The Breath of Water | Neteyam

5 • Circumstances

Halfway through the night, Liyanin kept breaking out into cold sweats, continuously shifting in her sleep. She would fall in and out of trances, which gave her constant soreness all over her body. However, this was nothing unusual, since this would happen every now and then, only lasting for several minutes; these were what she called her off-days with her powers, usually after a premonition. And when these would happen, she would ask her sister to help her to get to the Cove of the Ancestors since being there causes it to stop faster. But this time, she did not want to wake her family, so she carefully slipped out of the pod and made her way to the cove. She figured that today's premonition had triggered this since it was way longer than her usual ones.

Due to her constant slip ins and outs, it was very difficult for her to see, causing her to stumble a quite a bit. She eventually ended up tripping over a branch, landing on her face. Too exhausted and hurt, she laid there for a while, turning over to her back. Staring at the stars, she realized that she never really took time to watch them; she was always so focused on what was happening down in the water. The more time she lay there, gazing at the constellations, the more of her pain she had begun to feel. Tears started to well in her eyes, due to the unfathomable pain she had felt. After many minutes of anguish, the trances stopped attacking her mind. This left her extremely fatigued, making her not even want to get up and go to the cove. But if she were to lay there on the sand, someone would see her in the morning and think something was wrong with her.

Gathering up all the strength she could, she managed to get on her feet, still wobbling from the amount of exhaustion she felt. She reached the shore and called for her Ilu to take her to the cove; fortunately, it came just in time before her legs decided to give out.

By the time she made it to the Cove of the Ancestors, she had no energy whatsoever, causing her to steadily drag herself on her animal and completely submerge herself into the sea. As soon as her skin had touched the water, she could feel her energy surging back into her, slowly. She lay floating, letting the mystical waters rejuvenate her body; laying there, she stared up at the stars she never had the time to look at, or never bothered to look at. Each star was a different size and had a different luminosity, proving the diversity of Pandora's night sky.

After a while, Liyanin had fallen back to sleep, but her body had begun to sink itself downwards into the cove; it sunk deep enough until she had reached their Spirit Tree. When her body touched one of the leaves of the tree, the bioluminescent freckles all over her body began to pulsate, matching the beat to the beads of her songcord. It is not likely she noticed this due to the fact she was asleep. And it is most likely she never notices this when it happens.

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Kiri was the second among her family to wake, Jake being the first. He woke up in order to practice riding his tsurak, wanting to master it. Kiri decided to take a stroll along the beach, looking at the different, tiny animals that crawled and wriggled along the sand. She always would wonder why she was so enraptured by the nature of Pandora, but she couldn't help the feeling—the feeling of gratitude, of wonder.

But there was still a void of emptiness that she felt in her heart. Spider was still captured by the Sky People, and she couldn't help but worry for his safety every day. What if he didn't give them what they wanted, so they saw fit to get rid of him once and for all? What if he was already dead? Or what if he decided to be on their side?

Every now and then, her mind would wander to these questions. But she did not wish to be shackled by fear and worry her whole time here, luckily, the beauty of Awa'atlu succeeded in distracting her, or rather giving her something positive to think about.

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Liyanin awoke to her being under the water, which shocked her; she did not know that she had submerged in her sleep. She swam back up, not even noticing how her freckles were still lit. However, once her head came above the water, they stopped their glow. She swam over to her Ilu, feeling much more refreshed than last night.