A New Bond

Nobody knew they still existed.
For entire cycles, the highest mountains of Pandora were thought to be dead-too high, too cold, too silent to sustain life. The Aylunari Clan had become nothing more than a whisper, an ancient legend murmured by those who believed that ice could remember too.
And Bunari was determined to keep it that way.
From the top of the hillside, she watched the snow-covered valley. The wind pulled at her braids, but she did not move. At her side, Rak'Nok stood motionless, part of the landscape, as if born from the mountain itself. Below, small fires dotted the darkness-fragile, strange, out of place.
Strangers.
They had arrived carrying the smell of ashes and the weight of stories that did not belong in the mountains. They asked for shelter. They asked for time. Things that the ice rarely granted.
Bunari clenched her fingers around the ice dagger. She did not believe in coincidences. Nothing reached those heights by chance.
A movement caught his attention. Among the shadows, a silhouette remained awake, motionless, as if sensing the gaze upon it. For a brief moment, there was a strange feeling of recognition-not of trust, nor of threat. Just... presence.
The wind picked up, making the ice creak beneath his feet. The mountain responded with a deep, ancient sound, like a warning kept for generations.
The Aylunari Clan remained hidden from the world.
But the world had just knocked on their door.
And Eywa, patient as ever, watched.