Work Text:
lo’ak was an ungrateful child.
at least, that was what he told himself as he sat in the sand, cold metal pressed against his chin.
a disgrace. a screw-up. someone who wasn’t worth fighting for.
someone who killed his brother.
he knew it was his fault, even if he’d told his father otherwise. it was lo’ak’s fault neteyam was dead; there was just no other way to put it.
metal was poison. it infected everything it touched. that was what the people believed.
that made sense to lo’ak. it explained why he was such a screw-up. it couldn’t be his fault if the poison had come from somewhere else, could it?
but it was your idea to get spider.
and it was. he could cry, scream, shout that he hadn’t meant for any of it to happen, but in the end it was still his fault. his brother’s blood was still on his hands.
tonight had only proved that. proved that he wasn’t the son his father would stand up for; though, neteyam wouldn’t have needed anyone to stand up for him in the first place anyway.
ungrateful. screw-up. disgrace.
he knew he was. he knew he shouldn’t be here; that it should’ve been neteyam alive in his place instead. why should he force his parents to live with a murderer?
so he squeezed his eyes shut, put his finger on the trigger, and…
he couldn’t do it. he couldn’t do it.
he screamed. why wouldn’t he? he was so ungrateful that he couldn’t do something even when it mattered the most.
he was a disease. a poison. a stain on the sully family name, and everyone knew it. he knew it. his parents knew it—his father had made that abundantly clear. kiri and tuk knew it, but they were too nice to tell him so.
a disgrace was all he had been since joining the metkayina- no. it was before, too. even back home he had been a disgrace. there wasn’t a moment in his life where he had truly lived up to being a sully; to being the son of the great toruk makto.
faint footsteps hit the sand behind him, and he heard kiri and tsireya gasp. the sound made his heart sink like a rock; eywa’s sake, they were going to tell dad, and then he would only be a bigger disgrace.
the sully who couldn’t finish the job. what a title that would be.
he cried. he cried as kiri knelt next to him, as tsireya took his hand in hers. he cried because he didn’t know what else to do; because he knew the truth.
lo’ak sully was an ungrateful child. and no one’s death would change that.