(DISCONTINUED)Emrey- Survive || Avatar: The Way of Water

001 || The Beginning

"The forests of Pandora hold many dangers. But the most dangerous thing about Pandora... is that you may grow to love her too much.

"We sing the song chord to remember. Each bead a story in our life."

Neytiri sat, legs crossed in front of her, hands dutifully weaving tiny beads on several leather chords. A smile stretched across her lips, eyes alight as she finished the last knot. She set it down next to her, hands drifting towards her belly, round with new life.

"A bead for the birth of our son."

They gathered, forming a tight circle around the raised mound on which stood their Olo'eyktan, Toruk Makto, Jake Sully and Tsahìk Mo'at. In the gentle hands of Jake was his first son, held aloft as the new father proudly called out the child's name.

"Neteyam!"

"Two more beads for our adopted daughters, Kiri'te and Niri'te. Twins. To the Na'vi, the concept of twins was unimaginable; never before had it happened. Which leads us to where our two miracles came from.

"The girls were born of Grace's Avatar. Though at first we only knew of one of the girls, we were too shocked by Grace's uninhabited Avatar being pregnant that we didn't notice the fainter heartbeat that echoed little Kiri'te's. It took us months to see that there was a second child, barely holding onto the delicate threads of a life that had yet to begin.

"The science guys did what they could till the girls were born. Immediately, little Kiri'te began to wail as she was passed to and from one lab tech to another, being cleaned, weighed, and examined. Once little Kiri'te was calmed and wrapped in a bundle of blankets resting in Neytiri's arms, were we waiting for little Niri'te.

"It had felt like hours, and the techs were getting anxious. But finally, finally, little Niri'te was born. And as expected, she was much smaller and weaker than Kiri'te. Little Niri'te was barely hanging on, her breaths shallow and her eyes firmly shut. I knew that Neytiri was on edge when she didn't hear little Niri'te start to cry like Kiri'te. She knew that something was wrong.

"It had taken weeks for her to be able to breathe on her own and even longer to open her eyes. By the time Kiri'te and Neteyam were happily babbling away, she struggled to sit upright and keep her meals down.

"But what scared us the most was her tswin, it was shorter than the other two children, and the tendrils at the end were barely responding to the stimulation given by the lab techs examining her. They said that she might never be able to fully use her tswin, even when she was fully grown, if she could ever get to that point."

The new family sat around a fire, each holding a child as they ate. Neteyam was cradled in the crook of Neytiri's arm, Kiri'te resting on Jake's shoulder, and Niri'te swaddled in a blanket in Tsu'tey's arms. Now, this wasn't a surprising sight, for Tsu'tey had all but fallen in love once his eyes landed on the small babe. Rarely was he seen without little Niri'te bundled in his arms as he went about his day; he barely even let her parents hold her. The people didn't know why the warrior had taken such a liking to the sickly child.

But Tsu'tey wasn't bothered by their stares and whispers; he was used to them, after all. During the Fall of Home Tree and the battle afterwards, Tsu'tey was injured. His leg was burned when he was evacuating people from the burning Home Tree, and later on, towards the end of the battle with the sky demons, he suffered a great loss. A soldier of the Sky People found him bleeding by the roots of a colossal tree. He wasn't able to stop the demon as it reached for his tswin, grabbing it harshly in its disgusting five-fingered hand while the other brought a small but wicked-looking knife closer. Tsu'tey had to close his eyes, for he couldn't handle looking at what was to come.