Welcome To The Forest - Lo'ak x Tsireya Role Swap Oneshot

Welcome To The Forest

Pushing through the dense vegetation of the forest, Tsireya cringed at the slimy feeling the vines left on her body as they swung back and forth just barely in the breeze, running through their surroundings.

Her hair was dull and sticky, full of the grime, sweat and dirt that had inevitably gathered on her entire form during the entirety of their travels. Her right hand picked at the nails of her fingers, trying to dislodge the small pieces of dirt, gravel and occasional piece of tree sap that had been stuck there for ages.

Tsireya missed her home.

The warm water surrounding her entire self as in body and mind.

The feeling of soft waves, gently rocking her from one side to the other.

The communal dinner with all of her people in one place, enjoying their sustenance after a day of hard work in the village.

Having fun moments with her family.

Teasing her brother for his unique but fun attitude, reassuring him when he felt like he could not live up to their father or doubted his eligibility and worthiness of following their fathers footsteps of becoming Olo'eyktan.

The precious moments she has had with her family at home, the laughter, the happiness.

Tsireya really missed her home. In hindsight, that did not get her anything though.

It was all their fault.

They had destroyed everything. When the sky people returned to Pandora, her clan, the Metkayina, had ignored their arrival at first, assuming that they were not the target and therefore in no danger.

While it did sound awful to let the clans of the forest fend for themselves, they would not just volunteer to get slaughtered, only to lose more life than gain in the end. It was not allowed even. The way of water was quite clear in that area.

The deaths of any being, no matter how noble the cause, was never worth the gain in any situation. Fighting would only result in death and misery, which is why they had stayed in their homes, continued life as normal and expected everything to be fine. Nothing was fine.

The sky people returned with a new resource of interest and this resource just happened to be only available in their immediate vicinity, just barely out of their borders. The fear and shock they've felt when finding out about the sky people's mass murder.

For what?

To drill a hole into their soul brothers and sisters head and drain a substance they desired, as it stopped their process of ageing. They just selfishly thought that they were entitled to the lives of on entire species to save a single life of one of their own, since they had to keep ingesting the substance for it to work continuously at the same level it did for them.

This horrid crime continued until there were no Tulkan left alive. The once so lively and comforting ocean, home to so many, dead and empty of any positive feeling.

Their mourning was long, their uncertainty of the future and the fear for each other high and ever so present. The feeling of dread had reeled in all of their stomachs for weeks. The mourning would have gone on for quite a lot more time, if they hadn't come.

The sky people had soon gotten bored with not hunting anything. Just a few weeks after eradicating every single Tulkan, they finally had crossed the borders of their tribe and invaded their reef. They picked up every single live entity on their way, so they could hack them up and turn them into energy.

Soon, they had arrived at the far side of their island on the shore and immediately got up to hastily destroy their home. Some of her people had finally seen reason and had their weapons with them at all times in case they ran into the sky people at any point during the day while taking care of the shores which had to be done in the forested part of their island, like foraging for herbs, spices and medicinal flora which Eywa had blessed with healing properties.