🔶️♤ Avatar: Fire and Ashes ♤🔶️

🔸️Chapter 3🔸️

The hot midday sun beat down on the backs of the on looking peoples, they gathered in clusters, watching, apprehension gathered in their tense shoulders. Hushed murmurs and whispers buzzed from clanmate to clanmate, vexation and anxiety beheld in their tone.

"He cannot possibly be serious"

"They will kill him!"

"Is he really going out there?"

"This is suicide! Surely olo'eyktan will not allow him to go..."

Five tsuraks wallowed in the shallow water, saddled up and ready to transport their riders on their recklessly brave journey.

Kiri shifted where she stood, pulling the shawl she'd draped over herself higher up her shoulders. Lo'ak and Spider stood at her each shoulder, looking on with downcast eyes. Tuk was not present with them- already too sick to leave the tsahìk's marui. She shivered, despite the relentless sunshine, at the words of the villagers around her. She's heard the stories before, the tales of old, detailing carnage and gore beyond what she could've ever imagined. Legends of a clan ostracized from the rest of Pandora, walking in a practice so different from their own - so horrifically violent, so pagan - that they were doomed to be cast out as pariahs.

And now, her mother and father - with the help of 3 Metkayina men - were about to set off, straight into the beating heart of the beast.

It all started a few days ago. Back in the forest, when they went to pay a visit to Neteyam... when they discovered that hideous sore on Tuk's arm.

It was not just a sore.

It goes by quite a few names. The white death, the swift killer, whatever that fancy ass name Norm gave it was. Its most commonly addressed as the Pale Fever. But the Na'vi call it Neymäspxin. No survivors. Tens of thousands dead from all clans.

Its occurrence was rare, rare enough that she was only hearing about it now, despite having trained under Mo'at in all manner of disease and herbal remedies. But that's beside the point- the pale fever may be rare, but when it made an appearance disaster was soon to follow. It travels fast, works fast- able to kill a grown Na'vi in 2 months or less. A painstaking death was most guaranteed for the unfortunate victim.

As far as the clans knew, there was no cure. As far as the clans knew, that was. As of recent, the Tayrangi reached out with a helpful bit of information.

There was, in fact, a viable cure for the Pale Fever. In the form of a small plant. The Metkayina were originally overjoyed, relieved at the prospect of an antidote for their loved ones' suffering. But when Ikeyni detailed the place in which it grew, their hopes withered.

They owned it. It grew on their islands. The plant that could potentially save tens of lives was their property- and the perchance of them sharing their lifesaving herbs was slim to none.

Before things went... awry with the segregation of the unlawful peoples, they had been in a trading partnership with the ikran people of the eastern sea. They had supplied them with abounding bundles of that precious, precious herb in exchange for the colorful and ornately patterned banshee harnesses skillfully embroidered by their weavers.

But those stores of the herb were, obviously, long gone now. The conflict had been eons of decades ago, even before Eytukan, her grandfather, was born.

This was the fate that was thrust upon her sister- little Tuk, barely eight years old.

In a desperate bid to save their youngest daughter, Jake and Neytiri planned to set off out to the islands and request a few sheaves of the plant to eradicate Neymäspxin. This would be no easy feat. From what she heard, their olo'eykte would be less than pleased to see strangers encroaching onto her land.