The One ||Neteyam Sully||

10. {~A Bad Joke~}

The next day when I woke up Reya told me that Aonung, Rotxo, and Kai took Lo'ak out to teach him how to hunt which I found kinda strange but Reya reassured me that after the apologies the boys are all getting along quite well so I decided to just go about my day which the first thing I did was go find Tuk because I promised her that I would go swimming with her at the reef. We asked Reya, Kiri, and Neteyam to join us but Reya was teaching the children of the village, Kiri was talking with her father somewhere, and Neteyam was helping Tonowari.

When we got back I was Neteyam holding Aonung's hands behind his back and pushing him somewhere so I jogged up to them. "What's going on? Where are you taking him?"

"Just follow me." Neteyam spoke in anger.

And so I did. We walked for a little while until we arrived in front of Jake Sully and Kiri.

Neteyam shoved Aonung toward Toruk Makto. "Tell him what you told me!" Neteyam shouted.

"Me, Kai, and Rotxo took Lo'ak out beyond our village perimeter and beyond the reefs barrier and we told him that we are gonna go for the bigger fish so we brought him to the 'kill zone' of the ocean and told him to go catch one and as he jumped into the ocean we left him there and it was for payback at getting us in trouble and beating us up and it was a joke but he hasn't returned yet." After hearing what Aonung had said, I walked right up to him and smacked the shit out of him.

"What the fuck Aonung! Are you insane!" I shouted to Aonung before slapping him across the face again.

"You put my son in danger!? You will explain this to Tonowari!" Jake shouted in anger at Aonung.

After Aonung explained to our father what he had done, he got a good scolding and then the village was all told about the situation and all the men were set out into few search parties for the land and many for the sea.

I had begged my father the let me go but the children and teens were not aloud to leave and had to stay here with the women and few men which included my father and Neteyam's father.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I was sitting with Neteyam at a table until we heard the blow of the alert horns which caused me and Neteyam to jump from our seats and rush to the docks. As we arrived we saw Jake checking up on Lo'ak and making sure he was alright.

"He's fine. He's fine. It's just a few scratches," Jake reassured the village of his son's state.

"Lo'ak!" Neytiri ran towards her youngest son.

"Toruk Makto. My apologies. My son knows better than to take him outside of the reef," Tonowari grabbed Aonung and pushed him down into a bow position so that he was bowing to Lo'ak, "the blame is his."

"Ok let's go," Jake spoke to his family.

"No, it is not Aonung's fault," Lo'ak spoke up and earned a questioning look from everyone around. "This was my idea. Aonung tried to talk me out of it. Really."

"Come on." Jake spoke up.

"Lo'ak." His mother called for him to follow before they got in shit.

"I'm sorry." Lo'ak said to my father.

"Come on," Jake said with an annoyed tone because the boy wasn't following him and kept talking and making it worse for himself.

"Lo'ak you should go," I tried to end the awkwardness and to my surprise the boy listened.

After the Sully's left and Reya went to check up on Lo'ak, my father turned to Aonung and questioned him, "is this true?"

"Aonung, what were you thinking?" My mother Ronal didn't even let him answer dad's question.

After that everyone left but I grabbed Aonung by the shoulder. "You are lucky that Lo'ak has a heart unlike you. You could've gotten in serious shit."

"I know," Aonung looked down in shame, "It was just a joke."

"A joke does not go as far as the danger you put him through. Imagine if he didn't come back alive. What everyone would've thought about you?" I spoke in a stern but quiet voice.

"I know Val, just leave me alone."

"I will, but I must remind you Aonung. The bigger your action is, the bigger your consequence will be." I repeated the phrase that my father used to say to me.

"I know Val."

And with that I lightly tapped his shoulder twice and then yawned and headed to bed as it was already dark out.

—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—

A Dream

It was a casual night in the F'aomayina village. Pako and me had just got back from our star gaze. After Pako tucked me in and went to bed I heard the call of a young creature, it sounded like an Itsuka, and it sounded hurt.

I was only 5 at the time and a very curious young one. I sat and listened to the sound for a few seconds until I decided to climb out my window and go discover what was causing the noise.

In our village once a child is ready for battle (their fifteenth birthday) they will go out to choose their bond. Many of them already found their itsuka but our people believed that it was too risky for them to bond at such early age so the children were not aloud to connect their queues together with their Itsuka until the age of 15. But for me I never felt connected to any of the young itsukas and thought that maybe I wasn't meant for one.

As I wandered deeper into the forest, I spotted a small creature curled into a ball under a small cave ledge. It was all kinds of shades of purple, from lavender do a deep purple, but when I caught the young creatures attention I realized that her eyes, they were a bright beautiful glowing amethyst color which I fell in love with right away. I then approached the creature but it quickly coward away in fear.

"You're an Itsuka?" I asked and in reply the creature just stared, "but you look only a few days old? Where are your parents?" As if the creature understood every word, it motioned its head in sadness to what looked like frost leaves, branches and snow that were broken and smushed down as if something big ran through it. I followed the path which also contained a trail of smudges and drops of crimson red liquid. I shivered in fear and so did the young Itsuka that followed close behind me. When I moved a giant leaf out of the way I screamed in horror at the scene before my eyes. Two adolescent itsukas, 1 male and 1 female which looked identical to the young creature behind me, they were the purple creature's parents.

My scream echoed through the valley's forest and off of the mountains and was followed by a loud ear piercing screech/roar and then came a gigantic white spiky monster with blood red eyes. S'aocoon (the creature of the mountains), the most feared creature of my village, a presumed myth.

I grabbed ahold of the purple baby Itsuka behind me and ran as fast as I could and slid into the cave that I found the Itsuka in. The cave was too small for the giant to fit in and because of that we were able to stay there for about 2 hours until S'aocoon gave up and my father and some of the village people found us.

"Kiera!?" My father noticed the young Itsuka in my arms and his expression grew even more curious, "who is this?" He motioned to the young creature.

I managed to let out only one word, "Amethyst."

"Where have you been darling? Why have you ran off?" Mother asked which caused me to remember the well feared creature.

"S'aocoon.." was all I said for the next week and a half, the only person or thing I talked to was Amethyst as she was going through the same fear, plus the loss of her parents.

—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—•—

"Val? Wake up darling." I heard the voice of Tonowari as my eyes began squinting open.