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neteyamsilly · 1 year

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i will soften every edge, hold the world to its best | 5

summary ;; What could Jake do? How was he supposed to fight when he had no concrete opponent? PART 4 | PART 6 pairings ;; dad!jake sully x reader, mom!neytiri x reader, sully family x reader genre ;; pure angst and family feels notes / explanations ;; jake is so depressing here. i also took liberty with his character and the reasonings for his decisions in atwow, sorry in case if thats not how you see him LMAO happy reading 💞 please excuse my mistakes if you see any! ‼ I DONT TAKE TAG REQUESTS ANYMORE ‼

“One chance, Jakesuli. You will only have one chance. Use it well. Our Great Mother favors you, that we know. But this favor hasn’t been granted to you. It has been granted to my granddaughter.”

“I won’t fail.” Not again.

“What does failing mean, I wonder. Would you fail if you take her soul back from her happiest? Or would you fail if you let her have the peace our Great Mother has laid her into?”

“I will get my daughter back. This isn’t her time. If Eywa has given me this chance, then she thinks the same as me.”

“You will take that honor from her, then?” Mo’at was being cryptic, but Jake saw through the exterior of the neutral Tsahik into an exhausted, mourning grandmother. “She was the daughter of Toruk Makto, and he was her last shadow.”

It came back to Jake in a gut-churning realization, it was his shadow that had fallen over you from the light of the torches on the walls as you’d given your last breath. It was his shadow. “No,” he refused, adamantly. “She will get to achieve greater honors of her own than that. I won’t be the one defining her ending.” The last bead of your songcord having his name, Toruk Makto’s name, was supremely wrong to him. He would not accept this fate for you.

“Very well, then.” Secretly, she was pleased with him. With his answer. “Get going. As I said. One chance.”

Jake would never be able to get used to the magnificence that was Vitraya Ramunong, or, the Tree of Souls. To him, Pandora itself was a marvel already too good to be true that he’d fallen in love with, and abandoned his own race for, there was no getting used to the beauty for a human like him who’d only found it once in neon lights, ever. He could reach the end of his natural lifespan in this body and still there would be much left to discover. That’s why Jake was more vulnerable to one of the beating hearts of Eywa in the shape of a giant, glowing willow tree.

No Na’vi was immune to the soul-purifying, all-consuming, yet being-dwarfing peace enveloping one’s very spirit, in a cradling hug as if they were nothing but a newborn in their mother’s arms. In here, only one fact mattered: they were childrens of Eywa, all of them dear, all of them seen, all of them safe and sound, including him, once alien to Eywa the way Earth was related to Pandora. Everything spoke to him here in a language he didn’t understand, but could respond to, again, in a language he didn’t understand, his soul doing the communicating.

Jake was also a child here, Eywa’s chosen child.

And he had come to her door for the most difficult request of his life, feeling like he was asking his mother for money right after he had crashed their car, unable to look her in the eye and expecting the biggest of scoldings for his shamelessness.

This was nothing like asking for her assistance against the sky people, back then, he had agency, power, the clans backing him up, Toruk. If Eywa didn’t hear him, he would fight until the last drop of blood in his body was spent anyway, he was ready.

Now, he had nothing.

Nothing to offer in return, not one concrete reason as to why he should have his daughter back other than being a desperate father with nowhere to return to other than the mercy of the Great Mother. He just wanted his child. Nothing mattered.

Not how and why Quaritch had spawned right under his nose with an avatar body, not how they could even slither in without detection, not the threat of what the sky people could bring upon their heads with that — nothing, not now. Nothing mattered until he saw this through.

Jake had found the will to quite literally tear himself from your side like nail from flesh only when you’d stabilized enough. Stabilized, as in, the faintest rise and fall of your ribcage Neteyam had to stare from where he was sitting like a sentinel for a full minute to spot, a tideless, still ocean only moving with whiffs of wind, his own breathing unnoticeable — to match yours, or to silence the sounds in his own body to hear better, Jake didn’t know.

No sky person was allowed to take over from Mo’at and Kiri. Norm had told Jake none of this made sense, if the bullet had nicked the bowels enough and the dirt leaked into the bloodstream, the possibility of sepsis was eventual, and if it didn’t, you had bled too much anyway, a blood transfusion was necessary, and the internal organs... — Christ, the amount of bad end scenarios Jake had been subjected to was as if they were telling him to open a grave for you anyway. Tsahik had scoffed into their faces. The way of healing was something none of them would see, she had scoffed. Now ally, or not. You can’t fill a cup that’s already full. Jake was in a hopeless need for water into wine kind of miracle, and honestly, he wasn’t complaining.

Leaving High Camp behind to set off on a journey calling for only him was one of the hardest things he’d done yet, the silhouette of you lying motionless, his family scattered around the tent, shadowed in their own mourning, folded into themselves was burned into his mind, glimpses of their pain visible from eclipses of light occasionally falling on their faces. A sight he never wanted to see again in his life if he could help it. It was a frosted, iron-thorned hand squishing his heart into ground meat.

Tuk, ever the stingy monopolizer, had brought her favorite toys to scatter around you because she thought they’d comfort you the way they comforted her, had tried snuggling with your unconscious body and was warned by Kiri only to hold your hand instead. She had taken to playing with your fingers, the depressive gloom of years beyond her age crooked on her. Jake couldn’t stand the sight of the little girl telling you bedtime stories he and Neytiri used to, for a moment only, he could pretend you were just going along with your sister’s whims and smiling with your eyes closed as you listened.

Kiri, buzzing around to change the bandage-leaves that soaked up some sort of sickly black colored puss every couple hours, had explained to him the salve they used on you was getting the infection and the splinters of the bullet they couldn’t get out of your body, which had turned the color of your blood into that — but the thing was, given the dwelling of the woodsprite in your mouth, they couldn’t feed you the porridge-like mix to speed up the process of blood production in the bone marrow, and she was exerting herself looking for some other way.

Before he’d left the tent for good, she had handed him the bullet— or, the biggest piece of it they’d taken out of your body, it was a mere pursed and shriveled, tiny metal. The exhausted girl had stammered when explaining that whatever they’d hit you with, had broken into shards inside you upon impact, creating severe lacerations and lethal hemorrhage that they’d worked tirelessly to pick out.

Jake had stared hollowly at it for the longest time. This small thing. It was such a small thing that took you from him.

The sentence that sent you away was also as small, and damning as this bullet. ‘Go.’

Kiri had seen it sink in his face, closing her five-fingered hand on his palm, on the bullet. “You should get going, dad,” she’d said. “We’re okay here.”

Jake had taken one last look. At Neytiri wiping your body to clean all the congealed blood. At Tuk holding your hand. At Kiri trying to fill in shoes bigger than her feet. At you lying down with trinkets surrounding you like funeral flowers. And forced his body to keep moving when all he wanted to do was stay.

He’d then heard Lo’ak complaining to his older brother outside the tent, “How can he be so cold?” The heaviness was getting to the boy, agitated and misapprehending. But he was always this way, if something was out of his control, the inability to act to change it manifested as frustration, blind anger. “Why is he so… unresponsive? Emotionless?”

Jake would have let it slide had it been about something else, but his children running their mouths not knowing he was a hair's breadth away from going clinically insane had gotten to him. He was burning alive.

“You think I don’t care, boy?” He emerged from the tent like some last boss, initially not caring he’d scared the brothers. “You think I don’t feel at all? My own child dying in the same arms I used to hold her as a baby — you think that doesn’t faze me?”

Neteyam, the mediator, or rather, the blame-taker, ran to his little brother’s rescue, the latter too flabbergasted to form any words yet. “Dad, he doesn’t mean—”

“I know exactly what he means.” When the anger subsided, Jake sighed with the weariness of an ancient man. The flames had died before they could climb, he was too exhausted for it. Honesty and trust, as Neytiri had said.

Having lost everything, having nothing to lose, and having a lot to lose were somehow simultaneously the same thing to Jake in the predicament he’d found himself in. “I know how you see me. You only know me as the person I want to show you.”

Lo’ak’s go-to answer was presented to Jake on a silver platter. “Sorry, sir.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear at all. Jake wasn’t trying to get Lo’ak to bow his head. “Don’t apologize—” He cut himself short, licking his chapped lips, and after rubbing his face, he’d put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Lo’ak. Son. I feel this, alright? Of course I do. I’m your father.” He shook him gently, feeling the words weren’t reaching him, who was just staring at something on the ground off to the side. “There’s no greater pain a parent can go through in life than losing his child. You can’t understand what this means right now—what it’s doing to me. You will only know when you become a father yourself.” He gently tapped Lo’ak on the chin so he would raise his head and look at him in the eye already. And when he did, Jake said what he said slowly, hoarsely. “But know this. Know I will lose myself if I lose you, or any of your siblings.” He turned to Neteyam as well, who was watching in full alert mode. “I’m fighting not to lose my sanity as we speak.”

Lo’ak swallowed, unsure and weirded out to hear something like this for the first time in his life. Jake didn’t blame him. He was never emotionally upfront or honest before, not even used to it, more awkward with it than his boys were. But none of that mattered. Not anymore, after what happened to you because of his shortcomings. “You just look so composed—“

“I have to be.” Jake shook his head, eyelids hanging heavy, his whole head was heavy. “I just can’t crumble under it, do you understand? I have to be strong. I can’t lose myself in it. Your sister needs me. You need me. To be strong.” He took his hands off the boy’s shoulders, putting a palm on his cheek and patting a few, fatherly times before backing off altogether. “Never say that I don’t care. Never. I might not show it—and it’s a father’s duty not to show it, so my family will have a stable anchor. Get what I’m saying?”

Lo’ak looked reassured, lighter. So that’s what Neytiri had meant. “How… how can I help?”

His youngest son’s inclination to get to the root of the problem and pump out solutions was in consanguineous with his inability to stop and wait, uncomfortable in his skin when he couldn’t do anything to improve the situation and was confronted with the intimacy of having to feel, always wanting to act. Lo’ak was like Jake in that way. Awkward when it came to communication. Dishonest with themselves.

“Stay here.” Jake said, right from his heart. “Stay safe. I don’t wish for anything else in this world.”

Lo’ak’s eyes softened, and as the father, Jake felt the renewal of the bond between them, saw the understanding in his youngest son, saw something else than the guilt and regret over being caught after mischief, for once. “I’m sorry, dad.”

“Don’t apologize.” He shared a meaningful look with him, trying to convey, again, his apology wasn’t what he wanted. Yet, his sons were defaulted to saying sorry half the time they spoke to him nowadays. Jake was understanding the severity of it, too much too late. Lo’ak nodded, ears tipped down slightly.

Then he turned to the eldest. “Neteyam—”

But he opened his mouth before Jake could say anything else. Ready. Always on his feet. “Yes, I will—”

Jake clicked his tongue. “Rest.”

Neteyam was about to say yes to whatever he was told to do, as always, but stopped right in the middle of it, voice catching in his throat, eyes blinking in confusion. “What?”

“Rest.”

“But—”

“Rest, Neteyam, I won’t tell you again.”

God knows he needed it. Neteyam looked like he’d been having night terrors for days, accumulated anxiety making him jumpy. “Sorry, sir.”

“Stop—“ Jake caught himself before he could raise his voice. “Why are you apologizing?”

Neteyam didn’t talk for a while. But when he did, he was looking up at him underneath his lashes, unable to keep eye contact for more than two seconds. “It’s my fault.”

“Bro,” Lo’ak said, a pitiful objection.

Jake knew where this was going. “What is?”

“I should have been there.” He pressed his mouth into a thin line before furrowing his brow, closing his eyes. Jake knew what he was seeing, repeated over and over again in his mind. “I should have known right away when I couldn’t catch up to her. I could have prevented it. It’s my responsibility.” One tear slipped by as he hung his head. “My fault.”

There it is.

Jake had told him before. “You’re the older brother, you gotta act like it.” — even though you and him were more like affable twins than older brother and younger sister that he never had to explicitly be a guardian to you like he was to Lo’ak, he had to be thinking this was his biggest failure. Neteyam was just reflecting what he’d been taught, the standards his father was holding him up to. Of course the boy had been overthinking it to the point where he was the catalyst to the event by not predicting your fakeout.

“No,” Jake rasped, after a beat. “This is on me first, and the sky people who got to her second. And that’s the end of the story.”

Neteyam, up until this point, had to bear half the blame, if not the rest of it, for the consequences of his siblings’ actions. Upon receiving this kind of answer, he startled with an incredulous gasp and full stare at Jake. “But I—”

“It’s not about you, Neteyam,” Jake explained, although the words were harsh, he had done his best to soften the impact. “I did this. Blame me, okay?”

‘How could I?’ was written in neon letters over the boy’s head even if he didn’t say anything. Too good-natured. He idolized Jake a lot more than the man deserved. “Mother was… she was… She is grieving, she doesn’t mean it.”

“You gotta stop making excuses for people, boy. Especially when they’re in the right.” A smile pulled on his lips, but died as it was born. “I pushed and pushed until we reached the edge, thinking there was never an edge at all. I should have known better. I should have been better. This is between me and your sister, and that’s why it is me who has to go to the Tree of Souls.”

And he’d left, but not before pulling his boys into his chest, cradling the back of their heads against himself, the smell of home repulsing instead of comforting. Prickles on his skin was the comfort he got from being able to hug his children when you were absent. It didn’t feel right.

He missed you dearly, an aching, gaping hole in his very being that only grew larger as he saw what you left behind half-completed or messy like you’d stood up and gone off for a minute to come back to it later —

The unmade pallet from the night of your Iknimaya argument that Jake had shed tears on when he’d seen the state of it, having the signs of someone getting up from it like you would be returning to go back to sleep any second.

The unfinished bark plate you had set aside to eat later and fought Lo’ak not to touch it. a squabble Jake had to break before you started wasting food by throwing it at each other.

The stack of fruits you’d gathered that you never shared except for Neytiri sometimes.

The half-carved cup you were working on because the regular cups weren’t big enough for your water needs and you didn’t like to refill it about three times until you were satisfied.

The incomplete anklet you were making out of rainbow beads for Tuk that was confidential to everyone but Jake, who knew from observing you, of course — you were missing a couple colors that you just couldn’t seem to find, nagging his head off to just let you roam around farther and there was no danger as the sky people couldn’t get in the vortex.

The little animal doodles you scratched at your side of the tent when you couldn’t sleep at nights, waking Jake up in the process every single time to listen until your breathing evened out as sleep retook you in its arms again, because he was bodily programmed to startle awake at one single rustle in his living quarters from his Marine days and fell into old habits after the return of the sky people, he knew you had developed insomnia from being uncomfortable at High Camp, longing for your hammock cocooned in the safety and comfort of the forest.

And the dumb romance novels you had taken from the humans that you, Kiri and Tuk giggled about at girl’s nights reading out loud, Spider invited as an honorary guest at times, just so you could tease Kiri about him and annoy your brothers that they weren’t allowed in, but the human boy was.

All of them had no owner now. Neither of your family members could look at them, your ghost would appear in precious memories beside your belongings if they looked too much. He didn't need to concentrate for a phantom of you to appear, you were everywhere he looked, and even now, as the gently pulsating lavender humming, a song from Eywa herself, right underneath the veinlike, labyrinthine roots was the cool summer rain on Jake’s sizzling skin, all he could see was your first communion with Eywa in his arms while Neytiri formed the tsaheylu, the clan spread all around them in celebration.

“You’ve called, and I’ve answered,” he greeted in positivity. “I think this is the most direct you’ve been with me in a long while.”

He didn’t know if it was Eywa or you he was saying this to. He genuinely didn’t know.

Kneeling, and putting his arms on the mossy, thick root, he looked up to see the woodsprites swaying and floating in the air. He reached for his braid, letting the squirming nerve-endings coil around the white-cored lavender thread closest to him, taking in the presence of Eywa, all around yet nowhere at all, but listening. No sign of you. Was he supposed to talk like this? Just like this? Was he not allowed to see you?

Jake had to admit he had been harboring the tiniest expectation of meeting you somehow, or hearing your voice through the connection like he did with a Tree of Voices when Mo’at had cryptically informed him of his chance. But this was it?

If he failed, this would be it.

“I guess this isn’t all that different,” he said out loud, instead of thinking inwards where the confusion flew. “It’s been like this for a while now, you and I. You talk, I don’t hear you. I talk, you don’t hear me. We throw the same ball at each other only for it to bounce back. Monologuing to a tree is the same thing, except it doesn’t talk back like you do.”

He looked up and around, there was nothing else to do. The air was the same as it always was in here. Always accommodating to what each Na’vi found comforting. “The last time I came here like this was to ask for Eywa’s help in the last stand against sky people. I told her I would fight either way, I knew that’s why she’d chosen me. All my life, all I’ve done was fight. Even when I wasn’t able to, I was fighting lesser battles with the excuse of not having anything to fight for. It’s all I’ve known. All I’ve ever done. It’s what I was best at.” His brow twitched, and Jake tried to keep his composure, not because he didn’t want anybody to see, no, it was to keep his shit together so he didn’t fuck this up. He had to be honest. His pride was the last thing he needed in his way at the moment.

“You were born to a different man. To a changed man. To a father who could let go because he thought his family was safe. You got to meet the man I used to be when my reason for fighting came back from my star. I know you don’t like that person — you can’t — couldn’t get used to him. I know.”

From the discomfort, his fingers dug into the moss first, and found the bark of the root, his fist curling on it next. “But I had to keep fighting.” He softly brought his fist back on the root. “The strong prey on the weak, that’s just how things are. That’s how I had it on my star. And my kids — you, you are weak, and it’s not an insult — it’s not me criticizing, Jesus, you are just children, and there’s a war on your damn heads. That’s what I mean. That’s what I’ve always meant. It’s natural that you are weak, Eywa was kind enough to let you be soft. Not Earth, though, never Earth.”

Jake had to clench his teeth and bite the anger into the inside of his mouth to not be boiled alive — not to let it reach to your side. He let out a soundless snarl. “You would never be ready for the cruelty of Earth, I would never wish that upon any of you. But it was brought to you. Right at your doorstep. I couldn’t protect you from it by hugs and kisses. You wouldn’t be safe from a gun extended to you by extending a branch in return. No.”

He reached and caressed the glowing thread, brows furrowed. “I did what I thought was right to prepare you. Every single one of you. I was making you tough. I had to. To protect you. And of course there would be clashing along the way, it’s what happens between parent and child. We fight. We fight like cats and dogs for dominance. You try me to show strength. I stand my ground to let you know you gotta do better.”

He had fired those sentences with incoherent speed, and when he got to the end of it, Jake got choked up. Stopped for a moment, took a breath. Blinking several times, his tone became vulnerable, he didn’t have anyone in front of him, but he tore away his gaze anyway. “Somewhere along the way, things just… Without me noticing, everything…” He sighed through his nose, his voice nothing but a whisper. “I fought more battles than I fought for my family. I thought I was doing my job as a father when I didn’t even know shit about being a father.”

A couple seconds floated by, and his gaze was stolen by a lone woodsprite descending down until it staggered on the fist he had against the root. The shine of it reflected from the mistiness of his eyes. His lower lip slightly trembled at the thought of it being you. This little woodsprite. You?

“The thing is, I’m lost, sweetheart,” he admitted quietly, small, shaky, not taking his eyes off the woodsprite. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I sit here, I look back, and think why I keep fighting. We could have migrated. Looked for a new Hometree. Another forest. Left the humans alone. Or made peace. A treaty. Something. None of your lives had to be sullied by war. Yet I chose this. I chose to fight, as I ‘ve always done, because now I had something to fight for. And the fighting wasn’t limited to them, I fought Neteyam, I fought Lo’ak, I fought you, my own kids, and I didn’t even know.”

He reached for it with his other hand, tentatively, scared that it would fly away with the slightest contact. But he was able to touch the top of the woodsprite ever so slightly, the little zap making all the hair on his body stand up. Jake swallowed thickly, his whole head on fire. “I don’t know what to do. I just miss you. I miss you so much, sweet girl. I wish you would scream at me. Say you hate me for all I care. Anything. Hate me until the day you die, but do it with all of your family surrounding you in old age, in peace. I would be content knowing you are under the same sky as me. But I’m forgetting your voice already, and I—” He held back a violent sob, hissed to not let it out, and groaned, getting angry at himself for the emotions. He shut his eyes tightly, willing away the tears. “I wish I could say these to your face. I wish I could see you one last time, smiling at me.”

Having everything to lose. Having lost everything. Having nothing to lose. Three different meanings had coiled around each other like snakes to become one singular outcome in linear relation of cause-and-effect through you. It wasn’t a cycle.

Having something to fight for. Having nothing left to fight for. Having nothing to fight for. You were everything. Everything. What could Jake do? How was he supposed to fight when he had no concrete opponent?

“I see you.”

The voice — your voice, albeit much, much younger, almost made him jump. When his eyes shot open, Jake was in a different location. He knew this place. The creek away from the village he and his family often frequented.

The twilight penumbra of the eclipse dimmed the shadows embracing the forest, but the ethereally glowing lights of all colors illuminated and got reflected from the water as if it was a mirror. Above and all around him were lazily dancing fireflies — or, rather, bioluminescent bugs he didn’t know the names of, tiny stars floating in the air like glitter. It was magical.

Jake realized with aching melancholy that this was the first time he’d taken you out on an eclipse to show you the beauty of the forest on a special father-daughter date. The exact memory.

The breath that left him was shaky as he felt the presence sitting right beside him, in the corner of his vision, he saw the ripples on the shining water made by swinging legs.

Jake froze for a second. Unmoving. Not looking at all — because if this was a dream, or a hallucination, he wouldn’t be able to bear it. His breathing got louder, more labored, the log underneath his hands was so realistically textured and damp. If he looked. If he looked, you would disappear. That’s how he felt.

He was supposed to talk. But now, his ribcage was holding the words hostage, burning with the strain of the pile-up.

“But I’m sad you don’t see me,” you said, and he was shaken by hearing your voice yet again, remembering the moment he found himself here, how he’d heard — ‘I see you’. “You don’t even want to look at me.”

So much hurt and vulnerability in that sentence that it left him breathless.

It all happened in a matter of seconds. Him launched into his own turmoil racking his brain about how Quaritch was back as an avatar, ignoring to look at you to protect his composure and just trying to think, think — think, of a plan, of a how, of what to do. You calling after him once Neytiri, you and he arrived at High Camp after dodging Quaritch’s men. Him purposefully walking away because he needed to cool off and not to explode on you right there and there.

That whole time, Jake hadn’t looked at you. If he did, he would have seen you needed help.

He shattered, all of his walls crumbling down, stripped down to bare despair.

“Oh sweetheart.” Before he knew it, he had wrapped his arms around you in a crushing hug, basically snatching you off from where you were sitting and on his lap, and your warmth, your pulse, your tangible existence wrenched a shiver out of him — and he buried his face to the little crook of your neck, taking your scent in, hiding his trembling face and the quiver of his arms by holding you tight. You were here. As your younger self, no older than eight, but he had you. Not bloody and battered in his arms, but alive, so alive. “Oh sweet girl, my sweet girl… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” He kissed the side of your head, felt the real tickle of your hair against his face, blessed with the soothe of his child’s smell. “I see you. Of course I see you. I’ve always seen you.”

The snowflake-frail snivel followed by your sobbing sniffle broke his heart into pieces. “You’re a liar.” He shook his head, hugging you tighter. “You’re mean to me. You’re so mean to me.”

“I’m sorry.” That was all he could say. All he could do with his thrashing soul smoldering at the wetness of your tears on his shoulder. “I am mean. I’m sorry… You’re right, I’m sorry.”

“It hurt so much.” You wailed. “It hurt a lot.”

Jake began to caress your head with an awkward, clumsy, panicked hand, disturbed as to if you meant the moment of your death — at him pressing on the wound with all he had to stop the bleeding, or he and your strained relationship in general. “I know, sweetheart,” he said anyway, a stone clogging his throat. He didn’t try to explain, or tell you why, didn’t argue that it wasn’t what he meant to do. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. He had you in his arms. “I know. I know.”

You wouldn’t get to be younger than this. And maybe, he would never get to see you be older, either. The thought crumpled his face like some piece of paper. Jake just wanted to hold you. And when you wrapped your little arms around him too, freely crying in his arms, a couple tears escaped his eyes as well, he didn’t know what kind of face he was making, perhaps it was better that you didn’t see him crumble.

In the middle of it somewhere, he realized that you were younger because it was your inner child that needed this, she was more honest — more open with Jake. It caused him to sway with you back and forth, ribcage hurting with each breath. And you let it all out, clinging to him.

“I love you, always,” he whispered, watching the bioluminescent bugs, when you were calmer and had fallen silent on his chest, not wanting to let him go and just listening to his heartbeat. “Even if I don’t show it — especially when I don’t show it. You are loved, my sweet girl, more than you know. More than you’ll ever know. More than I can show.” He looked down at the top of your head, agonized. “But I want to try. I want to show you more, moving forward.”

Knowing what he was insinuating, “But it’s nice here,” you said, voice thick and coarse from crying. You still didn’t pull back to look at him. Both of you, from the start of this, never looked at one another. Not once. Embarrassed and shameful to be honest, Jake thought. That pride you two shared. “You’re not mean to me here.”

But he needed to see you. You needed to be seen. So, as gently as he could, he unwrapped your arms around him, and took your baby cheeks in his hands, and looked you in the eyes. Another tear slipped from him. “You been listenin’ to me, right sweetheart? From the start?” You nodded adorably. You wouldn’t have said oel ngati kameie and accepted to let him see you if you hadn’t felt his true intentions and heart through him pouring it all out at the Tree of Souls. “I’m hiding a lot of things. But I want to be open with you. You wanna know the secret why I’m… mean?” You nodded again, more reluctant this time. “It’s because I’m scared.”

You gasped, genuinely lost and shocked, and he tried not to smile at the purity, the innocence. “You? You’re scared?”

“All the damn time,” he whispered, landing a kiss on your temple, his opposite thumb tracing a loving line on your other temple. “Every day. Every night.”

“But you’re Toruk Makto. You’re never scared.”

“I’m also a dad,” he said sorrowfully, as if he was giving out a secret. “And it’s precisely why I’m scared. I’m scared for you. For your siblings. Of losing you. It turns into anger. Anger turns into irreparable damage. Things I can’t take back.”

In the blink of an eye, you were back to your real age. For some reason he couldn’t quite grasp, you had shed the exterior of your childhood. But he didn’t mind, didn’t let you off his lap.

“Don’t be scared, I’m here,” you said, putting your own small palm on his cheek, upset by the fact that he was feeling like that in the first place rather than whatever explanation he had. Your response was also childish, but he leaned into your touch anyway, comforted regardless, even if you were already gone — for this moment, he could ignore that no, you weren’t here at all. “If you told us, we would have been more careful not to make you sad.”

Ah, he was being lectured on communication by his kid. It had a certain flavor of humbleness to it. Jake adored it nonetheless. “I know,” he said, “I’m sorry. I won’t be mean anymore.”

“That’s a lie.”

Jake couldn’t stop the laugh, though it was tottering. “Yeah, it is. But I promise you that I’ll never hurt you again.”

“That’s a lie too. Wasn’t it you who said not to make promises you can’t keep?”

“Alright, smartypants, let me rephrase it then,” the little glimpses of your brash self made him happy. “I will never intentionally hurt you, and if I end up doing so, unknowingly, I will always make it up to you. No exceptions.”

You were acting uninterested, but stole intrigued glances at him. “How are you gonna make it up to me?”

“I’ll let you choose, how does that sound?” Jake tapped your nose. “In return, if I don’t know and haven’t taken the first step, you’ll have to tell me outright what I did.”

You deadpanned. “But I always do.”

“No, you don’t.” He raised one of his eyebrows. “You become passive-aggressive when you’re annoyed and pick fights with me.”

“That’s not—”

“Sweetheart.”

“Okay, fine.” You huffed. The normalcy had made him forget just what he was doing here. “But you get angry.”

“What I get angry at is—” He cut himself off with a tongue click. “Not important. I do get angry. But at sincere honesty, us just talking it out, I could never get angry at that. Is the difference clear?”

“I think it is.” You were apprehensive about something, your fingers on his neck flexing as if you wanted to pull them back and break the hug. “But you have to promise.”

“I promise.” And then, Jake remembered, a new fire hardening his face, not in anger, but determination. “And speaking of which. I would never. Ever. Not in a million years would get angry or blame you for getting hurt to that degree — for others, humans, avatars, whoever and whatever the hell they are, hurting you, I could never get mad at you for it. Do you understand me? Your safety is the most important to me. I could never hate you for it.” His voice dropped down to a softer, gentler tone just above a whisper. “There is nothing in this world that’ll make me hate you. Nothing. I will love you through the most heinous crimes and in inexcusable deeds, you will find forgiveness in me even if there’s nobody left, that’s a father’s heart. Forever and always, I am with you.” He touched his forehead, and then yours. “I see you.”

You avoided eye contact.

Ah, yes, the famous emotional awkwardness. He was sort of aware his feelings had reached you, you just didn’t know what to say. Jake hadn’t been like this with you for the longest time. So, he decided to make you more comfortable. “Yes I will get mad at you for breaking curfew, and yes, we might stop talking for a while and beef about the dumbest things if the fight is too intense — but always, always come to me when something is wrong. I will drop everything without hesitation.” He leaned in a bit to catch your wayward stare. “Got it?”

You murmured. “Okay.”

“Are we clear?”

You murmured once more. “Yeah.”

“Repeat it, then.”

There was something between cringing and unwillingness on your face, but at his pointed look, you sighed, giving in. “Always come to you if something’s wrong even if we’re fighting.”

“That’s right,” he affirmed, encouraging to let you know this wasn’t embarrassing. “What else?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Dad will always love you.” He nudged you, noting the flick of your ears in happiness when he’d said it. “Come on, say it.”

You didn’t look at him when you said it, but your voice was light. “Dad will always love me…”

“Dad will never hate you.”

Sheepishness took over, making Jake smile. “Dad will never hate me.”

“And. Come talk to me about it if I’ve ever hurt you without noticing so I can make it up to you.”

“Always go to you if I’m hurt and you’re unaware of it.”

“That’s right,” in this form as well, he gave your temple another kiss, heart soaring at your beautiful smile he had been dying to see. “Good girl.”

“You’re giving me a lot of power.”

“Nothing my mighty hunter can’t handle.”

The smile on your face died down. It came to Jake right away what had gone wrong. “Sweetheart—” “I didn’t mean that. You know—” But you didn’t know. Jake had to stop trying to make it easier on himself. “I’m proud of you. I’m so proud of you. About everything. About the ikran, I’m so goddamn proud. I said it, and I can’t take that back, I was angry and I was trying reverse psychology — you know what, it doesn’t matter. But you are my mighty hunter. Will always be.”

You got confident a bit, but were still testing the waters. “Well I proved I am.”

“Yes, you did,” he rejoiced, no rejection or doubt whatsoever. “Message received, Lima Charlie.”

You giggled freely, joyfully at the recognition, and Jake ached again remembering how much he’d missed that carefree, precious thing, he swore pixie dust was in it. You slipped from his lap to sit crossed-legged beside him, and he instantly missed being able to hold you close. “Wish you were there to see me.”

“Me too, sweet girl.” Your Iknimaya was a disaster. A long-passed, sacred tradition broken wasn’t as important to him as it was to Neytiri — but he knew she longed to see you complete it, by your side, as eagerly as he did. And you had been alone in your pride, when he knew from a very young age, you had been the most excited for it. Everything had been ruined and there was nothing he could do to undo it. “Will you tell me about it?”

The phantom of pensiveness on his face hadn’t quite registered with you yet, getting excited to tell him all about it like nothing had happened the moment you knew Jake wanted to know. As if you weren’t dead. As if nothing was wrong. “Well first of all, I broke Neteyam’s record.”

A mournful smile tugged on his lips. “Did you now?”

“Hell yeah!” You started gesturing with your arms. “It took, like, two minutes? One minute? Too easy.”

“You know easy means the ikran didn’t give you much of a fight, right?”

“Or, or.” One finger was raised up at him to raise another option. “I was too skilled.”

“The ikran might have been meh about you.” Jake teased. “You sure it chose you? Or did you just chase it down and it was stuck with you?”

“That’s so wrong!” He threw his head back to laugh at your outburst. “He was watching me get there the whole time! Like, from the start. His eye was on me, I just know it. You’re just jealous you didn’t get Bob like I got Jack. I was badass.”

That made him pause. “Jack?”

“Yeah, his name’s Jack.”

He couldn’t imagine Neytiri’s reaction to the blandest name imaginable, oh god. “Why?”

“Named him after you.” You tipped your head at him, raising your brows. “It’s healing, you know. He listens to me without questioning. He’s also very sweet. Unlike a certain someone.”

“Oh you little shit—”

“I didn’t say anything.” Raising your hands in defense first, you crossed your arms on your chest next. “Certain someone can mean anyone. It can mean Lo’jack—”

“Lo’jack, really? Really?” Jake half-snorted, half-scoffed. “This a new one after Lovak?”

“Jackiri—”

“Jackiri is pretty sweet, c’mon now,” he gave a blank stare. “Hope you’re not gonna say Jackeyam.”

“Jacktirey?” You asked, undecided. “She’s an anklebiter.”

“Oh, for sure.”

“Could be Jack the Ripper, Bojack Horseman, Jack-in-a-box. Jack-o-lantern.”

“All people, of course.”

“Yeah, all people.” You snapped your fingers in mock-remembrance. “Hit the road Jack.”

“Oh wow, even him?” Jake lowered his voice, leaning towards you, mocking astonishment. “Legendary figure, that guy.”

“Jack of All Trades.”

“Well, that ikran really seems to be one to me.”

“I know, right?” You stopped, and he saw that thought process, and before he could open his mouth, you blurted it out. “Unlike a certain someone I know.”

“You punk.” Jake pushed you lightly by your shoulder. “You’re pushin’ it.”

You smiled with all your teeth at him, with hands on your calves, leaning down to act cute, and Jake could pretend this was normal. That he’d fixed everything. And all was right in the world now that you were laughing with him — he’d made you smile. .

But suddenly you looked scared, looking at something over his shoulder, shrunken pupils focusing on him and whatever it was rapidly. It kicked him awake from his delusion. He tensed, tail jumping upwards, straight as a rod. “What is it, sweetheart? What’s wrong?”

Your breath hitched, and the next thing he knew, you had pushed him away, and he was falling towards the water. The last thing he saw was only a blur of you — the bioluminescent bugs became shooting stars with a thread of glow left behind them, the whole world tilted, but he didn’t hit the water, instead, he rolled down the small slope he had to climb to reach the tree.

Disoriented, he saw the root was almost split in half — bullet marks, a cloud of splinters and debris was flying around where he used to be sitting.

A lone avatar just ahead. Having made it all the way to the Tree of Souls. He didn’t know where this man had come from.

Heart picking up and roaring in his ears, all Jake could think about was, One chance.

He hadn’t even spoken to you properly yet, hadn’t said all the things he wanted to, hadn't even gotten your word, and this man — this son of a bitch — humans had taken you once again.

Once again.

You will only have one chance.

“Lucky asshole,” the man looked at him behind the barrel of the long assault rifle. “Gonna make you pay for what you pulled yesterday.”

Your ethereal smile going up in smokes at the back of his head, Jake saw red.

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