pain of hitting the concrete. He only gets back up onto all fours, snarling and spitting, and lunges for her again.

Again and again they clash, fist on fist and teeth against steel, and Lo’ak knows nothing but the pounding of his heart, the red in his vision, and the furious, all-consuming need to kill her kill her kill her kill her kill her.

He finally gets the upper hand, his feral attacks combined with the rage in his veins proving a step too much even for a trained combatant. There is something about fury and loss that causes a person to lose it in a way that is so very dangerous, and Lo’ak has tipped past that point long, long ago.

He brings the avatar to the ground with a tackle, diving at her and sweeping her legs out from under her before dragging her down by the kuru. He settles atop of her and begins to punch, snarling like an enraged pululukan with every blow that lands. He is deaf to her cries of pain, all sense of morals and mercy having vanished from his blood the moment the unlucky creature beneath him chose to sink a knife into Tsireya’s chest. 

Unfortunately, the avatar is still strong and trained, and as she continues to struggle underneath him, Lo’ak realizes he can’t draw out the pain like he wants to. 

A pity.

Instead, when he gets the chance, he pins one of her hands to the side and dives in through the opening, sinking his teeth deep into her throat and tearing.

The bloody gurgles that come from beneath him should scare him, so filled with pain and agony do they sound, but he hears none of it. The rage blinds him to the horror of what he’s doing, and he keeps tearing, using all of his jaw strength to rip the flesh and cartilage of his victim’s neck away from its body.

It comes away with a heavy burst of blood, spraying the hot crimson over both of their bodies. Lo’ak spits the hunk of flesh from his mouth with a snarl, tasting iron, and watches blankly as the body beneath him twitches for a minute, blood still spurting from the gaping hole in its throat, until finally it goes still.

He abandons the body the second he’s certain it's dead, turning away impassively to clamber on all fours towards the other, far more precious, body laying silently just a few meters away.

He picks Tsireya up with a gentleness so foreign to the violence that had just reigned over him a moment before. He holds her to him tenderly, as if he’ll hurt her by moving her too much.

She’s limp in his arms, her eyes open wide and seeing none of what has transpired before her. Lo’ak rocks her back and forth, soothing her, whispering sweet nothings that fall on ears that can no longer hear a word of what he’s saying. 

The weeping starts soon after, apologies and promises and broken begging spilling from Lo’ak’s mouth as he pleads with her to wake up, to come back to him, to not leave him here alone. 

She doesn’t answer him. She can’t. And as Lo’ak’s tears soak her body and the blood on his hands stains her even more red, he realizes that this, too, is all his fault. He brought her out to Payakan, he brought her to this ship, he changed something and practically led her to the slaughter, her unknowing hand reaching trustingly for his.

And his hands are soaked in blood. And he cannot stop ruining whatever he touches. And he cannot stop killing the people he loves, and everything, all of this, has only ever been all his fault.

“Tsireya,” he sobs, clutching her close to him and resting his head atop hers, both of their bodies shaking with the force of his weeping. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He repeats the apologies until his mouth goes dry, and kneels there with her in his arms until he realizes that unless he wants Neteyam to find him here and see what he has done, they need to go.

So he gets to his feet and picks up a nearby gun to sling around him, carrying Tsireya in his arms as he goes. He refuses to leave her here on the ship, where she is so far from the sea that she loves, so he leaps into the water and swims for the rocks, the rocks that have held almost as many deaths as there have been loops. He moves without thinking, like he’s being drawn to the rock by habit or force or just the sheer familiarity of it all.

Sometimes, Lo’ak thinks he’ll be stuck on that rock forever.

He carries Tsireya there and sets her down upon the rough stone with the most care he can muster. He tucks her hair behind her ears like he’s always wanted to do, and traces her face with his fingers. They leave no red. The water has washed all the blood off of the both of them like the sea washing away his sins, but Lo’ak knows that no amount of water will ever rid him of this.

He has done this. He’s the one who killed Tsireya. He might as well have been the one pinning her down and holding the knife.

So Lo’ak sits beside Tsireya’s body and brings the gun to his chin. He can only hope that his body falls right beside hers when he pulls the trigger, just so he can hold her even in death. But he knows he doesn’t deserve that.

He pulls the trigger anyway. 

He only deserves the cruel pain of the bullet and the cold darkness that devours him and takes him into death.

- - -

Lo’ak wakes up. He walks over to his father’s personal belongings and finds the rifle. He puts the gun to his head, and fires.

- - -

And fires.

- - -

And fires.

- - -

And fires.

- - -

And fires.

- - -

And fires.

- - -

He would’ve kept going, he thinks. He would’ve kept going until Eywa made it permanent, until he could sink into death without being wrenched from away from its brief moment of cold, blissful silence and back into the blinding, cruel light of the morning, because he can't do this. Whatever Eywa was thinking when she chose Lo’ak as her champion, whatever made her pick him out of everyone, out of every fucking option, she chose wrong. 

Eywa chose wrong.

Lo’ak can’t do this. He’s tried. He’s tried and he’s tried and he’s tried but the only thing he’s managed to do is make things worse. He’s gotten almost every single member of his family killed. Neteyam, who always dies; Spider, who will die if Lo’ak leaves him, and will die if Lo’ak goes to get him; Kiri, condemned if Spider dies, the two of them dying the way they’d lived— together; his dad, who goes after Lo’ak when Lo’ak is making another bad choice, and who dies because of it; and his mother, who will always fight for all of them, but who will die when she fights for Lo’ak. 

Lo’ak has only managed to avoid killing Tuk, his little baby sister, but even then he’s caused her so much pain. He’s gotten all of their family killed, forced her to live through it all again and again and again. She’s only seven. She’s only seven and she’s been through so much, all because of Lo’ak.

And now Lo’ak has killed Tsireya. Tsireya, who has always treated Lo’ak and his family with kindness and respect even from the very first day. Who teaches them with patience and gentleness and care. Who allows Lo’ak to follow her around with what he knows is a dumb, admiring expression. Who looks at Lo’ak with something he once dared to call affection, who sees someone worth something.

And Lo’ak got her killed for it.

Maybe, if Lo’ak can kill himself here, can get this to stick, no one will die. No one will go to Payakan, no one will force the battle to start, and Neteyam will not follow him into the ship. Maybe, if Lo’ak dies here, it will fix all of it.

He gets up and goes for another round, his mind stuck on a permanent loop of your fault your fault your fault as it brings up every death he’s ever caused.

But then he trips. He trips, and he goes stumbling to the floor and lands heavy on his hands and knees.

He blinks. Beneath him, the culprit of his fall, is one of Tuk’s large seashell ornaments that she’d started learning how to make a month into their stay in Awa’atlu. He picks it up, the whole of it big enough to fit inside his palm, and turns it over in his hands. The ridges of the shell shine a deep, shimmering purple in the light of the morning sun, a contrast to the pearly white sheen of the rest of it, and Lo’ak suddenly remembers this one.

Tsireya had given her this shell. She’d come in one day, triumphant and pleased, and presented it to Tuk like it was the greatest prize to be found. Tuk had, of course, reacted like it was, and Lo’ak remembers watching Tsireya as she’d cheered happily, then blushing, his gaze skittering away like a frightened pa’li, when she had looked up and caught him staring. 

Neteyam had helped Tuk carve a small hole in the top of the shell for her to later use to string it up alongside a few others. She had declared she was going to make one of the windchimes she was learning to craft using it. Lo’ak remembers complaining to his brother during the careful process of chipping away at the shell, wanting Neteyam to come with him to the shore and explore. Neteyam had laughed and said that he only had enough time for one sibling at the moment, and to check back later when he was done.

Lo’ak holds the shell in his hands. Breathes. Imagines his brother or sisters or Tsireya finding his body on the marui floor. Thinks about getting up and going for the gun anyway. Finds that that feels like an awful lot of work and that his limbs are no longer cooperating. Curls into himself and stays sitting on the marui floor instead. Breathes, and thinks about Tsireya’s words as the air finally seems to get into his lungs.

The way of water has no beginning, and no end. . . 

He breathes.

- - -

Lo’ak hardly registers Neteyam entering the marui. He notices the shadow falling across his face, but he doesn’t move. He’s too busy siphoning air into his lungs, desperately trying to keep the itch in his hands at bay, the itch that demands to hold steel and pull a trigger and give him what he deserves. 

He begins the mantra again, repeating it in Tsireya’s voice as he’s done since he curled up on the floor, the barrier in his mind holding back the cold, deep waters of his burning, self-directed hatred.

The way of water has no beginning, and no end. 

“Lo’ak, what are you doing?

The sea is around you and in you.

“Lo’ak?”

The sea is your home.

“Hey! Lo’ak! What’s wrong, baby bro?!”

Before your birth. . .

“Lo’ak, look at me!” A hand begins to shake him by the shoulders, but the touch is faraway and fuzzy, like his whole body has gone numb and his soul has gotten lost somewhere away from it. He watches it all from a very far, far away place.

. . . and after your death.

What happens when Lo’ak keeps dying? Will the sea ever welcome him? Or will it keep spitting him back up, throwing his soul back into his body like even death doesn’t want him?

“Hold on baby brother, I’ve got you. I’m getting Dad; I’ll be right back, I promise, just hold on!”

Our hearts beat in the womb of the world.

There’s silence for a while, blissful, peaceful silence, and then suddenly there are more voices and more hands. He hears his dad’s voice, far off and echoing, like it’s coming from underwater.

“Lo’ak! Son, answer me! What’s wrong with him?”

Our breath burns in the shadows of the deep.

“MaJake, we must call tsahìk!”

That’s his mother. She sounds scared. Lo’ak doesn’t want to make her sound like that anymore. He’s so tired of making his parents afraid, or angry, or disappointed. He’s so tired of getting them killed and having to watch.

The sea gives, and the sea takes.

Can’t it stop taking from Lo’ak’s family for once? They’ve gone through enough. Lo’ak misses watching Tuk bounce and play and sing. He misses bantering with Kiri and tugging on her tail. He misses flying on his ikran with Neteyam. He misses when his mother used to laugh and when his father used to love him.

Water connects all things—

More voices come, but Lo’ak is tired. He stops paying attention, focusing only on getting air into his lungs and not diving for the closest gun. 

Life to death. . . darkness to light.

He retreats into himself as the hands push and poke and shake, letting the fog and Tsireya’s words take him away, back into the safety of the darkness once more.

The way of water has no beginning, and no end. . .

Chapter Text

Lo’ak drifts. 

The darkness is comforting, like the inside of a marui after the fire has died down low, but the air is still warm. Every so often flashes of colour invade it, blurred bursts of life that make Lo’ak flinch away, bringing with them echoes of sound like calls in a canyon.

He doesn’t want to go back. He wants to stay here, where the world doesn’t have to be fixed and no one he loves is dying. Where Tsireya is alive and still looks at him like that. Where he hasn’t killed her yet. Where he hasn’t had to watch her lifeless body slump to the ground and hold her, dead, in his arms. Where he hasn’t had to do that for any of his family either.

The world outside keeps demanding his attention, but Lo’ak refuses to give it. He curls up deeper, digs in and waits it out, repeating the mantra again and again to drown it all out.

Eventually, the intrusions fade away, and Lo’ak keeps drifting.

- - -

Awareness stabs into Lo’ak like a blade, sharp and painful and unwelcome. He blinks once, then twice, the world still blurred around the edges. He inhales, and feels the expansion of his lungs for the first time in what feels like an age.

He doesn’t know where he is. He’s in a marui, the tapering leather walls and the comforting feel of a mat underneath him confirming it, but it’s not one he recognizes. It’s certainly not his own.

He keeps blinking and breathing. His hearing begins filtering back in and his ears twitch, each new sound coming in like a soft wave on the shore. First, the crackling of a fire, familiar and warm. Then the faint tinkling of chimes, more than one, layering on top of each other to create a windy melody. Then the sea, gently lapping underneath the marui at the roots of the mangroves holding the village aloft.

And then someone humming. He doesn’t recognize the tune, and he doesn’t recognize the voice. Anxiety digs its spindly fingers into his gut and he shifts, needing to gauge the presence near him and determine if they’re a threat and if he needs to run.

But the moment he shifts, the humming stops, and the blurry form of a Na’vi materializes beside him. Lo’ak blinks rapidly again, and the figure finally comes into focus.

Ronal. 

Huh. What’s he doing in the tsahìk’s marui?

He opens his mouth to speak, even if he doesn’t know what words are trying to come from his mouth, but Ronal holds up her hand to silence him.

“Hush, child. You need water before you speak. You have been gone for some time.”

Some time? Dread flashes through Lo’ak, hot and fast, and he jolts upwards. He regrets the movement shortly after as the world goes spinning and blurring all over again, but he doesn’t have time to waste. 

Some time could mean anything. Could mean a couple hours to a couple days. What has he missed? What’s happened to his family? What has he done now?

Firm hands grab his shoulders before he can catch his breath enough to move, pushing him back down onto the mat with a hiss.

“Be still, foolish boy! Do you wish to cause yourself more harm?”

Yes, Lo’ak wants to say. Doesn’t say. Can’t say. More than you know.

But he doesn’t have time for more self-pity, so he merely groans and tries to reorient himself in the waking world once again. Ronal helps him sit up slowly and only a bit, her firm, guiding hand against his back, and presses a deep shell to his lips, encouraging him to take slow slips. He relents and follows her instructions, shocked by the amount of energy it takes for him to sit up, drink, and lay back down.

Ronal gets him situated and then returns to the fire, tending to something in the pot hanging over it.

Lo’ak clears his throat. “How long was I. . . gone?” He rasps.

Ronal doesn’t look at him, continuing to busy herself with whatever task she’s doing, but she does answer. “A day. Your brother found you in your family’s marui. You would not respond. They brought you here to me, and here you have laid since.”

A day. A day. Roa and her baby are already gone. The battle is already over. Neteyam is already dead. 

Tears sting, unbidden, in his eyes, and Lo’ak fights to keep them at bay. He’s screwed it all up again without even trying. Distantly, he thinks about his father’s gun. 

“So it’s done then?” Lo’ak finds the courage to ask, willing his voice steady as he gazes resolutely up at the marui walls. “The battle is over?”

“What battle do you speak of?”

Lo’ak whips his head towards Ronal. She’s looking at him sharply, confused and angry that she’s confused. Lo’ak feels himself pale.

“With the- the sky people. For the Tulkun. For-” He stops himself before he can say Payakan. Something is not right here.

“There has been no battle, boy,” Ronal walks over to him and crouches, putting one of her hands against his forehead. “Your spirit is no longer far away, and your body has no ailment. So why do you still speak nonsense?”

There’s been no battle. 

Lo’ak has done nothing, and no one has gotten killed. He’s sat back, stopped making trouble, stopped dragging everyone down with him, and he’s solved the problem. There’s been no battle.

A disbelieving laugh bursts from his throat, startling Ronal and causing her to narrow her eyes at him.

“I’m sorry,” Lo’ak sobers up, reigning in the hope fluttering in his chest and stuffing it back down. “I think I just had some strange dreams while I was out. Some really strange, horrible dreams.”

Ronal hums, reaching out her hands and tracing her fingers from his temples, down his neck, all the way to his fingers and back up again. It tingles slightly. She does this with her eyes closed, concentrating on something. When she’s finished, she opens her eyes and meets Lo’ak’s gaze.

“Dreams, yes. Such things are possibilities when the soul is untethered from the body in the way yours was. Uncommon, but possible.” She doesn’t sound like she believes him. Besides, he’s more interested in the first statement.

“My soul was. . . untethered?”

“Yes. When your family brought you to me, your eyes were open, but unseeing. Here, but absent. A strange thing, but one I have seen before, on warriors who returned from battle and left their souls behind.” She moves back to the pot and stirs for a moment before adding in a sprinkle of bright yellow powder. “The spirit goes to another place for a time, hiding. Sometimes, it is best to rouse the absent one. But in other cases, only time and Eywa may bring them back.”

“And I needed time,” Lo’ak guesses. 

Ronal nods. She seems to finish with her mixture, and scoops it into the shell she’d given to Lo’ak before and brings it to him. “Drink. It will bring vitality back to your body. Such a period of time without the spirit can cause harm.”

Lo’ak takes the shell and wrinkles his nose at the smell, but downs it anyway. Ronal is not one to be crossed, and Lo’ak needs to tread very carefully here in order to keep the loops a secret. Telling the tsahìk about looping the same two days over and over again is a sure fire way for him to get called crazy and dropped off the end of the closest pier.

He gives the shell back to Ronal after swallowing the extremely bitter mixture. It goes down rough, but once it hits his stomach it’s like a hot coal from a fire has been placed there, and a strange warmth spreads through his aching muscles. It’s surprisingly soothing.

He takes a moment to stretch out his arms, then freezes when Ronal speaks again.

“I would like to know, boy, why you have suffered this ailment.”

His heartbeat picks up, and he calculates the distance to the marui’s entrance with how fast his still-unsteady limbs could get him there. His odds are not looking good.

Ronal continues. “It is a warrior’s affliction, and even then I have only seen it in those who have witnessed great suffering.” She pins him with a stare. “What is it that you have so witnessed, boy, to make you hide as you did?”

Lo’ak’s mouth flaps open and closed, speechless. What does he say? Yeah, sorry, I’ve been living the same two days over and over again, and in an attempt to fix the multitude of ways I’ve fucked up I actually keep fucking up and killing my whole family in a variety of new and exciting ways, and oh yeah I actually got your daughter killed last loop, and then I held her body after I slaughtered the person who did it, and then I killed myself so many times I think there must be a bullet permanently lodged in my brain because even after all this I’ve still managed to fuck it all up and be the world’s worst mistake.

He can’t say that. He can’t say anything at all, so he just stays quiet and stares at his hands, blue and peeling from too much time in the sea. They’re not bloody, but Lo’ak can see the red anyway.

Ronal sighs from across the marui. “I do not need answers,” she says, and even with the unspoken I would, however, like them, her voice is uncharacteristically gentle, “but your family will. And you will answer their questions.” It’s a command, not up for debate.

Lo’ak nods. He wouldn’t get away with silence anyway, not with his dad at least. He’ll tell them something. He’s gotten so used to lying lately that he’s sure he can come up with something believable. Besides, he’s more interested in the fact that it’s been a whole fucking day since he’s been out and there’s been no battle.

He needs to get out of here and assess. What’s changed? What’s going on right now? What does he need to do to keep it like this?

“I am going to call your family now. Are you settled enough to see them?” 

“Yeah. You can call them.”

Ronal slips out of the marui, and Lo’ak takes the short amount of time he has alone to breathe and build his facade back up. He’s just Lo’ak here. Regular Lo’ak, not time-looping Lo’ak. He’s never seen his family die. He’s never killed anyone. He’s never killed himself.

Whatever mental break he’d suffered, it’s sunk into the background. It’s not gone; Lo’ak can feel the whispering promise of the gun in the back of his mind, the sharp claws of despair ever-ready like a crouching thanator. Maybe, if he’d woken up and Neteyam had been dead, he might’ve gone looking for the cold release of steel again.

But it’s a new loop, and Lo’ak has unintentionally changed this one so dramatically that he needs to find out what he’s done and if it will stick. So he pushes the thoughts of guns and death and blood far, far down, until he can forget about it for now.

Unprompted, she pops into his mind. Her corpse, her sightless eyes, the knife in her chest. His own chest aches, and he tries to ignore the memory. 

He needs to see Tsireya. He thinks he might throw up if he sees Tsireya. He thinks he might die if he doesn’t see Tsireya. It’s a strange push and pull in his mind; the deep, instinctive need to seek her out and find her alive and well, to confirm to himself that she’s not dead in his arms, warring against the fierce, sharp knowledge that he’s the one who killed her and she’s probably better off never being near him again.

His internal debate is cut off abruptly when the heavy bead curtain in the entrance of the tsahìk’s marui bursts forward in a great surge of colourful tinkling, and suddenly his family is there.

“Lo’ak!”

Tuk runs in first, undoubtedly escaping whatever hold their mother or Neteyam might’ve had on her in an attempt to keep her from smothering Lo’ak upon entering the marui. She smothers anyway, reaching him in his place sitting upon the mat and slamming into him, curling up in his lap and nuzzling the top of her head against his chin.

“Hey Tuktuk,” Lo’ak says quietly, a little winded from the tight hug, but reciprocating it by wrapping his arms securely around his little sister and leaning his head against hers. “You okay?” He asks belatedly, when he feels the small shake in her body and the way she clutches at him almost desperately.

Tuk nods, and a snort comes from the door. “Is Tuk okay? We should be asking you that, you skxawng.” Lo’ak looks up and sees Kiri, her arms crossed and raising an eyebrow at him. Her expression is ever aloof, but he can see the concern etched into the way her eyes squint and rove over him, checking him over.

Behind her, through the beads, comes Neteyam, then their mom, and finally, their dad. Neytiri pushes right through and comes to Lo’ak’s side, resting a hand against his cheek and visibly checking him over.

“Lo’ak.” She says his name like a breath of relief. “My son, are you well?”

Lo’ak swallows the sudden lump in his throat and nods. “Yeah, I’m okay mom. Ronal did a good job.”

His mother’s brows tick downward for a brief moment, but then smooth out. “That is good.”

She steps back the smallest bit and is replaced by Neteyam. Lo’ak meets his older brother’s gaze and feels his heart sink. 

Neteyam’s eyes are bloodshot, the skin around them darker than usual. His tail flicks to and fro in the way that practically shouts of distress, and his hands tremble, ever so slightly, as they come up to grip Lo’ak’s shoulders.

“You,” he begins, voice tight and strained, “are a skxawng.”

Lo’ak opens his mouth to retort, but is cut off when Neteyam pulls him into a bone-crushing hug. Tuk squeaks in alarm from where she’s now being squished between them, but she doesn’t complain like she normally would. 

With nothing else to do and his arms trapped by his brother’s strong hold on him, Lo’ak sinks into Neteyam’s embrace, resting his head on his brother’s shoulder and breathing in deep. Neteyam’s familiar scent washes over him, mountain dew and rich soil, mixed, as it always is nowadays, with sea salt. It calms the child in him, a part of his brain forever hardwired to sense his brother near and feel safe.

“‘Teyam,” he mumbles after a few moments. “You’re crushing Tuk. And me.”

“Sorry,” Neteyam replies, easing his grip and leaning back, sniffing surreptitiously. Lo’ak is surprised to see a faint glimmer in his eyes, the shine of tears his brother is obviously trying to suppress. Lo’ak is kind enough not to mention it. “You worried me.”

Lo’ak winces, guilty. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “I won’t do it again.”

“That’s not what he meant.” Kiri joins their little circle, kneeling beside Lo’ak and placing a hand on his head. She gives it the smallest of shakes. “We’re not mad at you. It was scary, but it’s not your fault. Ronal told us what happened.”

“Right,” Lo’ak agrees half-sarcastically, disbelief and shame contorting his face. He knew it was coming, but it’s making him uneasy, having confirmation that his family knows he’s fucked up in the head. And besides, Kiri is wrong. It’s all his fault. He deserves the fallout.

“Your sister is right,” Neytiri interjects smoothly, perhaps sensing Lo’ak’s distress. “This is not something you could control. We are glad you are back with us.”

Of course it was something I could control, Lo’ak wants to say. I’m the one who’s always messing up the loops. I’m the one who keeps getting everyone killed. I’m the one who put so many bullets in my skull that it finally knocked something loose.

But, as always, he can’t say any of the things he wants to, so he shrugs and says nothing at all. He chooses to look down at Tuk and give her a smile, rubbing one of her ears absentmindedly.

“Lo’ak.”

Lo’ak goes still at the sound of his dad’s voice. He doesn’t - can’t - look up. 

Jake repeats his name, “Lo’ak,” and it’s not the harsh, military officer that Lo’ak was expecting. His dad’s voice is still full of command, but it’s softer, like he’s trying to reign in the anger that so often comes out. He hasn’t tried to shield Lo’ak from his anger in a long, long time.

Against his will, Lo’ak looks up, his gaze pulled to his father like a magnet.

And maybe it’s because Lo’ak hasn’t gotten any of his children killed yet, but his dad is watching him with something akin to care in his eyes, and Lo’ak’s heartbeat stutters at the sight of it.

Jake finally crosses the marui to join the huddle that has formed around Lo’ak’s mat. He crouches at the edge of it, and as Neteyam shuffles a little bit to make more room for him and the circle adjusts itself to fit one more member, Jake  brings a gentle hand forward to rest on top of Lo’ak’s head.

“Why didn’t you say anything, boy?”

Lo’ak drops his gaze. The words aren’t harsh, but they come out rough and with an edge of accusation. And Lo’ak is well familiar with that tone when it comes to his dad.

You’ve done enough.

But that’s not fair to his dad. Jake hasn’t actually said those words, has never said those words - has always said those words - so Lo’ak can’t pin that on him. 

So instead, he mutters, beginning his performance, “I was dealing with it.”

His dad huffs out a breath that might’ve been a laugh, but is probably something more akin to a frustrated sigh. “You’re not “dealing with it” if you have a PTSD flashback so bad that it knocks you out for a day.”

“A what?” 

“PTSD. It’s the name we used back on Earth for a mental illness that causes flashbacks and dissociation. Usually found in soldiers and people who’ve gone through traumatic situations.”

Lo’ak’s stomach drops. “So I’m. . . what, broken? Dysfunctional?”

“No, of course not, my son,” Neytiri interrupts before his dad can speak again. “You are our son. And you have only suffered a small spiritual disconnection. Ronal says you are okay, yes?”

Lo’ak nods.

“Then you will be okay from here,” his mom says, definitive and firm, like if she wills it enough, it will be true.

Lo’ak’s not sure what he dislikes more: his dad’s odd, human way of categorizing Lo’ak as something ill, or his mom’s desire to brush aside the whole event as a one-time thing. Both bring a touch of unintentional hurt, a brush of ignorant cruelty, something that makes Lo’ak feel wholly broken and other.

He agrees with his mom anyway. He doesn’t have the time to do anything else. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be okay. It was just triggered by a nightmare anyway, I think.” At the responding silence, Lo’ak sighs and feels the prompt to continue.

“It was just from back home,” he says, weaving his cover story and hoping he sounds believable, “when we got caught by those avatars. They. . .” he closes his eyes and doesn’t have to fake the horror when he says, “they started killing everyone instead of taking us hostage.”

Spider, struck clean through the neck. Kiri, limp and swaying in the water, Neteyam shot and shot and shot. Tuk, wailing as she realizes what has happened.

“And they made me watch. And I couldn’t do anything. And it was-” all my fault. But he doesn’t say that, the words just a touch too close to the truth for his liking. The best lies are half-truths, but he doesn’t want to get that close.

“They cannot hurt you here, my son,” his mom whispers, pulling Lo’ak into a gentle embrace. “They are just dreams.”

“Yeah, I know.” But they’re not. They’re not, and they will hurt me because they’ll hurt you and kill you, and they make me watch every single time.

“We’ll get through this,” Jake nods, firm and unyielding, like Lo’ak has no choice but to get through this. It’s oddly comforting. “As a family. Because what do Sullys do?”

“Sullys stick together,” they all chorus in response, and Lo’ak breathes just a bit easier knowing that whatever this loop holds, his family is here now, and they still love him.

- - -

Ronal lets Lo’ak go back to their marui shortly after his family’s visit, declaring him firmly back in his body and fine except for a lingering weakness that she gives him a few vials of the bitter drink for. 

“Drink one at every eclipse until it is gone,” she instructs, and Lo’ak nods, only half-listening. If he can’t manage to pull this loop off it won’t matter anyway, because he’ll just wake up back at the start.

His family practically escort him to their marui, Tuk clinging to his hand on one side and Neteyam on Lo’ak’s other side doing his best impression of a barnacle and pretending not to be doing that. They probably make a sight to behold, but no one bothers them on the way back and Lo’ak can’t help but be grateful for it.

He’s still not sure what he’s going to do if - when - Tsireya shows up. He’ll think about it later. For now, they reach home and Lo’ak sinks onto one of the mats with a relieved groan. Ronal’s drink had helped, but he’s still sore and a bit shaky. He really just wants to sleep, but he can’t afford to do that when he has maybe half a day left until the time when the loop normally ends, when they normally bury the dead from a battle that hasn’t happened.

Lo’ak eyes Neteyam as his older brother helps their mom begin straightening out the marui from the morning’s activities. His older brother who is very much alive.

“So what happened while I was out?” Lo’ak asks as the bustle of his family starts to lull and everyone takes a seat around the marui, no one wanting to leave but also not wanting to admit that. 

“I played with Katu and Mo’ara!” Tuk starts first, tail wagging excitedly as she launches into a tale about some made up game the girls had played earlier this morning. She finishes with, “it was fun, but I was super worried about you and I think they were just trying to distract me.”

“That’s nice of them,” Kiri replies. “It means they care about you and want to see you happy.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty great!”

The rest of his family chips in about what they’ve been up to, but Lo’ak can sense the thanator in the room, the topic they’re all dancing around knowingly or unknowingly, in Tuk’s case. Lo’ak would’ve been able to tell even if he didn’t already know what happened.

Finally, after a time of avoiding the subject, Lo’ak sighs and says, “Okay, so I get the normal things that everyone’s been doing, but what aren’t you telling me? Something happened, I can tell.”

There’s a brief period of silence, before Jake sighs and speaks. “Ronal’s spirit sister and her calf. . . we found them dead a few klicks from shore. Sky people. They’re getting closer.”

Lo’ak flattens his ears to his skull and shakes his head, not even having to try to fake the sorrow when the pain of this event is very real. “That’s awful. Have there been any more tulkun deaths since?” It’s been some time, so it stands to reason that they humans would have kept moving if the battle hadn’t happened.

More quiet. Lo’ak scans his family one by one as they each carefully avoid his gaze with a solemnity that puts dread in his gut. 

And then he realizes.

He didn’t go to warn Payakan. He was stuck here, trapped in his own mind, too far gone to think about anything at all. Without warning and without help-

“Payakan is dead, isn’t he.” It’s not a question. The words come out, dead and flat. Truth. Fact. Even if this is the loop that sticks, even if Lo’ak can save everyone else, his spirit brother is still gone. Payakan will still be dead, and he’ll stay that way.

“Lo’ak-”

“No,” Lo’ak cuts off his dad in a way he hasn’t dared to for years, holding up his hand. “I don’t want to- where’s his body?”

A pause, then Kiri confesses, quietly, “the tulkun said to leave him at Three Brothers Rocks after cutting away the human devices. They said,” she hesitates, and Lo’ak knows he’s not going to like what she says next. He’s right.

“They said he’s an outcast, so he doesn’t get a proper burial.”

Lo’ak breathes out carefully, fury surging through him so fast it leaves him dizzy. 

How dare they. 

Payakan never killed anyone. He fought for them, time and time again, always coming to their aid whether Lo’ak asked him to or not. His worst sin was wanting to stop the murdering of his brothers and sisters, the senseless slaughter of his family. 

His worst sin is the same sin Lo’ak still carries.

Lo’ak’s world narrows, and he is briefly aware of his mom berating Kiri for being so blunt, barely hearing the annoyed “he was going to learn the truth anyway” that his sister retorts with, before he’s up and stumbling out of the marui.

A chorus of shouts and protests follow him, but he shrugs off the hand that reaches out to stop him and makes it to the edge of the village path right outside their home before kneeling and throwing up into the sea. Not much comes up, but he retches painfully all the same.

He comes back to someone rubbing his shoulders comfortingly, whispering small reassurances into his ear. 

“Dad,” Lo’ak croaks, voice hoarse from the vomiting, “all he wanted to do was protect everyone.” His birth clan, his family, me, all of us. And it’s not fair, but Lo’ak can’t say anything because no one will understand, so instead he whispers the only thing worth saying about any of it at all. “He was my brother.”

“I know, Lo’ak, I know,” his dad soothes, but Lo’ak doesn’t think he does. He allows the comfort anyway, and lets his dad lead him back into the marui, back under the watchful gaze of his family.

- - -

Lo’ak manages to slip out a couple hours later. He walks the familiar paths of the village, marveling at how new everything seems now that the loop has changed so drastically.

Na’vi who are normally in one place are in another, doing something different. Lo’ak can list out all the people he normally sees in the morning before the battle and what they’re doing; someone over at the docks repairing the nets, a group heading out to fish, women sifting through collected herbs.

Now, though, the whole dynamic has changed, and Lo’ak abruptly realizes how long it’s been since he started looping. He can’t remember how many loops it's been, but it’s been a long, long time.

How will he ever go back to normal after all of this? If he ever manages to fix things, if this loop is the one to stick, what will he do when eclipse ends and he needs to step into a new day? A day where he doesn’t know every event that will happen, where he has to make new choices and new decisions, all without the buffer of knowing that should he fail, he can always try again.

What will he do when Eywa stops giving him second chances? What will he do when his mistakes become permanent?

He spirals for a while, wandering the village and then farther, heading back up to the cliffs to find some peace and quiet. Eclipse is nearing, the sky not yet turning red with dusk but the sun edging ever closer to the rim of Naranawm; it’ll be within the hour.

As Lo’ak reaches the cliffs and sits on the rocks, he scans the horizon and sees nothing. The ocean is clear, the brilliant turquoise of it shining like crystals where the sunrays touch the surface, the whitecapped waves cresting in perfect rhythm out beyond the reef.

No demon ships haunt the skyline. No doom comes knocking at their door. Lo’ak isn’t sure if the lack of trouble is making him more or less nervous. He keeps scanning the sea, hoping that if he sees them coming he can at least provide a warning. He doesn’t trust this peace, even if a small part of him wants to. He can’t, not when letting his guard down could mean death.

The soft sound of footsteps behind him breaks Lo’ak out of his frantic scanning, and he turns to see Neteyam making his way up the rocks towards him, climbing smoothly up the jagged stones on all fours like they’d do back in the forest.

Lo’ak turns back to the horizon. Still no signs of the humans.

“You know, mom and dad are freaking out.” Neteyam finally reaches the top of the cliffs and sits down next to Lo’ak with a heavy thump and a sigh. He runs his hand through his braids, breathing hard from the exertion of the climb. “You ran off.”

Lo’ak hears the question in the statement, but there’s no accusation. Only a gentle invitation, that Neteyam is here to listen if Lo’ak needs. Neteyam’s always been like that; asking without judgement, listening without reproach. He’s just like their mother in that way. But he’s also just like their father in that he always needs to know, to follow, to protect.

He’s always been the best of their parents combined. It used to make Lo’ak jealous, burning hot and angry with the need for their father’s approval that he gave so freely to his older brother when he could barely stand to look at Lo’ak.

Now, it just makes Lo’ak sad. Neteyam has so much to live for, so much ahead of him. He’s supposed to become olo’eyktan of the Omatikaya, following in their father’s and grandfather’s footsteps. He’s supposed to grow up and be happy and live past fifteen. 

If only Lo’ak could stop getting him killed.

“They were hovering,” Lo’ak finally replies after a minute of silence. “I just. . .”

“Needed space,” Neteyam finishes. “I know.”

“Do you?” The words slip from Lo’ak without thought, without the careful filtering he usually uses to keep any suspect words from escaping his mouth during the loops. But he’s tired and achy and scared out of his damn mind that either this loop will be the one to stick or it won’t; he’s not sure which idea terrifies him more.  

So his game is off, but he doesn’t take the words back. It’s Neteyam. He, more than anyone, knows Lo’ak. Knows, and doesn’t judge.

Neteyam says nothing for a moment, frowning pensively into the distance. Then, softly, a confession. “I would have said yes, before. But then you would not wake up when I called and you looked at me without seeing. And now I don’t know.”

Guilt squeezes Lo’ak’s lungs. He’d scared his brother, he knows that. He hadn’t meant to, but with all the loops, and Tsireya dying, and what he’d done after that, and the gun-

He shoves the thoughts away and pushes the cold whispering of steel into the back of his mind. “I’m sorry,” he says instead, a reflex at this point. 

Neteyam shakes his head. “Don’t apologize, Lo’ak. I’m the one who didn’t see that you were hurting. I’m the one who let you-”

“Woah, slow down bro,” Lo’ak interrupts. “Me losing it isn’t your fault.”

Neteyam laughs, a harsh, disbelieving sound that Lo’ak doesn’t think he’s ever heard come from his brother. It scares him. “It’s always my fault, baby brother. It’s my responsibility to look out for you, and clearly I have failed you in this way.”

Anger burns then, momentarily weighing out the guilt and nerves as Lo’ak half rises to his feet. “The fuck it’s your fault! Why on earth would you say that?”

All of it has only ever been Lo’ak’s fault, can’t Neteyam see that?

Lo’ak’s outburst seems to startle Neteyam for a moment, his eyes going wide and ears flattening. He hunches into himself a moment later. He looks small. Lo’ak’s not sure why he’s never seen it before, but his brother looks tired. Defeated. Like he’s holding up the world and being slowly crushed underneath it.

Abruptly, Lo’ak realizes that Neteyam has always been the good, golden sibling because he’s had no choice not to be. Lo’ak never gave him room for anything else. Not sulking or yelling or anger. Hell, the whole family never gave him the room for it either. Neteyam’s always been forced to be reliable and solid, carrying the weight of his siblings’ safety on his shoulders since he was old enough to understand what the word ‘protect’ even meant. No one gave him room for anything less than perfection.

The anger dies away as Lo’ak realizes just how similar he and his brother really are, here, in this moment, where guilt seems to choke the both of them. 

Lo’ak settles back down onto the rocks and sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says. Neteyam looks up sharply, like he’s surprised at the apology. Lo’ak winces, remembering how he’d always made Neteyam come to him and start the post-argument conversation during their youth.

He’s been such an ass to his brother, all their damn lives, even though Neteyam is the closest person to his soul. Even though Neteyam has only ever wanted to love him and be loved in return.

“I was never very fair to you, was I?” Lo’ak murmurs, almost to himself. “None of us have.”

“That’s not-”

“Neteyam.” 

The full name draws his brother up short, and Lo’ak sighs again and places a gentle hand on his brother’s shoulder. They lock eyes, and Lo’ak’s surety meets Neteyam’s sudden apprehension. It’s almost as if they’ve switched roles for a moment; Neteyam, ever the comforter, becoming the comforted, and Lo’ak being the one to do so. “It’s not your fault.”

“You don’t know that-”

“It’s not your fault.”

“But-”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Lo’ak.”

“Neteyam.”

They are, as always, at an impasse, Lo’ak’s firm gaze daring Neteyam to keep protesting.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t, falling silent and still. His breath hitches once, the smallest stutter of his lungs, and Lo’ak knows that, for the first time in their lives, he’s won this one. 

Lo’ak scooches over and lays an arm around his brother, whose face is cast down and half-huddled between his knees. “Not everything is your fault, bro. I know that Dad always makes all of us your responsibility, but that’s- that’s not the same as fault. They’re not the same thing.”

I am the one at fault. Not you. Never you. He can’t stand the thought that his brother feels the same way he does, the all-consuming, suffocating feeling that you are the mistake, you are the problem. Neteyam has never been the problem. He’s never been anything but good.

“Don’t make my suffering your own. That’s not fair to either of us. Just. . .” Lo’ak hesitates, then decides fuck it, why not, and gives voice to the only wish he’s ever had, ever since they were small and Neteyam first started growing up faster than Lo’ak could keep up with. “Just be here. With me. As my big brother, but also as my best friend.”

Neteyam turns his head to look at Lo’ak. His yellow eyes, bright and golden like the sun, shine with unshed tears. Lo’ak starts panicking immediately, because anything that makes his older brother cry must mean the end of the world, but then Neteyam laughs wetly and shakes his head, his braids swinging with the movement.

“When did you get so wise, little bro?”

Lo’ak gasps in fake offense. “How dare you! I’ll have you know I was always wise. You just never listened to me.”

Neteyam snorts and rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure.” Then he reaches out and pulls Lo’ak into a tight hug, and Lo’ak goes willingly, wrapping his arms around his brother and clinging onto him tight.

He can’t remember the last time he’s hugged his brother like this. The last time they were pressed together and blood wasn’t running red and slick between them. The last time they embraced and it wasn’t because one of them was going cold with death.

It soothes something in him that he hadn’t known was flung askew. Something ugly and snarling, angry like a wounded animal is angry; more fright than fury. For the first time since he woke, the cold promise of steel doesn’t look appealing at all. 

If this isn’t the loop to stick, Lo’ak wants to have this conversation again with his brother. Wants to reassure him that the whole world doesn’t have to rest on his shoulders. Wants to alleviate the guilt from him that has only ever belonged to Lo’ak.

He holds his brother tighter, and closes his eyes to the world for a moment, existing only in this space where he is held.

And then Lo’ak opens his eyes and sees the sun reflecting off of something not water. Something metal. Something coming.

“Neteyam,” he says, breaking the hug and scrambling to his feet. 

His brother, sensing his distress immediately, follows him up and looks out to the sea.

“It’s the demon ships,” Neteyam says into the heavy silence, and he’s right.

The humans have come.

- - -

“Shit, shit, shit, shit!” 

Lo’ak and Neteyam start sprinting down the rocks, uncaring of the way the harsh stone cuts into the soles of their feet. They need to get back to the village now.

Ahead of them, past the rocks and down the beach, the village sits, sparkling in the late afternoon sun, and doomed. The alarm conch blares through the air, reaching them in their desperate run, and it’s a comfort to know that at least their people know the demons are coming.

It’s a distance back to the village. Too far. Lo’ak curses himself for wandering such a ways, for leaving his family’s side for a single moment. Sure he’d been overwhelmed, but holy fuck was it a dumb idea to go so far away, even if it was for scouting purposes.

They run for a time, harsh panting and feet against the ground the only sound between them. Beyond, the conch continues to blare, and Lo’ak turns to see the demon ships approaching on sea and by air. They will reach Awa’atlu before Lo’ak and Neteyam, Lo’ak realizes with a cold, flooding sense of dread.

As the humans get closer, Lo’ak swears, then grabs his brother’s hand and hauls them into the trees, a protesting squawk coming from Neteyam’s lips before Lo’ak shushes him by covering his mouth.

Neteyam pushes the hand away. “Lo’ak, what are you doing?” He hisses. “We need to get down there!”

“I know! But the humans are coming closer and if they see a pair of forest Na’vi running along the shore, they’re going to know that we’re here! What if they don’t know yet that this is the village where we’re staying? We’d be giving ourselves away before Dad and Mom even had a chance!”

Lo’ak watches Neteyam take the logic in and nod once. In perfect tandem, they creep towards the edge of the brush they’ve taken cover in. The foliage is sparse out here this close to the cliffs and beach, but it’s enough to shield them from distant, prying human eyes, hiding in their ships a ways away.

They watch for a few minutes as the air ships reach the beach. They’re near enough to see the Metkayina, a cluster of moving, shifting turquoise bodies, gathering at the edge of the surf, waiting for the approaching humans to come.

Out of the air ships come a few moving bodies. Some are small, shorter and more compact. Humans. A few others are tall and forest blue, and Lo’ak snarls silently as he just barely makes out the short cropped hair of Quaritch and the shaved head of his closest companion, the one who kills Neteyam.

Speaking of his brother. “We’ve got to go,” Neteyam whispers to Lo’ak, a hand on his shoulder. “Dad needs to know where we are, that we haven’t been taken by them.”

Lo’ak nods. His brother is right, and so they set off quickly but silently through the sparse mangrove forest towards the village.

They hear it before they see it. Screams and panicked shouts reach their ears, and then the roar of flames. They share a panicked look, Lo’ak seeing his own fear mirrored in his brother’s eyes. From farther up ahead, through the trees, Lo’ak can already see the towering flames and the thick smoke heralding the beginning of the violence.

Lo’ak’s mind races as he struggles to think of their options. They don’t know if the humans know they’re here. They could just be using the fire as an intimidation tactic. Would their dad stand for it? He doesn’t know. Would they be hiding somewhere, Tuk and Kiri and their mother bundled up behind their father’s protective back? Or would Tonowari and Ronal decide their village and people weren’t worth sacrificing for the sake of forest Na’vi?

Neteyam is moving before Lo’ak can come up with anything.

“Neteyam!” He hisses, following his brother and stopping him with a hand to his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“We need to find Dad,” Neteyam replies, voice urgent and tight. “He’ll know what to do.”

Lo’ak swallows, fear creeping in slowly but surely. Neteyam doesn’t know what to do. His plan consists of finding their dad in the middle of all the chaos. It’ll be like trying to find a glass bead on the beach.

“That’s a shit plan.” Before, Lo’ak would’ve just gone along with his brother’s idea. But that was before. Here, now, Lo’ak knows the humans more than anyone, except his dad, and he knows the usual outcome of these events, even if the scenery and stage of the battle has changed. “We won’t be able to find Dad in the middle of this. But I have an idea.”

“What?”

Lo’ak breathes out, carefully. It’s now or never. “Follow me.”

They stalk their way back to the family marui. It’s a slow journey, full of stops and starts as they try to gauge where the humans are and if they’re coming towards them, but after a few minutes of tense creeping through the woods, they come to the shoreline behind the village.

The village is lifted up onto the roots of the massive mangrove trees, its twisting leather walkways only barely plunge into the forest past the water. Once the sand turns to dirt and leaves, the village ends. They’ve come up to where the village begins at the edge of the forest, still hidden by the foliage.

“Come on.” Instead of following the path into the village, Lo’ak climbs down the roots to the water, slipping into the cool waves and ducking his head low. “We can climb up through the water hole. No one will know we’re here.”

“It’s a good idea,” Neteyam replies, reassuring, following Lo’ak into the water. 

They swim silently underneath the village, making their way back to the marui. Above them and to the front of the village, where the beach creates a sandbank and where they’d seen the Metkayina gather, they can still hear the screams of the people. Fire crackles and spits, and as they get closer to their marui, he can see which sections of the village have been set ablaze.

They reach home and clamber up into the marui through the water hole. The careful weavings of the mat get a bit torn up in the process, but if they make it out of this loop alive, Lo’ak will fix it himself.

“Here.” Once inside, Neteyam throws Lo’ak his bow and reaches down for his own.

“No, I’m taking this.” Lo’ak unclasps their dad’s military box and lifts out the rifle. It’s cold in his grip. All steel. Lo’ak pauses suddenly, swallowing as sweat beads along his brow, memories surging forward.

Neteyam, shot dead - your fault. Spider, blood clouding in the water - your fault. Tsireya, limp and lifeless in his arms - your fault. His mom, his dad, all of them - your fault, your fault, your fault.

It’s Neteyam who breaks him out of his spiraling. “You don’t even know how to use it!”

It’s the exact same conversation they’d had back in the forest, at the raid that had been the beginning of all of this. The raid where Lo’ak had almost gotten Neteyam killed.

But Lo’ak’s changed since then. He’s been through more loops than he can count. He’s been shot through the stomach, the shoulder, the leg, the chest, the head. He’s gripped poisonous steel in his hands and felt the shake of the gun, remained steady despite it. He’s known what it’s like to take a life and not regret it. 

“I do,” is all he says in response. And there must’ve been something in his eyes, because Neteyam pauses for a moment, then nods.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

They slip back into the water just in time. A loud boom! echoes through the air and a wash of heat slams over them, accompanied by a rush of air so strong that it sends Lo’ak and Neteyam under the water.

Lo’ak comes back up spluttering, frantically looking around for his brother. Around him, smoke hangs thick in the air, and above him, much more of the village has caught aflame. Screams and cries of pain begin to reach his ears, but he’s only concerned about one thing. 

“Neteyam!” He shouts, uncaring of being found out if only he can find his brother. “Neteyam!”

“Quiet, skxawng, I’m right here!”

Lo’ak shakes with relief as Neteyam swims up beside him, pushing through the thick smoke and appearing out of it. 

“You okay?” He asks, looking Neteyam over and finding no crimson.

“I’m fine,” Neteyam replies. “The explosion just pushed me back.”

Right, the explosion. Lo’ak looks back to the edge of the village, but only sees smoke and fire. Above them, a cracking sound comes, and the wooden beam of a marui comes crashing into the water just in front of them.

Lo’ak and Neteyam swim backwards as fast as possible, avoiding the falling debris, but it becomes clear in the moments afterward that the fire in the village is spreading fast, and they need to get out from under it before they’re buried.

“Come on!”

Lo’ak follows Neteyam out towards the open water and the sand banks. The village begins to succumb to the flames around them, and it becomes a game of dodging and weaving to avoid the falling bits of flaming debris that seek to crush them. They manage to avoid getting hit, and swim furiously until they reach a smaller sand bank.

Neteyam helps him onto the sand and they crouch down against one of the small dunes for cover. Lo’ak takes out the rifle and looks through the scope to the beach where the people are gathered.

Except, they’re not gathered anymore. 

The beach has become a battlefield, Metkayina fighting against human soldiers and their mechanical enhancements. Lo’ak watches one of the Na’vi shove a spear through a human’s stomach and feels only satisfaction, though that’s killed rather viciously as he watches another human come up from behind the warrior and fill them full of bullets.

He tears his eyes away from the scope and snarls in distress, feeling tears build up before he wills them away. There’s no time for any of that.

“Do you see Dad?” Neteyam asks urgently, putting a steadying hand on Lo’ak’s shoulder.

Lo’ak looks through the scope again and scans. Death reigns on the beach, white sand stained thick and red, bodies beginning to litter the once idyllic and peaceful scene. The fight has begun to move into the water, the Metkayina pushing the humans back, but he can already see it’s a losing battle.

Then- there! A flash of Omatikaya blue, and he sees his dad fighting Quaritch in the shallows of the water. Of course. It always comes down to those two.

“I see him,” Lo’ak says. “He’s at the edge of the water, fighting Quaritch.”

Neteyam hisses. “What about Mom? Kiri? Tuk?”

Lo’ak shakes his head. “I don’t see Kiri or Tuk. Mom’s probably on Sa’ata.” He points his scope up, and sure enough, there his mother is, flying, graceful and deadly, on Sa’ata’s back. 

He brings his scope back to the ground battle and freezes.

Tsireya.

She’s down there, in the battle, wielding a speargun and a knife even though she’s not a warrior. Her face is alight with a fierce snarl as she takes down a human, and Lo’ak has never seen her look more beautiful.

But she’s also never been in more danger, so Lo’ak breathes in, then out, calming his racing heart and setting his sight properly.

In, then out. In, then out.

He aims, and takes his first shot.

It’s different shooting through a long range scope rather than with a point and shoot rapid fire, but contrary to popular opinion, his dad has taught him to shoot. It takes a couple opening shots to get the angle and wind current right, but on his third shot, he downs a human in a mechanical suit who was just about to gut a Metkayina warrior.

“Good job, Lo’ak,” Neteyam whispers softly beside him, but Lo’ak can’t pay attention. 

He focuses on the feel of the steel in his grasp, his world narrowing down to what he can see through the scope. Point, aim, breathe. Shoot. Point, aim, breathe. Shoot. Again and again he downs the enemy, but they just keep coming.

He swings his scope back to find Tsireya, and his heart leaps into his throat as he sees a soldier take aim at her while she’s turned away. He aims as quickly as he dares and fires, only letting out a breath when he watches the human crumple to the sand.

He watches Tsireya whirl around in surprise, seeing the downed man in front of her and look around in confusion, before continuing on into the battle. Lo’ak takes her cue and keeps shooting.

Eventually, though, he runs out of bullets. He curses as the chamber clicks, empty.

“Shit,” he mutters. 

“No, that was good,” Neteyam says, a little awed. “I didn’t know you could shoot like that.”

His quiet admiration makes something curdle in Lo’ak’s chest, but he doesn’t want to think about it too closely, so he scrambles onto his feet and starts down the sand to the battle.

“Woah, where are you going!” Neteyam follows and pulls up in front of Lo’ak, stopping him in his tracks.

“You said it yourself, we have to get down there!” Lo’ak shoots back. “Dad needs our help!”

“No, Dad needs us safe!” 

That pulls Lo’ak up short. He growls, torn for a moment. Neteyam isn’t wrong. Whenever Lo’ak gets involved, it gets his dad distracted and killed. But Tsireya is down there. And their sisters are still missing. He can’t not get involved. He has to do something.

“You go and find Kiri and Tuk,” Lo’ak tells his brother. “I’m going to go back to the marui and see if I can find more ammo and keep sniping from here.”

Neteyam hesitates, clearly not trusting Lo’ak to actually do what he’s saying he’s going to. And, to be fair, Lo’ak is most definitely not going to do what he’s saying he’s going to do. But he needs to get down there, at least to help Tsireya.

“Fine,” Neteyam growls. “But if I find out you have done something stupid-”

“You won’t,” Lo’ak replies, already heading off. “Find Tuk and Kiri! And then meet me back here!”

He doesn’t wait to see what Neteyam does, diving into the water and heading back towards the village again. When he looks back and doesn’t see Neteyam on the shore, he changes his direction to the battle.

He reaches the sand and clambers onto it, immediately sinking into the battlefield mentality he’s starting building up ever since the loops began. Crouch, observe, pinpoint enemy positions, keep aware keep aware keep aware.

He sees a human in a mechanical suit spot him and dashes forward before they get the chance to raise their gun. He ducks under their clumsy swipe and rushes up, swinging his knife and sinking it into the ribs with a wet squelch. 

The human collapses as he yanks the knife back out, their mechanical trappings making their crumple awkward, bending their limbs all wrong as they fall to the sand. Lo’ak pays their twitching no mind, instead grabbing their gun, checking it for bullets, and taking it when the chamber is still half full.

Then he turns back to the raging battle and loses himself to the heat and fervour of the fight.

Run, swing, duck, shoot. Spin and drop, kick their legs out, shoot. Dodge another spray of bullets, tackle a fellow Na’vi out of the way too. Shoot. Run out of bullets, take another gun, keep shooting.

Eventually, Lo’ak, whose eyes had been ever searching for the familiar whirl of curls and turquoise skin since he came to the sand bank, finds Tsireya.

He calls her name, loud and piercing over the din of the battle. She turns, finishing off her opponent with a snarl, and sees Lo’ak. Her eyes brighten immediately, relief and joy filling her face as she breaks into a beautiful smile.

Lo’ak rushes to her side as she calls his name in return, dodging out of the way of a tussling Metkayina and human, and coming up short beside her. He grasps her arms and looks her over, her name spilling over his lips again and again with a fervour bordering on desperation.

“Lo’ak, Lo’ak, Lo’ak,” she soothes, rubbing her fingers against his forearms. “I am okay. I am fine.”

He sucks a breath in and lets it out, shuddering. He hasn’t seen her since she died. He hasn’t held her since her body was cold.

She’s warm against him now, and he clings to that thought. 

Then he looks over her shoulder and sees a human in a mech suit running towards them, gun nowhere to be seen, but a long and wicked knife glinting in the rapidly fading sun. 

A knife. Coming towards Tsireya. Not again.

Lo’ak whirls them around without a word, picking Tsireya up briefly by the arms and switching places with her so that he’s facing the human. He lets go of her, grabs his own knife, and snarls at the oncoming demon.

The human runs at him with a shout, and Lo’ak lunges to meet them in the middle. Lo’ak goes low, sweeping up under the human’s defense and swiping with his knife. They lurch back just in time to miss a fatal blow to the neck, and spin around, kicking out with their metal leg and catching Lo’ak in the side. Before, the blow would’ve sent Lo’ak sprawling to the sand, but during the loops he’s learned how to fight more than ever before, and he lets the momentum of the kick move him, spinning so he moves with it and absorbs most of the hit.

Then he dives back in, twisting around the human to get at their back and grabs their head, wrenching it back and to the side with a sharp snap.

The human collapses to the ground, motionless. Lo’ak slows, panting, then darts his gaze up to where Tsireya is looking at him with wide, wide eyes.

He flinches, shame curdling in his gut. He’s scared her.

Then a light touch finds his cheek, and Tsireya’s hand guides his face up until he’s looking at her again. “Thank you,” she says, a smile gracing her face and lighting it up, even through the blood that splatters across her beautiful, sea-blue skin.

He opens his mouth to respond but a deafening roar interrupts him. He spins around and freezes in horror.

One of the demon sky ships has come near to the beach, hovering a dozen meters above and kicking up a whirlwind of sea and sand. The roar of their machinery pierces his ears, and they pin to the side of his head as he squints up against the bright lights the humans are shining down on them.

And then Lo’ak registers what’s about to happen, just as he remembers Tonowari’s words about the other clans that were attacked by the humans.

They came with their sky ships, and burned the villages.

“Tsireya!” He screams, and doesn’t wait before he grabs her by the waist, hauling her up into his arms and bolting towards the water as fast as his feet can take them.

It’s only by pure luck that he and Tsireya are at the edge of the beach, nearest to the water that they could get. It’s what saves them.

Lo’ak leaps for the water as behind them, the sky ship lets loose a screaming, fiery wave of flames that descend upon the beach and all who are upon it. 

The heat hits his back, a burning, scalding sensation, and then they slam into the waves. Lo’ak uses all his might to push them deeper into the water, then anchors them under by digging his feet firmly into the sand. Above the surface, the roaring of the flames devours any Metkayina and humans still on the beach indiscriminately.

Lo’ak hunches protectively over Tsireya in the water, his arms locked around her in a tight embrace to keep her body curled as close to his as possible. He’s slightly taller and bigger than her, and he thanks Eywa for it, as his larger size allows him to act as a shield for her.

Even through the water, he can feel the blistering, damning heat of the inferno. 

When the roaring stops, Tsireya taps one of his arms with a gentle hand. He uncurls slightly from around her, allowing her some space, but leaves his arms around her waist to keep her in the sphere of space he can protect her in. He wants her close. He wants her safe. He can only thank Eywa that they’d managed to get to the water in time.

Swim away from the beach, she signs with her free fingers, and Lo’ak nods in agreement. They kick off from the sand together, but stay low to the sea floor to avoid the heat from above, Lo’ak swimming above Tsireya with an arm still wrapped around her to shield her from the worst of it.

They get a good distance away from the beach, and then Tsireya points up to the surface. They breach into the air a few moments later, gasping, and Lo’ak can’t help the way his eyes drift, almost against his will, back behind them towards the beach.

There’s nothing truly flammable on the stretch of white sand for the fire to latch to and devour, so when the humans had stopped shooting the flames, whatever inferno there had been had ceased.

But there had been people on the beach. 

Had been.

Lo’ak fights back the bile in his throat as he sees the bodies. Those who’d been caught in the worst of the blaze hadn’t had a chance; heaps of flaming flesh and bones litter the beach, concentrated at the front of it where the fire had initially been directed. It’s a gruesome sight, but those were the lucky ones.

Nearer to the village, at the back of the beach, are where the screams are coming from. A few damned souls are stumbling about, their bodies on fire and burning, but still alive enough to shriek and writhe in agony, the fire devouring their flesh but making it oh so slow.

Some of them make it to the water enough to put the flames out, but once they hit the water they don’t move beyond a few twitches. Even Lo’ak, who has never been and will never be a healer, knows it’s too late for them. 

They can only watch, treading in the water, at what has become of their people, what would have become of them if Lo’ak hadn’t managed to get them to the water in time.

Beside him, Tsireya clings to him, her chest hitching and heaving with great, heavy sobs. She buries her face in his shoulder and wails, a high-pitched, keening kind of noise that drives a knife straight into Lo’ak’s heart and twists.

Your fault, your fault, your fault.

All of it, Lo’ak’s fault. All because he couldn’t handle the loops. All because he thought, for a moment, that he could rest. All because he was selfish.

“I’m so sorry Tsireya,” he gasps, tears falling from his chin onto her soft hair as he rests his head against hers. “I’m so sorry.”

Tsireya only cries, and Lo’ak can only cry with her, holding her to him in the hopes that he can, at least, provide a miniscule amount of comfort in this moment as their people and their village burn around them.

They float there for a time, together, weeping. The sounds of the battle dim and fade, the demon ships pull back from the beach. Eclipse sets in and darkness overtakes the land, draping it in night. The village, still on fire, acts as a mini sun, setting the area awash in shuddering yellows and oranges, shadows growing and shrinking in a dance that makes it feel as if the whole world is flickering.

When Lo’ak’s legs start to burn from treading water and his head has gone achy with crying, he gently begins paddling back to shore, tugging Tsireya along with him. She’s going into shock, with glassy eyes and uncoordinated movements, her skin pale and breath shallow.

It’s a cruel role reversal of the beginning of Lo’ak’s time at the reef; Tsireya, ever a calming and guiding hand, teaching him to swim, to hold his breath, to tread the waves and remain above the waves. Now, it’s Tsireya’s limbs that are slow and weak, barely helping him push through the water, her head periodically dipping down under the waves with only Lo’ak’s aid keeping her up. It breaks his heart, and makes the guilt that much stronger.

They pass the beach, the crude, nauseating smell of burning flesh and hair wafting over them as they swim. Lo’ak fights the overwhelming urge to vomit back down and is successful only because loops of practice serve him in good stead, but when they reach more shallow water and their knees hit the sand, Tsireya keels over and throws up.

The water washes it away quickly enough, and Lo’ak helps Tsireya to her feet, practically dragging her along, one of his arms around her waist, the other holding her arm over his shoulders to support her. They struggle pathetically up towards the shore until Lo’ak decides this isn’t working, and hoists Tsireya up, gathering her into his arms with one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders.

She goes willingly, settling against him with another shaking sob, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning her head against his chest.

In another life, at another time, having her so close to him would’ve sent Lo’ak’s heart pounding and his cheeks burning. In any moment other than this, he probably would’ve been a blushing, stuttering mess. 

But they’re here, in this moment, and all Lo’ak feels is grief.

He circles around the village, the quiet becoming eerie and unnerving now that the battle has settled down. His grief gives way to sharpened, practiced awareness, and his ears swivel to and fro while his eyes constantly scan around them. The shadows grow and lengthen, and every sound could be a threat.

He doesn’t know where the humans are. He doesn’t know where his family is. For all he knows, everyone is dead.

For all he knows, he and Tsireya are the only ones left.

The thought sets his heart racing, but he focuses on the now. And right now his only priority is getting Tsireya to safety, so that’s what he’ll do.

The smaller sand dune Lo’ak told Neteyam to meet him at is deserted. He ignores the rush of pain and panic that flares in his lungs at the sight of the empty sand. 

Neteyam always dies. Lo’ak is sure that this hasn’t changed with this loop, and that means this loop has already failed. It’s only a matter of time.

So he moves on, following the shallowest parts of the shoreline until they reach the trees, then ducking under the palm fronds and disappearing himself and Tsireya into the stretching, shifting shadows of the forest.

On turf that’s not quite home turf but familiar enough, they make quick time. It’s more difficult with Tsireya in his arms, limiting him to traversing with only his legs, but he manages. He’s done it before, transporting supplies or wounded through the trees just like this.

When they’ve walked for an hour and long eclipse has well and truly settled in, he stops. He’s found a small cove nestled into a pile of rocks and large mangrove roots, forming an alcove that they can rest in for a time. A stream that feeds into the sea twines past his feet, twisting through the roots and providing a light, calming trickling sound.

Lo’ak ducks into the alcove and crouches, setting Tsireya down against a patch of moss and rock. He groans when he leans back up, his back and shoulder muscles protesting after having carried a whole person for so long. Lo’ak ignores the ache. It was worth it.

He turns his attention back to Tsireya. She’s settled herself onto her place on the ground, but she’s staring, unblinking, as if she’s not really all there yet. Lo’ak sighs, and sits in front of her, taking her hands in his and beginning to rub small, soothing circles into her palms.

“Tsireya,” he murmurs, “you gotta come back to me. Come on, Tsireya. We’re safe. I’ve got you. Come on.”

He continues speaking, low and soft, until Tsireya blinks and breathes in deeply as if waking from a long slumber, her hands squeezing his as she comes back to herself.

“There you are,” Lo’ak says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “You okay?”

Tsireya’s lower lip trembles, and her breath shakes. “No,” she whispers. “Lo’ak, my village, my people-”

“I know.” Lo’ak swallows the tears rising in his throat and keeps rubbing Tsireya’s hands. They’re so cold. “I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault, Lo’ak. The humans, they are the ones-”

“No.”

Tsireya stops, looking up at Lo’ak in confusion at his harsh negation. “Lo’ak?”

“No, Tsireya,” he exhales, rough and jagged, “this is my fault. Every death. Every Na’vi body. Every battle. All of it.”

“What are you talking about, Lo’ak?” Her voice shakes, and he knows that he’s scaring her but the guilt is eating him alive and he needs to tell someone, he needs to air out his sins and confess. He needs someone to understand that yes, this is all his fault and punish him accordingly.

He’s killed Tsireya’s people. Tsireya’s family. Tsireya. She, of everyone except perhaps Lo’ak’s own family, who are missing and probably dead again, deserves to see him for all his sins and judge him for them. 

He takes in a deep, shaking breath to prepare himself for the words. For the ugly shape of them. For the disgusting weight of all his failures.

And then he speaks the truth for the first time since this whole nightmare started, the words falling from his lips like a knife slicing towards his neck.

“I’m looping through time, Tsireya.”