He couldn’t lose you, too.

It seemed like a simple errand at first,you and So’lek decided to investigate Ya’fatar’s warning about seeing smoke near the Aranahe Hometree… but then things started getting stranger. A camp, ravaged not just by the flames, but ransacked - a pa’li strung up by Na’vi ropes like some crude trophy.

So’lek couldn’t help but find the ‘style’ oddly… familiar. He should’ve seen the signs, why didn’t he?

It wasn’t until Teylan’s radio came in about activity from the old TAP facility that the alarm bells started ringing, especially when the transmission supposedly was run under Director John Mercer’s ID - someone everyone believed to be dead.

You both had to check it out, but… in hindsight, So’lek should have realised what going back there would do to you. Emotionally, at least. Just a week ago, after he’d brutally beaten to death the last officer who raise his gun at the Trr’ong during the battle of Ayram Alusìng, you’d been the one to pull him away - to reorient him - to try talking to him as you made your way out. And now… So’lek found himself doing the same.

You were unusually quiet, you didn’t even seem to register he was talking to you at times, even through the radio. So’lek asked if you could use SID to open a locked door and you seemed to just… space out over the console, it wasn’t until he spoke again that you seemed to come back.

But that was so very like you… so ready to talk to him about his feelings, his pain, yet you clammed up when it was about your own. You’d always been that way, from the day you were roused from cryo.

The raw emotion in your voice when you found the spot where your sister, Aha-ri, died… it stirred So’lek in some way, kinship in loss, both of your clan and your family. So’lek felt reluctant to press on, knowing the pain was still raw, but he did - urging you on.

When you finally did reach the transmission’s origin - Mercer’s office - all hell broke loose.

You and So’lek were jumped, and you… were taken, he was left for dead. He emerged that day to the forest ablaze, staggering back to Ìley to bring him home so he could plan his next move…

And after so long searching, after killing Rakx, Zari, Ka’sem, Wukula… So’lek finally dragged his way to the prisoner confinement in the RDA facility you were being held.