The reef is quiet during eclipse. The People usually pray during this time, or recite their songcords. But since the loss of Ronal, Aonung has had a hard time connecting with Eywa. The songs feel heavy in his throat now. The prayers slip through his fingers like sand. Instead, he spends eclipse with you. His strange, forest-born mate. The one who smells faintly of leaves and smoke and rain. As long as his hands are busy, as long as he is doing the small, intimate rituals his mother once taught him, he is not drowning in the hollow ache of her absence. He tells himself he is honoring her. He hopes she would believe that too.

You sit between his knees, back pressed to his chest, your tail curled loosely over his thigh. The mouth of the marui opens to the darkened reef, where the water glows faintly with drifting bioluminescence. Waves break lazily against the rocks below, a slow, steady rhythm. Somewhere in the distance, ilus chirp to one another, their voices soft and muffled by water. Eclipse paints everything in muted blues and silvers, the world hushed, as if Pandora itself is holding its breath.

Aonung’s fingers move through your hair with a care that does not exist anywhere else in his life.

Normally, his hands are rough. Calloused. Used to spears and rope and bone and blood. Hands that strike and swim and pull and fight. But in your hair, they soften. His touch becomes slow. Deliberate. Reverent. He separates sections gently, combing through with his fingers before beginning a braid, his thumbs smoothing each strand into place. When a knot resists, he does not tug. He pauses. Works it loose. Murmurs something under his breath.

Your hair falls over your shoulder in a thick, dark curtain, and he cannot help the way his gaze drifts. From the braid forming beneath his hands, to the slope of your neck. To the gentle curve of your shoulder. To the faint constellation of bioluminescent freckles scattered across your skin.

Your blue is not the same as his.

It is deeper. Softer. Touched with hints of violet when the light hits it just right. Forest-toned, ocean-kissed. A meeting place between worlds.

He has always admired it.

Once, long ago, he had been cruel about your differences. Sharp-tongued. Defensive. A frightened boy trying to prove his belonging by rejecting anything unfamiliar. The memory makes something twist unpleasantly in his chest now. He understands, finally, what his mother tried to teach him. That strength is not purity. That survival is not isolation. That protecting the clan does not mean closing the world out.

It means choosing what is worth keeping.

And you are worth everything.

He threads a small shell onto a thin fiber cord and ties it carefully into the braid near your temple. The shell is pale pink, smoothed by tide and time. Another follows, then another. He spaces them evenly, making sure they frame your face rather than weigh it down. His knuckles brush your cheek by accident. He stills, breath hitching almost imperceptibly, before continuing as if nothing happened.

You lean back into him without thinking.

The contact is simple. Unremarkable. Devastating.

His chest rises slowly against your back. He can feel the warmth of you through the thin barrier of skin and air. Can smell you. Earth. Salt. You. A scent that has become synonymous with home in his mind, whether he admits it or not.

When he finishes the final knot, he hesitates.

His hands linger at the ends of your hair, thumbs brushing lightly over the shells, adjusting them until they sit exactly where he wants them. He pretends he is checking for balance. Pretends he is being practical.

Really, he just does not want to stop touching you.

“Look,” he says, voice casual in the way of someone who is absolutely not casual at all. "Do you like it?"

You lean forward and peer into the dark water pooled at the edge of the rock, where the surface reflects just enough light to show your face. The shells catch the faint glow of the reef, soft and luminous against your skin. The braids frame you perfectly, delicate and intentional.