Tsaheylu

The Truth

My mother stands in the doorway in silence, looking to me as if I had just shot her. The fury seeped out of her body into the room, her eyes trained to me angrily. She steps forward and stands in front of me, unable to scare me now. I had the truth in my hands and she couldn't do anything to stop me now. Her hand launches forward and takes ahold of my wrist, dragging me forcefully out of the Pod.

Tsireya leaps to her feet and rushes to follow us, my mother dragging me through the village. She stomped angrily up towards Tonowari and Ronal's hut, ignoring my pleas to let me go. Her grip burned my wrist, hurting me from the pure force she held me with. She barges into the house, startling Tonowari and Ronal who were deep in a conversation.

She throws me forward, making me tumble and struggle to catch myself, but I stand up tall despite it and look between them all. Tsireya runs in behind us, rushing to my side to make sure I was ok. I simply nodded my head and stared my mother down, watching as she looked at Tonowari. "She knows." She seethes, her voice like venom.

Tonowari and Ronal look to me, their mouths agape with surprise. "She knows?" Tonowari says softly, almost happy about it. My mother nods her head and crosses her arms over her chest, looking to Tsireya and I rather pissed off. "Tsireya, go." Ronal orders, but the girl grabs onto my arm and shakes her head. "No, I want to know what is going on." She says defiantly.

"This doesn't concern you right now, go!" Her mother reiterates, but Tsireya shakes her head once more. "Only if Ai'ina wants me to." She states, looking at me. I smile and take her hand, facing them all as a unit. If it were just me I don't know what they would try and do. But with Tsireya with me, by my side, I felt empowered.

Everyone falls silent, sharing looks between them as they waited for someone to speak. "What the fuck is going on?!" I raise my voice, making them all finally look me in the eye. Tonowari puts a hand on Ronal's shoulder and sits her down, gesturing for us to do the same. Tsireya and I sit down, watching him closely as he gestured to a seat across the room for my mother. She stomps over to it and sits down, crossing her arms and sulking like a child.

Tonowari stays on his feet, rubbing his hands together as he searched for the words to explain this. "There is a lot that you don't know, a lot that happened in a very short space of time." He starts, pressing his lips together. "Before I met your mother Tsireya, Nouet and I were together. We were in love, and were going to bond before Eywa but then I met Ronal. Ai'ina, as you know with your Swotu Fko, things happened so quickly and our fates had been decided for us. Whatever feelings I had for your mother couldn't compare to what I felt for Ronal, and around the same time she met your father. However, she had already fallen pregnant with you. From me," He says, looking into my eyes.

"So you are my father." I say quietly, tears filling in my eyes. I felt relieved in a sense, Tonowari had always been there for me and always made an effort. I thought that was just him understanding the fact that my supposed father wasn't there. But it was much more then that. "Yes, I am your dad." He says, smiling. He looks to my mother and notices the angry look still on her face, which makes him stop smiling immediately.

"We agreed that because she wanted to be with your dad, well with Ziak, and I was connected to Ronal that we would go our seperate ways. We made a decision together that as not to confuse you as you grew up, that Ziak would raise you as his own and you wouldn't find out the truth until some point in your adulthood. When you were mature enough to understand the truth. A few months later, Tsireya, your mother and I were married and expecting you and your brother. We were all happy with the way we had decided to live our lives. Until Ziak was killed. Then everything changed once more. You no longer had a dad, Ai'ina, and your mother didn't want me to step up for you." He casts a look over his shoulder to my mother, who was now looking at her hands bemused.