Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The water was warm as blood, and just as alive.

Aonung watched Neteyam from the corner of his eye, a smirk playing on his lips, the forest boy was getting better on the ilu, he'd give him that. His posture was less rigid, his movements more fluid, but he was still thinking about every shift of his weight, he was trying, and there was nothing more amusing to Aonung than someone trying too hard.

"You are not falling off today, maybe," Aonung called over the slap of the waves, he eased his own ilu closer, cutting through the iridescent water. The setting sun stained the sky purple and orange, and below the surface, the first hints of the reef's bioluminescence began to pulse a soft, eerie blue.

Neteyam shot him a look. It was that same steady, unreadable expression he always wore. "I am not falling off at all."

"We will see."

The plan was simple, a stupid, childish stunt the kind that made his blood sing, they were aiming for a deep dive down to a ribbon of cobalt sand between the coral towers. Rotxo was already there, waiting below, a dark shape against the glowing algae.

Aonung gave the signal a sharp click and a downward slice of his hand.

He and Neteyam urged their ilu forward in unison, the water streamed past, a roar in his ears. The reef wall fell away beneath them into deeper, shadowed blue this was the moment, as Neteyam leaned into the dive, body aligned with his mount, Aonung made his move.

He jerked his ilu's reins not down, but sideways, driving the creature's broad head straight into Neteyam's flank.

The impact was a solid thump he felt through the water.

Neteyam's balance shattered, his ilu startled, bucking sideways for a second, Neteyam hovered suspended in the turquoise light, his eyes wide with shock. Then he peeled away from his mount, limbs flailing.

A laugh burst from Aonung, bubbles streaming past his face. Got him.

But Neteyam, in his panic, did the instinctive, stupid thing his hand shot out as he tumbled past, it wasn't aiming for Aonung, it was aiming for anything solid it caught on the harness strapped across Aonung's chest.

The force yanked Aonung forward, out of his own saddle.

Suddenly they were both free falling, a tangle of limbs, the surprised ilus darting away. The world became a whirl of bubbles and panic, Aonung's laugh died swallowed by the deep, he tried to twist, to shove the forest boy away, but Neteyam held on with the terrifying strength of someone who truly believed he was about to die.

They sank.

Their bodies knocked together, knees and elbows connecting painfully. Aonung's tail thrashed, trying to right himself, the current from their fall swirled around them, a turbulent vortex in the now dark water. The surface was a shimmering, distant silver plate far above.

And then he felt it.

A brushing, then a clinging sensation at the base of his skull, something fine and strong, like seaweed, wrapping and knotting, a jolt electric and deep, shuddered through him.

His queue.

Neteyam's was there, too, whipped by the same current. The tendrils had found each other, twisting in the churning water, they weren't formed, it wasn't a bond, it was a crude, messy knot, a blind snarl of nervous systems.

Sensation flooded him.

Not thought, not images, a raw blast of feeling, sharp, metallic fear that was Neteyam. A cold, sinking shock that was his own, under it, a furious, hot embarrassment and beneath that, something else from the forest boy, something bright and hard and resilient, a core of stubborn will that refused to dissolve into the panic.

It was too much it was an invasion, it was like being shouted at from the inside of his own skull.

He clawed at the space behind his head, his fingers finding not just his own queue, but the foreign one tangled with it. Neteyam was doing the same, eyes wild behind his mask, their faces inches apart, the blue glow of the algae lit the stark terror on Neteyam's features, and Aonung knew, with a sickening lurch, that his own face looked exactly the same.

His chest burned, they needed air. Now.

With a final, frantic yank, he pulled the knot apart, the connection severed with a silent, mental snap that left a hollow ringing in its place.

They pushed away from each other as if scalded, kicking hard for the light.

They broke the surface gasping, coughing. The peaceful sunset air was a slap, Aonung heaved in great, ragged breaths, treading water. A few yards away, Neteyam did the same, his back turned.

Rotxo surfaced nearby, his brows knitted in confusion. "What happened? You both just fell."

"Nothing," Aonung spat, the word raw his heart was still hammering against his ribs, a frantic echo of the shared panic, he could still feel the ghost of that other mind in his, a stale taste of foreign emotion.

Neteyam turned around, he wasn't coughing anymore he was just staring, breathing hard through his nose. That calm mask was gone, his eyes held a dark, boiling understanding he knew what had happened, he'd felt it too.

"You....." Neteyam began, his voice low.

"It was an accident," Aonung interrupted, forcing a sneer, it felt weak. "You grabbed me, you pulled us down."

Neteyam didn't answer he just stared, the last of the sun glinted in his eyes, and for a second, Aonung didn't see a clumsy forest beginner, he saw a hunter, assessing.

Then Neteyam simply turned and let out a sharp whistle his ilu surfaced, nudging his arm, he hauled himself onto its back without another word, without a glance back he just left, riding slowly toward the distant torchlight of the village.

Aonung floated, the warm water feeling suddenly cold, the sweet scent of the reef flowers smelled cloying, the glowing algae beneath him seemed too bright, too revealing.

He touched the back of his head his queue felt normal, heparate.

But it didn't feel entirely his own anymore.

The feeling lingered like the taste of brine Aonung couldn't shake it. He swam back to the marui slowly, his movements mechanical, the village was coming alive with the soft glow of bioluminescent pathways and the murmur of evening meals. He ignored the greetings called his way.

Across the strand, Loak was having his own kind of trouble.

He stood chest deep in the shallows, the setting sun painting his blue skin in hues of violet and gold, his breathing was a ragged, harsh sound in the quiet lagoon, completely unlike the rhythmic, low oxygen intake of the Metkayina. He'd been trying, again, to master the breath hold dive, and again, his body, built for the dappled light and solid ground of the forest, had betrayed him, screaming for air long before his mind was ready to surface.

"That sounded like a drowning reefsnail," a voice sang from behind him.

Loak turned, water sluicing from his shoulders, Tik'vam glided into the shallows on his ilu, not even breathing hard, he slipped off the creature, which chirped and nuzzled his hand before darting away. Tik'vam stood, water beading on his broad chest and the thick, rippling stripes of his turquoise skin; his eyes, bright and teasing, took in Lo'ak's heaving chest.

"What do you want, Fish Lips?" Lo'ak snapped, his ears flattening.

Tik'vam's grin widened. He loved that, he loved the way the forest boy's whole body tensed, the way his strange eyebrows drew together. He circled Loak slowly, his heavy, paddle tail creating a gentle wake. "I want to see if you make that noise every time, it is funny, like you are fighting the water instead of letting it hold you."

"I'm not fighting it."

"You are, your lungs shout, your muscles are tight as a clenched fist." Tik'vam drifted closer, suddenly intrusive, he reached out, not to hit, but to poke at Lo'ak's sternum with a blunt finger. "See? All stone."

Loak swatted his hand away. "Don't."

"Why? Does the demon blood not like to be touched?" Tik'vam's tone was mock concerned. He was close enough now for Loak to see the delicate patterns within the stripes on his shoulders, the black coral choker tight against his throat, his scent was pure ocean salt, clean skin, and the faint, sun-warmed smell of his ilu's hide.

"It's called personal space."

"Personal space," Tik'vam repeated the foreign words, rolling them in his mouth like a strange fruit. He laughed, a bright, melodic sound. "This is the reef, there is no space, only the tribe, and the water, and the things that swim in it." His gaze dropped, deliberately, to Lo'ak's hand resting on the surface. "Five fingers you are always grabbing, maybe that is your problem, you think you must hold on to survive here, you do not, you must let go."

The observation was sharp, cutting through the easy insult. It was true that Loak always felt like he was holding onto his pride, to his family's legacy, to the sinking feeling that he would never belong here; the realization coming from this grinning annoyance was infuriating.

"You don't know anything about my problems," Loak growled, turning to wade toward the shore.

A splash hit him square between the shoulder blades, cold, abrupt.

He froze.

Another splash, soaking the back of his head.

Slowly, Loak turned to Tik'vam was standing there, waist deep, a challenging, open smirk on his face. "Now you are angry, good anger is hot, it burns up all that noisy air in your chest, maybe now you can dive without sounding so pathetic."

It was too much, the failed dive, the lingering humiliation from dinner, the constant, grating otherness, and now this, this clown poking and splashing him like a child Loak's temper, always a hair trigger, snapped.

With a shout that was more forest than reef, he launched himself at Tik'vam.

He expected a fight, a trading of blows, he was ready for it.

Tik'vam didn't fight he moved.

As Loak surged forward, Tik'vam simply bent his knees and dropped beneath the surface. Loak stumbled through empty water, before he could right himself, a powerful hand closed around his ankle from below and yanked.

Loak hit the water with a smack.

He came up sputtering, blinded, he heard Tik'vam's laugh a few feet away. "Clumsy as a baby turtle on the sand!"

Blind rage was a red curtain Loak charged again, swinging a wild punch. Tik'vam flowed around it, using the water as a pivot he caught Lo'ak's wrist, used his own momentum against him, and shoved him face first back into the lagoon.

This time, Loak stayed under for a second the calm silent world of shimmering blue was a stark contrast to the fire in his head, when he surfaced, he was no longer charging, he was just standing there, chest heaving, defeated not by strength, but by a profound, liquid grace he could not touch.

Tik'vam watched him, the mocking smile was still there, but it had softened at the edges, his eyes, for a fleeting second, were not looking at a demon or a joke, they were assessing the fury, the stubborn refusal to stay down he saw the warrior there, tangled in frustration.

"You hit like the land," Tik'vam said, his voice lower now. "All force, no flow, you are fighting the water, forest boy, and you will always lose."

Loak had no retort; he just stood, breathing hard, the humiliation a cold stone in his gut.

Tik'vam waded closer again he didn't poke or splash this time he just looked at him, his head tilted. "Your brother," he said, casually. "Neteyam, he and Aonung dove deep today something happened."

The change of subject was jarring Loak wiped water from his eyes. "What?"

"Aonung came back quiet, like something bit his spirit." Tik'vam's gaze was sharp, observant. "Your brother has a still water surface, but underneath, I think there are strong currents."

The words were a warning, or a piece of gossip, or a peace offering Loak couldn't tell; he just nodded, suddenly too tired to be angry.

Tik'vam seemed to accept this; he gave a final, slight smile. "Do not fight the water, Loak, the water is not your enemy, your air is." With that, he turned, let out a short whistle, and his ilu shot back to his side he mounted it in one fluid motion and kicked out toward the darkening reef, leaving Loak alone in the quiet, rising dusk.

Loak looked down at his own hands the two thumbs, the four fingers that marked him as alien, he unclenched them, letting his hands go limp in the water. They floated, pale and strange.

Let go, the annoying, turquoise-skinned clown had said.

For the first time, it didn't sound like an insult, it sounded like a key, sitting there in the darkening water, waiting for him to figure out how to turn it.

The water held him it was a realization that came not to his mind, but to his body, he stopped trying to stand so firmly on the sandy bottom, allowed his legs to drift up, and let his weight settle into the liquid embrace. His breathing, still too loud in his own ears, began to slow, he stared at his floating hands, the strange, five-fingered things and slowly curled them into loose fists, then released.

Let go.

He filled his lungs, not with a frantic gulp, but with a deep, deliberate pull he focused on the cool emptiness in his head, the quieting of the constant, chattering comparison to Neteyam, to the Metkayina, to some ideal he could never reach. He just was Loak in the water.

He ducked under.

The world muted, the sunset was a gold and crimson smear above, filtering down in rays that pierced the blue, below the reef's own lights began to wink on, soft greens and blues tracing the contours of coral, he didn't fight he let himself sink, arms out, watching the bubbles from his nose travel upward in a silver stream.

He didn't count, he just existed in the stillness the burn in his chest came, but it was a distant signal, not a screaming alarm he acknowledged it, held it for three more heartbeats, then pushed upward.

He broke the surface with a smooth exhalation, followed by a clean inhale, it was silent, no gasping, no choking just air moving in and out.

A slow grin spread across his face it was a small thing, he hadn't touched the bottom, hadn't done anything impressive, but for the first time, he hadn't been at war with the ocean. He'd been in it.

The triumph was quiet and entirely his own.

He swam back to the marui platform with a new rhythm, his strokes less choppy inside, the family pod was awash in the soft, organic light of bioluminescent fungi. His mother was weaving, her fingers a patient flutter, his father was cleaning a spearhead, his brow furrowed in thought, kiri was nowhere to be seen, probably off with the spirit tree or the strange anemones she liked to commune with Tuk was already asleep, curled in a hammock.

And Neteyam.

His brother sat apart, near the open edge facing the sea, his back rigid, he was staring out at the black water, but his eyes weren't seeing it they had a hollow, distant look, the calm facade was back, but it was brittle, like a thin layer of ice over a rushing current.

"Hey," Loak said, shaking water from his hair.

Neteyam didn't respond for a second, then blinked slowly. "Hey." His voice was flat.

"You okay? Heard you and Fish-Lips had a dive." Loak kept his tone light, grabbing a piece of fruit from a basket, he leaned against a post, watching his brother.

A muscle flexed in Neteyam's jaw. "It was nothing he's an idiot."

"Well, yeah, that's a given." Loak took a bite, chewing slowly the silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable, he was used to Neteyam's quiet, but this was different, this was a withdrawal. "Something happened, though you look, spooked."

Neteyam's eyes finally cut to him, sharp and defensive. "I'm not spooked i'm tired, the dive was deep, that's all."

"Bull." Loak said it softly, he nodded toward the sleeping area of the marui, away from their parents. "Talk."

For a moment, he thought Neteyam would shut him down completely then his brother's shoulders slumped, just a fraction, he stood and walked to the privacy of their shared sleeping space, Lo'ak followed.

In the dim glow, Neteyam sat on his mat, his tail twitching with a restless, anxious flick, he stared at his hands.

"Our queues touched," Neteyam said, the words dropping like stones into a still pool.

Loak froze mid chew. "What?"

"It wasn't a bond it was a tangle in the current." Neteyam's voice was low, haunted. "We were falling, and they just knotted, for a second."

"Holy shit," Loak whispered, sitting down hard across from him, the intimacy of it, the violence of it, was staggering. A queue connection was for mates, for ikran, for the Sacred Tree, it wasn't for accidental, panicked collisions with someone who hated you. "Did you see anything? Feel anything?"

Neteyam shuddered, a full body tremor he couldn't suppress. "Not thoughts, feelings it was all fear, his fear, my fear, and his-- his anger, it was so cold and underneath that, nothing, a big, empty space where something else should be." He finally looked up at Lo'ak, his golden eyes wide with a kind of soul-deep violation. "It was the most disgusting thing I've ever felt, bro."

Loak didn't know what to say, he'd spent the day being poked and splashed, dealing with surface-level annoyance, neteyam had been invaded.

"Did he say anything?" Loak asked.

"No we just got out, he looked sick." Neteyam wrapped his arms around himself. "I feel sick, it's like I can still smell it; that cold feeling."

"You have to tell Dad."

"No." The word was immediate, fierce. "It was an accident, it doesn't mean anything telling anyone just makes it real, it makes it a thing." Neteyam's voice cracked with rare desperation. "I just want to forget it, i need it to go away."

Loak saw it then, the crack in the perfect older brother, Neteyam wasn't just disturbed; he was scared, not of Aonung, but of the memory, the echo of that forced connection living under his skin, he'd handled skirmishes with the RDA, he'd faced down Thanators, but this, this psychic graffiti from a bully had undone him.

"Okay," Loak said softly. "Okay, it stays here."

Neteyam nodded, a tight, grateful movement, he lay back on his mat, turning his face to the wall, a clear signal that the conversation was over.

Loak sat in the dim light, the taste of fruit gone sour in his mouth, his own small victory with the water felt childish now, trivial. He looked at his brother's back, a line of tension even in rest, the reef held more than beautiful fish and challenging dives, it held currents that could tangle more than just queues; they could tangle your very spirit.

He stood and walked back to the platform's edge, looking out to where the black ocean met the star-strewn sky, somewhere out there, Aonung was in his own marui, probably sneering, pretending nothing was wrong.

But something was.

And Tik'vam, with his sharp eyes and annoying laugh, had seen it first. He'd tried to tell him, your brother has a still water surface, but underneath, I think there are strong currents.

The thought wouldn't leave him. It circled in his head like a persistent skimwing, strong currents. The words felt weighted, a diagnosis for the sickness in his brother's silence, Loak stayed at the edge for a long time, listening to the push pull of the tide, until the village lights began to wink out one by one.

Inside, Neteyam's breathing was even, but too careful, it was the breath of someone pretending to sleep.

Loak lay on his own mat, staring at the woven ceiling, the humid air was thick with the scent of drying seaweed and salt. He flexed his hand in the dark, a vague shape against the faint glow of the marui's fungi.

A sound jolted him fully awake.

It was a sharp, bitten-off gasp, then a low, guttural growl that was utterly foreign.

He propped himself up on his elbows, Neteyam was thrashing his tail whipping against the mat, his fingers clawing at his own throat, a fine sheen of sweat glistened on his brow in the low light his lips were pulled back, revealing clenched teeth, he wasn't having a nightmare; he was fighting something.

"Neteyam," Loak whispered, scrambling over.

Before he could touch him, Neteyam's eyes flew open they were wide, unseeing, flooded with a terror that wasn't his own, he scrambled back hitting the woven wall with a thud, his chest heaving.

"Hey hey, it's me," Loak said, hands up, approaching like he would a spooked direhorse.

Neteyam blinked, the foreign panic slowly receding, replaced by dawning humiliation. He looked down at his own trembling hands with disgust. "It's nothing, a dream."

"That wasn't a dream, you sounded like you were choking."

"I said it's nothing!" Neteyam snapped, the force of his voice startling them both, he took a deep, shuddering breath, mastering himself. "Go back to sleep."

But Loak knew the hollow, cold feeling Neteyam had described, it hadn't stayed in the water, it had followed him home, it was in him now, a piece of Aonung's emptiness, rattling around in his brother's spirit like a stone in a gourd.

_____

The next morning was salt bright and glaring, the incident in the dark felt like its own dream, sealed away by the sun. Neteyam was quiet, but his movements were crisp, purposeful, he was building his mask back, layer by layer.

Loak followed him out onto the walkways, the baked seaweed planks warm underfoot. The village hummed with morning activity and there, up ahead, leaning against a post with a lazy arrogance that seemed to take up all the air, was Aonung.

Rotxo was with him, saying something that made him chuckle, but Aonung's eyes were already on Neteyam, his smirk was there, but it was brittle at the edges the sight of the forest prince seemed to physically irk him, a tension pulling his shoulders tight.

The two groups converged near the central hearth, the air didn't just grow quiet; it grew thin.

"Sleep well, forest boy?" Aonung drawled, his voice carrying. "Or does the water in your ears keep you up?"

Neteyam stopped, he didn't look at Aonung he looked at the space just beyond his shoulder, his face a calm, flat mask. "The water is fine, it's the things that flail in it that are noisy."

Aonung's smile tightened he took a half step closer. "Flail? You mean, the things that grab onto others and drag them down?"

It was a direct hit, Lo'ak saw Neteyam's tail give a single, sharp jerk, the memory of the tangled queues hung between them, invisible and potent.

"I was falling, you were in the way," Neteyam said, his tone devoid of emotion. "Next time, do not swim so clumsily."

A laugh erupted, but not from Aonung. Tik'vam slid into the space, seemingly from nowhere, his arm casually brushing Lo'ak's as he passed, he inserted himself between the two older boys, a living buffer of chaotic energy.

"Clumsy! He has you there, Aonung," Tik'vam chirped, his eyes dancing. "You are usually the wave that moves all things, but yesterday, you were the barnacle on the rock, a heavy, sinking barnacle."

Aonung shot him a venomous look, the distraction breaking the deadly focus he had on Neteyam. "Shut up, Tik'vam."

"Why? The truth swims in clear water." Tik'vam turned his grin on Neteyam, though his gaze was assessing, sharp. "And you, mighty Olo'eyktanto be, you look tired, The reef dreams are too strong for you? They can be for those not born here, they whisper of deep, dark places."

Neteyam's mask didn't crack, but his eyes flickered, the mention of dreams was a needle, finding the exact spot. "My sleep is my own business."

"Of course, of course," Tik'vam said, waving a hand. He then pivoted, his attention landing on Loak like a spotlight. "And you! The loud breather, come your ilu misses you, it told me it enjoys the clumsy pats."

Loak felt a flush of irritation, but it was muted, he saw what Tik'vam was doing disrupting, redirecting, pulling the heat away from the dangerous fault line between Neteyam and Aonung. He was throwing himself into the middle as a distraction it was either incredibly stupid or incredibly clever.

"My ilu doesn't talk to you," Loak muttered.

"All creatures talk, forest boy, you just have the wrong kind of ears." Tik'vam poked Loak's arm. "Today, I will teach you to hear the water, before you scream at it again with your lungs."

He didn't wait for an answer he just grabbed Loak's wrist and pulled, leading him away from the tense standoff. Lo'ak threw a glance back, Neteyam was already walking away, a solitary figure moving with stiff pride, Aonung watched him go, his earlier smirk gone, replaced by a look of profound, unsettled agitation.

Tik'vam didn't take him to the open lagoon, he took him to a channel, a narrow vein of water between two high walls of razor-rock coral. The sunlight was a narrow stripe far above, the water here was cooler, shadowed, thick with floating motes of phosphorescence.

"Why here?" Loak asked, his voice echoing softly off the walls.

"Noise," Tik'vam said, simply, he floated on his back beside him, utterly at ease. "Out there is all splash and crowd and sky, in here, you can hear the details, the click of a shell. The sigh of a plant, the beat of your own heart." He rolled upright, treading water. "You hold your breath like you are at war, again."

Feeling self conscious in the intimate space, Lo'ak filled his lungs and dove; He focused, trying to find the calm from the previous night, but the memory of Neteyam's terrified face in the dark flashed behind his eyes, the burn came fast, insistent; he kicked up, breaking the surface with an uneven gasp.

"Still fighting," Tik'vam observed he swam closer, so close Loak could see the variations in the stripes on his cheeks. "Your brother is tangled."

The statement was so abrupt, so certain, it stole Loak's retort. "What?"

"Aonung, too, they are tangled not in the fun way." Tik'vam's playful tone was gone, replaced by a straightforward clarity that was disarming. "Something happened in the deep water, it left a line between them, a bad line, it is pulling at both of them."

Loak stared, stunned by the accuracy. "How can you know that?"

"I watch, Aonung is angry at the air today, he snaps at Rotxo, he kicks at puppies, well, not puppies, but small fish he is angry because he feels something that is not his, and it itches." Tik'vam mimed scratching at his own skull, his eyes locked on Lo'ak's. "Your brother, he carries a cold stone in his stomach, i see it in the way he stands he wants to vomit it out, but he cannot."

The description was so viscerally correct it made Loak's skin prickle. "It was an accident, their queues touched."

Tik'vam let out a low whistle, the sound bouncing off the coral. "Kuru tangles in a fall? That is not an accident, that is the Sea Mother laughing, or cursing." He swam a slow circle around Loak. "It will not unravel on its own, a forced knot only gets tighter with time."

A spike of fear shot through Lo'ak. "What happens then?"

Tik'vam shrugged, his serious mood shifting back towards his natural levity. "Who knows? Maybe they start liking the same foods, maybe they feel each other's stubbed toes, maybe they just slowly drive each other insane." He grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "It is a problem for them, you have your own problem."

"I'm not the one with a psychic leash to Fish-Lips."

"No," Tik'vam agreed, he stopped his circling, facing Lo'ak directly. "Your problem is you think you need to fix him, you are drowning in his water, and you are not even in his current." He reached out, not poking, but flicking a drop of water from Lo'ak's chin. "Your breath, again but this time, do not think of him, do not think of your father, do not think of your fingers. Think of the silence between the heartbeats, there is a space there, live in it."

He said it with such casual authority that Loak, for once, didn't argue. He filled his lungs, and let himself sink.

The water accepted him, the world narrowed to the blue grey light, the silent dance of motes, the heavy beat of his own heart in his ears. Thump. Silence. Thump. Silence.

He existed in the gaps.

The burn came, a distant warning he held, he waited, the silence stretched, a vast, dark, peaceful expanse. For a fleeting second, there was no before, no after, no other, there was just the cool, weightless now.

He surfaced silently, the air he drew in was sweet.

Tìk'vam was watching him, his head tilted, the mocking gleam was absent he looked.... satisfied. "See? You are not just a fighter, you can be still, even you."

The compliment, backhanded as it was, warmed Loak more than the sun he managed a nod, unsure of what to say.

A shout echoed down the channel from the lagoon outside, it was Rotxo's voice, sharp with alarm. "Aonung! Stop!"

Tik'vam's expression froze, he exchanged a single glance with Loak a flash of understanding that this, whatever this was, was the bad knot pulling tight and then shot toward the channel's mouth like an arrow.

Loak followed, his newfound peace shattering, replaced by a dread that propelled him forward through the water.

They burst out into the blinding lagoon.

Near the far rocks, Aonung had Neteyam pinned against the sharp coral, it wasn't a training hold, it was an act of raw fury. Aonung's forearm was pressed against Neteyam's throat, his other hand gripping Neteyam's queue wrist, forcing it away, Neteyam was straining, not to fight back, but to pull his queue, his kuru, as far from Aonung as possible, his face a rictus of pure, unadulterated revulsion.

"Get it out!" Aonung was snarling, his voice ragged, his eyes wild. "Get your smell out of my head!"

Neteyam spat a word, choked and venomous. "You first."

They weren't just fighting.

They were trying to tear something out of each other. Something that couldn't be reached with fists.

Chapter Text

The world narrowed to the crackle of water against rock, the ragged hiss of breaths held too long, and the terrible, intimate violence of two bodies trying to occupy the same square foot of seabed.

Aonung's weight was crushing, the sharp edge of the cave wall biting into Neteyam's back, he could feel the frantic hammer of Aonung's heart through the press of his chest, a wild drumbeat against his own. It wasn't the fight that terrified him; it was the proximity, every point of contact was a live wire, singing with the memory of that unwanted fusion.

"Get off," Neteyam grated out, his voice strained against the pressure on his throat.

"Make me," Aonung snarled, but his eyes were wide, pupils dilated in the eerie blue glow of the cave lichen. He wasn't looking at Neteyam's face; he was staring at the side of his head, at the loose, wet tendrils of his queue. "You left something in me, it's like sand in a fresh cut."

The confession, raw and furious, hung between them. Neteyam felt it too, a cold, hollow echo that wasn't his own grief, a grating emptiness that mirrored nothing in his spirit, it was Aonung's void, and it had taken up residence under his skin.

"It goes both ways," Neteyam managed he stopped straining against the hold, went deliberately still, it was a forest tactic: become the log, the rock, let the predator's own momentum betray it. "Your nothingness, It's cold, it's in my dreams."

Aonung flinched as if struck. The pressure on Neteyam's throat eased, just a fraction the admission had cracked the shell of his anger, revealing the raw, confused shock beneath, he'd felt it then, the way Neteyam perceived the core of him, not as arrogance or strength, but as a hollow place.

"You don't know anything," Aonung whispered, but the fight was bleeding out of his voice, replaced by something shaken.

"I know what I felt." Neteyam saw his chance he brought his knee up, not to strike, but to create space, twisting his body in the same fluid motion, he broke the pin, shoving Aonung back into the center of the small cave pool.

They faced each other, chests heaving, separated by three feet of glowing water, the lichen on the walls pulsed rhythmically, a slow, hypnotic beat that seemed to sync with the pounding in their ears, the silence was heavier than the ocean above them.

Aonung looked at his own hands, then at Neteyam. "It won't stop," he said, his voice flat now, drained. "The echo, i hear your breathing when I'm trying to sleep; i feel you, your disgust, It's like a taste in my mouth."

Neteyam nodded slowly, the anger cooling into a bleak, shared reality. "For me, it is the cold, a chill, right here." He touched his sternum. "When there is no reason to be cold."

They weren't fighting anymore, they were comparing symptoms, a terrible fragile understanding bridged the space between them. The knot was still there, pulled tighter by their struggle, thrumming with a feedback loop of shared aversion.

Aonung's gaze drifted again to Neteyam's queue, floating like a dark veil in the water, a sick fascination warred with revulsion on his face. "Is it-- is it always this loud?"

"Only with you," Neteyam said, the truth stark and unavoidable.

Something shifted in Aonung's expression, the arrogance wasn't gone, but it was alloyed now with a desperate, pragmatic curiosity. "Can you, control it? The connection."

"It is not a connection, it is a snarl."

"But it connects!" Aonung's voice rose again, echoing off the cavern walls. "What if, what if it's not about pulling apart?" He swam closer, not attacking, but intruding. "What if we have to, straighten the knot?"

Neteyam recoiled. "No."

"Listen to me!" Aonung gestured sharply, sending ripples through the luminescent water. "You're the wise forest prince! Think! A tangled fishing line you don't fix it by yanking the ends, you have to follow the strands you have to loosen it carefully, or you just make it worse." He was quoting his own father, the master fisherman, the application was horrifying.

Neteyam understood the logic, it was sound it was also unthinkable, to deliberately engage with that violation, to try to guide it, to trust Aonung of all people inside his head.

"You are afraid," Aonung stated, seeing the resistance on his face.

"You are not?" Neteyam shot back.

Aonung's jaw tightened. "Yes." The admission cost him he looked away, towards the tunnel that led back to the world. "But I am more afraid of this, this ghost of you, haunting my own thoughts, i want it out." His eyes snapped back, fierce and demanding. "You want your peace back? Then help me untie this."

The cave pulsed around them, the hum of the deep water was a physical vibration in their bones. Neteyam felt the cold spot inside him ache he thought of the nightmares, the waking with a foreign gasp in his throat, this was unsustainable, he gave a single, sharp nod.

Aonung took a breath, visibly steadying himself. "Okay okay, don't don't fight it this time."

They floated closer the air grew thick, charged. This was worse than the accidental tangling, worse than the fight, this was a deliberate surrender to the unknown.

Neteyam brought his queue forward, the neural tendrils moving with a will of their own, sensitive and alert. Aonung did the same, his movements uncharacteristically hesitant, the pale glowing tips neared each other in the dark water.

The first, deliberate touch was a shock.

It was a soft brush, a tentative exploration, the feedback was immediate but different, not the blast of raw panic, but a jumble of sensory snippets: the taste of salt, the smoothness of polished coral under Aonung's fingers, a fleeting image of Rotxo laughing, a sharp, protective surge that was for his sister, Tsireya. It was overwhelming, but not violent.

Neteyam let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, he focused, trying not to grab, not to push, but to listen, he sent back his own sensory anchor: the crisp scent of mountain pine, the weight of a bow in his hands, the quiet, steady warmth he felt for Tuk.

Aonung flinched. "Stop that," he muttered aloud. "The, the warm thing it stings."

"That is my sister," Neteyam said, his voice low in the watery space.

"It's too much," Aonung breathed, but he didn't pull away he was following the strand, he offered another of his own: not emotion, but a skill, the precise, kinetic knowledge of how to pivot on an ilu's crest, the muscle memory of catching a current, it was pure, clean information.

Neteyam received it, and for a second, he understood, he saw the water not as a barrier, but as a lattice of moving pathways, in return, he sent the silent footfall of a forest hunter, the way to distribute weight so not a single twig would snap.

A back and forth began, fragile and wordless, they weren't sharing secrets or feelings; they were sharing languages, the reef's grammar for the forest's syntax; the knot was still there, a tense, complicated weave of two opposing lives, but it was no longer being yanked taut. They were, with immense reluctance and no small amount of pain, mapping its contours.

Aonung' void was still there, a chilling absence at the center of the exchange, but Neteyam, focusing past his disgust, began to sense its edges; it wasn't just emptiness, it was a silence forged by expectation, by the pressure of being the next Olo'eyktan, a shell of performance with a hollow core. The cold Neteyam felt was the chill of deep, lonely water where no light reached.

And Aonung, navigating Neteyam's spirit, brushed against the relentless pressure Neteyam carried not just to be good, but to be flawless, to be the unbreakable pillar for his family, a weight so constant he no longer felt its burden until someone else touched it.

They broke apart simultaneously, gasping as if surfacing from a deep dive, the physical space between them was charged, different; the revulsion was still there, but it was now woven with a thread of stark, uncomfortable knowing.

Aonung looked gutted. "You pity me," he accused, his voice rough.

"I do not," Neteyam said, and it was true pity was for something weak what he sensed in Aonung wasn't weakness; it was a staggering, armored isolation, it was, in its own way, as formidable as strength. "I see you."

The words landed heavily. Aonung stared at him, his usual smirk utterly gone, replaced by an expression of naked vulnerability that was more shocking than any fury, he had been seen, truly seen, and not for his titles or his skill, but for the hollow shape of his spirit, and he had seen Neteyam in return, not as a perfect prince, but as a creature carrying a mountain on his back.

The cave lichen pulsed on, a silent witness.

"We are not done," Aonung said finally, turning away, his shoulders tight. "The knot is still there, it is just looser."

Neteyam nodded, the cold spot inside him had receded, not gone, but muted. The ghost of Aonung's breathing in his mind was quieter, a whisper instead of a shout, it was not peace, it was a tense, unstable truce, brokered in a glowing cave at the bottom of the sea.

Outside, the world was blinding brightness and panic.

Loak surged forward the second he saw them, but Tik'vam's hand shot out, clamping around his bicep like a manacle.

"Wait," Tik'vam hissed, his eyes fixed on the mouth of the cave.

"He's killing him!" Loak struggled, but Tik'vam's grip was immovable.

"Look," Tik'vam insisted, his voice low and intent.

Aonung emerged first, his movements were stiff, his face a closed-off mask, but it wasn't the mask of triumph; It was the mask of someone who had stared at something terrifying and hadn't blinked, he didn't look at Rotxo or the others, he just swam, straight and purposeful, towards the village.

A moment later, Neteyam appeared he was pale, his eyes holding a distant fractured look, he found Loak instantly, and gave a minute, almost imperceptible shake of his head. Don't ask, he followed Aonung's path, but at a distance, a space of exactly ten careful yards between them.

The silent, processional departure was more disturbing than any bloody brawl.

"See?" Tik'vam released Loak's arm. "No one is dead but something happened, the current between them has changed direction."

Loak felt unmoored, the readiness to fight, to defend, had nowhere to go. "What did they do in there?"

Tik'vam watched the two retreating figures, his playful energy subdued into something speculative. "They faced the thing that was eating them from the inside, maybe they made a deal with it." He turned to Loak, the familiar gleam returning to his eyes. "Your brother is stronger than he looks, Aonung too, in a twisted way, it is interesting."

"It's not 'interesting,' it's messed up!"

"It is both," Tik'vam shrugged, he seemed to shake off the solemn moment, swimming a lazy circle around Loak. "Your protective fury is cute, like a pygmy pufferfish, all spines and noise, but it is wasted energy their fight is not with fists anymore, it is in here." He tapped his own temple.

"I hate it," Loak said, the helplessness turning his voice grim.

"I know," Tik'vam said, and for once, there was no mockery in it it was a simple acknowledgment, then he splashed a gentle arc of water at Loak's face. "So, stop drowning in their storm your water is here."

"My water is full of you, splashing me."

"The best water is!" Tik'vam grinned, diving under he surfaced on Loak's other side, closer. "Come, your useless sadness is scaring the fish, i will show you a place where the surface is not so far away, and the light is good."

He didn't wait for agreement he just took off, a fluid arrow shooting towards a sun dappled section of the outer reef, after a last, frustrated look towards the village, Loak followed. The urge to chase after Neteyam was strong, but his brother's warning look held him back, and reluctantly, the promise of distraction of not feeling the echoing turmoil from the cave pulled him forward.

Tik'vam's place was a wide, flat shelf of reef near a towering pillar of vibrant coral. The water was only chest deep, crystal clear, and warm from the sun. Shoals of tiny, iridescent fish moved like living smoke between the formations.

"See?" Tik'vam hauled himself onto the shelf, lying back with his tail dangling in the water. "No caves, no brothers no knots, Just sun and stupid fish."

Loak pulled himself up beside him, the rough, living stone warm against his skin; the tension in his shoulders began to slowly unwind. "They're not stupid, you just bully everything smaller than you."

"It is my sacred calling." Tik'vam folded his arms behind his head, closing his eyes against the sun. "So, your brother will be okay, he has that stone thing he does, Aonung will sulk for a week, then pretend it never happened; it is what he does with anything that makes him feel."

"How do you know him so well?"

"We have swum the same currents since we were tadpoles, i know his rhythms, he is all storm on the surface, but underneath...." Tik'vam opened one eye, looking at Loak. "You felt it, too, didn't you? That cold space in him."

Loak was startled; he hadn't named it, but the description was right. "Neteyam said it was empty."

"It is." Tik'vam closed his eye again, his voice matter of fact. "His father poured all the 'should-bes' into him until there was no room left for the 'is.' Aonung is what happens when you are born to be a monument, not a person." He said it without judgment, as one states the salinity of the sea.

The insight was so stark, so lacking in Tik'vam's usual theatrical flair, that it left Loak quiet. He watched the play of light on the water, on the smooth, striped skin of the Metkayina beside him. "You're not like that."

Tik'vam laughed, a rich, easy sound. "No, i was born to be a nuisance, it is a much lighter burden i carry it with joy."

Silence fell, comfortable this time, filled with the lap of water and distant bird calls. Loak found his eyes tracing the lines of Tik'vam's body, the powerful shoulders, the sleek taper of his waist, the heavy muscles of his tail where it met his back, he was built so differently from the forest Na'vi, all fluid power and aquatic grace. The black coral choker was a stark dark line against the bright turquoise of his throat.

"Why do you care?" Loak asked, the question leaving him before he could stop it.

"About?"

"Any of it, about what happens to Neteyam, about bugging me."

Tik'vam was quiet for a long moment. "The reef is a web," he said finally, his voice softer. "Pull one strand, everything vibrates, your brother and Aonung are two big, tight strands. If they snap, the whole web shudders, my family, my place, is in that web." He turned his head, fixing Loak with that unblinking, too perceptive gaze. "And you, you are a new strand, vibrant, strange, you fight the current so hard it makes sparks, sparks are interesting they light up dark water."

His foot, dangling in the water, brushed against Loak's thigh. It wasn't a poke or a splash, it was just a point of contact, warm and casual.

Loak didn't move away, the sunlight was a physical weight, the rock beneath him solid the chaos of the cave, the terror on Neteyam's face, felt leagues away. Here, there was only this shared warmth, this baffling, infuriating, magnetic boy who saw everything and pretended only to joke.

"Sparks burn out," Loak murmured.

Tik'vam's smile was a slow, private thing. "Not if you feed them the right air."

He propped himself up on one elbow, looming over Loak suddenly, the playfulness was back, but it was focused, intense; his eyes dropped to Loak's mouth, then back up, he reached out, not towards Loak's face or his extra fingers, but to a lock of Loak's hair that had dried in a wild curl on his forehead, he tucked it behind Loak's ear, his fingers grazing the pointed tip.

The touch was electrifying.

Loak stopped breathing

The world narrowing to the rough warmth of the rock beneath him, the salt tang of the air, and the impossible blue of Tik'vam's eyes hovering so close, every stripe on his skin was a map Loak hadn't known he wanted to read.

"You keep staring," Tik'vam murmured, his thumb tracing the curve of Loak's ear once more before retreating, his voice had lost its melodic tease, dropping into something lower, more private. "Is it the fingers? I know they fascinate me."

"Shut up," Loak breathed, the words had no heat his heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, a wild, trapped thing.

"Make me."

It wasn't a challenge, not really it was an invitation, a question asked with a glance at Loak's mouth, Tik'vam leaned in, closing the last inch of sunlight between them, and his lips were warmer than the rock, softer than Loak had imagined, they tasted of sea spray and something uniquely, devastatingly him.

Loak froze, a statue carved from shock his mind screamed, a white noise blast of what is happening, but his body, his traitorous body, sighed into the contact, all the fight melted out of his muscles, leaving him pliant against the stone.

Tik'vam kissed him like it was another game, a confident, exploring pressure, but then he stilled, his own confidence faltering for a heartbeat when Loak didn't respond, he began to pull back, a flicker of uncharacteristic uncertainty in his eyes.

That's what broke the spell.

Loak's hand came up, clumsy and sure, tangling in the beads and cords of Tik'vam's hair, he pulled him back in, not gently, answering the question with a roughness that was all his own, a low sound escaping his throat, part surrender, part victory.

He kissed back.

It was nothing like the quiet understanding in the cave, this was a collision, all pent up frustration and curious heat, it was salt and teeth and the slick slide of lips, Tik'vam made a sound, a surprised hum that vibrated against Loak's mouth, and then he was kissing him in earnest, one hand cradling the back of Loak's head, the other splayed on the warm rock beside his shoulder.

The sun baked down on them, a silent, blazing witness.

Loak forgot about the fifth finger, forgot about the demon blood, he was just sensation: the smooth skin of Tik'vam's shoulder under his palm, the wiry strength of his body, the way his tail twitched slapping the water's surface with a soft reflexive splash.

They broke apart, gasping for air that didn't taste like each other their foreheads rested together, breaths mingling hot and ragged.

Tik'vam's eyes were wide, his usual mocking grin utterly absent, he looked as shaken as Loak felt. "Well," he breathed, the word a soft puff against Loak's lips. "Your mouth does not fight the water."

Loak didn't have a answer, his mind was struggling to catch up to process the tectonic shift that had just happened on this sun bleached rock, all he could do was look at Tik'vam's mouth, now kiss swollen and slightly parted the reality of it, the sheer physical fact, was a hook in his gut.

Tik'vam brushed his thumb over Loak's bottom lip, his touch now trembling just slightly. "You are full of surprises, forest boy."

"You started it," Loak managed, his voice rough.

"I did," Tik'vam admitted, a ghost of his smirk returning, but it was softer more honest, he didn't move away his body was a warm, solid line against Loak's side. "Was that a mistake?"

Loak thought of the hollow cold his brother carried, of Aonung's angry void, of the constant grating feeling of being wrong here, this, this dizzying, superheated rightness was the opposite of all that. He shook his head a minute, certain movement echoes of the reef's pulse thrummed in his own veins now.

"No."

The single word seemed to unlock something in Tik'vam, his shoulders loosened, a tension Loak hadn't even noticed bleeding away, he shifted, propping his head on his hand, his gaze a quiet, searching sweep over Loak's face. "Good."

They lay there in the swollen silence, the normal sounds of the reef the cry of birds, the lap of water seeming to return one by one, louder than before, the world had not ended it had just cracked open, revealing a new terrifying brilliant chamber.

Loak's fingers, still woven in Tik'vam's hair loosened, stroking the intricate beads instead. "Why?" he asked again, the question deeper now.

Tik'vam's eyes drifted to Loak's hand watching the movement. "You are real," he said simply. "When you are angry, it is real fire when you are still, like now, it is real peace, there is no performance in you it is exhausting and fascinating." He met Loak's gaze. "And you look at me like I am a problem to be solved, not a fixture in the water it makes me feel real, too."

It was more truth than Loak was prepared for, it settled in his chest warm and heavy. He thought of the cold space in Aonung, the performance Tik'vam had just described and understood, perhaps for the first time, the depth of the loneliness that could exist in the middle of a busy, thriving clan.

He didn't know what to say, so he kissed him again slower this time, a deliberate tasting exploration it was an answer in itself.

This time, when they parted Tik'vam laughed, a real unfiltered sound of pure delight that danced across the water he rolled onto his back, staring up at the vast, cloud dappled sky, his fingers lacing with Loak's where they rested on the warm stone between them.

"My mother will say I have brought a storm into the house," Tik'vam said, his tone light but his grip on Loak's hand was tight.

"Your mother doesn't know me."

"She will," Tik'vam said, and it sounded like a promiss or a warning or both, he turned his head, his profile sharp against the blue. "This changes the current, for us, for them," he nodded vaguely toward the village, toward the unseen tension between Aonung and Neteyam.

Loak knew it was true, the web Tik'vam spoke of had just been fundamentally re-woven, he was no longer a loose, foreign strand; he was now, inexplicably, tied to one of its central, shining threads. The responsibility of it should have felt heavy but with the sun on his skin and Tik'vam's hand in his, it just felt inevitable.

A loud, barking call echoed from the direction of the village Rotxo's voice, summoning people for the evening meal.

The spell of the isolated rock shattered, the real world with its complications and watching eyes, rushed back in.

Tik'vam sat up, reluctantly letting go of Loak's hand he stretched, the muscles in his back rippling. "We should go you look like you have been kissed, and I look far too pleased with myself, it will raise questions."

Loak pushed himself up his body feeling new and uncoordinated. "What do we say?"

"Nothing," Tik'vam said, sliding off the rock into the water, he looked up at Loak, his turquoise skin gleaming. "We say nothing, let them swim in their own confusion for a while, it is more fun." He reached up, offering a hand to help Loak down.

Loak took it, the motion simple, but the feel of Tik'vam's strong grip pulling him into the water felt monumental, the cool embrace of the lagoon was a shock, a baptism.

They swam back side by side, not touching, but acutely aware of every shift and kick of the other's body, the space between them hummed with a new, charged energy. As the marui pods came into view, their woven shapes dark against the twilight sky, Loak saw a lone figure standing on the walkway.

Neteyam.

He was watching the water, watching them. His expression was unreadable from this distance but his posture was that same careful collected stillness Loak felt a lance of guilt, sharp and sudden, for having found this dizzying piece of warmth while his brother was tangled in that cold, shared void with Aonung.

Tik'vam followed his gaze, and sighed a soft knowing sound. "Go to him I will see you after the eating, when the torches are low."

With a final, lingering glance that held the memory of the sun-warmed rock, Tik'vam dove, a smooth arc that took him away toward the Metkayina marui of Aonung's family leaving Loak to swim the final stretch alone.

He hauled himself onto the walkway, water pooling at his feet, Neteyam's eyes tracked him taking in his damp hair, his likely flushed skin, the unusual quiet that had settled over him.

"You were gone long," Neteyam said, his voice neutral.

"Yeah," Loak replied, shifting his weight, he wanted to ask about the cave about the hollow cold, but the words stuck in his throat, how could he speak of that when his own blood was still singing with a different, warmer fire?

Neteyam's gaze was a physical weight, he seemed to be searching for something in Loak's face. Finally, he nodded as if he'd found it. "Good," he said, echoing Tik'vam's earlier word but with a different weary meaning he turned toward their family marui.

"Neteyam," Loak blurted out.

His brother paused looking back over his shoulder, the first of the evening torches reflected in his gold eyes, making them look like deep, still pools.

"Is it looser?" Loak asked, the only safe question he could find.

Neteyam considered it a faint pained shadow crossing his features he touched the center of his chest, just briefly. "The knot is still there," he said, repeating his own words from the cave, the truth in his was heavy and complex, then he offered the smallest most fragile shrug. "But it chafes less today."

He continued walking, leaving Loak standing on the damp walkway, twilight deepening into night around him, from the direction of the Metkayina marui laughter spilled out bright communal and familiar, the kind that had always excluded him, but as he looked toward the sound, he didn't feel the old hot spike of rejection.

He felt a pull, a specific magnetic pull toward one voice within the chorus.

Turning, he followed his brother into the soft familiar light of home carrying the secret, sun-warmed shape of a kiss on his lips, and the dizzying terrifying certainty that nothing would ever be simple again.

Chapter Text

The days after the kiss were a study in taut silence and screaming looks. Loak moved through the village routines net mending, help with the ilu pens with a new hyper-awareness. Every splash, every laugh, his head would turn, Tik'vam was a constant distracting presence, never far, but never again alone with him. He'd swim by close enough that the wake of his passage rocked Loak's borrowed canoe and call out some casual, reef-flavored insult about his paddling form but his eyes would linger hot and knowing, before he dove away.

Neteyam was a locked box, the cold spot he'd said chafed less but Loak saw the new tension in his brother's shoulders, a wariness that went beyond general alienation, he watched Aonung too from a distance. The Metkayina heir was quieter, less quick to rally his friends into mocking laughter, he'd sometimes just stare at the horizon, jaw tight as if listening to a distant unpleasant sound, the shared knot was a ghost they both carried, invisible to everyone else, but it changed the air around them.

It was Rotxo who finally broke the unbearable surface tension three nights later, during a shared meal. He nudged Tik'vam with a elbow, nodding toward the sky. "The blind fish are swimming to the surface in the hidden pool, tonight's the peak."

Tik'vam's eyes which had been glazed over in boredom sharpened, he glanced not at Rotxo but directly at Loak who was pretending to be absorbed in peeling a sea-fruit. "Is that so?"

"We should go," Rotxo said, already standing. "Aonung? Neteyam?"

Aonung from where he sat picking at his food, flinched at the sound of Neteyam's name spoken alongside his own he shrugged, a stiff noncommittal motion. "Do what you want."

Neteyam's response was quieter, a deliberate choice. "I will stay, the nets need sorting."

It was a clear solid wall. Loak saw the brief almost imperceptible tightening around Aonung's eyes, not anger but something closer to validation, see? Your rejection is as constant as the tide.

"Suit yourselves," Tik'vam sang, rising to his feet in one fluid motion. "More glowing fish for us, come on, forest boy time to see something that isn't a tree."

The dismissal of the others was so complete, the invitation so blatantly singular that Loak had no choice but to follow, he felt Neteyam's gaze on his back heavy with unasked questions.

This wasn't the sun drenched outer reef, Tik'vam and Rotxo led him through a narrow twisting channel at the base of the atoll, where the water deepened to violet and the sounds of the village faded, swallowed by the liquid silence. The walls jagged with black coral, seemed to close in, Rotxo turned to them at a fork, his friendly face serious. "The pool is through there i will wait here, the opening is small better for two." His grin returned, flicking between Tik'vam and Loak. "Do not get stuck it is embarrassing to have to pull you out by your tails."

Tik'vam shoved him playfully. "Your mother got stuck i remember."

Rotxo just laughed, settling onto a ledge as Tik'vam motioned Loak forward into the narrower tunnel. "Keep close and do not kick, you kick like a startled squid."

The passage was so tight Loak's shoulders brushed the rock on either side it sloped upward, then opened without warning.

Loak's breath left him in a soft rush.

The hidden pool was a vault in the living rock, open to the sky far above, a slender ribbon of seawater connected it to the ocean below, but here the water was still as glass and it was full of light, not the familiar blue of the cave lichen, but a thousand points of living bioluminescence, tiny pulsing jellies like submerged stars, worms that spiraled in electric-green patterns and delicate waving fronds of algae that glowed a soft persistent violet along the submerged walls. The water itself was a mirror perfectly reflecting the spectacle so it was impossible to tell where the water ended and the life began.

And above it all through the circular opening, was the eclipse.

The moon slid over the sun, a slow cosmic bite, the light in the cavern didn't dim; it transformed the harsh white daylight bled away, replaced by an ancient amber gloom that made the water's own light burn more fiercely more privately. The world held its breath.

Tik'vam was already in the water submerged up to his chest, his skin painted in swirling galaxies of reflected bioluminescence, he looked back at Loak, his usual smirk softened by the unearthly light. "Well? You going to stand there like a post?"

Loak slid into the pool, the water was bath warm silky against his skin, he floated mesmerized as a school of tiny translucent fish, each with a single dot of blue light on their tails, drifted between them.

"The blind fish," Tik'vam murmured, nodding at them. "They live in the dark, the light is for us not for them, a gift they do not know they give."

He swam closer the playful distance of the village was gone, dissolved in this liquid light here, there were no watching eyes no brothers tangled in silent wars there was only the slow eclipse and the glow beneath the water.

"I have been thinking," Tik'vam said, his voice barely disturbing the hush, "about your brother's problem, the knot."

Loak frowned, the magic of the place receding slightly. "What about it?"

"It is a bad tangle you cannot will it undone, sometimes...." He drifted even closer, until their legs almost brushed underwater. "Sometimes, you introduce a new strand, a strong one it can redistribute the pressure, loosen the old snarls by giving them something else to hold onto."

He wasn't talking about nets anymore, Loak understood the kiss on the rock, this secret pool it was a new strand, a diversion, a life raft.

"He doesn't need a distraction," Loak said, but his voice lacked conviction.

"Everyone needs a distraction from a pain that has no name," Tik'vam countered softly, he was directly in front of Loak now, the eclipse cast his face in stark, beautiful relief, one side in amber shadow the other glowing from the water below. "But I was not talking about him."

His hand came up not to splash or poke, but to hover near Loak's cheek. "Your extra finger."

Loak went rigid, the old shame coiling hot in his gut. "What about it?"

"I have been thinking about that, too." Tik'vam's touch finally landed, not on his face but on his wrist, lifting Loak's hand from the water between them, the bioluminescent algae lit the webbed digits from below, making every line and vein visible. "Five, not a mistake an advantage."

Loak tried to pull away, but Tik'vam's grip was firm, not harsh but insistent. "Don't."

"Why? Does it hurt?" Tik'vam's thumb stroked the inside of his wrist, right over the pulse point where it hammered.

"No."

"Is it weak?"

"No."

"Then why do you hide it?" Tik'vam asked, his melodic voice genuinely curious, all mockery absent. He turned Loak's hand, examining it as if it were a rare shell. "You have a stronger grip, better balance on a weapon's haft, you can hold one more thing than anyone else." His eyes found Loak's, the reflected stars swimming in them. "It is not a flaw, it is a luxury."

The words so utterly unexpected, so devoid of pity or scrutiny hit Loak like a physical blow, he'd spent his life folding the finger in, making fists to hide it, seeing it as the root of every other and demon whispered behind hands; a luxury... No one, not his parents, not his siblings, had ever framed it like that.

Tik'vam leaned in, his forehead pressing against Loak's, his breath was warm. "You are full of luxuries, forest boy, your temper, your stubbornness, this." He brought Loak's hand to his own lips and pressed a kiss, slow and deliberate, to the base of the extra finger.

The sensation was electric, a bolt straight down Loak's spine, it wasn't arousal, not at first. It was a profound disorienting acceptance, a seismic shift in his own understanding of his body.

He surrendered, letting his hand rest in Tik'vam's, he used his other to cup the back of the Metkayina's neck, pulling him the last inch into a kiss. This kiss was nothing like the first, it was deep, searching, and quiet, echoed by the soft lap of water against the rock, the glowing flora pulsed around them as if in time with their shared rhythm.

They explored without words, Tik'vam's hands mapped the scars on Loak's back from old forest falls, the different texture of his skin the leaner muscle structure, his touches were no longer intrusive tests but a reverent cataloging. Loak, emboldened traced the bold stripes on Tik'vam's shoulders, the powerful cords of his tail where it met the small of his back, the smooth cool scales that gave way to skin; he learned the architecture of him, solid and real under his palms.

Tik'vam, for all his confidence shuddered when Loak's mouth found the sensitive spot where his gill slits met his throat, he buried his face in Loak's neck, his breath coming faster. "You see?" he mumbled against his skin, voice ragged. "You, you unmake my performance."

It was the most vulnerable confession imaginable from him, Loak understood then the true thickness of the mask Tik'vam wore every day. The nuisance, the joker, the unflappable one, it was a performance as demanding as Aonung's heir-script.

The eclipse reached its peak, the world became a twilight bruise the pool's light now the dominant, ethereal source, painting their moving bodies in strokes of phantom color, time lost meaning measured only in shared breaths and the slide of skin on wet skin.

After they floated on their backs, side by side, staring up at the ring of fire in the sky as the moon began its slow retreat, their fingers were laced together under the water, Loak's five with Tik'vam's four. The new strand was no longer just an idea; it was a tangible humming connection between them, a counterweight to all the other tensions threatening to pull their world apart.

"They will be waiting," Loak said finally, his voice hoarse.

"Let them wait," Tik'vam sighed, but he squeezed his hand. "Rotxo will have told them we got stuck, it will be a good story."

They swam back through the narrow tunnel, their bodies fitting together in the dark confines in a way that now felt familiar, not confining, Rotxo was as promised waiting, he took one look at them, their damp hair, their quiet settled expressions, and his smile turned knowing, he said nothing just nodded and led the way back.

The village, when they returned was bathed in the returning ordinary sunlight, the eclipse was over the world had not ended, it had instead cracked open a little wider.

As they approached the Sully marui, Neteyam emerged he looked from Loak's peaceful face to Tik'vam's uncharacteristically quiet satisfaction, the question was plain in his eyes.

Tik'vam, before Loak could speak let go of his hand and stepped forward, he looked directly at Neteyam, his playful mask not fully back in place, leaving a glimpse of the serious boy underneath. "The pressure is better," he said, as if continuing an earlier conversation. "With a new strand it holds things in place."

Neteyam's gaze flickered with understanding he knew they weren't talking about nets, he gave a slow almost imperceptible nod, a silent acknowledgment, a reluctant acceptance of this new complicated geometry.

Tik'vam tossed a last brilliant true smile at Loak, none of his usual mocking edge and then melted back into the village, leaving the two brothers alone.

Loak braced for the interrogation, the concern, the warning.

Neteyam just looked at him for a long moment taking in the relaxed set of his shoulders, the absence of the defensive hunch he usually carried. He saw perhaps the ghost of a new confidence, the luxury of being seen.

"The knot is still there," Neteyam said quietly, the old haunting still in his eyes.

"I know," Loak replied.

"But you are not knotted," his brother observed, a statement, not a question.

Loak looked down at his own hand, the one Tik'vam had held, he flexed the five fingers no longer feeling the urge to hide them. "No," he said, meeting Neteyam's gaze. "I don't think I am."

Neteyam offered the faintest hint of a smile, a rare fragile thing. It was laced with his own specific pain but there was no envy in it only a tired grim hope, he turned and went back inside, leaving Loak standing in the sun, the memory of cool radiant water and warm hands imprinted on his skin, a private tide pool held within him glowing softly against the coming dark.

The smell of roasting fish and the distant calls of children playing tag in the shallows wrapped around the village, a normal evening Loak couldn't settle into, he stood for another minute, the ghost of Tik'vam's lips on his skin, the weight of Neteyam's quiet acceptance then he moved, not toward the family marui but along the network of woven walkways, his feet carrying him without conscious decision.

Inside the marui was dim and cool, his mother was repairing a harness her fingers swift and sure, his father was absent, likely consulting with Tonowari, Kiri and Tuk were stringing shells together, a quiet clacking rhythm. Neteyam was at the far side, rolling a sleeping mat with more force than necessary his movements tight, controlled, and final.

"I'm going out," Neteyam said, not looking at any of them. His voice was flat, a statement of fact that brooked no question.

Neytiri's eyes lifted her gaze sharp, missing nothing. "The nets are done; where?"

"For a walk." He slung his hunting knife belt over his shoulder, a habitual gesture, but it felt deliberate tonight. "I need the air."

"Take Loak," she said, not a suggestion.

Neteyam's jaw worked. He finally looked at his brother, a swift complicated glance that held the memory of their earlier conversation, the un knotted one and the one still hopelessly tangled. "He has other currents to swim." The words held no malice, just a bleak acknowledgment. "I go alone."

He ducked through the marui's opening and was gone, his silhouette swallowed by the violet dusk. Loak took a half step forward, instinct urging him to follow, to protect, but he stopped. Tik'vam's voice echoed in his mind; their fight is not with fists anymore. He had his own strand now, strong and warm, but Neteyam's was a fraying cable, whipping in a dark current only he could navigate.

Neteyam walked with purpose, each footfall a dull thud on the walkway. The cold spot in his chest wasn't aching; it was screaming, a high, thin whine of static that had escalated since the cave. It was a compass needle, spinning wildly and then locking, pointing inexorably ahead. He wasn't tracking by sight or sound. He was following the pull of the snarl, the grating, hollow echo of Aonung's presence, it felt like walking toward a toothache.

He found him on an the far edge of the woven spans at the far end of the village, away from the laughter and the firelight. Aonung was sitting on the edge, his tail dangling in the water, shoulders slumped. He was throwing pieces of sweet-root mash into the dark, watching unseen fish ripple the surface. He didn't turn as Neteyam approached, but his spine straightened, the muscles in his back coiling.

"Go away," Aonung said to the water, his voice rough.

"I cannot." Neteyam stopped a few paces behind him. The noise in his head was unbearable here, a feedback loop of two identical frequencies warring. "You know I cannot."

Aonung threw the rest of the sweet root mash in a clenched fist. "Why? Come to gloat? To show me how well you carry my emptiness?" He finally looked over his shoulder, his eyes glittering in the low light. They were red rimmed. "Your brother is off kissing Tik'vam, and you.... you are just there, in my head, a stone in my boot I can't shake out."

"It is the same for me." Neteyam took another step closer the air between them crackled, not with the humid salt breeze, but with the charge of their shared affliction. "Your silence is a weight, it is not a gift."

A bitter laugh escaped Aonung. "My silence? You want noise? Fine, i hate this, i hate the feel of you i hate that I know when you're tired, that I feel a flinch when someone says 'Olo'eyktan' near you. I hate that your constant, judging calm is just.... a lie, a heavy lie you wear like armor." He stood up, turning to face Neteyam, his chest heaving. "Is that enough noise for you, forest prince?"

The words were arrows, each one landing with terrible accuracy. Neteyam didn't deny them, he just absorbed the impact, standing straighter under the assault. "Yes."

Aonung blinked, wrong footed by the quiet acceptance, he'd expected a fight, a defense. He got raw, unshielded truth: it deflated him. "Why are you here?"

"Because the knot is not loosening." Neteyam's voice was low, stripped bare. "It is tightening, every day. Loak has found a new strand, we have only this broken one." He gestured between them, a short, sharp movement. "We tried to ignore it, we tried to hate it that only made it worse."

"So what?" Aonung threw his hands up. "We become friends? We braid our hair and sing songs? You think a few shared memories of hunting will make this go away?"

"No." Neteyam took the final step, closing the distance. They were almost chest to chest now, the tension vibrating like a plucked cord. "I think we stop pulling in opposite directions, i think we map it. All of it the cold, the echo, the judgment, the weight, we look at the whole tangled mess together, until we understand its shape, only then can we cut it."

Aonung stared at him, a muscle jumping in his jaw. The idea was terrifying, it meant voluntarily diving back into that invasive intimacy, not by accident, but with open eyes. It meant showing the hollow places, and seeing the cracks in the other's foundation. "And if understanding it doesn't help? If the shape is just.... ugly?"

"Then we know." Neteyam held his gaze. "And knowing is better than this, ghost feeling."

The water lapped at the posts below, somewhere a conch sounded for a late fishing party. Aonung's defiance bled away, leaving behind a profound exhausted resignation. He was so tired of the noise, the cold echo, he gave a single, sharp nod. "Where?"

"Not the cave." The memory of the glowing lichen and pinned wrists was too charged. "The eastern spar. Where the current is strong, it will give us something else to focus on."

Another nod, no more words were needed the decision was made. Neteyam turned and walked off the dock, not checking to see if Aonung followed, he didn't need to; the pull in his chest, the screaming compass, told him he was right behind.

The eastern spar was a long, thick limb of the mother tree that had fallen generations ago, its bark worn smooth by wind and salt, extending like a natural pier into the stronger off shore currents. Here, the water was a deeper, more serious blue, moving with a purposeful energy that promised to sweep away anything not anchored. The moon painted a wobbly silver path across its surface.

Neteyam walked to the very end, the coarse wood solid under his feet. He didn't remove his knife or tools he simply sat, his legs folding beneath him, and stared at the dark water rushing past. The pull in his center was a taut line, connecting directly to the space just behind his left shoulder where Aonung stood, hesitating.

"This is stupid," Aonung muttered, his voice almost lost in the shush of the current.

"Sit," Neteyam said, not a command, but a simple placement of fact.

Aonung sat, leaving a careful foot of space between them. The gulf felt both infinite and non existent. The static in Neteyam's mind clarified here, sharpened into a humming wire strung between two posts. He could feel Aonung's resentment like a heat shimmer, his weariness a dragging anchor, he also felt the faint desperate curiosity beneath it all, a fragile twin to his own.

"So," Aonung said, fists clenched on his thighs. "Map it."

Neteyam closed his eyes. He didn't try to quiet the noise; he listened to it. "The cold is at the center, it's.... a dry cold like the deepest part of a cave where no water ever reaches." He took a slow breath, letting the description form. "It feels armored, deliberate."

Aonung was silent for so long Neteyam thought he'd refuse. Then a low grudging voice. "It's not a cave it's the pressure of the deep trench. Where the light gets squeezed out." He shifted, the wood groaning slightly. "Your weight... it's not like a stone, it's like.... being filled with wet sand it just sits there, heavy and stupidly patient."

The accuracy was a shock. It felt like lancing a wound; a painful, relieving release. Neteyam nodded, his eyes still closed. "Yes."

"Why?" The question burst from Aonung, sharp and pained. "Why are you so patient? It makes no sense, everything here is a fight the current, the waves, the predators but you just.. absorb."

It was Neteyam's turn to search for a true shape. "In the forest, a storm comes, the branches that fight, that try to stand rigid, they snap. The ones that bend, that move with the wind they are still there after." He opened his eyes, looking at the flowing water. "My patience is not a virtue, it is a survival tactic, it is very very tired."

Aonung snorted, but it wasn't mean. It was a sound of understanding. "The sand is tired too, of being molded before it's even dry."

Another layer of the knot revealed not just pressure, but expectation, pre shaped. Neteyam sensed the contours of it, the rigid hollow where a person was supposed to fit. He felt a surprising, unwanted pang not pity, but recognition. "Your anger, it is the only thing that is yours, so you wear it like a shell."

Aonung flinched as if struck. His defenses laid bare so plainly left him exposed, he didn't confirm or deny. He just stared at the water, his profile sharp in the moonlight. "Your brother's new strand," he said, changing the subject violently. "Tik'vam, he is loud."

"He is not loud," Neteyam corrected softly. "He makes noise so you do not hear his quiet."

Aonung glanced at him, a flicker of surprise there. He'd known Tik'vam his whole life and had never framed him that way. He grunted, conceding the point. "Loak is all spark and tinder, they will burn each other out."

"Or they will make a better light," Neteyam said, he didn't know why he was defending it. Perhaps because Loak's u knotted state proved a path existed, however unfamiliar.

The conversation lulled, not into silence, but into a less hostile form of listening, the wire between them hummed a little lower. Neteyam became aware of the specific texture of Aonung's breathing, the smell of salt and sweet root that clung to him, the minute way his tail twitched when a particularly strong eddy passed beneath the spar. It was an intimate catalog, forced upon him but now he stopped resisting it.

Aonung suddenly let out a sharp, frustrated breath. "I can feel you doing that, taking inventory, it's like bugs on my skin."

"I am not doing it on purpose."

"I know! That's what makes it worse!" Aonung stood up abruptly, pacing the narrow width of the spar. "It's just there, all the time your, your calm it scrapes against my edges." He stopped, facing the open ocean. "And my void, as you call it. It leeches the warmth from you, i feel that too. The theft."

The admission hung in the air, huge and awful. It was the core of the snarl, two opposing forces eroding each other simply by existing in the same space.

Neteyam stood, facing him. The current tugged at their ankles, a physical reminder of the larger world moving around their static conflict. "Then we stop being opposing forces."

"How?" Aonung whirled, his expression desperate. "You want to hold hands? Sing a song? We are not your brother and his nuisance."

"No, we are not." Neteyam took a step forward. The gap closed. "We dive."

Aonung's eyes widened. "What?"

"You are Metkayina, you solve problems in the water, i am Omatikaya i face things directly." Neteyam kept his gaze steady, the plan forming as he spoke it. "We take this knot, this tangle of cold and weight, and we dive into it together, not to pull it apart to see it. To swim through every part of it until we are not afraid of its shape anymore."

"That's insane." Aonung shook his head, but he didn't move away. The challenge, the sheer physicality of the idea, appealed to the part of him that knew how to move through resistance.

"You have a better idea?" Neteyam asked, simply.

Aonung looked from Neteyam's resolute face to the dark, rushing water. The current here was strong; it would require focus, coordination effort. It would give them a shared task beyond their misery. A grim, determined light settled in his eyes. "If you get swept out to sea, I am not coming after you."

"Understood."

They didn't prepare, they simply stepped to the edge of the spar, side by side. The cord between their chests pulled tight, a physical agony of shared dread and grim resolve. Neteyam felt Aonung's racing heart as if it were his own, a frantic drum against the hum of the static. He felt the surge of adrenalized focus, the familiar calculus of water and force that was Aonung's native language.

"On three," Aonung said, his voice all business now. "One, two."

He didn't say three. He just stepped off.

Neteyam stepped with him.

They dive deep.

The world shattered into cold, roaring force. The current grabbed them, a giant's hand, and yanked them off the spar and down. The moonlight vanished, replaced by the profound, pressurized dark of the deep channel.

Neteyam's instincts screamed to fight, to claw for the surface, but Aonung's presence in his mind was a sudden commanding clarity. Don't fight it, ride it.

It was not a voice, it was a knowing an imprint of skill shared through the snarled connection. Neteyam forced his body to relax, to stream like kelp in the flow. Beside him, a shadow in the darker water, Aonung did the same, his body cutting through the pull with inherent grace.

They were a synchronized unit, not by choice, but by the brutal honesty of the tsaheylu. Neteyam felt the shift in water pressure a fraction before Aonung adjusted his angle, and he adjusted with him. Aonung sensed Neteyam's building need for air and angled them subtly, efficiently, toward a slower upwelling current.

They weren't two people in the heart of the rushing dark, they became a single creature with four arms and two tails, navigating by a shared, distressed nervous system. The cold spot in Neteyam's chest wasn't gone; it was part of the navigational array, a blank sensor in their merged consciousness. The heavy sand of Aonung's spirit was ballast, keeping them stable in the turbulent flow.

They saw it then, the knot.

It wasn't a metaphor. In the neutral terrifying language of the deep, it manifested as a dark, pulsing nexus in the space between their minds. Threads of resentment, bright hot and barbed, wove around cords of weary patience, thick and dull. Strands of lonely pride tangled with threads of isolated duty. The cold was a dead zone at its center, the weight a dense, sinking core, it was ugly, it was intricate, it was theirs.

Aonung's thought image came through, clear and shocked: It's so small.

And it was in the vastness of the ocean, in the raw truth of shared survival, their immense, world ending conflict was a dense, sad little tangle. Not insignificant, but... containable; seen.

Their air was running out, the need for breath became a single screaming alarm in their joined awareness. With a unanimous unspoken decision, they kicked hard, away from the comforting familiar pull of the channel's main current and toward a sheer rock wall they sensed rather than saw.

They broke the surface in a small, gasping inlet, chests heaving, lungs burning. They hauled themselves onto a narrow slimy ledge, water streaming from their bodies. For a long minute, there was only the sound of ragged breathing echoing in the cramped space.

Neteyam rolled onto his back, staring at the patch of starry sky visible through the inlet's opening. The static was gone, the cold spot was still there, the weight remained, but they were quiet, mapped. Understood.

Aonung sat up, hugging his knees to his chest. He was trembling, but not from the cold. "It's a mess," he whispered, his voice raw.

"Yes," Neteyam agreed, his own voice hoarse.

"I don't know how to untie it."

"Neither do I."

Aonung looked at him, his expression unreadable in the dim light. "But we know where all the ends are."

Neteyam met his gaze, that was it. They had seen the full miserable shape of the thing binding them. The hatred, the jealousy, the loneliness, the duty all laid bare in the language of the deep. It wasn't fixed, it wasn't gone, but it was no longer a terrifying unknown. It was a problem with dimensions, a navigational hazard they could, perhaps learn to avoid.

"We should go back," Neteyam said softly. "They will wonder."

Aonung nodded, still staring at him, the old contempt wasn't in his eyes. Something else was there instead: a weary, respectful acceptance. The look you give someone who has just survived the same shipwreck.

They slipped back into the water, this time swimming side by side in a calm, easy rhythm toward the distant torchlights of the village. The knot remained, a complicated weight in their shared periphery. But after diving into its very heart, the water around it felt a little clearer, the path forward a little less impossible to see.

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

Chapter Text

The dawn was a slow bleed of violet and gold across the water, the air still cool and tasting of wet stone and distant rain. Neteyam found he hadn't needed to look; the quiet hum in his chest, no longer static but a low, steady frequency, was a compass. It led him past the sleeping marui, along walkways glittering with overnight dew, to the eastern spar.

Aonung was already there.

He sat at the very edge, his back to the village, a silhouette against the brightening sea. He wasn't moving, just staring at the tide pools below where tiny jewel-bright creatures darted in the shallows. Neteyam paused, the memory of the dive the crushing dark, the shared breath, the awfull intimate map of their knot washing over him. It didn't clench in his gut like panic anymore, it just was a known quantity.

He walked forward, his steps purposefully not quiet. The old worn wood creaked.

Aonung didn't turn. "Your walking is still too heavy," he said, his voice rough with sleep or the salt air. "Like a beached skimwing."

It was the old mockery, but the edge was gone. It was fact, delivered flat.

"Your ears are still too keen for someone who claims to want quiet," Neteyam replied, settling himself not beside him, but a few feet to his left. Close enough to share the view, far enough to hold their own space.

Aonung finally glanced over; his eyes were shadowed but clear. There was no red in them today just a tired acceptance. He looked back at the water, then reached beside him where a wrapped leaf parcel sat, he opened it revealing strips of dried fish, glistening with salt. He took one for himself, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then extended the parcel toward Neteyam without a word.

The offering hung in the space between them not food, not really, a treaty. A shared necessity after expending so much energy fighting the current and each other.

Neteyam looked from the proffered food to Aonung's profile, rigid and waiting. He reached out their fingers brushed as he took a strip. The contact was brief, dry skin on dry skin, but the hum in his chest spiked, a single warm pulse of connection that wasn't painful, just startlingly present. An acknowledgement of the truce.

Aonung's hand retracted quickly, but he didn't flinch. He just gave a short sharp nod, as if confirming something to himself.

They ate in silence, the sun lifted itself over the horizon, turning the tide pools into scattered plates of liquid fire. The silence wasn't the choking hostile thing it had been, it was.... shared, a mutual exhaustion from battle. Neteyam felt the weight of Aonung's presence, the sand in the chest density of him, but he also felt the way Aonung was carefully not pushing at the edges of Neteyam's patience. They were observing a temporary, delicate border.

"The current was strong last night," Aonung said eventually, his gaze on a purple starfish clinging to a rock below.

"It was."

"You didn't fight it at the end."

"You told me not to."

Aonung almost smiled. It was just a twitch at the corner of his mouth, gone in an instant. "You listen sometimes."

Neteyam finished his fish, the salty taste clean on his tongue. "Only when the advice is not stupid."

This time, a real quiet huff of laughter escaped Aonung. It sounded strange coming from him, unused. He shook his head, looking down at his hands. "My father wants me to check the deep root nets today, they're heavy; A two person pull."

He didn't ask, he just stated a fact about the work that needed doing. The implication hung in the new light, it was a practical next step. Not a dive into the dark heart of things, but a shared mundane task; a way to test this new, fragile equilibrium under the plain sun.

Neteyam considered. The nets would be a physical echo of their tether a tangible thing requiring coordination, shared rhythm, mutual effort. A safer kind of entanglement. "What time?" he asked.

"Mid morning, after first meal."

"I will be there."

Aonung nodded again, more slowly, the transaction was complete. He stood up, brushing crumbs from his thighs. He looked down at Neteyam for a second longer, his expression unreadable, then turned and walked back toward the village, his footsteps silent on the damp wood.

Neteyam stayed. He watched the light solidify, the world gaining its sharp, daytime edges. The cold spot was still there, but for the first time, it didn't feel like a theft. It felt like a space where something else, something not entirely defined, could possibly fit.

Loak woke with the memory of light on his skin not sunlight, but the cool electric blue of the hidden pool. His hand curled reflexively, the ghost of Tik'vam's fingers between his own. The marui was empty save for Tuk, still snoozing in her hammock: He rolled out of his bedroll, a restless energy in his limbs.

He found Tik'vam down by the ilu pens, already up to his waist in the water, running his hands over the flank of a restless young calf. He was talking to it in a low, crooning melody, all his mocking cleverness softened into something genuine. Loak watched for a minute, the way the morning sun gilded the water droplets on Tik'vam's shoulders.

"Staring is rude, forest boy," Tik'vam sang out without turning around. "Or is that a forest custom? "Do you all just lurk in the mangroves watching people?"

Loak grinned, the tension in his chest loosening. "We prefer to call it 'strategic observation.' Your ilu is listing to the left, you're going to make it swim in circles."

Tik'vam turned then, his eyes bright and immediately seeking. They scanned Loak's face, and whatever he saw there the lack of guardedness, the easy smile made his own posture soften a fraction. "His balance is fine, your eyes are just untrained like the rest of you." He splashed water toward Loak, a dismissive gesture but it fell short an excuse to look away. "You are up early, could not sleep? Too busy thinking about your many luxuries?"

There it was, the callback the private language. Loak felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the sun. He walked to the edge of the pen, sitting on the woven rail. "Maybe, someone gave me a lot to think about."

Tik'vam swam closer, resting his arms on the rail next to Loak's legs. His proximity was a familiar thrill. "Good, your head was mostly empty space before; It needed some decoration." He poked at Loak's knee with a wet finger. "So, what does the decorated head want to do today?"

Loak looked down at him, at the playful challenge in his eyes, and felt a surge of boldness. "I want to go back."

Tik'vam's eyebrows shot up. "Back? To the pool? In the daylight? It's just a hole in the rock when the sun is out, all the magic leaks away."

"Not the pool," Loak said. "The spar, the eastern one at dawn it was.... I saw my brother there with Aonung."

Interest sharpened Tik'vam's features. "Oh? And were they trying to drown each other again, or has the weather changed?"

"They were just sitting, eating." Loak struggled to articulate the quiet revolution he'd witnessed. "It didn't look like a war, it looked like... a negotiation."

Tik'vam was silent for a long moment, his fingers tracing patterns in the water. "Aonung has been a storm looking for land since the tsaheylu. If the wind has dropped, it is because he is tired, not because the storm is over."

"Maybe," Loak conceded. "But Neteyam looked tired too. A good tired, not a broken one."

"Hmm." Tik'vam pushed off from the rail, flipping onto his back to float. "So you want to go to their boring negotiation site; Why? To cheer from the sidelines?"

"No," Loak said, his eyes following Tik'vam's fluid movement. "I want to see it in the light.. I want to be somewhere with you that isn't a secret." The words hung between them, simple and huge.

Tik'vam stopped floating. He righted himself, treading water, his playful mask slipping to reveal the serious, calculating boy beneath. The one who made noise so you wouldn't hear his quiet. "That is a very un luxurious thing to say, it is dangerously close to honest."

"I'm trying it out."

A slow, real smile spread across Tik'vam's face, a sunrise in its own right. "Fine, but if we are being seen, we are not just sitting that is boring, we will spar."

"Sparring; Right." Loak's grin returned. "So you can demonstrate how much better you are?"

"Obviously," Tik'vam said, hauling himself out of the water in one smooth motion. He shook his head, sending a spray of droplets that caught the light. "But I will go easy on you, for the sake of your delicate forest ego."

They walked together through the waking village, it felt different than their hidden night journey. This was open, deliberate. Loak saw Rotxo near the cooking fires; his friend took in the sight of them side by side, gave Tik'vam a knowing exaggerated wink, and went back to his breakfast without comment. The acceptance was casual, effortless, it made Loak's shoulders relax even more.

The spar was empty now, just weathered wood gleaming under the high morning sun. The tide pools surrounding it were indeed like scattered jewels, alive with skittering movement. Tik'vam walked to the center and spun, his arms wide. "See? No magic, just water and old tree and me."

"That's enough," Loak said, and meant it.

They sparred. It wasn't the formal careful practice Neteyam preferred. It was a chaotic, laughing, shoving match. Tik'vam used the slickness of the damp wood to slide out of holds, his movements unpredictable as a shifting current. Loak used his solid, forest grown stability to anchor himself, his five fingered grips proving, as Tik'vam had said, a genuine advantage for holding on.

They grappled, tumbled, and splashed into the shallower tide pools at the spar's edge, shocking the iridescent creatures and themselves with cold. Tik'vam ended up on his back, Loak pinning his wrists, both of them breathing hard.

"See?" Tik'vam gasped, his eyes sparkling. "A luxury, I told you."

Loak, looking down at him, at his triumphant captured smile, felt a swell of something so profound it tightened his throat. He didn't kiss him, he just held the gaze, letting Tik'vam see the raw, unguarded feeling there. Letting it be seen in the open air.

Tik'vam's smile softened, the performance fell away completely. For a long second, they were just two boys in the sun, water drying on their skin, a silent understanding flowing between them clearer than any words in the hidden pool.

The moment was shattered by a voice from the walkway.

"You are blocking the path."

They both turned; Aonung stood there, a coil of thick netting over his shoulder. Neteyam was a step behind him, his expression neutral, but his eyes took in the scene the closeness, the lack of space between them, the intimate energy, with a single comprehending blink.

Loak quickly rolled off Tik'vam, getting to his feet. Tik'vam just lay there for a second more, supremely unconcerned, before sitting up. "The path is wide brother, walk around."

Aonung didn't move. His eyes flicked from Tik'vam to Loak, and a complicated unreadable emotion passed over his face, not anger something closer to resignation, and a faint grim amusement. He'd seen the new strand being woven right here in the open, he looked at Neteyam. "Told you."

Neteyam didn't respond to that, he just looked at Loak. "We are checking the deep nets."

It was an explanation, an inclusion a mirror of the quiet offering on the spar at dawn.

Loak nodded, wiping salt water from his face. "Okay."

Aonung shouldered past them onto the spar, Neteyam following as he passed Loak, Aonung paused. His gaze dropped to Loak's hand resting on his knee, the five-fingered hand. He didn't sneer he just looked, and gave another of those short sharp nods, an observation filed away.

Then he and Neteyam moved to the far end of the spar, beginning the methodical work of inspecting the heavy nets, their movements already falling into a wordless efficient synchrony.

Tik'vam got up, slinging a damp arm around Loak's shoulders. He watched the two older boys work, his head tilted. "Look at that," he murmured, his melodic voice barely a whisper in Loak's ear. "A new rhythm, clumsy, but a rhythm."

Loak watched. Neteyam would hold a section taut, his strong arms steady, while Aonung's clever fingers, less than usual picked at a knot in the weave, they didn't speak, they just worked. The morning sun baked down on the spar, on the two pairs of them, each navigating their own kind of untangling. The tide pools gleamed below, full of hidden, darting life, and the ocean stretched out, vast and unknowable, before them all.

The tide pools gleamed below full of hidden, darting life and the ocean stretched out, vast and unknowable, before them all.

Loak felt Tik'vam's arm tighten around his shoulders for just a second, a quick squeeze that said see, we are here, this is happening, before letting go. The spell of the morning was broken but not badly; it was just changing shape. From the other end of the spar, the steady rhythmic sound of Neteyam and Aonung working was a new kind of quiet.

"So," Tik'vam said, stretching his arms high, "do you want to actually learn how to mend a net, or would that require more patience than your luxury-minded spirit can muster?"

Loak looked at his own hands, then at the complex weave of the net in Aonung's grip. "I can learn, my fingers are good for small knots." He said it just loud enough for Aonung to hear, a challenge and an offering in one.

Tik'vam snorted, but it was fond. "Small knots, big talk, come here." He grabbed Loak's wrist, pulling him toward a discarded bundle of netting draped over a railing. The fiber was rough and smelled of deep water and fish scales.

The lesson was chaos. Tik'vam's instructions were a stream of contradictions, delivered with pokes to Loak's ribs. "Loop it under, no, over, are you blind? It's like tying a lungvine stem, but you have no vines, so you are hopeless." His hands, however, were patient as they guided Loak's fingers through the motions.

Across the spar, Neteyam watched a torn section Aonung was repairing. The tear was clean, a recent injury. "Ilú caught in it?" he asked, his voice low.

Aonung grunted in affirmation. "Last night it panicked." His fingers worked swiftly, the needle made of bone flashing in the sun he didn't look up. "It tore the mesh but not itself it was lucky."

"You freed it."

"It was my net." Aonung said, as if that explained everything, perhaps it did; Responsibility here was as tangible as the cordage. Neteyam held the tension, feeling the steady, resistant pull through his palms. It was a quiet echo of the tsaheylu, a strain that required mutual, constant adjustment.

Loak finally produced a clumsy, bulbous knot, he held it up. "A luxury knot for catching only the finest, most arrogant fish."

Tik'vam stared at it, his nose wrinkled. "That would not hold a spec of plankton." He reached out and messed up Loak's braids, his laughter bouncing over the water. "Again, you will do it until your hands bleed, forest boy."

"You're a terrible teacher."

"And you are a terrible student, we are perfectly matched."

Their laughter was a bright, sharp sound against the rhythmic shush of the waves. It made Neteyam smile faintly down at the net it made Aonung's jaw tighten, his needle puncturing the next loop with a hard, quick jab.

The sun climbed higher, the heat becoming a physical weight. Sweat traced paths through the salt on their skin. The work settled into a pattern: the quiet, focused pair on one side, the discursive, tactile pair on the other.

Loak's next knot was better. He showed Tik'vam silently, Tik'vam examined it, turned it over in his palm his thumb brushed the center of the knot, a strange, gentle gesture. "Acceptable," he declared, his voice uncharacteristically soft, he didn't let go of Loak's hand.

From the walkway, a new voice sliced through the moment. "Is this where the useful people are hiding? Or just the ones pretending to work?"

Rotxo leaned against a post, arms crossed, a grin splitting his face. He'd brought a gourd of water, which he tossed to Neteyam. His eyes, however were fixed on Tik'vam's hand around Loak's.

Tik'vam dropped the hand like it was a hot stone. "We are working your presence lowers the average," he shot back, but the fluid ease was gone, replaced by a defensive stiffness.

"I see that." Rotxo ambled over, his gaze taking in the scene with anthropological interest. He nodded to the well-mended net between Neteyam and Aonung. "Looks good, your father will be pleased." He then peered at Loak's lumpy knot. "This one, less so."

"He's learning," Tik'vam snapped, a flash of protectiveness in his tone that surprised everyone, especially himself.

Rotxo's grin widened. "I know i have eyes." He took a long drink from a second gourd, then offered it to Loak. "So, the forest boy learns the sea and my brother," his eyes flicked to Aonung's bowed head, "learns... patience, it is a morning of miracles."

Aonung finally looked up, his eyes cool. "Do you need something, or did you just come to watch?"

"A little of both." Rotxo shrugged. "The afternoon tide is coming in strong some of us are going to ride the crests out past the eastern reef, to see the great herd passing." He looked directly at Loak now. "You have an ilu now you could come, If you are done with knots."

The invitation was a test it was public, it was dangerous, and it was for the group. It was everything the hidden tide pool was not.

Loak felt the weight of the choice. He saw Neteyam's almost imperceptible nod go, it's fine. He saw Aonung's neutral, closed-off expression. He felt Tik'vam vibrating beside him, a silent, complex frequency of hope and dread.

"I would slow you down," Loak said, honestly.

"Yes," Rotxo agreed, cheerful. "But you are getting better and your ilu is fast, it is bored here in the pens."

Tik'vam kicked at a plank. "He is not ready for the eastern channel, the current there will spin him like a leaf."

"Then you can pull him out again," Rotxo said, his tone deceptively light. "You seem good at that."

The air tightened. The comment hung there, referencing everything they hadn't spoken of the rescues, the night dives, the private lessons. Aonung stood, brushing net fibers from his legs. "I will go," he stated he looked at Neteyam. "You said you wanted to see the deep current patterns."

It wasn't a question, Neteyam stood as well. "I did."

The decision was crystallizing, pulling them all into its wake. Rotxo had successfully shifted the entire day's axis.

Loak looked at Tik'vam, searching for a sign in the set of his shoulders, the line of his mouth. Tik'vam stared at the horizon, where the open ocean beckoned. He hated being maneuvered, especially by Rotxo but the challenge was there, and to refuse it would be to hide.

"Fine," Tik'vam bit out. "But if he gets swept away, I am not the one explaining it to Jake sully."

He said it to Rotxo, but his hand found Loak's shoulder again, a brief, grounding squeeze. The message was clear: I'm here, we're doing this.

Rotxo's smile became genuine, satisfied. "Good, meet at the eastern pen when the sun touches the tallest reef spire." He turned to leave, then threw over his shoulder, "And maybe practice holding your breath, forest boy the water out there doesn't care about your luxuries."

As he walked away, the spar felt different. The quiet intimacy of the morning was gone, replaced by the charged anticipation of a trial. The nets were mended, a temporary, fragile repair. The next test awaited in the deep, channeled water.

Loak watched the endless blue, his stomach fluttering with nerves. Tik'vam bumped his hip against him. "Do not look so scared, it is just bigger water."

"I'm not scared," Loak said, the old defiance flaring.

"Liar," Tik'vam murmured, but he was smiling, his eyes already on the eastern reef, already calculating the currents. "But it is a good lie, keep it."