*ੈ✩‧₊˚ gentle breeze •°. *࿐

training

You woke up with the sun, allowing the morning to seep into your skin to wake you up. Today was the day you were to train the Sully family and you were excited. You see that your father was also getting up.

"Good morning, father," you say. He turns to you and sends a smile.

"Good morning, gonna help the new family out?" You nod your head to affirm his statement.

"Yup. Are you just doing normal patrol? I thought you would get up earlier for that?" You ask, a bit confused.

"Well, I gotta do my share of helping. I'm helping Toruk Makto with his training," he says.

"Wait, really? Looks like we have our work cut out for us today," you say, laughing at your words.

"We do. Breakfast together? It's been a while," he asks. You feel as if your day got a million times better, as you nod in excitement. He pats your head as you both prepare food to start your day off with.

After having a nice meal with your father, you leave your marui pod. With Ao'nung unexpectedly waiting outside the entrance for you.

"Ao'nung? What are you doing here?"

"I am here to complain,"

'I knew it,' you thought. You were surprised he didn't rant about having to work with the forest na'vi the day before, while you were working on your songcord.

"Alright, get it out before we have to meet with them," you roll your eyes and cross your arms. Ready to hear Ao'nung's silly complaints.

"First off, if they have Tsireya helping, why do I need to? There is no reason. I also have Olo'eyktan training, there's no way I can do both. Lastly, they aren't even real na'vi. Why should I help them," Ao'nung rants, as you walk around the village, observing the antics that the na'vi of the village were partaking in. You patiently listen to his words, even though you didn't like what he was saying. At the end of his rant, you both end up near the ilu pen, where the ilu were jumping around.

"Just to let you know, I have my Tsahik training as well. If anything Tsireya is leading everything since she doesn't have the same level of duties," you start, trailing off as you think about how to phrase your next words, "you shouldn't be so mean."

"What do you mean?" he says, not fully registering what you were saying.

"Are you not hearing yourself? You are judging them based on their blood, not by who they are, " you sigh, looking into his blue eyes, "Eywa forbid you get to know someone before you act out, Ao'nung."

He doesn't say anything back immediately, looking away from you and onto the sandy ground beneath you. You keep your gaze on him, expecting him to say anything to you. His mouth kept on opening and closing, as if the words he wanted to express were escaping him.

"You look like a fish. C'mon-" Ao'nung interrupts your words by grabbing your hand.

"Just because you are right, it doesn't mean I'll be nice right away," he stares at you.

This time you avoid his eyes by staring off into the ocean, its waves inviting you to dive into it. To swim away from your problems and spend time around its life. It felt like it had been forever since you sat in the sea and felt its embrace.

"Just work on being nice, specifically to them," you say softly after a while. Taking advantage of the fact that he was holding your hand, you drag him to where you're supposed to meet Tsireya.

You don't drop hands until Tsireya sees the both of you and waves, the hand holding is the one you end up using to wave back. Rotxo was there as well, leading to the four of you engaging in a conversation while waiting for the four children you were going to train.

"(Y/n)!" you hear a young voice call out for you. You turn and see an excited Tuk heading toward you, waving. You wave back and smile, seeing the rest of the Sully siblings approach not too far behind Tuk.

Once the whole group were on the dock, Tsireya, Ao'nung, Rotxo, dive into the water with no words, leaving you and the Sullys' on the docks.

You smile, excited to get into the water yourself, motioning to the others you yell "let's go!"

You dive into the water, finally feeling the waves crasess your sides. You sway your body back and forth to catch up to Tsireya, looking back on your way to her to see Neteyam and Lo'ak jump into the water. Kiri and Tuk soon followed them.

From their eyes, you can tell that they were entranced by the ocean from their reactions. Specifically, Kiri. They didn't swim towards you and your friends at first, they stayed in their little group taking everything in. The small school of fishes that would zoom past them, a manta ray gliding through the water to meet them. You see Lo'ak point past you to Tsireya and they swim forward, you watch them struggle a bit and notice Kiri going in a different direction.

After making sure Tuk, Neteyam and Lo'ak knew which way they were going, you swam to where you saw Kiri go to make sure she was safe. On the way to her, you see the sea life get busier the closer you get to where you saw her go. More fish, more life.

You decide to stay a distance away from her, hiding behind some fan coral as she explores on her own. From the way she is able to stay underwater for such a long time when you knew she had never spent a moment underwater longer than a shower time, you felt like she was special. You felt as if Eywa herself was telling you Kiri was special.

You turn away to let Kiri be, seeing that all the na'vi you were with earlier were on the surface you swim over to them. Unexpectedly popping up between the groups and catching what seemed to be a tail-end of a conversation.

"-we don't know what you're saying," Neteyam says, his fingers moving randomly.

"I will teach you," Tsireya says. You nod your head in agreement and make a comment about helping them as well.

"Where's Kiri?" Rotxo asks out of the blue.

You hear Tuk let out a small gasp with her sister's name.

"Who?" Ao'nung says. You roll your eyes at his words.

"Kiri, where is Kiri?" Rotxo asks again.

"Don't worry about her, I saw her earlier and she's doing just fine," you say, hoping that you calmed the younger na'vi anxieties about Kiri being missing.

"Are you sure she's okay, she didn't go too far?" Neteyam asks, his brotherly instincts kicking in.

You smile at him, "she's not too far, but I don't think she wants to be disturbed."

"Since swimming isn't for you guys, let's do something else," Ao'nung says with his stupid smirk. You knew exactly what he wanted to do.

You found yourself near the ilu pen, once again, this time with more than just Ao'nung. Kiri wasn't there as she was still in her own wonderland, and some of Ao'nung friends joined you. You didn't like his friends because of the way they influence Ao'nung, to the point where you never bothered to learn their names.

"Woo, tuc. Woo, tuc tuc tuc tuc," Ao'nung calls for a couple ilu to come over. Whenever he called for the ilus, you always found it weirdly attractive... anyways.

"Ih í, ih í," Tsireya calls, more ilu swim over.

"I know what they are! (Y/n) told me!" Tuk exclaims from Neteyam's arms, pointing to a couple of them. From Ao'nung's side, you send Tuk a smile, happy that she remembered the name of your favourite companion.

"These are ilu. If you want to live here, you have to ride," Ao'nung explains, motioning the animals swimming around the group.

You split off into groups, Tsireya with Lo'ak and after she would help Tuk per Tsireya's request. Ao'nung had to leave for his training, while you luckily had the day off. Leaving you to help Neteyam, with no Kiri to be found as she was still enjoying her time alone.

You smile at Neteyam, "nice to talk to you again."

"You as well, how have you been?" he asks. He looked nervous and excited to be riding the ilu, which you were petting the head of to relax it.

"I'm alright, it hasn't been that long since we've last talked," you say.

"True, but I still want to know how you're doing it," he says. You bring over an ilu, presenting the animal in front of Neteyam.

"Are you ready?" you ask.

He nods his head as you help him get on the ilu, softly holding the small of his back. Feeling your hand there he looks at you and smiles. His eyes catch your again, this time you notice the green speckles dancing through the yellow. You flush lightly and tear your gaze away, you notice his eyes twitch from the corner of your eyes.

"Make the bond gently," you say softly. You hold up the queue of the ilu up to Neteyam, motioning for him to bring his own to the ilu's. He takes a deep breath, and you continue to talk, "feel its breath, feel its strength."

You overhear Ao'nung's friends laugh, you turn your head to see them making fun of Lo'ak failures to ride the ilu. You giggle lightly at Lo'ak as well, turning back to Neteyam with your hand covering your mouth.

Neteyam was chuckling and shaking his head at his own brother's over ambition, readjusting himself on the ilu he was on. You see him roll his shoulders and lean more forward to better follow the ilu's motions for when it would dive into the sea.

You watched Neteyam carefully, as he slowly dived into the water. His control on the ilu looked good, as he steadily swam a small distance before he popped back up. The ilu's head popped up as well, cheering. His progress was good.

Neteyam spent most of his time on the surface, and you decided to ride beside him. Your own ilu playing around with the one Neteyam was on.

"This is Nane, one of my favourite ilus to ride on," you say, your eyes brightening while patting her head.

"I quite like the ilu, not as cool as our ikrans," Neteyam says, riding closer to you.

"Ikrans? Are those the animals you ride on, back in the forest?" you ask, feeling excited that you were getting new information about the other parts of Pandora.

"Yes. If you remember, they were the animals that we came riding on," he says. You nod your head, knowing exactly what he was talking about.

The ikran were the colourful winged creatures, ones that looked like the skies belonged to them.

"Your ikrans are very pretty, they look powerful," you say.

"They are, you have to do a lot to tame one," Neteyam says.

"Were you able to tame one?" you ask.

"Yes, I was," he says, pride shining through his face.

"That's amazing... we have something similar with our skimwings. Ilus are actually used communally since they are very sociable," you say, patting Nane again.

"Skimwings?" he asks. Now it was your turn to tell him more about the reef.

"Yes, that was the animal that Tonowari rode in when you met him. I think your father would be learning to ride one because he is a warrior, like Tonowari," you say,

"I am also a warrior," he says.

"Oh really?" you say, interest peaking in your voice.

"Yes, Lo'ak and I would ride our ikran, which was a symbol of being a warrior, and we would scout out the sky people for our clan," he says, excitement radiating off him.

"Really? That is impressive, forest boy. Maybe one day you'll be able to ride the skimwing. They can fly but also swim, which is the better part of them," you say with a smirk.

"Maybe one day? No, one day I will be able to ride a skimwing!" Neteyam announces. You smile at him, appreciating his words and hoping that you'd be able to witness that moment he is able to tame a skimwing.

You find yourself itching to go deeper in the water and not to leisure around the surface much longer. Your conversation with Neteyam soon wraps up as he decides to go off and help Lo'ak get more comfortable on the ilu. Taking this as your chance, you descend deeper in the ocean with Nane, the water rushing past you.

You slow down and look around, to see Tsireya, Tuk, and unsurprisingly Kiri riding naturally with their ilus. Gliding through the water as if they belonged there. You smile at the three as you join in their riding session, bubbles escaping your mouth as you giggle when you see manta rays not too far behind Kiri. The ocean really did love her.

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[a/n]: aaa i forgor how beautiful the life underwater was in avatar until i watched it again, i did not do it justice writing it in the first chapter. also seeing the na'vi sign language made me freak out !! i learnt a little asl (american sign language) but i havent practiced so i lost sm of it ):

i had to add some earth marine life to pandora bc the wiki is not helping with the names of what we see in the movie </3

did you know: upon further research, both the role of olo'eyktan and tsahik can either be hereditary or chosen by whoever. depends on what the current one na'vi in each role chooses. so in the case of 'gentle breeze', instead of having tsireya be the next in line for tsahik, ao'nung gets olo'eyktan. a singular na'vi can also have both roles of olo'eyktan and tsahik, the roles are not gendered! though it is common to see a male olo'eyktan and a female tsahik, i would like to explore the idea of seeing all the different combinations of leaders!

i love finding info abt pandora and the world of avatar with you guys ashfksjdg if theres a chapter without a 'did you know' portion that means i didnt know what to add and something will exist there eventually LOL