Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

You don’t wait to make eye contact with So’lek.

There isn’t time for that—not with the clearing already choked with smoke, not with RDA fire tearing through the tree line, not with the AMP breaking formation and turning its armored head toward you. If you hesitate, even for a heartbeat, it’ll redirect. If it redirects, it’ll crush the fighters pinned down behind you.

So you run.

You key your comm as you bolt, breath already ragged, boots pounding hard into damp earth.

“I’ve got an AMP on me,” you snap, voice strained but steady. “Pulling it east—don’t follow.”

There’s a beat of static. Then movement in the corner of your vision—So’lek turning sharply, posture changing, instincts flaring. You hear him calling your name through your ear-piece, but there’s no time to respond. 

The forest swallows you whole as you break into the trees, branches clawing at your arms, roots threatening to take you down with every stride. Behind you, the AMP crashes after you without hesitation, metal limbs tearing through undergrowth like it isn’t there. Each step lands heavy enough to shudder through your bones.

Your lungs burn as you push deeper, weaving through thicker growth, forcing the machine to slow where you don’t. You cut hard left, then right, doubling back just enough to keep it guessing without losing ground. Leaves whip past your face. Something sharp tears at your sleeve. You don’t slow.

Gunfire fades behind you, swallowed by distance and trees. The forest grows quieter—too quiet—save for the relentless thunder of the AMP’s pursuit and the rasp of your own breathing.

You risk the comm again as you vault a fallen log.

“I’m clear of the main fight,” you say, breathless. “Keep pressure on them. I’ll—”

Static answers you.

The ground ahead opens into a rocky stretch where the canopy thins and the earth slopes unevenly. Smoke drifts low through the clearing, carried on hot air that stings your eyes and throat. You skid to a stop near the edge, boots scraping stone, heart hammering as you finally turn to face it.

The AMP stomps into view.

It’s closer than you expected—armor scarred, canopy streaked with soot, its bulk filling the narrow space between trees. Its arms shift, mechanisms sliding into place with a sound that makes your stomach drop.

Grenade ports open.

A fucking Grenadier.

Cold floods your veins. You hadn’t clocked it earlier—too focused on speed, on distance, on getting it away from the others. Too focused on doing this fast.

You bring your weapon up anyway. This is far enough. Far enough from the clearing. Far enough from him.

You thumb the comm one last time, turning to move again, to warn him—

“So’lek, the AMP’s a grenadier—!”

The launcher fires.

There’s no warning arc. No chance to dive.

The grenade detonates way too close.

The blast hits like a living thing, heat, pressure, and sound slamming into you all at once. You’re lifted clean off your feet, thrown backward as the world explodes into fire and debris. The air is ripped from your lungs in a sharp, brutal gasp as stone and earth collapse inward.

You hit hard.

Something pins you instantly—weight crushing your chest, locking your ribs so tight you can’t draw breath. You claw uselessly at dirt and rock, vision swimming as dust chokes the air. Pain screams through your leg, white-hot and immediate, and even with your eyes open you cannot focus on anything other than the pain. 

Smoke rolls thick and heavy.

Through it, you catch one last glimpse of the AMP, pieces of its body missing and  armor warped, joints sparking, the machine slumping and smoking from the blast that took you both.

Then everything narrows.

The forest above you fades to shadow as darkness creeps in from the edges, your body going heavy, unresponsive. The sounds of battle are gone now, replaced by ringing silence.

You are far—far—out of sight from the clearing the blast made.

Buried deep enough that no one will see the smoke from here.

Your vision bleeds in and out, spells of darkness taking over you every few minutes. Or what you believe to be minutes, but they could be seconds, or hours for all you know. 

You surface and sink in uneven stretches, dragged back and forth by pain that refuses to let you go completely. Each time you claw your way toward consciousness, it’s to the same crushing reality: weight on your chest, ribs screaming in protest, breath scraping shallow and useless through your lungs.

You can’t move.

You can barely breathe.

Stone presses into your spine. Metal digs cold and unyielding across your torso. The air tastes like smoke and blood, thick enough that every inhale burns. Somewhere nearby, debris settles with soft, ominous clicks, the forest shifting around the scar left by the blast.

Your leg throbs in time with your heartbeat.

You try to move it and choke on a sob as agony lances through you, scorching. Something is lodged there—deep, unforgiving—pinning you in place. You fumble weakly at the debris, fingers slipping uselessly over dirt and shattered rock.

Footsteps.

They’re light. Careful. Not human.

Hope surges so suddenly it hurts.

You force your eyes open, vision blurring as blue shapes move through the smoke above you. A Na’vi silhouette passes close—too close—and your heart slams against your ribs as you try to draw breath enough to speak.

“So’…lek—”

The sound never makes it past your throat.

The pressure on your chest steals it, crushing the air before it can carry your voice. You try again, mouth opening around a broken sound that dissolves into nothing. Panic flares as you reach out blindly, fingers scraping weakly against dirt and metal.

You push, desperate.

Only then do you understand what’s holding you down.

The AMP’s arm lies across you—twisted, half-buried, its weight absolute. You brace what little strength you have left and shove against it, muscles trembling, vision swimming.

It doesn’t move.

You don’t have enough left.

A sob tears free of you, raw and helpless, pain spilling over into something uglier as tears blur your sight. You squeeze your eyes shut, chest hitching uselessly beneath the metal, every breath a battle you’re losing.

Above you, So’lek moves through the wreckage.

You can see his feet through the haze as he steps into the blast zone, posture rigid, movements sharp with urgency. He stops just short of where the ground collapsed, gaze scanning the devastation with growing intensity.

He doesn’t look down far enough.

Instead, his attention catches on something else.

Your bow.

It lies a few yards away, snapped clean through, its frame warped and blackened from the explosion. One of your armor plates rests nearby, half-melted, its familiar markings scorched beyond recognition. Another scrap is tangled in the undergrowth, torn loose and stained dark.

You see him freeze.

His breath stutters—just once.

He crouches slowly, almost reverently, and lifts the broken bow from the ground. His fingers tighten around it, knuckles whitening as his gaze traces the damage, the unmistakable signs of proximity to the blast.

Too close.

Far too close.

You try again to make a sound, chest burning as you force air upward, but nothing comes. The metal presses harder with every shallow breath, stars bursting behind your eyes.

So’lek straightens.

His shoulders draw in, posture collapsing inward by inches you wouldn’t recognize on him anywhere else. His gaze sweeps the blast site again—faster now, more frantic—but he never looks beneath the rubble.

He doesn’t see you.

Na’vi voices call out behind him, urgent and strained. Someone touches his arm. He jerks away at first, head snapping sharply as if he might refuse to leave, refuse to accept what the evidence screams at him.

Then his gaze drops back to the bow in his hands.

His grip trembles.

He shakes his head once, sharply, as if trying to dislodge the thought forming there. Another voice calls his name—louder this time. Hands close around his arm, his shoulder, pulling him back toward the treeline.

For a moment, he resists.

Then something in him gives.

You watch through blurred vision as he turns away from the blast site, jaw clenched hard enough to ache just looking at it. He lets them pull him back, step by step, never once glancing toward where you’re trapped.

Fear curls cold in your chest.

You try to scream, Please, don’t leave me! Wait!

But no words escape your lips. 

The world narrows again, darkness bleeding in from the edges as your body finally gives up the fight. The last thing you see before everything fades is So’lek disappearing into the trees—your broken bow still clutched in his hand, and the terrifying certainty that he believes you’re gone.

Then the dark takes you completely.

Darkness loosens its grip slowly this time.

You surface with a sharp, gasping inhale that turns into a cough halfway out, pain tearing through your chest as the weight above you shifts with the motion. The world swims—smoke-stained leaves overhead, gray light filtering through the canopy, the metallic stink of burned machinery clinging to the air.

You’re alive.

Barely.

Time has passed. You don’t know how much—long enough for the fire’s heat to fade, long enough for the forest to settle back into uneasy quiet. Long enough that the ringing in your ears has dulled into a distant hiss.

Your chest still won’t rise properly. Something heavy pins you in place, pressing down with merciless patience. Every breath feels borrowed.

You swallow, throat raw, and try to move again.

Pain answers immediately—your leg screaming as you shift, a reminder of where you find yourself. You bite down on a sound, vision blurring, and force yourself to breathe through it. Panic won’t help you now. Panic never does.

You need help.

Your gaze drifts upward, past the bent metal, past the jagged stone and ash, toward the sliver of sky you can see through the trees.

Your ikran.

Drawing in the deepest breath you can manage and opening your mouth, you call for her. The sound that comes out is pitiful—thin, cracked, barely louder than the forest itself.

You try again.

“T—telisi…” The name breaks apart on your tongue, stolen by the pressure on your chest before it can carry.

Fear coils tight in your gut. You gather yourself, push just enough to shift the weight a fraction, pain blooming everywhere at once—and scream.

It comes out broken and hoarse, but it’s louder. Desperate. A sound ripped straight from your chest and thrown into the trees.

For a heartbeat, nothing happens.

Then the air changes.

You hear it before you see it—the rush of wind through leaves, the familiar snap of wings cutting through the canopy. Your breath stutters as a shadow sweeps across the ground, massive and unmistakable.

Your ikran dives from the sky.

Relief hits so hard it hurts. Tears spill freely now, hot and unstoppable, as the creature lands with a powerful thud nearby, crest flaring, head snapping toward you with a sharp, anxious call. Yellow eyes lock onto you instantly, pupils blown wide.

“I’m here,” you sob, voice wrecked. “I’m here—help me. Please.”

Your ikran answers with a low, urgent sound, stepping closer, nudging at the debris with their snout. The AMP arm groans faintly as the creature tests it, claws scraping uselessly against warped metal.

It’s too heavy.

You know it is the moment you see the effort in their posture, the frustration building in their movements. They huff, restless, confused, eyes flicking back to you like they don’t understand why this isn’t working.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, though nothing about this is. “Just—just stay. I’ll get out.”

You focus on the small mercy time has given you—the slight shift in pressure, the space just wide enough to breathe. Slowly, carefully, you begin to move. You don’t push the arm. You slide—inch by inch—using pain as your guide, teeth clenched hard enough to ache.

Your leg protests viciously. You scream this time, sound tearing free without permission, but you keep going. Your ikran croons softly, wings mantling protectively as if they could shield you from the agony.

Finally—finally—you slip free.

You collapse onto your side, gasping, chest heaving as air floods your lungs for the first time in what feels like forever. The AMP arm looms beside you, inert and monstrous, but no longer crushing you into the earth.

You laugh weakly through tears, relief shaking your entire body.

Then reality crashes back in.

You try to sit up—and nearly black out.

Your leg is useless. You can’t put weight on it. The pain alone is enough to drop you back to the ground, nausea rolling through you in a sickening wave. Flying is out of the question. Even mounting your ikran would finish you.

You look at them apologetically. “Not yet,” you murmur. “I can’t.”

They huff in protest, pacing anxiously, but stay close as you begin to crawl. Every movement is slow and humiliating, dragging yourself through dirt and ash with one good leg and shaking arms. You leave a smear of blood behind you and don’t look back.

A tree trunk rises ahead—thick, solid, real.

You reach it and brace yourself against the bark, breath coming in ragged bursts as you pull yourself upright inch by inch. The world tilts violently, but you cling to the tree until it steadies, forehead pressed against rough wood.

You stay there for a long moment, just breathing.

Then you look back at the blast site—the smoke, the wreckage, the place where anyone searching would stop.

You make the decision to stay close to the blast site.

Close enough that if they come back—if anyone comes back—they’ll find you. Or at least find what’s left of you. You sink down at the base of the tree, sheltered by roots and shadow, your ikran curling protectively nearby.

You close your eyes, exhaustion dragging at you once more.

And you wait.

Night comes slowly, the way it always does on Pandora—light thinning by degrees, colors deepening until the forest feels heavier, closer.

You don’t move far. You can’t. But you do what you can.

With shaking hands, you reach for the small packs strapped to your ikran’s harness. Muscle memory guides you through it—unclasp, steady yourself, don’t rush. Inside are the supplies you always carry and never think about until the day you’d die without them. A roll of bandage from a first aid kit. A dapophet pod you’d snagged earlier that day. A small pouch of dried food, crushed but still edible.

It feels like a gift.

You work carefully, jaw clenched as you clean the wound in your leg as best you can. Every touch burns, every breath catches, but you keep going. You don’t pull the debris free—you know better than that. You pack around it, bind it tight, do what you can to slow the bleeding and pray it’s enough.

When you finish, you sag back against the tree, dizzy and soaked in sweat. Your chest aches with every breath, ribs protesting even the smallest movement. You chew a piece of dried food slowly, forcing it down despite the knot in your throat, knowing you’ll need the energy if morning ever comes.

Your comm sits useless in your hand.

Cracked. Dead. Silent.

The reality of it settles in as the last of the light fades: you are alone. Too far gone to fly. Too injured to travel. Too quiet for anyone to hear even if they were close—which they aren’t.

The forest shifts around you as night takes hold. Bioluminescent plants begin to glow softly, blues and greens painting the shadows in unreal color. Somewhere in the distance, something calls out—low and unfamiliar—and the sound echoes through the trees like a reminder of how small you are in this vast world.

Loneliness hits harder than the pain.

Your thoughts drift, helplessly, to So’lek.

You picture his face the moment he froze—how his body had gone still when he saw the wreckage. How his shoulders had drawn in, how his grip had tightened around your broken bow. The way grief had carved itself into him so fast it stole the air from your lungs just watching it.

It hurts more than the wound in your leg.

You miss him with an ache so deep it feels physical. Miss his presence, his steadiness, the way he always seemed to know where to stand in a fight—and where to stand beside you when the fighting stopped. You want him here now, want to hear his voice cutting through the dark, telling you what to do, grounding you.

Instead, you’re left with the knowledge that he walked away believing you were gone.

Tears slip free quietly, hot against your temples for the third time that day. You don’t wipe them away.

Your ikran shifts closer, sensing your distress, wings folding protectively around you as they settle beside the tree. You lean into the warmth without thinking, pressing your forehead briefly against their scaled neck. They croon softly, a low, familiar sound that wraps around you like a promise.

“I’m still here,” you whisper, more to yourself than anyone else.

You curl as best you can against your bonded, careful of your leg, letting their steady presence anchor you to the moment. The forest hums softly around you now, alive and watching, but for the first time since the blast, you’re not completely afraid.

Exhaustion drags at you, heavy and insistent. Your eyes slip shut despite your efforts to keep them open, your body finally claiming what it’s been denied all day.

The last thought that crosses your mind before sleep takes you is simple and aching:

Please… come back.