Nayat'i had flown these stretches of forest a thousand times; each time held nothing but the same endless forest.
It was familiar in the way home always was, not because it was predictable, but because it felt known. The air moved gently around her as her ikran banked between the clouds in the sky before diving below. Through the dense tree tops and into the canopy of the dense jungle, the life shifted. Everything moved, breathed, and listened.
She wasn't hunting. She wasn't patrolling. She was simply flying. She remembered how she and Nussudle rode between the clouds and mountains of the Hallelujah Mountains and the thrill.
The bond between her and her ikran was calm, steady, and comfortable. It had grown stronger over the months, shaped by trust rather than command. They moved together without thought, responding to each other's instincts with ease.
Today wasnt about anything from Home Tree or Nussudle; today was about getting some fresh air away from the tribe. Even for a bit, she wanted some peace.
Then the air changed.
At first, she thought it was a trick of the light. A darker smear against the sky, barely visible through layers of leaves. She angled higher, eyes narrowing.
Smoke.
Not the thin grey drift that came from controlled burns or lightning strikes. This was thicker. Darker. It rose in heavy columns that didn't disperse properly, staining the sky above the trees.
Her chest tightened.
Curiosity came first. Worry followed quickly after.
She guided her ikran upward and forward, keeping a careful distance as they approached. The smell reached her before the sound did. Burnt wood. burning flesh. Something sharp and wrong beneath it all.
As they circled higher, she saw them.
The clearing below was torn open, trees pushed aside or lying broken and blackened. Strange shapes moved across the ground. Boxy machines. Tall metallic frames. And between them, smaller figures.
Pink-skinned.
Short-limbed.
They looked like syaksyuk, and yet they stood on their hind legs and only had two arms like her.
Nayat'i slowed her ikran instinctively, keeping them high and wide. She watched as the little monkeys moved in packs while the giant objects mowed trees down. Some of the monkeys held a metal object as streaks of flames shot outwards and into the canopy of trees.
Immediately, she realised that the object was the one causing the fires.
And yet as she was about to swoop down, seizing the object, she felt her ikran tense beneath her.
The bond flickered with uncertainty.
She should have turned back.
She didn't.
She drifted lower, still far enough away to feel safe. The SyakSyuk look-alikes moved with purpose, pointing objects, shouting to one another. Light flashed near their hands. Loud cracks echoed through the clearing.
Her ikran growled softly, wings beating harder.
Then pain tore through the bond.
The connection snapped violently, like something being ripped away rather than let go.
Her ikran screamed. Its voice was raw and wrong, cutting through the air as the creature's body jerked mid-flight. Nayat'i felt heat, shock, and terror all at once as bullets tore into its side. Blood sprayed across its blue hide as its wings faltered.
"No!"
She was thrown free. Her Ikran went into a nose-dive, passing her.
The world spun violently as she fell, the air ripped from her lungs. She twisted instinctively, slamming into a wide cluster of thick leaves that bent and tore beneath her weight. The impact knocked the breath from her chest, pain exploding through her body as she hit the ground hard.
Something in her ankle shattered.
She screamed.
The pain didn't fade.
It sharpened.
Nayat'i lay on the forest floor for several seconds, gasping, her vision swimming. The world tilted and pulsed around her. Leaves shook above her, disturbed by her fall. Somewhere overhead, the sound of gunfire continued.
Her ankle screamed with every movement.
She pushed herself up anyway.
Ignoring the agony, she dragged herself towards the clearing's edge, following the direction her ikran had fallen. Each step sent a fresh wave of pain through her leg, but she didn't stop. She couldn't.
She found it lying on its side among broken branches.
Its wings were twisted at an angle they should never have been, and bones pierced its skin. Blood soaked into the soil beneath it, dark and thick. Its chest rose once, shallow and uneven, before falling still.
Nayat'i dropped beside it.
She pressed her forehead to its neck, hands shaking as she felt for movement that wasn't there anymore. The bond was gone. Completely silent. No warmth. No response.
"I'm here," she whispered, though she knew it was too late. "I'm here."
Grief hit harder than the fall.
She stayed there longer than she should have, fingers tangled in its braid, tears streaking down her face. The forest felt distant, muffled, like it was watching her through water.
Footsteps snapped her back to the moment.
Heavy. Clumsy. Wrong.
She looked up just as two humans stepped into view from behind a broken trunk.
They froze.
For a moment, neither side moved.
The humans stared at her like they couldn't quite understand what they were seeing. Their eyes were wide. Their mouths hung slightly open. One of them raised his weapon halfway, uncertain.
Nayat'i reacted on instinct.
She surged forward despite the pain, drawing her knife in one fluid motion. She let out a primal roar, her ears tooked and her tail landed flat. The first human didn't even have time to shout. She drove the blade into his collarbone and tore it free as he collapsed.
The second fired.
The sound like thunder echoed as she felt something pierce her side.
Pain exploded through her lower back as the bullet tore into her. She screamed and stumbled, but she didn't fall. She crossed the distance between them in two limping steps and buried her blade beneath his ribs.
Her cries of pain and anger swelled as she launched the body to where the other lay.
Blood soaked into the dirt...
Nayat'i stood there shaking, chest heaving, vision narrowing at the edges. Her leg burned. Her side burned worse. She pressed a hand against the wound and felt warmth spill through her fingers.
The noise was getting closer.
Voices. Boots. The thuds of something large and heavy getting louder.
More of those things were coming.
She backed away toward her fallen ikran, dragging herself into the shadows beneath the trees. The pain was too much now. Her body was failing her. Each breath came harder than the last.
She sank to the ground.
Nayat'i's strength bled out of her faster than she could fight it. The cold feeling was overwhelming her.
The world narrowed to sound and colour. Smoke drifted between the trees, catching the light in ugly streaks of black and orange. The forest no longer felt protective. It felt distant, as if it were pulling away from her.
She leaned back against the trunk of a tree, trying to stay upright. Her vision blurred. Her hands shook as she pressed them against her side, but it didn't stop the bleeding.
Her thoughts drifted, slipping away from the present.
She thought of Nussudle.
The way he laughed when he flew too close to the canopy. The way his voice softened when he spoke to her at night. The way he promised he would come back. She thought of her soon-to-be child with him.
"Please Eywa", she whispered, though no one was listening.
Footsteps echoed again, closer now. More than two. She could hear the clatter of boots and the mechanical whine of machines shifting position.
She tried to rise.
Her leg collapsed beneath her. She let out a pain-filled grunt.
The effort drained what little strength she had left. She fell sideways into the leaves, breath hitching painfully in her chest.
Above her, the sky darkened.
Not with the normal sight of night.
But with smoke instead.
Her eyes fixed on the shapes moving through it, blurry and indistinct. Human voices overlapped, sharp and excited. She could feel the vibrations of their machines through the ground.
Her grip loosened.
She thought she heard her ikran one last time. Not a scream this time. Just the memory of its presence, warm and familiar.
Then even that faded.
The forest went quiet.
Darkness didn't come all at once.
It crept in slowly, closing around the edges of Nayat'i's vision until only a narrow tunnel of light remained. The sounds of the clearing blurred together, losing meaning, losing shape.
She stopped feeling the pain first.
Then she stopped feeling the ground beneath her.
Her last conscious thought was about Nussudle. Tears began running down her face as the mud below seeped and swallowed the blood and water.
Then darkness... swallowed her vision.
(AN: OKAY, so their was surpossed to be 2 chapters inbetween however, my HDD crashed, and most of my data got destroyed. But don't worry ill be making it so. The story correlates. Also In the Wiki etc their isnt a actual reason as to how they got the knowledge to make bodies like the Navi, so it feeds into that as well. I forgot to add this so... Please read my other books aswell if you enjoy dis 1)