Work Text:
i.
When Kiri is five, the world wakes up to her.
She walks, and atokirina follow. She feels the heartbeat of Eywa in her own, strong and sad and waiting, and she finds herself crying and not knowing why. My sweet girl, her mother whispers, and Kiri burrows into her mother’s shoulder.
She fights with Lo’ak until their father stops them. She sits on her father’s shoulders and follows the wind, and her father smiles, indulgent, and lets her.
She can feel a heartbeat in her ears, a hum in her veins.
The world spins around her, and it is warm.
ii.
When Kiri is eight, she meets Spider. She is sitting on the edge of a cliff, humming, the grass moving around her, and she sees a boy.
“Hi,” he says. He’s bouncing on his feet, cheery, a touch nervous. He reminds her of Lo’ak, a bit, but there’s a loneliness in his eyes that feels familiar, that she feels with every breath.
“Hi,” she says, and stands.
iii.
She asks. Her ikran follows.
iv.
She knows her father finds it strange. She knows her mother doesn’t understand, not truly.
But the world is inside her.
iv.
They sneak into Hell’s Gate.
Don’t worry, she tells Spider. Mom loves you, even if she doesn’t show it.
She’s not right, not entirely, but she’s only eleven, and her parents love her, and she doesn’t understand why they wouldn’t love him, too.
v.
When Tuk is five, they sneak out to an old battlefield.
“It’ll be fun,” Lo’ak says, because he is only twelve, and he doesn’t yet know the horrors of war, the grief in death.
Spider’s bouncing on his feet. “Come on,” he says, and she sighs, and follows.
They find the ruin, the wrecks. Tuk exclaims at everything, and Kiri can’t help but laugh. They find the wreck, the body, and Spider’s brow furrows, and Lo’ak pats his shoulder, tries to distract him. KIri and Tuk hang onto a shaky vine, and the wreck sways, creaks, and Kiri breathes the world in and lets it burn through her.
She stops it. Tuk beams: you saved me!
She feels like there is gold buzzing in her veins. She can’t explain it.
vi.
When Kiri is twelve, she sees the ships in the sky, and her gut drops, and she knows.
She goes to find Spider, but his not-father says he can’t leave, even when she pleads. Her parents find her. Her father clutches her to his chest, and her mother draws her into a tight hug.
“Spider should stay here,” her parents say, and it feels like betrayal, hot iron, through her.
She runs off. She can hear, faintly, her mother telling her father not to follow her. She needs time, that is all.
Kiri doesn’t need time; she needs her family to be safe.
Her grandmother says change is part of life; change is what we make it. Kiri’s heart still feels heavy.
She can feel Eywa, in her veins, burning, blinding. She finds herself at the Tree of Souls. Lo’ak grumbles’ Tuk says something wiser than her age.
Help me, Kiri thinks, and her blood sings.
vii.
She goes back for Spider. She looks behind her, and sees Lo’ak, and Tuk: “He’s our brother, too,” Lo’ak says, and Kiri nods.
They find Spider’s bedroom, but Spider’s not-father catches them and locks them in separate rooms. Kiri thinks, and prays, and thinks more, but there are no atokirina here, no vines.
There’s a bang, and Kiri looks up, and Spider’s there, grinning that familiar grin. “Come on, Kiri,” he says.
She grins.
viii.
They run. Kiri’s ikran comes, because Tahni always comes, and Kiri watches as she is killed.
She feels like she’s being pulled apart. There is fire in her veins and she cannot control it.
ix.
Their parents are there, after, and Neteyam, picking up Tuk, drawing Lo’ak into a tight hug - I insisted, I had to come - and Kiri smiles, eyes still prickling, when she watches them.
They crash, and Norm saves them. They go home.
Neteyam talks to their parents. I’ll help fight, he tells them. Don’t worry.
vii.
They move to High Camp. She loathes it, but Neteyam wraps his arms around her shoulders, silent, and it hurts less.
She walks on vines with Lo’ak, and sits on cliff-edges with Spider, like all those years ago, and lies in the grass with an inquisitive Tuk, and crouches and chuckles next to a worried Neteyam, and hugs her mother and father, and slowly, slowly, things get better.
There is a war around them, but she is learning, and she has power in her hands.