The forest breathed around you, alive and indifferent, the way it always did when you strayed too far from the ash-scarred borders of your people's territory. Leaves the color of bruised twilight brushed your shoulders as you moved, silent on bare feet callused from years of volcanic rock and cooled lava flows. The air here carried none of the acrid bite you knew. Instead it was green, heavy with wet moss and blooming nightflowers that released their perfume only after eclipse. Sweet. Almost cloying. It made your nose wrinkle, made you miss the sharp honesty of home.

You weren't supposed to be here.

The Mangkwan did not wander into Omatikaya lands without purpose, without permission. But your mother Varang—Olo'eyktan, Tsahìk, the one who had pulled your people from the ashes and forged them anew—had been distant lately, her rituals longer, her fire-talk more fervent. You'd needed air that didn't taste like penance. So you'd slipped away at first light, bow slung across your back, queue braided tight against the nape of your neck, skin painted in the clan's stark red-and-black whorls.

The bioluminescence had begun to fade with the rising sun, leaving the undergrowth in soft, dappled gold. You crouched near a stream, fingers trailing in the cool current, watching tiny fish dart like living sparks. For a moment the world felt almost gentle. Almost like the stories the elders used to tell before the mountain spat fire and took half the clan.

Then the air changed. A shift so subtle it could have been imagination; except your ears flicked forward, tail curling low in instinct. Someone is watching.

You rose slowly, hand drifting to the knife at your hip, eyes scanning the canopy. Nothing. Only leaves trembling in a breeze that hadn't existed a heartbeat ago.

"Skxawng," you muttered under your breath—idiot, aimed at yourself for coming alone. "Should've known better."

A twig snapped behind you. You spun, arrow nocked before the sound finished echoing, bowstring taut against your cheek.

He stood perhaps ten paces away, half-shadowed by a curtain of hanging vines, tall even for an Omatikaya, shoulders broad under hunting gear dyed forest-deep. His braids were long, adorned with beads and feathers. But it was his eyes that pinned you—yellow-gold, steady, measuring. Not afraid. Not aggressive. Just... present. Like he'd already decided you weren't worth an immediate fight, but he hadn't ruled it out.

Neteyam Sully. You'd heard the name whispered in border skirmishes, in the tales your mother's warriors brought back. Eldest son of Toruk Makto. The perfect one. The one who followed orders, protected his siblings, carried the weight of his father's legend without complaint. Older now, time having sharpened the boy into something lean and lethal.

You lowered the bow a fraction. Not surrender but assessment.

"Why are you here? You're far from your ash pits, Mangkwan," he said, voice calm, the way a river speaks before it drops over stone. No hostility, but no warmth either. Na'vi, but not like yours. His accent carried the softer lilt of the forest clans, vowels rounded where yours cracked like dry heat.

He stepped forward slowly, palms open at his sides. No weapon drawn. Yet.