Thanatophobia | Ao'nung

⋆˚✿˖°ℂ𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝟙𝟡⋆˚✿˖°

"Huh? What?" Ao'nung lazily opened his eyes only to widen them when he met Ni'la's frantic ones. "What the hell are you doing here?" He questioned, and Ni'la scoffed at his question.

"We fell asleep last night! I told you to not let me fall asleep!" She scolded.

"How am I supposed to do that if I fell asleep too?!" Ao'nung retorted.

But before Ni'la could say anything in response, the one voice she was dreading to hear made its way into her ears. Ni'la!" Jake yelled.

"Shit," She whispered as she turned to look at Ao'nung. "You need to get out of here," Ni'la pulled the boy to his feet and pushed him in the opposite direction of where she heard her father's voice. "What are you-"

"Ao'nung!" The Chief shouted.

"Fuck," Ao'nung said under his breath.

The two teens looked at each other before Ao'nung decided to make a break for it, but just as he started to disappear from Ni'la's line of sight, Jake and Tonowari approached her from behind and tapped her on the shoulder. "Where have you been?" Jake seethed, and the girl nervously laughed as she turned to face her father.

"I've been right here," She explained, causing Jake to raise an eyebrow. "I fell asleep," The girl elaborated.

"Alone?"

"What?" Ni'la breathed out.

"Did you fall asleep here alone?" Jake repeated.

"Who else would have been here with me?" She questioned.

"Well, considering the fact that you asked your mother and me if you could talk to Ao'nung, I wouldn't say it's too far-fetched to assume he was here with you. Especially since he didn't come home last night either," Jake crossed his arms over his chest.

Ni'la looked between the two fathers and did her best to put her most confused face on. "Ao'nung left after I talked to him," The girl said, but Jake didn't seem to believe her. "I'm telling the truth," Ni'la insisted, but once she realized that she wasn't fooling them, she sighed.

"Fine, we both fell asleep here last night," She grumbled.

"You what?!" Jake yelled as his eyes widened at the thought that his baby girl spent the night alone with a boy. Not just anybody either, she had spent the night with Ao'nung, someone she had claimed to hate. Ni'la winced at the loudness of his voice before she glanced over at the Olo'eyktan who seemed to have a calm expression on his face.

He didn't seem mad like Ni'la thought he was going to be, but he didn't seem happy either. "Where did Ao'nung go?" The Chief questioned, and Ni'la pointed toward the direction where Ao'nung left too. Tonowari nodded at the girl, then at Jake before he left to go reprimand his son for sleeping beside a girl he wasn't mated to.

It's not that Tonowari didn't like Ni'la. In fact, he would be happy if that's who Ao'nung wanted to be with, but it was still inappropriate for them to be together unless a relationship had been established between the two. And the last time he heard, those two hated each other. Or at least held a very strong dislike toward each other.

The man pushed those thoughts aside and continued his hunt for his son.

Meanwhile, Ni'la was looking down at her feet as she could feel the harsh stare of her father practically burning her skin. Jake hadn't said anything yet, but Ni'la knew that when he was ready, she would be in for a long, long talk. She just hoped it wasn't going to be the talk, or she would probably have nightmares for weeks.

A shiver of disgust ran down her spine at the thought, and she scrunched up her nose before she directed her attention to her father.

As Ni'la looked up at Jake, she plastered a huge smile on her face, "So, are we gonna go home?"