Not So Perfect [Avatar The Way Of Water]

21

for the dancing scene of Miyara and Aonung I'd listen to that one RIO song, Beautiful Creatures by Barbatuques, Andy Garcia, Rita Moreno. Because honestly for some reason (perhaps because of all the TikToks) RIO music just works so well with Avatar and when I wrote this I just couldn't get that song out of my head. Or just listen to RIO music because it works very well.
By the way this is going to be a very looong chapter so make sure you've got snacks while reading 😂
Enjoy!

Miyara's pov:

"Happy birthday, my daughter ," my mother said as she was braiding flowers into my hair and finishing it with a flower headpiece. I had nobody besides my mother to do my hair like that, but she only did it for me when I did something to make her proud.
My birthday hardly felt like my birthday, I woke up with this pit in my stomach because for the first time in my life I truely realised that this life was forced upon me, I wasn't just doing a duty to my people, I was being sold off like a fish, perhaps it was just the breakup with Aonung that got my head messed up because I felt awful. This morning I had gone to my parents house, which used to be my home and for an odd reason I expected to feel at ease being back here but as soon as I walked in I felt like I was a stranger. I hadn't talked to my father since Avaroa's death, which was only a few weeks ago. Despite living with my brother I still forgot that she passed away sometimes, especially if I had a fun and distracting day with my friends I would find myself wanting to greet her when I'd come home only to realise she wasn't with us anymore. To not have her on my birthday saddened me.

"Ava?" I asked her as she breastfed baby Zuaia, "I never asked you how you and Mo'iki decided to mate before the proper mating age."
"Oh," Avaroa chuckled as she looked at me, "I met your brother after my own parents passed away, I was on the beach at midnight when your brother had decided to run away from home for the night. It was the night he found out your father had betrothed him to Hioowi, one of Leykuzi's sisters, he wasn't so happy with that and so he met me that night. I've had boyfriends before, one of Teungyi's older brother's one of them, but not once had I felt what I felt for your brother. We were together for almost two years before we mated, being fifteen when we met, it didn't take us long to fall in love with each other. Your father had set a date for when your brother had to mate with that girl. On his eighteenth birthday, so to prevent it from happening we mated before that could happen. We knew that the clan would frown upon our desicion, especially the elders.. but they're old so why should I care about what they think? They'll be dead soon anyway. Obviously we didn't know how much the elder's opinions would matter to Tonowari and Ronal and the rest of the clan, so those old cunts turned the clan against us and so now we're outcast, well, they just ignore that we exist."
"Do you regret it? Now that you're outcasted?" I questioned, it sounded awfully lonely to not be accepted by your own clan.
"No, because I would've lost your brother to someone he doesn't love if we didn't do it," Avaroa said as she looked down at Zuaia, "and I wouldn't have had my beautiful babygirl."
I frowned as I thought about what Avaroa had said.
"But.. I am also betrothed," I said, "what if I were to do the same?"
"Do you not want to be betrothed to Aonung?" Avaroa asked me, quirking a brow.
"He's mean," I said as I folded my arms, "he keeps bullying Teungyi for being too tall and skinny.. and he keeps calling me bad names that I don't know the meaning to."
"What does he call you then?" She asked me.
"He called me 'darling' yesterday," I said annoyed, "and all of his friends chuckled, even Rotxo! And Rotxo is always on my side!"
"Miya, 'darling' is not a bad word," Avaroa chuckled, "it's a nickname that people use for people they love as more than just friends."
"Ew," I groaned, "I'm twelve, I don't want to be thinking about that."
"You have already been betrothed to him since you were six," Avaroa giggled.
"Yeah, apparantly having the balls to call the chief's son a skxawng makes him fall in love with you," I said rolling my eyes as Avaroa bursted out into laughter.
"You might fool the others, Miya. But you are just a mini-version of your brother," she laughed, "nobody else would've taught you that."
"With you I can say it," I sighed, "with everyone else I have to be the perfect child."
"What do you want to be?" Avaroa asked me.
"I want to be free," I said, "I want to feel true freedom."
"So, then you just go and search for whatever or whoever makes you feel free," she simply said.
"I can't, I have to mate with the chief's son and lead the clan with him and his sister one day," I groaned.
"That's not what freedom is," Avaroa said, "when you're older you'll understand and when the time's right, you'll just know."