I.

i.

"Hold still, ma Neteyam," Neytiri chides, dabbing at his little knees carefully. He whimpers at the sting, but obediently holds still, letting her bundle of herbs sop up the blood. She dribbles more water on him, sending faint red droplets running down his legs.

Lo'ak braces a hand on Neytiri's shoulder, five small fingers brushing her collarbone, as he leans down to look at his brother. "Does it hurt?" he asks, eyes wrinkling with curiosity the same way his father's do.

Neteyam puts on a slightly strained smile. "Nuh-uh." Neytiri's noticed this tendency in him recently to put on a good show for his siblings, to be stronger when they can see. Mother says Sylwanin was the same at that age, although Neytiri can't really remember it.

Kiri looks on, thumb in her mouth, and says nothing. She's still talking less than either of her brothers, or even Spider when Norm brings him around. Mother, Jake, and Norm all have their own reasons for why this is absolutely nothing to worry about, and Neytiri has a hard time believing any of them.

"That jump looked super cool," Lo'ak says, eyes sparkling. He has started picking on some of his father's turns of Sky People phrase, and also his father's love for danger.

"And 'super' dangerous," Neytiri shoots back, giving him a Look, before rounding on her eldest son. "What have we told you about jumping between trees?"

Neteyam lowers his eyes, face dark with shame. "'m sorry, Mama."

"Sorries don't fix a broken leg. You're lucky I caught you in time."  Lucky Mother had been there, too, to soothe her grandson while Neytiri had tried to get her breath back, overwhelmed by the memory of her boy falling, falling, falling...she'd had to do the five things you can see, four you can hear trick Jake had taught her before the roar of flames at the back of her mind had entirely disappeared.

"I know. I...." Neteyam bites his lip. "I wanna show Daddy how far I can jump when he gets back from his trip."

Oh, Great Mother. Neytiri resists the urge to pinch the skin between her eyes. "Your father does not care how far or how high you can fling myself, my son," she says firmly. "He cares, I care, that you are safe. The only thing he wants to come home to is all of his children in one piece, do you understand?"

"Yes, Mama." Neteyam bows his head and Neytiri sighs, leaning down to plant a kiss on his temple. Then more kisses on his knees, the way Mother always used to do when she was the one falling and being lectured. You'll understand one day, she'd said as Neytiri wriggled and whined, not understanding what all the fuss was about, and oh, how she does.

"My sweet, reckless little boy," she whispers in his ear, quiet enough she's not sure his siblings can hear it. "Look after yourself, that is all we ask. Will you do that for us?"

"Yes, Mama," he says again, wrapping his small arms around her waist and squeezing tight.

ii.

"Deep breaths, babygirl," Jake says softly, rubbing his hands over Kiri's slender back. Around them, the walls flutter over so slightly as if in a breeze, only their home was built stronger than that, and there is no wind, and--enough. Neytiri has more important things to focus on right now.

"It's so loud," Kiri whines, hands pressed to her small ears as she rocks back and forth, eyes squeezed shut. "It's so loud, why is it so loud?"

It's not, not that Neytiri can hear. She has sent her sons out to play, she has ordered passing People to be quiet or else, she has covered the entryway against what Kiri describes as a hot, noisy, brightness. She has done everything that she can think of except saw her daughter's ears off and still, Kiri suffers.

"Palulukan packs fighting in the north," Kiri mumbles. "Stupid territories. Stupid mating season." Her hands twitch and pain flashes in Neytiri's skull, there and gone like a ripple in the water.

She sucks in a breath, steadying herself, and presses gentle hands to Kiri's temples. "Hush, ma Kiri," she whispers, rubbing gently the way Mother used to do when Neytiri was small, the way that always soothed her. "It's all right." She leans down to press a kiss to her daughter's forehead.

Kiri growls and jerks away, wriggling out of her and Jake's hands. "I don't want you," she hisses. "You're noisy, too noisy. I want Spider." 

Neytiri's ears go flat to her head, jaw tight with frustration. Spider is a loaded topic at the best of times (his features have already started to sharpen, to mirror the face of a dead man in a metal suit, and hard as she tries the memories keep seeping in), and she can't understand what goes through her daughter's head to make this wriggling, chattering boy with his buzzing little pack seem quieter than her own parents.

Mother and Norm has discussed it, talking about the energy network filling Eywa'eveng that Kiri can feel more vividly than any of them, how Spider's presence--biologically disconnected from Eywa, pulsing with a different, quieter energy--serves as a reprieve from that kind of endless stimulation. No amount of readings and legends and theories can soothe her daughter right now, though, and Spider is far from here.

"Sorry, babygirl, it's just us," Jake whispers, settling down at Kiri's side. "Just your old man and your mama." He tucks a strand of hair behind Kiri's ear, careful not to touch her skin. "Do you wanna tell us about the palulukan fight, sweetheart?"

Kiri groans, hands tapping wildly against the ground. The walls start trembling around them, rippling with each thunk thunk thunk, and Jake shoots Neytiri a panicked look over their daughter's head.

She looks around, seeking something, anything, to make this better....her eyes land on the heap of winter blankets tucked in the corner. She scrambles over and grabs the heaviest one, carrying it back to her husband and daughter.

"Here," she says, wrapping the blanket carefully over Kiri's shoulders and pulling it over her head. Kiri lets out a little gasp and for a moment Neytiri's terrified that she's done something wrong, but then Kiri's grabbing the blanket, pulling it more and more over herself and curling up on the ground, snug and shielded as a little bug.

Her daughter takes a few slow, deep breaths as the trembling comes to a halt, until Neytiri's not entirely sure she didn't imagine it. Kiri doesn't pull away when they sit next to her this time, one on either side.

"Better?" Jake asks.

Kiri hums a reply, wriggles a little closer in Neytiri's direction. "Story, Mama," she whispers.

"All right," Neytiri leans back against the wall, turning the different options over in her mind. "How about...the day Mama saved Daddy from a pack of nantang?"

Jake mock-groans with that, and Kiri wriggles in excitement. Neytiri starts to speak, keenly aware of how her daughter clings on to her every word, listening the way she always does, liken she can see every moment in her mind's eye exactly as it happened. And for all Neytiri knows, she can.

iii.

"That was a pretty sick landing, bro," Spider says, awkwardly shuffling his feet in the doorway. Next to him, Kiri crosses her arms over her chest and bites her lip; the fact that she's not teasing her brother about today's disaster feels more ominous than if she had.

Lo'ak says nothing from where he sits on the floor, one hand pressed to his nose. The bleeding has stopped, but he won't take his fingers away from his face unless ordered, or raise his head. 

"Kiri, go help your grandmother store the new herbs," Neytiri orders. Her daughter nods, shooting Lo'ak's a reassuring smile before heading off. Spider trots at her heels, shooting Lo'ak that bizarre little gesture which Jake refers to as a "Vulcan salute." It normally cracks at least a smile from her children, but Lo'ak's face is like stone.

Now Neytiri is alone with Lo'ak; he hissed when Neteyam tried to help him over the threshold of their tent and Jake had taken the opportunity to guide their older son off, to help him settle his new ikran. Tuktirey isn't back from weaving lessons with some of the other young children and Jake will probably keep her out for a while longer.

Lo'ak doesn't look at her as Neytiri continues dabbing at his bruises, feeling for breaks or sprains. "You're only a little scratched up," she tells him. "You were very lucky."

"Lucky." Lo'ak's voice cuts, sharp as a blade aimed at his own skin.

Neytiri lets out a breath. "Ma Lo'ak..." He still refuses to look up, so she brushes that one ridiculous strand of hair that never stays in place out of his eyes and tilts his chin up to meet her.

"You are very young," she reminds him. Too young. He shouldn't have been performing the ceremony at all, but the Sky People's smoke is still drifting in the distance and a war is coming, even with Eywa's might to protect them, and she'd agreed with Jake--whether she should have or not--when he'd suggested they move the time up. "Older and more experienced warriors have failed their first ikinamaya."

"Neteyam didn't," he mutters, and oh, once again that is the crux of the matter. Neytiri would like to say she was not this bad about measuring up to Sylwanin as a child, but she knows herself better than that. "Kiri didn't even need a ceremony."

"Neteyam is older than you," Neytiri reminds him. "Kiri is..." She thinks about her daughter flying into New Hometree on the night the Sky People returned, Spider clinging on to her for dear life, both of them riding an ikran who had come to Kiri instead of the other way around. Pride, gratitude, and terror--for her daughter, for what else would come along with the Great Mother's gifts--still war in Neytiri's heart at the memory.

"...also older than you," she says finally. "They have experience, advantages you do not--"

"They're older by a year!" Lo'ak snaps. "One little year, that doesn't mean anything--" He pulls himself to a halt "I, I'm sorry, Mom, I shouldn't have yelled. I just..." He shakes his head. "I hate being so weak."

"Enough." Neytiri fills her voice with Tsakarem sternness. "No one calls my children weak, not ever. Not even my children."

Lo'ak opens his mouth like he's about to argue, but closes it at her expression. "Dad's disappointed in me," he mutters.

"Of course he isn't." Not if he knows what's good for him. "And neither am I." She rests her hands on Lo'ak's shoulders. "Are you going to argue with your mother, my son? Or call her a liar?"

"No," Lo'ak says slowly. "But--"

"No 'buts.'" She pulls him close, careful not to press on his injuries, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead before he can squirm away. "Believe me, my love." Please believe me. "That's all you have to do."

iv.

"I hate the sea," Tuk sobs. She's clinging to Neytiri as if for dear life, sharp little nails digging into her arms. "I hate the sea, I hate it so, so fu--" 

"Tuktirey," Neytiri warns automatically--Jake and the older children have been too loose with profanities around their youngest recently, and Neytiri has been too busy to scold them. She adjusts Tuk's weight on her hip, careful to avoid brushing the cluster of red scratches on her daughter's tiny foot.

She doesn't even know what it was, and it makes her feel a little bit mad, the fact that she cannot name the thing that injured her child. Back in the forest, she knew the names of every plant, every creature, every Na'vi, as well as her own. Back in the forest, she would not be feeling the sharp bite of panic as she hurries along the shore, feeling as lost as she did on her first day of Tsakarem training.

"I hate the sea," Tuk rasps. "I hate how hot the sun is all the time, I hate the sand getting everywhere, I hate how noisy the waves are, I hate it I hate I hate it, I want to go home--"  She bursts into a fresh wave of tears, slamming her head against Neytiri's shoulder.

"It's all right, ma Tuk," Neytiri whispers, trying so, so hard not to let her voice shake. She plants a kiss on Tuk's cheek, trying to steady herself as much as her daughter. "It's all right--" She rounds a corner and almost crashes into a swollen green belly, nearly dropping Tuk as she reels backward.

Ronal blinks at her, gaze careful the way it always is when she looks at Neytiri and her family. "I heard you were having trouble," she says; Neytiri almost expects a lecture or a taunt, but her voice is soft then Neytiri has ever heard it.

"I can her, treat her injuries--" She holds out her hands and Neytiri's grip tightens on instinct, Tuk whimpering at the added pressure. Not safe, not safe, the alarm wails at the back of her head, the way it did in the forest when the demon almost stole her children away.

"If you show me what to use, I can do it." Ronal's eyes narrow at the rejection and Neytiri hastily adds on. "I wouldn't want to burden you unnecessarily, Tsahik." The word still tastes strange in her mouth, attached to someone who is not Mother, but many things have been strange since the Sky People drove them here.

Let me have this, she tries to ask the other woman with her eyes. Let me care for my children. Let me be there when they need me, let them reach for me when they are in pain. Let me have this control over my mess of a life, at least. 

Ronal studies her for a second, then nods. "Come," she says, turning away, pressing one hand to her belly in a gesture Neytiri remembers well. "We'll go to my marui and I'll talk you through it."

"Thank you, Tsahìk." For the first time, Neytiri truly means it when she says it to Ronal. She hurries along at Ronal's side, keeping pace with the other woman as best she can without risk of brushing Tuk up against anything.

"Soon, my heart," she whispers, smoothing Tuk's hair. Tuk sniffles, but Neytiri can tell from the look in her eyes that she believes what Neytiri's saying, trusting in her mother like only the young truly can.

v.

Spider sits with his back straight, hands resting lightly on his knees, water and blood glistening against his still-damp skin. It's difficult to read his expression through the mask--it's always been difficult for Neytiri to read the expressions of Sky People, with their lack of ears and tails--but he keeps steady when she weaves her needle through the cut on his chest, jaw only tightening a little.

Kiri had offered to stitch him up, even though her hands had still been shaking; it had started after they got back sure and has continued on and off for a while. But she'd said I can do it, Monkey Boy, positioning herself ever so slightly between Spider and Neytiri in a way that had hurt, somehow, almost as much as the sight of Neteyam's blood still staining the sand around them.

Neytiri had offered to do it before she could stop herself, and Spider had surprised both her and Kiri by saying it was okay. He kneels before Neytiri on the shore, letting her needle trace back over the path her knife had marked, sewing the cut closed like she's down for all her children at one point or another.

All of her children, but never Spider. One of the scientists always tended to his hurts, or Kiri, as she grew older and needed someone on which to practice her Tsakarem skills. Spider got good at looking after himself, too, thanks to years of being constantly at her side, the two of them practically joined at the hip.

Neytiri finds herself wondering who looked after his injuries during his time in captivity, or gave him what he needed to look after himself, if only so whatever injuries they gave him wouldn't fester. She wonders if Quaritch ever lowered himself to what he would most likely view as the undignified task of caring for his child.

Spider's dye is mostly gone now, the last of it worn away by saltwater, and she can see bruises dotting his skin, more vivid than the marks on her (other) children's bodies. Bruises from different times, different places, creeping down his sides, wrapping under his limbs, blossoming on his hips in a way that makes her skin crawl with dark forebodings, things she doesn't have the strength to try and name.

All prints from massive hands, bigger than Spider's. Bigger than hers, too, except for one on his shoulder, the freshest and most vivid of them all.

Neytiri has always valued apologies in action more than in words, and truthfully, she doesn't know what to say. Her memories of the past few hours are, frankly, not that clear, and what she remembers--fear, anger, pain like nothing she's ever dreamed of, not even when Father died--melts together in a bloody swirl.

She knows that she and Spider found themselves on the edge of a very dark place, and she's not sure whether they entirely came back from it. She knows that she lost a piece of her heart and walked a high, narrow edge to keep from losing the rest of it. She knows that the air between them is taut and fractured with a demon's ghost, and speaking might just call him closer.

So she just bends to her task, stitching carefully the way her mother taught her to do with children. It's soothing, in a way, this quiet, healing work, the sense of at least one thing being tucked back into place.

When Spider suddenly breaks the silence, it's almost (almost) enough to make her drop the needle. "I get it," he says, voice soft. Neytiri pauses, holding the needle above his chest.

"I...what you did, I understand. I mean, I don't know, but--I do know what it's like, losing yourself." He licks his lips. "And Kiri...she'll understand why you had to do it, too. She will."

Will she? Neytiri almost asks, but stops herself on instinct, because you're not supposed to let the children see you doubt, remember. So she adjusts her grip on the needle and keeps stitching.

"All done," she says finally, just like she does for her (other) children when she's finished putting them back together. She puts the needle aside, nodding in approval at the tight, neat stitches and wiping off her hands.

"Thank you, Tsakarem," Spider says, bowing his head, and Neytiri...she should remind him that she is not Tsakarem, not anymore, thanks to his father. She should get up and leave, she should tell him to go to Norm when he needs the stitches taken out, she should tell him she only pulled Kiri back into the forest because it was better to save one child than none and she was sure his father would at least treat him well, she should--

"You are welcome, ma Spider," she says softly. His name is strange on her tongue, and she wonders when was the last time she used it.

An impulse strikes her and she plants a kiss on her hand before reaching out, brushing it down his cheek. She can see his eyes widen ever so slightly, but he still leans into his touch, breath warm against her fingers.

+i.

It hits again after Neteyam's funeral, waves of horror-loss-death sending Neytiri staggering away from the family, pushing inland. Her breath comes fast in her ears, memories of blood dancing slick over her skin and the fire is roaring, roaring, roaring so loud she cannot hear her own heartbeat.

Mother. She wants Mother. But Mother is not here, the distance between them and the rest of the Omaticaya is too thick with Sky People to travel, what kind of daughter cannot bring a mother to see her grandson's funeral? What kind of daughter, what kind of mother, sister, wife, Tsakarem, warrior, hunter, Na'vi, person, what what what--

She finds a rock and it's not the one where her eldest died but it might as well be so she hits again, and again, blood washing off her knuckles and staining her hands. Destroying herself, breaking herself like a bow and a child and a tree and a world, skin torn as bones scrape against each other and there is no words for the sound that spills from her, except for Kìreysì trying to describe a black hole to them once upon a time.

Hitting the rock because she cannot hit the man who pulled the trigger, the man who led the soldiers, the stupid father and foolish mother who could not stop their boy from bleeding out. Battering her own weak, foolish, noisy hands that could not put a child back together this time, when it mattered most.

Mom, she thinks she can hear him call, small and frightened and always out of reach. Mom, Mom, you gotta stop, you're hurting yourself, Mom-- 

"Mom!" Kiri's voice, sharp and frightened, and a vine wraps itself around her wrist, pulls her back. She tumbles, almost falling, but strong arms catch her, five fingers and a teenager's grunt in her ear.

"I've got you, Mom," Lo'ak says, and Spider is catching her head as it slumps back, holding it with gentle hands, and Tuk is tackling up against her, little arms squeezing like she can put everything fractured and scarred back together with a fierce enough hug.

"Mama." Tuk's voice is shaking and Neytiri wants to say sorry, but the words have been crushed from her tongue and all she can do is breathe, and breathe. The heat of their bodies settles around her like a blanket and for a moment she can almost see five children looking down at her instead of four.

Kiri's voice echoes in the distance, ordering Spider and Lo'ak--ordering her brothers--to get her what she needs, guiding Tuk out of the way so she can get a look at the damage. Farther back, Jake's feet thudding, running towards them, steady as the ocean waves echoing in her head.

"Hold still, Mom," and there are salves being smeared over her hands, too quick to sting the way she used Kiri how to do once upon a time. Bandages tied tight, Mo'at's fingers guiding hers through the knots, Sylwanin helping Neytiri practice later on, even when she rolled her eyes and squirmed.

"It's okay," and she should be the one saying that, it's her role, but tonight they are the ones saying it to her as they gather around her, as Jake reaches them and gathers Neytiri up in his arms. There are hands everywhere, touching her, cradling her, brushing sand from her hair.

"Ma Neytiri," Jake whispers in her ear, planting kisses over her tear-slick face. "We're here, love. We're here."

In their marui they give Tuk the task of kissing each bruise better and she goes about her task with the utmost care, little face screwed up in concentration as she plants feather-light kisses over Neytiri's hands. The others all gather around her, propping her up, close enough that she can feel every one of their hearts beating, that she can almost hear the lost one beating, too.

"We should tell stories about 'Teyam," Kiri murmurs at some point. "Does that sound good, Mom?" Neytiri nods slowly, because that does sound good. Their words, their voices, their love holding her together, that sounds good.

"Once when we were little," Lo'ak begins. "Dad was on a trip to some other clans, and Neteyam wanted to practice his jumping. There was a really big jump, and everybody told him to be careful..."

The stories spill from them, one by one, a river of memories flowing into the shape of a boy. And even if it's not enough, not after she's lost, it's still him echoing in her heart, it's still her family refusing to let her slip back into the dark. Close at her side the way she's always been close to them, ready and willing to put her back together however many times it takes.