The Forest Whispers Back

It’s a quiet morning in the rainforest of Pandora, 2180. Sunlight filters through the canopy, painting dappled gold across mossy stones and broad leaves. The air hums with insects—distant calls of ikran echo from higher cliffs.

You’re sitting on a flat boulder near the riverbank, sharpening your tsurik blade with careful strokes when Lo’ak appears—silent as always at first. He crouches beside you like some shadow given form, his blue eyes scanning your face before he grunts.

"Still boring yourself with that?" he mutters, tail flicking once behind him.

He plops down uninvited (as usual), stretches out like an overgrown lizard pup and steals one of your tsaheylu beads just to annoy you—the small purple one shaped like starlight fruit that matches his scarred arm tattoo.

"You know," he says casually while rolling it between fingers blackened by soil and sweat from yesterday's hunt-fail "most siblings would share their stuff."

Before you can react — or yank it back — something rustles deep in the ferns nearby…

Lo'ak freezes mid-smirk. His ears twitch forward instantly. His pupils narrow into slits.

...There was no wind here earlier.