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Lo’ak’s fingers shake.
This shouldn’t be hard; he’s done delicate work before. Fletched arrows with his mother back in the forest. Learned to shoot a gun under his father’s careful supervision.
Both required steady hands.
But these knots are complicated and the shell they’re weaving delicate. He’s not used to them. His stupid hands, with their extra fingers that set him apart, that mark him as something alien, can’t manage this.
Not enough to ebb the flow of his brother’s lifeblood spilling out over the rocks. Not enough to tie these knots.
His breath hitches. He screws his eyes shut, like he can will away the memories that have pursued him day and night.
Blood, slick against his palms. The unforgiving steel of his father’s rifle, digging into the soft flesh of his chin.
Tsireya’s voice washes over him, like the ocean waves crashing against the beach.
Breathe, Lo’ak.
It’s what he imagines Neteyam would say.
“It’s no use.” He drops the tangled mess into his lap, feeling an uncomfortable lurch in his stomach. “I can’t do it.”
Tsireya nimble fingers pause in their work. She reaches out, gripping his wrist. “Lo’ak,” she says, gently. “You can.”
“No.” He shakes his head, frustration welling in his chest. “I can’t.”
“Then we will keep trying. Today and tomorrow and the day after.” She doesn’t let go of his wrist, patient, but unyielding, even as he avoids looking at her, too ashamed to even try with the weight of what he almost did hanging between them.
They haven’t spoken at all about what happened, but he doesn’t miss the way Tsireya has glued herself to his side, as if afraid he’ll try again if she leaves him.
Kiri too.
She always sits next to him at family meals. He can’t look at her either, too afraid of what he’ll see in her eyes if he does.
He’s ashamed of that too, not only of what they both were forced to witness, but because they now feel obligated to watch him, like he’s nothing more than a child who can’t be trusted not to trip over his own kuru.
His stomach clenches around that thought.
“Tsireya!” Ronal’s sharp voice startles them both and they both scramble to their feet. “You must come with me now. You have duties to attend to.”
“Yes, Mother.” Tsireya glances at Lo’ak apologetically.
Ronal acknowledges him with a flick of her eyes, not unkind, but no more friendly than she has to be.
Lo’ak’s ears twitch, but he nods respectfully.
“It is getting late,” she says. “Return to your family, boy. Before they grow worried.”
Lo’ak’s ears flip back in shame. “Yes, ma’am.”
He can never quite figure out how she feels about them. He doesn’t blame her for her wariness.
She is tsahik. The safety and guidance of the Metkayina clan falls on the shoulders of both her and her husband. Accepting his family has put a target on hers.
Tsireya squeezes his arm. “Keep practicing,” she tells him. “Remember. It does not have to be perfect.”
He nods, grateful for her love despite everything. “Right.” His throat feels too thick for anything more.
He doesn’t immediately return to the marui, something he’ll no doubt be scolded for when he misses curfew, but he can’t bring himself to care.
It’s just one more strike on an ever growing list of wrongdoings.
Instead, he wanders, his feet taking him down to the edge of the water. It’s been days since he last saw Payakan.
He could summon his ilu now if he really wanted. Go out beyond the reef where he used to meet with Payakan. The idea is tempting, though he knows his spirit brother won’t be waiting. He doesn’t know where he is now. He hopes he’s okay, that he’s not lonely.
It’s been days since Payakan was cast out and he already feels the absence like a hole in the chest.
He knows his dad would skin him alive if he tried.
If you hadn’t gone to him… If you hadn’t disobeyed orders, then your brother would still be…
Lo’ak winces, the words and their full weight slamming him in the chest, as potent as if they had just been spoken yesterday.
If he had known it would come to this, that warning Payakan of the killings, that going back for Spider, would lead to Neteyam’s death, that he would be sacrificing one brother for another, would he have still made the same decision?
That’s the part that hurts the most. His dad is right.
Neteyam wouldn’t have been on that boat if he hadn’t been dragging Lo’ak’s ass out of trouble.
He steps to the edge of the platform, close enough that his toes hang over the edge, and looks down. The surface of the water shimmers below, bioluminescent fish swim in shoals, weaving gracefully through colorful anemones and corals. He drops to a sitting position, letting his legs hang over the edge. His toes barely skim the surface.
He’s not sure how long he stays like this. It’s not intentional; he never means to lose track of time, but it seems to happen regardless.
The marui is warmly lit when he approaches. His mother’s voice reaches him first. She sings, low and sorrowful.
He hesitates just outside, reluctant to intrude, hovering just outside the flap. But he can’t linger forever.
Mom looks up when he enters. “Lo’ak,” she breathes, some of the tension draining from her posture.
With guilt, Lo’ak realizes that Ronal was right: he’s worried her again.
Mom holds the songchord in her hands. She no longer wears the mourning veil, her face has been wiped clean of paint, but grief still cuts lines through her face.
It makes his heart ache to see her like this.
“Where’s Dad?” he asks.
“Your father is restless. He is out with your sisters,” she says, explaining the other two absences Lo’ak has yet to notice. She sighs. “He is making me crazy.”
Lo’ak’s lips twitch, but they don’t quite make a smile.
He’s relieved, if he’s being honest. He doesn’t want to see his dad right now.
Setting the songchord in her lap, Mom motions for Lo’ak to join her, which he does, folding his legs underneath him. She doesn’t wait for him to fully settle beside her before she wraps her arms around him, hugging him tightly.
Lo’ak doesn’t question it, just lets himself be folded into his mother’s embrace. He melts against her, forehead coming to rest on her shoulder. She strokes her fingers through his braids, pressing her lips to his temple.
Lo’ak’s bottom lip trembles. “Mom…”
She pulls back, cupping his face in her hands. “You are not resting,” she says. Her face softens. “You must sleep. You will wear yourself out if you continue like this.”
“I’m just…” He rubs his eyes. It’s true; he hasn’t been sleeping well. He feels too much like everything is crumbling around him and all he can see when he drifts to sleep is blood-slicked hands and red-tinted waves as Neteyam’s body stills beneath his palms. “I miss him, Mom, and it’s my fault and…”
“Hush,” she says, firmly, leaving no room for argument. Her hands travel to his shoulders, holding him tightly. “Do not speak like that.”
“But…” His breathing audibly hitches, ears pressed flat against his skull, but he wrestles it back down.
“No. I will hear none of it.” Her tone is sharp. “You are holding yourself responsible for what you should not. Your brother would not want to hear you blame yourself.”
At the mention of Neteyam, Lo’ak flinches. He doesn’t understand how she can hold him blameless when even Dad can see he isn’t. But he doesn’t protest, if only so he doesn’t cause her more distress.
He’s hurt her enough as it is.
…if he had pulled the trigger, gone through with it, would she have survived losing another son? The thought punches through him, so sudden and vicious that he recoils from it.
Mom hushes him and he doesn’t fight her when she guides him back into her embrace, curling at her side and resting his head in her lap.
She starts to sing again. A different song. One she used to sing when he was little. One she still sings to soothe Tuk after a nightmare has sent her crawling to her parents’ sleeping mat.
A small part of him rebels. He’s too old for this. Too old to be lulled like a child. A larger part of him finds he doesn’t mind it. Doesn’t mind letting her card her fingers through his hair. Doesn’t mind letting himself be held.
Lo’ak thinks of his grandfather’s broken bow, recovered from the wreck of the RDA ship. He and Tsireya had unearthed it
He hasn’t yet started restoring it, but he imagines doing so. He imagines Mom’s face when he hands it to her.
A bow can’t take Neteyam’s place. Nothing can fill the bleeding hole his brother’s absence carved through their hearts.
But if his gift can ease some of her pain…
His chest tightens, but his mother’s song persists, rolling over him. His breathing eases, eyes sliding shut.
The exhaustion of the past several days is catching up to him.
Later, when his father enters the marui, accompanied by his sisters, whose padded footsteps and cheerful voices trail behind him, Lo’ak stirs, but keeps his eyes shut, feigning sleep. He doesn’t want a conversation- or a confrontation- with his father. He’s still raw from their last encounter- and everything that followed.
“Quiet,” Mom says, still playing with his hair. “Do not wake him.”
Lo’ak doesn’t know what sort of look passes between his parents, but it’s enough that Dad pauses.
“Girls,” he says finally. “Give us some space.”
Hushed whispers follow; Kiri guiding Tuk away.
He settles on the mat across from his mother. “Neytiri.”
Lo’ak swallows, forcing himself to keep still.
“Ma Jake.” Her hands pause in their ministrations. “You are too hard on him. He is hurting too.”
There’s a long silence where his father doesn’t say anything.
“I know.” He takes a heavy breath. “But I don’t know how else to get through to him. He’s so stubborn and hardheaded-”
“Like you,” Mom admonishes.
Dad is quiet for a long stretch. Then: “Yeah,” he admits softly. “Like me.”
Something cold settles in the gap behind Lo’ak’s ribs, snatching his breath. He holds himself still.
“This cannot go on.” Her fingers are back to carding through his hair, but her tone, though soft, holds a warning. “You must talk to him. Soon.”
“I know.” There’s a heaviness in his dad’s voice that he hasn’t heard before. A hand reaches out, brushing the crown of his head. “I just… I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him too.”
Mom sucks in a breath. “Then tell him,” she says. “How else will he know?”
Lo’ak wakes sharply, eyes snapping open.
The marui is silent. His mother has fallen asleep at his back, arms still around him. Across from them, his father snores softly. At the other side of the marui, he can just make out the sleeping forms of Tuk and Kiri.
Slowly, he extricates himself from his mother.
She stirs, a low noise of protest passing her lips. Her fingers twitch.
Lo’ak freezes, afraid she’ll wake. When she doesn’t, he climbs swiftly to his feet, heart racing. He has no idea what he intends to do- his brain hasn’t made it that far- but guilt, both for the agony and grief he’s given his mother and the frustration he’s caused his father, leaves behind a horrid aftertaste.
Neytiri startles awake.
For a moment, she cannot place what is wrong, why she is awake. Then, she realizes that the space beside her is cold and her arms are empty.
She shoots upright. “Ma Jake,” she hisses, careful to keep her voice down despite the frantic pounding of her heart.
The girls are sleeping. She does not want to wake them.
Jake is alert in an instant, eyes landing on her immediately. “Neytiri? What-” She tracks the moment his eyes land on the empty space beside her, the exact moment he realizes who is missing from their family pod.
“Lo’ak.” Her tail jerks, ears flattening against her skull. There are any number of things a boy his age could be getting up to after dark. If he went out past the reef, in search of the Outcast… “He is gone.”
Her blood runs cold, throat thickening. There are strong rip currents and fierce predators in the open sea.
Lo’ak knows better.
Jake is on his feet. “I’m going after him.”
“I will go with you.” Neytiri starts to follow, but he stops her with a hand on her chest.
“Stay here. With the girls. In case he comes back.”
“Jake,” she says, voice tight with warning and… something else. “I know you are worried, do not let anger get the best of you. Not this time.” She does not know what happened between her youngest son and her husband, only that Lo’ak has pulled further and further away from his father in the time that has passed since the Tulkun Council.
She does not like it.
Jake looks stunned, but he collects himself, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. “I’ll bring him home,” he says. “I promise.”
Lo’ak has no clear idea of his intentions when he heads to the beach. With each step, he drags his feet through the sand.
He and Tsireya and Kiri had buried the gun together. Their secret to carry as well as his. It’s not a burden he should have placed on their shoulders. But that’s what he is, isn’t it? How often had he dragged Neteyam with him into his shenanigans? Now, with his older brother gone, it’s his sister and Tsireya shouldering his weight. It’s not fair to them.
He stops running when he reaches the spot, between two sand dunes. They left it unmarked. It didn’t seem right to do anything else and replacing it had felt like an impossibility.
Kiri had been the one to touch it first, mouth twisted into a grimace. Tsireya had joined her, shoveling sand with her hands. All while Lo’ak had sat there, useless, too numb to force his arms and fingers to move.
He drops to his knees and starts digging.
He has no plan, no idea on what to do when he finally uncovers it, whether he plans to throw it to the sea and watch it sink beneath the waves or attempt to smuggle it back to the marui, replacing it before his father has the chance to realize that it’s gone.
“Lo’ak!”
His father’s voice makes him flinch, mind gone blank with horror. He can’t think. What is he doing here?
There’s nothing he can do to keep this from spiraling deeper than it has.
Dad is going to think he’s been stealing one of his guns for target practice on the reef. Or, worse, he’s going to realize exactly what Lo’ak had intended to do with it and know the kind of son he’s raised.
“Lo’ak.” Dad’s footsteps come to a halt, still several paces away. “What are you doing?” There’s none of the anger Lo’ak is accustomed to hearing from him lately. None of the disappointment. Just confusion.
Lo’ak doesn’t turn around, too ashamed to look him in the eyes. He drops his chin, squeezing his eyes shut. Maybe if he wills him away hard enough, Dad will turn around and leave him here.
“Lo’ak,” Dad tries again. “What are you doing out here? Come back home. Your mom is worried.”
That hits him like a slap and he flinches away from it with a gasp.
“I had a bad dream,” he says, without turning. He knows now that his dad won’t leave, but maybe he can mitigate the damage. “I just… I couldn’t breathe. I needed space.”
Dad doesn’t say anything.
Lo’ak’s breath flutters past his lips. The stillness threatens to overwhelm him.
Dad approaches, dropping to his knees beside him, which startles Lo’ak into opening his eyes. His heart stutters in his chest. Once. Twice.
“Talk to me, baby,” Dad says. There’s something wounded in his voice and Lo’ak rebels against it, instinctively. “What’s going on with you?”
Dad doesn’t get to sound like that. Not after everything.
He stares at the sand, knuckles pressing into his thighs.
It’s all he can think about: how Dad’s knee is too close to the hole in the sand. Any second, he’ll wonder what it is that Lo’ak is trying to dig up.
Lo’ak feigns a shrug. His mouth is dry. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Sure.” He can tell Dad doesn’t believe him. “That’s why you’re all the way out here in the middle of the night. Nothing.”
“I don’t care if you believe me,” Lo’ak says, stubbornness rearing its ugly head.
“It’s not a matter of whether or not I believe you.” Dad’s voice tightens, the soldier coming out regardless of his attempts to reign it in. “It’s a matter of you coming home safe.”
In a way, the familiarity of the coming conflict is comforting. Lo’ak welcomes it like an old friend.
Before he can snap, before this can follow the same path it’s taken again and again and again, Dad exhales. “No,” he says, dropping his tone, sitting back on his haunches. “We’re not doing this. Not tonight.”
“Please.” Lo’ak whispers, without really knowing what he’s asking for, and something in the plea breaks him. “Just go away.”
Dad hasn’t touched him yet, but he can sense how much he wants to.
Lo’ak’s not sure he can handle that. He already feels like he’s fraying apart at the edges.
Dad shifts.
“What-?”
The world tilts.
Lo’ak reaches out, grabbing hold of his father’s wrist. He recognizes the futility of it all- Dad has found something to lock onto; he’s not just going to let it go- but he tries anyway. “Don’t.”
“Lo’ak,” Dad says carefully. He doesn’t try to extricate his wrist. Not yet. “What were you doing out here?”
Lo’ak’s mouth is dry. With effort, he unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “Nothing,” he lies. He knows Dad doesn’t believe him, knows he’s digging himself into deeper trouble, but anything is better than Dad knowing the truth. “I told you. I had a bad dream.”
I took your gun. I put it to my head. I tried to pull the trigger.
And I couldn’t even do that right.
I’m still here, Dad.
Dad yanks his hand away before Lo’ak can stop him.
They hadn’t buried it deep; that hadn’t been the concern at the time. It doesn’t take him long at all to find what Lo’ak had been uncovering.
There’s half a second where Lo’ak if the gun isn’t there any more, if Kiri came and dug it back up later, moved it somewhere else.
It would have been the smart thing to do, to put it where he can’t find it, but none of them were thinking like that.
But no-
There it is.
The black muzzle of the gun lies exposed in the sand and Lo’ak doesn’t know what to say or do.
“What is this?”
Dad pulls the rest of it free and there it sits, in his hands; the awful weight of what it represents hangs heavy in the air between them.
Lo’ak doesn’t immediately answer. There’s a sick, awful churning in his stomach. He can’t breathe.
“I didn’t… Dad, it was stupid.”
“Did you take it for target practice? Is that what this is?” Dad’s voice is measured. Controlled. None of that explosive anger Lo’ak had been expecting. “Or was it something else?”
“I…” He can’t think of a single thing to say that would make this better. He works his jaw, shaking his head. “No.”
When Dad reaches out, Lo’ak tenses, but he only grips the back of his neck, firm, but grounding. He can’t help but lean into it.
“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me, baby.”
Lo’ak’s whole demeanor crumbles. He takes one shaky breath and then another, until he can no longer hold it all in. He tries to hide it, tries to hide his face behind his hands, but the tears spill out anyway.
“Dad,” he chokes. “Dad.”
Dad guides him into the hug, dragging Lo’ak’s trembling body against his chest. His hand clasps the back of Lo’ak’s head as he rocks him.
The gun is discarded, lying abandoned in the sand.
It’s like a dam has broken as Lo’ak shakes apart in his arms. “I messed it up. I keep messing up.” His voice cracks apart. “I just want it all to stop and-” He falls silent, breaths hitching, fingers finding his father’s chest strap and gripping it tight.
Dad holds him; Lo’ak feels his breath against his temple.
“Do you wish it had been me?” he whispers, still huddled against his chest.
Dad sucks in a breath, like the horror of this is something he can barely comprehend. His fingers tighten their grip. “No,” he breathes. “Never.” He pulls back, cradling his face in his hands, thumbs brushing tenderly against the skin beneath his eyes. “You listen to me, boy.” His voice is rough, eyes wet. “Losing your brother is the worst thing that ever happened to me. I will carry that for the rest of my life. But you are not an acceptable loss in his place. Do you hear me? Not ever. I see you.” He grabs him by the shoulder and shakes him. The fierceness of his words catches Lo’ak off guard. All he can do is stare at him, mouth dry, tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth. “I see you. And I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you that before. I’m sorry I made you doubt it.”
Lo’ak sags against him, feeling like something has been scraped raw inside of him.
“It would kill me,” he continues. “Losing you, the girls… I don’t think I could survive it.”
It’s an odd thing to think about; Dad has always seemed unshakeable.
(But he remembers hands helpless to stem the flow of blood, the way Dad’s voice had splintered.)
“This was never supposed to be your war,” Dad says. “You kids were never supposed to be pulled into this.”
It’s too late for that, Lo’ak thinks, head resting against Dad’s shoulder, but even if it weren’t, there’s no world where Lo’ak could have remained uninvolved. Not when it’s his life, his home, his family.
He carries too much of his father with him.
That’s what he wants. That’s all he’s ever wanted. To be like his dad.