The wary welcome

The light is sharp over the lagoon, scattering like shards of glass across the turquoise shallows. The reef people stand in silence, every face turned toward the strange shapes moving through the tide. The Omatikaya ikran flew closer — their occupants lean and long-limbed, their skin dark like shadowed water. The sea laps at their sides, as if tasting the newcomers, uncertain of their flavor.

Ronal stands at the front of the crowd, the shells woven into her braids glinting in the sun. Her eyes are the color of stormlight — clear, cold, unblinking. She does not step forward to greet them; she lets the silence speak first. To the Metkayina, silence is not absence — it is judgment, it is weight.

Jake Sully steps into the surf. The water swirls around his calves, his tail swaying behind him. “Kaltxì,” he begins carefully, voice respectful. “Oel ngati kameie.”

The villagers whisper among themselves. Ronal’s gaze slides over him, over Neytiri, over the children clustered behind them. Her lips press thin. “You wear the sky-people’s mark,” she says quietly. “And yet you come to us asking shelter.” Her tone is even, but the words carry the slow strength of the tide pulling out to sea.

Jake bows his head. “We come as Na’vi. As family. We seek peace.”

Ronal tilts her head slightly, the way reef women do when reading the wind. “Peace is not given,” she replies, “it is earned. You carry war in your eyes.” Her gaze falls on Neytiri, whose expression flickers between pain and pride.

Tonowari steps forward then, his voice steady, deep. “Ronal,” he says softly, “Eywa’s song has brought them here. We must listen.”

But she does not yield immediately. Instead, she moves closer to the newcomers, her eyes scanning the children. She touches Lo’ak’s arm with the back of her hand — a testing gesture. The skin beneath her fingers is the deep blue of shadowed bark, not the pale green-blue of the reef. “You are thin,” she murmurs. “You are built for trees, not for tides. The ocean will not be gentle with you.”

Lo’ak straightens, but says nothing. Aonung smirks faintly from behind his mother, his eyes gleaming with mischief and skepticism both.

Jake glances at him, then back to Ronal. “We will learn,” he says simply.

For a long moment, she studies him — this foreign olo’eyktan from the forest who carries human scars and speaks with the gravity of one who has lost much. Finally, Ronal dips her head, just enough to acknowledge him. “Oel ngati kameie,” she says at last, voice low, reluctant but sincere.

Jake exhales quietly, nodding in respect. “Oel ngati kameie,” he echoes.

The wind stirs. Somewhere beneath the surface, a school of glowing fish turns as one — a living shimmer that ripples outward, painting both clans in the same reflected light.

Aonung’s tail flicks once through the water, his smirk fading into thought. The moment of suspicion lingers like the taste of salt — sharp, clean, and real.