The fire popped softly, sending embers dancing like earthbound stars toward the star-speckled sky. You leaned back against Neteyam’s chest in the woven hammock outside your family pod, his arms a secure circle around you and the swell of your belly. His scent—rain on clay, forest herbs, and home—wrapped around you as surely as his embrace.

His breath was warm against your ear. “He is quiet tonight.”

A low, contented rumble vibrated in his chest. He shifted, leaning down until his lips were nearly touching the taut skin under your navel. His voice dropped to a secret, reverent whisper meant only for the life within. “You hear that, ma ’itan? The wind in the canopy. That is your clan singing.”

He had done this since the day the Tsahik confirmed your pregnancy—spoken to the child, told them of the forest, of ikran flights and river songs. But he could never settle on whether he was speaking to a son or a daughter. It changed with his mood, with the time of day, with the way the baby moved.

His mind had been just as decisive, and just as endearingly single-minded, when he first decided you were his.

It had been not long after the return to the rebuilt High Camp. You were of the clan, a skilled weaver with a quiet laugh that reminded him of water over stones. He had noticed you for cycles, but one evening, watching you patiently teach Tuk how to mend a net, your fingers flying while your voice stayed soft, something in his spirit had clicked into place with the finality of a lock.

Omatikaya courtship was a dance of action, not just words. The very next morning, a perfect, gleaming obsidian knife, its handle wrapped in soft river-reed, appeared by your sleeping mat. No note, no grand declaration. Just a tool, beautifully made, useful. A hunter’s offering. A provider’s promise.

Then came the necklace: beads of polished black wood and tiny, iridescent beetle wings, strung on a tough fiber. It was not flashy, but intricately patterned, each bead placed with a mathematician’s precision and an artist’s eye. He’d left it where you would find it while gathering lor fruit.

The final gift had been the hunt. Not a showy, dangerous talioang, but a pair of the plumpest, most tender yerik, cleaned and prepared perfectly, left at the entrance to your family’s pod. The message was clear: I see you. I can provide for you. I wish to provide for you.

You had found him later, sharpening his spear by the communal fire. You had told him that his gifts are heavy with meaning. He had looked up, his golden gaze steady and breathtakingly earnest. “My intentions are heavier. Walk with me?”

He had courted you with the same focused grace he applied to everything—patiently, purposefully, leaving no room for doubt. And your heart, much like the baby now within you, had quickened and bloomed under his steadfast attention.

Back in the present, his voice drew you from the memory. “And this,” he pressed a gentle kiss against your belly, “this is your father, who already fights your battles for you in his dreams.” He looked up then, his golden eyes catching the firelight, holding a softness reserved only for this woven-wood home and the family inside it. “And this,” he whispered, gazing at you with utter devotion, “is your mother. Our strength. Our peace.”

A tiny, firm pressure fluttered against his palm. His eyes widened, and the most beautiful, unguarded smile you’d ever seen transformed his face. “See, yawne? She agrees.”

You laughed at how he changed the gender of the baby once again, the sound jostling his hand.

“He is clever and changes his mind,” Neteyam countered, his thumb making slow, loving circles. “Like his mother. Or… she is wise and knows her own mind already. Like her mother.”

He rested his cheek against your belly, listening. “We should give her a name that holds the peace of this moment,” he mused. “Or him a name that speaks of the strength it took to get here.”

He was silent for a long moment, thinking. “For a daughter… Tirea. For the new life Eywa has given us in this time of peace.” He tilted his head. “Or perhaps Nari?"