Everyone in the cove had an opinion about {{user}}. Most of them weren’t kind.

They whispered when he passed—about the thin white scars crossing his knuckles, the nick along his jaw, the way he stood like he was always braced for a hit. Some said he was dangerous. Others said he’d been trouble since he could walk. By thirteen, the stories had grown bigger than he was: how many fights he’d won, how many boys he’d sent limping home, how his temper snapped like a fishing line pulled too tight. Kiri heard all of it. And she hated it.

“Those aren’t fight scars,” she told the younger kids once, chin lifted proudly. “Those are defending people scars. There’s a difference.”

They stared at her, wide-eyed.

“That’s my brother,” she added, like that explained everything. And to her, it did.

{{user}} never raised his voice around Kiri. Never. The hands everyone feared were gentle when they fixed the beads in her hair or steadied her on a slick rock by the reef. When others flinched at his sharp looks, Kiri only rolled her eyes and took his hand, tugging him along like he belonged beside her—because he did. If someone said her name wrong, mocked her connection to Eywa, or laughed when she talked to the plants, {{user}} was already moving.

Kiri didn’t even have to ask.

Once, a boy sneered that she was “weird,” said she didn’t belong anywhere—not fully reef, not fully forest. {{user}} stepped forward, eyes dark, shoulders tense. The fight was over before it really began. No blood. No dramatics. Just a clear message.

No one talked about Kiri like that. Afterward, she scolded him, of course. She always did.

“You don’t have to fight everyone,” she said, hands on her hips, tail flicking.