Chapter Text
Spider coughs. His throat and lungs ache, a side effect of the stale air his body tries to reject. He shifts from where he's sitting, knife in hand, leaning against a nearby boulder. Water laps at his feet. Faint chatter and laughter drift from the warm lights of the pods of the Metkayina, smoke dances his way from the cookfires of the few who have abstained from the communal cookfire.
His stomach grumbles, but he shakes it off. There will be plenty of time for food in the morning when the sky is washed anew. When the sky dips itself in dew and throws out beautiful blue paint. The night, where beasts slink through the undergrowth and Neytiri's yellow eyes flicker in the shadows, is no place for food. He stares blankly into the distance, letting his eyes adopt the glazed expression that had so frightened Tuk, a Na'vi whose body was constantly alert, processing information much faster than his own feeble mind could, flicking through scenarios, with no time to be still and simply let misery wash over oneself.. A Na'vi's body is not built for pain. Spider's is.
A loud shout bursts from the center of the settlement, shrill and unmistakeably Omatikaya. Spider pushes himself up off the ground, springing with the heavy grace of a human. His knee clicks as he lands. He shakes it off and bolts, jumping over snakes and half-submerged rocks.
He slams into the empty center of the camp, head whipping around, searching for danger. He spots Lo'ak and Tuk, lying on the ground, breathing heavily.
"What happened? I heard a scream. Lo'ak, bro, are you alright?" urgency colors his tone.
Lo'ak shoots him a side eye. "Yeah, we were just running; Tuk fell over. Chill, dude, you're being weird."
Spider's heart rate slows "Oh shit, okay. My bad, sorry dude. I just heard a shout and-" he explains.
Lo'ak shakes his head dismissively. "Yeah, no worries Spider, just," Lo'ak sighs "You're so jumpy now. Just chill."
Spider shrugs, plays it off with a smile he doesn't feel. "I am the most chill, arsehole."
He turns and starts walking back, stretching his arms above his head. His back makes a popping noise; both Lo'ak and Tuk cringe back, looking vaguely ill.
Shit. Stupid human biology.
Spider shoots them a grin, and drops slightly, ready to start the run back to his lookout/home.
"Wait!" Lo'ak calls, loud and commanding "Spider, where are you going? You should be getting to the communal cookfire, it's about to start."
"Oh, really?" Spider says, happily, "Nice, what is it?"
Tuk perks up
"It's my favorite! T'nya fish and Iya berries!" she cheers.
Spider's face falls. He quickly plasters a smile back on.
"Sorry, Tuk-tuk," he starts, kneeling down so he's eye level with the kid lying on the floor "I can't eat T'nya or Iya berries, they're too strong for my teeth and tummy."
Tuk's eyes begin to well with tears
"Hey, hey no waterworks!" Spider jokes gently, wiping a tear away from Tuk's eyes, "Maybe next cook-fire, I can eat with you, yeah?"
Tuk giggles softly and nods, turning to Lo'ak and standing to her full height. She slips her hand into Lo'aks and tries to pull him away.
"LO'AK! Come onnn" she groans
Lo'ak's brow is furrowed. "One second, Tuk." He murmurs, eyes fixed on Spider "You go and run on, I wanna talk to Spider for a bit."
Spider gulps.
Lo'ak moves closer, dropping his voice "Spider, you good? We've had T'nya and Iya for the past few nights, what have you been eating? Have the cooks been setting human food aside?" He questions.
His gaze is so gentle, Spider feels like crying. Grinning at Lo'ak, he rolls his eyes.
"Lo'ak, now you're being the unchill one, I'm fine. I can feed myself, I'm not a child." He laughs, "Seriously, dude, I got this."
Lo'ak's eyes narrow. "If you're sure.." He says. His eyes flick in the direction of the cookfire. "I can stay with you, here, if you want." He offers "I don't mind." His gaze darts towards the fire yet again.
Spider laughs and shoves him. "Nah, I'm not a coward, I can handle being alone for, like, an hour. Go be with your family, Lo'ak. I know you want to."
Spider sits in the dirt beside the water. It's daytime, the water has calmed and laps at the sand a few feet away. His hangnail stings, so he bites it off, spitting the too-long nail out into the mud. He plunges his now-bleeding hands back into the ground and digs around until his fingers close around a hard, roundish object, about the size of an onion. An ashkii!
He cheers quietly and pulls the vegetable out of the rough ground. He dunks it quickly into the pool of seawater next to him, shaking it dry. Cracking the rough exterior on a nearby rock, he shoves the flesh of the ashkii into his mouth, barely stopping to chew.
With the oh-so-kind Metkayina cooks sneering at him when he had, after taking several days to pluck up the courage, asked that they set some human-friendly food aside for him, or at least tell him when they'd be making Na'vi only food, Spider resorted to foraging. Unfortunately, the ground near settlements was poor quality, a reminder from Mother Eywa to never expand too far, lest the whole of Pandora fall into infertility, Kiri had said.
Ashkii, however, were plentiful, easy to eat, and somewhat tasty. But, as they were around the size of a cricket ball, and held all the nutrition of one, Spider spent most of his time foraging for enough to sustain a growing teenage human. He was thankful he didn't need as much food as the Na'vi ("Another way you're different." his traitorous brain hisses at him.) but, Eywa, he was hungry.
It wasn't always so bad. There had been a week or two where the food had been almost exclusively human-safe. It had been bliss. Safe, warm, tasty food, that he could eat with his friends and family.
But now, he was reduced to scrabbling in the dirt like some kind of common insect; a scavenger.
He plunges his hands back into the mud, coming up with another two Ashkii. His mouth waters, but he sets them to the side for later that day.
Once he had amassed a sizable dinner of four Ashkii, he retired to his camp.
His 'camp' as he rather generously called it, was constructed from two large, large leaves, around 6 feet long and three feet wide, which he had strung between two prickled Ickbo trees. They served as a roof and sides to keep the ocean spray from reaching him when it battered against the sharp crown of rocks along the water's edge. A rounded tree stump was his table, and it was here he set the Ashkii.
His knees click as he sits on the ground, another human trait his Na'vi friends found disgusting. When they had been kids, he had purposefully cracked his joints to make them laugh and bat him away with a laugh and an invitation to play later. Oh, how times changed.
He picks up the Ashkii, and, taking a deep breath, slams it into the side of the stump. The tough purple-brown outer casing cracks, revealing a sweet, white, fleshly layer, which he eagerly crams into his mouth. The fruity juice floods his tongue; his muscles relax. Chewing slowly, he climbs into his makeshift pod and lies on his back.
He pulls the leaf canopy away and gazes up at the stunning sky, untouched by the light pollution which had swamped the science base he grew up in, and his father's Quaritch's lab.
Laughs and whoops ring through the air, it's the little Na'vi working off their last burst of energy before naptime. It's a bit pathetic, Spider thinks, to be ready to sleep at the same time as a mere child, but, hey, he needs his beauty sleep.
He peels a strip of inedible Mawar bark off of a nearby bush, which he pops in his mouth and chews to keep the hunger pains down.
Closing his eyes, and securing a sharp shard of rock in his fist, he rolls over and sleeps.