𝙀𝙏𝙀𝙍𝙉𝘼𝙇 𝙇𝙊𝙑𝙀. 𝙉𝙀𝙏𝙀𝙔𝘼𝙈 ¹

𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙚𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩. 𝙗𝙡𝙪𝙣𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙘𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙪𝙢𝙖

It was an ambush on the boat the Sky People brought.

Fei snuck up behind a few soldiers and took each of them out, one by one. It was all with the knife Neteyam carried with him. The one she slipped into her hand. It was used in vengeance for a boy would could never get it for himself.

She stabbed one in the throat. Another in the chest.

One of them ran towards her with an empty gun in his hands. She kicked him away to the water. She held one up by his neck, crushing the mask of the exopack with her hand. She watched as he gasped for air.

It was undeniable rage.

Kill after kill, she never felt satisfied. She punched and kicked, took life after life from the devils who thought it was their place to invade her home and take everything they wanted.

She smashed one of them into the ground. It crushed their body as blood oozed out. Her ears twitched. She looked up to see more and more surrounding her.

A panic settled in her blood.

From the back of her head, she was hit with the butt of a gun. Her body crumpled as she fell into the sea before they could kill her.

As she sunk in the water, drifting away from the surface and clinging onto her consciousness, she felt incomplete. A piece of her soul had been taken away the moment she saw Neteyam die with Sylwanin on his mind.

Her eyes fluttered shut. She was ready to ascend with her lover as spirits of Eywa.

Payakan from below swam up to help her. He helped her to the surface with his fin and brought her to an empty rock, away from the water. She washed up on the surface and dreamed.

"Mommy!" A voice called out to her. Fei had learned who it belonged to now. Sylwanin stood in front of her mother, shaking her arm with a big smile on her face. "Look what I made!" She pointed to the sand next to them.

A series of stripes.

Fei's stomach dropped at the sight of them. It was still a fresh wound. She turned back to the girl. "Where's your daddy?" She tried to keep her composure.

"Mommy?" She asked. "You told me you don't like to talk about it. And Aunt Kiri said I shouldn't talk to you about him."

The worst had come true. Fei ripped her arm out of the girl's grip and backed away. "No," she whispered.

This dream was now the future. Before, she had only seen what the future would be from that moment. It meant everything she strived to prove to her mother wasn't all true.

Tears welled in her eyes. This was the one moment she needed the boy she would never see again.

Everyone has to wake up from a dream at some point.

Fei's eyes squinted open. She stared at the bright sky. The eclipse had gone by.

Neteyam was still dead.

Her eyes welled with tears. She couldn't sit up from the rock, she didn't want to. Fei wailed and sobbed, a hand over her mouth to muffle the sounds. Like anyone would care about some broken Na'vi warrior at the end of the day. Everyone who cared was dead.

Neteyam would have cared, if he was still living and breathing. If his heart was beating like it once did under the palm of her hand.

Fei could still feel the way it sped up whenever she gazed into his eyes.

"Hey!" Spider shouted, swimming up on the rock and approaching her carefully. "Are you okay?" He felt scared of what she could do. After all, he was just a human and she was Na'vi. He held out his hand. "Here, we need to get to the rest of the family."

She nodded, taking the hand he outstretched and standing up. It was such a weird sensation, to lose your mate after making the bond for life.

She swam alongside Spider, who kept quiet. He didn't know what to say.

When they neared the rock the Sully family stood on, Fei gasped. Neteyam was sitting up with the rest of his family crowded around him. She lunged toward the boy, throwing her arms around him and sobbing.

"Neteyam," she whispered into his shoulder. Tears flowed heavily down her face.

The boy she loved was alive. He was living and breathing. She put her hand over his heart and felt its beat stronger than ever. Fei let out a laugh through her pain. "Don't ever do that again!" She hit him in the shoulder and sniffled.

"I don't plan to, my love." He pulled her lips in for a sealing kiss.

Jake looked away to the sky, waiting for the moment to end. Lo'ak covered Tuk's eyes as Kiri rolled hers. It was a bit awkward to do that in front of his entire family.

"Are you guys done yet?" Kiri asked, exasperated.

It didn't matter.

Fei and Neteyam would be together for the rest of their lives. They had mated. They shared their lives. They would share the same bed, the same children, the same love.

Fei pulled back and rested her forehead against his. "Our love is eternal," she whispered, a smile on her face. He really was alive. He was in front of her, ready to love her just as she loved him.

He nodded. "Forever."

For a moment, Fei wished she had seen this in her dream. The first one. She wanted to know how happy she would end up, how fate teased great things for her.

If Eywa could speak, she would tell a thousand stories of love less than the one shared between the eldest daughter of the Metkayina chief and the eldest son of Toruk Makto. None could compare, none were as compatible as the two lovers tied by inevitability. 

Nothing had felt so right, in his arms with traces of blood on her body belonging to anyone but herself. She would kill for him, love him, spend eternity with him to see his smile and feel his heartbeat. This was love.

War was over.

this chapter actually sucks it feels so rushed, but this is the last one!!! i'll upload the epilogue later and this book will officially end!!

new note: i rewrote some parts of this chapter because i was super unhappy with what i did before and people liked this version better so i put the two together. sorry for the inconvenience :(