The Way of the Forest

Escape

The sky darkens prematurely, even in this strange environment that she's still trying to get used to. One glance is enough for Tsireya to know that a storm is coming. This might not be her home resting by the ocean, but she knows a brewing storm when she sees one.

Even amongst the unfamiliar scents of the forest around her, she can still pick up the twinge of rainwater. The darkening in the sky in what should be late afternoon is the final bit of proof that she needed. And once more, as it has ever since they made it out of the ocean and into the forest, apprehension grips at her chest as she glances about their group, trudging alone day after day.

"It's going to rain soon," Tsireya says, more to fill the silence than anything else. She pretty sure their entire group already smelled the water in the air, long before she said anything.

Ao'nung, her older brother, glances up at the sky, either for her sake or because he'd been so lost in his thoughts that he honestly hadn't even noticed, a frown pulling at his lips before both of the siblings look to the broad-shouldered man leading the group through the forest. Not like he really knew where they were going any more than the rest of them, but they all followed without complaint. Questions, maybe, but no complaints.

"Should we try and find shelter?" Rotxo's, Ao'nung and Tsireya's childhood best friend, mom asks, clutching her youngest son's small hand in her own.

Rotxo glances over from where he was helping his grandfather walk, ears perking slightly. "But we don't know this forest. We have been attacked every night we have spent out here. If we can, we should get out of here. At least off the forest floor, right? Where is the forest Na'vi?"

"Have we considered the fact that they abandoned the forest? At least this area?" Tsuy'asha, one of the young hunters from their clan, asks. He looks around the darkening forest wearily. Only a few short years Tsireya's older brother's senior.

"You speak of the clan led by Toruk Makto," Zestira says flatly, glaring at the younger hunter. He shrinks beneath her heavy wintery blue gaze. "He led the clans against the Sky People before you were ever even born. They are out here somewhere; we just have to find them."

Tsuy'asha shrinks at her words, his ears flattening back against his skull glancing around, still gripping his spear between his hands.

"I meant no disrespect, Zestira. I was just asking. What if we are in the wrong side of the forest? What if we can't find Toruk Makto?" Tsuy'asha asks, trying to keep any form of accusation or criticism from his voice just in case the man leading them takes any sort of offense to it. Now that's the last thing he wants to do.

Zestira didn't have an answer for that. She looks down, creases forming between her eyes as she sucks in a small breath leaking into a long sigh, turning to glance over at the clan's former Olo'eykton. At this point, they were all clanless with only each other, since the destruction of their home.

She shakes the feeling of heat, like fire rolling across her skin. The raspy itch if smoke in her throat, the smell of iron, blood, and gun powder. Something she never knew the word for until these last few days of fighting for their lives trying to protect their home. Something a small part of her hopes will never be the case again. But she knows. This war with the Sky People isn't over. The time will come again when she is called to defend her home, wherever that may be.

Just like they were all called to protect their home just a few short days ago.

And failed to do so, the evil little voice in the back of her head whispers.

Tsireya watches as Zestira, one of her father's greatest warriors and hunters despite her relatively young age, older than Tsuy'asha but not as old as her parents, turns icy eyes forward, scanning the darkness with renewed ferocity. She's ready to fight the forest for their defense. Just as she has been every night since they got here. Zestira was orphaned when the sky people attacked almost two decades ago, and her own clan was destroyed. Her father found her adrift at sea, barely five years old at the time and took her in.