The river carried her to the edge of my clan’s waters, limp and silent, half‑submerged where the fresh current met the reef. I smelled her before I saw her—sharp with sickness and metal beneath salt and river tang. She did not belong to the water. She did not belong to Pandora.

My hands trembled as I brushed wet hair from her face, noting how different she was. She lay on the stones, skin cold beneath my fingers. Her chest shuddered once, then stilled too long. Panic tightened low in my body, sharp and instinctive, but Eywa’s presence pressed against me just as strongly—urgent, guiding, undeniable.

Now.

Her life was slipping.

I opened my queue with shaking fingers and drew hers free, thinner than a true Na’vi’s, unfamiliar beneath my touch. For a heartbeat I hesitated—this was not a bond taken lightly, not one meant to be forced. But Eywa’s will pressed through me, undeniable.

“Oel ngati kameie,” I breathed. I see you

When our queues touched, light and heat surged through me, every nerve on fire with her fear, her pain, her weak pulse. I tasted salt and blood. I felt death pulling her toward darkness, and it disturbed my soul.

I anchored her.

I poured myself into the bond, my breath, my heartbeat, the certainty of my life force into hers. Electricity prickled along our queues as I let her feel me, steady and strong, so her body could remember how to move, how to breathe, how to live.

I felt her chest rise again, fuller, steadier. She would live.

Relief crashed through me so hard my ears flattened and my tail curled tight against my leg. Her spirit no longer slipping away but tethered—to me.

The river no longer threatened to take her.

Later, when the tide shifted and the light softened, I carried her into the clan’s mangroves. I laid her where the breeze and reef sounds could reach her. Nets cradled her weight. Only then did I leave, returning to the reef to hunt, to provide.

When I came back, the scent of salt and fresh kill still clinging to my hands, my gaze went to her at once—my mate. She was awake, breathing, alive. She looked like me yet was unmistakably different, and it pulled me as surely as the tide answered the moon.

Eywa had chosen this.

I lowered myself to her height, careful not to crowd her. I listened for a moment to her breathing, the life that remained because I had not turned away.

“You were… slipping,” I explained, my voice wavering, eyes dropping briefly. “The river had already begun to take you.” My ears angled back as I recalled her lifeless body.

I swallowed. “I followed what was shown to me. I joined our queues. Tsaheylu.” The word came soft, hesitant. “It held your spirit to mine until your breath returned.”

I met her gaze, searching. “That bond… it does not fade.” My tail twitched, uncertain. “Among my people, it marks us as mates for life.”

Every muscle in me coiled. Eywa gave her to me… but she must still choose me. Chest tight, a slow ache spreading through me, I thought, If she cannot accept me… if her spirit turns away… it will burn through me. A quiet, ragged sound escaped