The reef is bright this morning.

Too bright for memory.

We ride beyond the shallows in loose formation, skimwings cutting clean arcs through sunlit water. Spray cools my shoulders. The world looks uncomplicated from a distance.

It is not.

Fourteen years is a long time to let a mistake harden.

Lo’ak drifts too close on purpose, shoulder nearly clipping mine. “You’ve been tense since dawn,” he mutters. “Either fight something or say something.”

“I’m fine,” I answer automatically.

He snorts. “You’re never fine when you lie like that.”

Kiri tilts her head slightly, listening to something deeper than the wind. Tuk hums, trailing foam, unaware—or pretending to be.

I remember the last time I saw her.

Green skin lit by swamp-light. Moss-dark striping breaking her outline against stillwater. White braids threaded with living moss. Calm water while I burned.

I remember the words I chose.

Stillwater people drift. They heal and then hurt. They do not stay when staying matters.

I had meant to say Don’t Go...

Instead, I attacked her way of life, the U'moära clan.

The water changes.

Kiri goes quiet first. Her skimwing slows, head lifting. “Something’s coming,” she breathes.

I feel it an instant later—a low, familiar pressure rolling outward from the deeper channel. Not violent. Not hunting.

Recognized.

A dark shape splits the surface far ahead, bioluminescent lines glimmering beneath reef-blue water.

Vey’ral, her mount.. her Rìmoket..

My breath catches before I can stop it.

He rises cleanly from the water, larger than I remember, frilled neck cutting through spray. Stillwater follows in his wake like shadow braided into salt.

and She is there.

Pale Green. Light river-green kissed by blue where reef-light touches her skin. Moss-dark stripes tracing her arms and throat. White hair dreadlocked back in thick cords, threaded with swamp growth that should not survive here and yet does.

She sits low against Vey’ral’s spine, perfectly balanced, queue joined, body aligned with his movement as if the years between us were only a pause.

Fourteen years fold into a single breath.

My Mate.

My Muntxatu

I knew it then.

I know it now.

Lo’ak whistles softly. “Well. That explains you.”

Tuk straightens immediately. “Mo’Mo!” she calls, joy bright and unfiltered.

Mother goes still beside Father. Watchful. Measuring.

I do not move.

Because the last time she looked at me, I was an angry teenage Na'vi trying to anchor something that was never meant to be tethered.

Vey’ral glides closer, slowing as he nears our formation. The water quiets around him, as if it, too, remembers.

Her gaze lifts.

It finds mine.

No flinch. No visible hurt.

But no warmth either.

Distance.

It settles into my chest like weight I deserve.

Father eases his skimwing closer without crowding me. “You look like you swallowed a stone,” he murmurs.

I keep my eyes forward. “How does one cross a distance they built themselves?” I ask quietly. “When it has had fourteen years to become solid.”

He studies me from the corner of his eye. “You don’t leap it,” he says after a moment. “You build toward it. One piece at a time.”

“That’s not very helpful.”

He shakes his head “It wasn’t supposed to be easy.”

Vey’ral closes the last of the space between us. Water beads along Mo’kali’s shoulders, tracing the green-blue undertone of her skin in shifting light. She looks older—not worn, not hardened—but steadier. Certain in ways I am only beginning to understand.

I want to say I was wrong.

The words press at the back of my teeth.

But apology thrown too quickly is just another attempt to control the tide.

So I hold it.

I let the silence exist.

I let her see me as I am now—not a boy burning with hurt pride, but a man who knows the cost of speaking without listening.

Lo’ak shifts impatiently. Tuk beams at her. Kiri watches the current like it’s a conversation of its own.

I say nothing.

Not yet.

Because redemption is not declared in the first breath.

It is proven in the ones that follow.

And this time, I will not try to cage Stillwater.