KIRI'S JOURNEY - AVATAR 3

Chapter Five

When I wake I hear multiple light snores and slow breathing. I cautiously peek out the window on my right hoping not to get motion sickness and see that it's nightfall. Glancing to my left now I catch a sight of Lo'ak hugging Spider in his sleep and let out a soft chuckle. At this Spider sleepily opens his eyes and smiles back at me. His knowing smile, the one I've grown to love but annoyed me when we were kids. He doesn't smile for long though as if remembering our situation and where we are. I feel the smile fall quickly from my face too.

"First you're crying now you're laughing?" He groggily asks as he rubs the sleep from his eyes.

"I wasn't crying." I lie.

Most people don't know that Spider is older than the rest of my siblings but Lo'ak never lets him or anyone else forget that he's taller. Spider always had his own thing with my brothers and we had our own. He was friends with them first and I actually thought he was a pest when I first met him. Now that we've grown up together he looks out for me the way Neteyam did but it's something more stronger.

I remember when I was little, I fell asleep on the outskirts of the rainforest while playing hide and seek with my brothers but they couldn't find me. Spider did though. When he woke me up I told him I didn't wanna be found and he didn't ask why. He just sat beside me quietly with nothing but the sounds of the rainforest around us. I honestly like to be alone because it gives me peace and quiet from my loud brothers but also makes me feel closer to Eywa.
Spider was always just as loud as my brothers if not louder that seeing him sitting there so comfortable with the silence between us made me feel like I was seeing him for the first time. He must have felt my stare, probably thinking I was confused as to why he didn't just leave.

"I don't wanna go home either." He shrugged.
I don't know what came over him then but suddenly he told me about his adoptive family and home life that before I knew it I opened up about my adoptive family too. He looked surprised to find out I was adopted but nodded in understanding. He said nothing more as I talked, he just sat and listened and I liked that. Even after I was done we sat in silence for what couldn't have been more than a few minutes but it seemed like hours to me. I didn't know how amazing it would feel to finally have someone who knew how I truly felt. It had felt like for the first time I wasn't alone, alone with my thoughts and feelings. Ever since then we were almost inseparable. I like to think he's friends with my brothers but he's my best friend ever since that day.

Over the years we've even come to know each other's expressions and mannerisms that we could always tell what the other wanted to say or when we were lying. Yet if he noticed now he decides not to call me out on it. He only frowns as he sits up and removes Lo'ak's arm from around him. This quiet movement pulls me out of the distant fond memory.

"Did he call you Tsireya in his sleep?" I joke.
"No.. but he told me about Rotxo."
Bewildered, I gasp dramatically. "In his sleep?!"

I know I'm trying to be funny but the only other option is being sad and I don't wanna be sad with Spider. I got what I wanted, he's here with me. I'm rewarded with a slight smirk that now grows on his lips.

"No, when he was awake." He replies.

"Oh." I reply because I can't think of anything else to say.

What does Lo'ak even know about Rotxo? Besides that he's friends with Ao'nung? He never even gave him the time of day to truly get to know him. Except I didn't either until we became friends if you would even call it that. There's a lot that I didn't know or notice before. Like how he's an amazing dancer or his relationship with Ao'nung is complicated and they must not be as close as they seem. I find myself curious to know more and filled with despair knowing he along with my family he also might be dead.