Aliyah

Chapter One

A soft smile covered my lips as I took in the beautiful scenery around me as I ran.

   Everything on Pandora was beautiful. I could never completely understand why the sky people wanted to destroy our peaceful planet. The animals, the plants, and our people did not deserve death.

Ewya will have her revenge soon enough, making all of those demons pay for what they have done. They have sky people who take the forms of Na'vi bodies, trying to learn the way of the people. To me, all I see are power-hungry skxawng trying to take our beautiful plant for themselves because they destroyed their own home.

The only sky person who I thought differently of was Grace Augustine. She was not like the others, she cared for us. Neytiri, Slywanin, and I attended her school until it went wrong. The school has been shut down since and Grace was not allowed to show her face around here again.

"Aliyah slow down!"

I slowed my pace to a steady walk as I turned to meet the blue face of my older sister.

"It is not my fault you are slow Neytiri", I spoke with a laugh while taking a few steps backward.

Giving her a teasing grin, I spun around and raced to our destination. I could hear her light footsteps as she chased after me through the forest. A laugh escaped my lips as she struggled to catch up to me. I've been running ever since I could remember, resulting in the fact that I was indeed faster than Neytiri.

Scanning my surroundings, I notice a good-sized tree branch low enough to the soft dirt floor to grab ahold of. She may be more experienced in hunting and tracking from the ground, but I was more experienced in the trees and the sky.

A mischievous smile dominated my mouth as I decided to give her more of a challenge. I picked up my speed and once close enough to the branch I set my eyes on, my hands gripped onto the rough bark, pulling myself upwards. Once fully on the branch, I squatted as I watched my sister run past the tree, I was in.

Realizing that I was no longer on the ground, Neytiri whipped around to where she heard my laughter coming from. Hearing Neytiri let out curses at me while beginning to run back my way, I shot up from my position on the branch and took off climbing upwards.

It has been a long while since we were this carefree, I missed it. As we left our childhood behind and took on responsibilities within the clan, we barely had time for fun. We both turned eighteen not too long ago, Neytiri being six months older than I, and with that age came even more responsibility.

Especially for Neytiri. She is the clan leader's eldest daughter and was being trained to take over tsahik once our mother stepped down.

Then there was Neytiri's betrothal that roughly took place two years ago. I completely disagreed with the betrothal due to the man being Tsu'tey. Of course, my opinions did not matter in this situation as Eytukan respected Tsu'teys abilities as a warrior and chose him to carry on one day as clan leader.

I understood that since the loss of our dear oldest sister, the tsahik position was passed down to Neytiri. Since Tsu'tey and Slywanin were promised to each other before her death, Eytukan and Mo'at decided to promise Neytiri to Tsu'tey.

In my own opinion, Tsu'tey was nothing but an arrogant skxwang himself. We never really got along when we were younger, it is worse now that we are adults. Whenever we see each other, insults are tossed back and forth, sometimes it ends up in a very intense yelling match and maybe a few physical fights here and there.

My father or sister was always there when the fights were becoming too dangerous due to both Tsu'tey and I pulling out our knives and attempting to slice one another.

There was one-time Neytiri had to pull me away from the altercation, but not before I launched my knife through the air, embedding itself in Tsu'teys left shoulder. When he let out a hiss from the pain, I gave him a smirk and allowed Neytiri to drag me off to our father.

Since that day, Tsu'tey would yank my tail when he'd walked behind me or was passing by. It wasn't gentle tugs either, it was a full-on yank like he was pulling plants out from the dirt, roots and all. Whenever he would do that a deadly hiss mix of pain and anger would leave my mouth as I would whip around trying to catch him.

So, I could kill him of course.

The rough bark against my feet brought me back to reality as I continued my journey through the trees. Reaching the edge of a branch, I turned to see if Neytiri is even close to catching up.

My heavy breaths sounded in my ears as I furrowed my brows in confusion. Neytiri was no longer behind me. Looking down towards the ground, hoping to catch sight of her, I saw no prints from her feet in the dirt.

"Neytiri?"

Walking to the tree trunk, I began my climb down. A soft thud sounded as my feet hit the ground. Swiveling my ears, straining them trying to catch any noises that would direct me to where she went, I picked up a distant yip.

Lightly shaking my head at her way of telling me which direction to go to meet up with her, I started jogging to where the noise came from. The sun was slowly beginning to set as I trudged through the forest.

Hopefully, Neytiri hasn't gotten herself into any trouble, not like she would need my help anyways. I know she is way more than capable of taking care of herself. We both are. She also brings her bow with her wherever she goes. I used to question her about it only for her to tell me:

"You never know when you may need to fight to survive."

I cannot complain because my knife is always on me as well, strapped to my thigh. Always there just in case I will ever need it. Neytiri would always tell me to carry a bow along with my knife. But she doesn't completely understand that I don't need a weapon to survive.

Because I am one.