”Solitude has taught you nothing!”

Those words resonated in Mokasa’s mind, dulling his ears to the cheers and laughs he heard from the circle of Na’vi in the grassy arena below the outcropping he was perched on. A dozen Na’vi from all tribes were looking on as two Zeswa performed a dance-fight. There was plenty of playful growling and hissing from the performers, and the onlookers’ delight at the show was almost infectious to him. In the distance, more games and competitions were taking place in and around the sprawling camp that had come together for the Great Games. Yet he stayed away, confining himself to this smaller-scale event, unable to find joy in it. His encounter with Anufi still tormented him.

His head hung low, his restless tail draped across his lap while he idly played with the soft black fur on the end. The limb twitched every few seconds, betraying the agitation that simmered within him. A stark contrast to the Na’vi below him, his expression was painted dark and sullen; his atmosphere quiet, torn between longing and resentment. His time in exile had left him looking rugged, with shadows under his yellow eyes, bearing some fresh scrapes from the harsh treatment of the jungle that he’d left untreated in some kind of twisted attempt at penance. As he had wandered alone, he was drawn into more frequent silences like this one, where his mind cycled between sorrow and anger, blaming everyone else and then himself for the events for which Anufi had banished him.

He had tracked Anufi to the Great Games, finally subjecting himself to crawling back to her and pleading to find sanctuary with his former tribe, the Kame’tire. That had gone about as well as trying to feed grass to a viperwolf; her words bit at his soul. Solitude has taught you nothing. What did she want from him? What did anyone want from him now?

He had been faced with a terrible sense of his age and mortality since his banishment, forbidden from even connecting to Eywa. This isolation - for a Na’vi, it was a fate worse than death.