— 𝐭𝐬𝐲𝐮𝐥 —

𝘃𝗶. 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴

𝐋𝐎'𝐀𝐊 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐀𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐅𝐅𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓, but 'unlucky' held the second place.

especially in that moment.

because the beast that had been scaring his whole family had chosen him as it's first victim.

he had been a little too focused on his brother's anxious face to realized that behind him a shadow was looking right at him.

well, at the whole interaction.

a small noise was heard and an arrow flied in the air, neteyam pushed spider away from the hit line but before anyone could say anything else, another noise and another arrow from a different direction.

neteyam knew you weren't stupid, on the contrary he thought that you were smarter than at least half his family, if not all of it.

and so he knew that the noises you made — purposefully — were to alert him that you were going to throw the arrow.

and he also knew that it was to keep him safe, and not his family.

and even more not some sky person.

so he knew that he was probably inches away from ruining everything that you had built in those months, and he knew that if he had had more time he would've thought at least twice about it.

but he also knew that it was his family that you were about to hurt, or worse.

and he knew that he couldn't let you do that.

and while another arrow flied trough the air, and the dark of the forest hugged the family with fear, everyone's eyes moved everywhere as they tried to see something.

until that something, stealthily jumped out of the bushes and became loak's shadow.

neteyam's looked around as the silence was torture for him, who knew what you were going to do now.

then he heard a small, almost strangled call of his name, the sully family — and spider — turned their focus on the source of the call and their eyes widened in surprise as they found themselves eyes to eyes with their worst nightmares.

a t'herkaya.

kiri felt her heart drop as she moved in front of her little sister to protect her, an act that you fully took in.

tuk didn't say a word as she held a strangely indecipherable expression on her face.

neteyam noticed in seconds the similarity with your second encounter but it was also a lot different, the way you were gripping his brother's hair was a lot harder then with him; your knife was actually pushing against the neck and neteyam knew that with only a little move everything would've collapsed.

from your relationship to the one with his family.

"shadow killer" murmured spider and lo'ak didn't want anything more than to hit him.

he straightened up a little as he heard a dark and low hiss against his head, he knew that it wasn't towards him but towards the only human but he also knew that he was the one in the arms of the most dangerous killer of pandora.

a call off your name and you quickly turned around, moving lo'ak with you.

you met a pair of familiar yellow eyes and for a second your breath slowed, neteyam called your name again, his hands up in the air towards you to try and lower the tension.

"panther this is lo'ak, lo'ak this is panther" neteyam knew with a look that you were grateful that he didn't used your real name and he nodded slowly as your mind wondered to connect the name he had just gave you to his stories.

lo'ak was his brother.

you let your hand open a little leaving the air to be free, but lo'ak knew better than to move.

you moved your fingers on your knife, that now wasn't even touching the skin anymore before you looked at the others.

neteyam knew what you were trying to say and as slow as he could he walked towards the other.

"this is kiri, and this is tuk " he mentioned to them with two tilts of his head, his hands were still up in the air to show you how he meant no arm and his sisters did the same after a small look.

neteyam knew that you were watching every single movement, that even if one of the four would've been stupid enough to try something you would've understood ten steps before, always being ahead of everyone.

you were about to let go and be okay with it, neteyam saw it in your eyes, but then he was reminded of the worst.

spider was there.

so, even slower then before, he moved towards the small — but older — human.

"this is spider" his tone was low almost as you were the only two there, he talked slowly but not in a mocking way "i didn't talk to you about it because-" he stopped for a second to move his eyes from you to the boy.

"-because i was afraid that it would've change things" he knew that he would've needed to give you a better explanation after but he was just hoping that for now it was gonna be enough.

you rolled your eyes as he silently begged you with a look to let his brother go and make things easier.

in seconds you we're pushing the younger brother towards the rest of the family, your knife still in your hand ready to attack.

tuk's eyes were wide and kirk's too, they had been silent the whole moment as the older just wanted to protect the younger and didn't want to make the whole situation worse.

they all watched as your tail moved slowly from left to right, you were squatting a little, your head tilting from one side to the other as you examined all of them.

you hissed and spider tried to hiss back, but luckily just a small breath left his mouth before lo'ak moved him some steps back to stop him from doing something stupid.

he moved his head, giving one last sign to the soccoro's boy.

neteyam shared a thankful glance with the younger brother as they moved in front of the sisters.

you looked at neteyam and he knew what you were about to do, he wanted to stop you he really did but he also knew that it would've only made things worse.

so you threw one last hard and heartbroken glance in their direction before you vanished away in the forest leaving the family alone.

and mostly, leaving neteyam while he had to face his family, and the consequences of his actions.

ꕤꕤꕤ

neteyam thought that it was going to be the end, that his family would've hated him and that he would've been pushed away from his clan and the people.

he also thought that even if that did happened he would've stayed with you, or at least he had hoped so as he didn't know what you were thinking about in that moment.

he had blocked his family from going away, telling them that they all needed to talk and getting a 'of course we do!' throw at him by kiri.

he had made all of them sit down, there in the forest, knowing that the only thing that they should've been afraid of had already chosen their destiny.

he could feel the glare that his brother was throwing at him but he ignored it as he looked at tuk.

"are you all good?" he questioned, she nodded still a little bit of fear in her big eyes.

while kiri held lots of worry in her expression, for herself but mostly for her family.

"you wanted to talk? let's talk." said lo'ak angrily, spider silent as he looked down, he felt like he shouldn't had been there.

the tension in the group grew even more as the older sully tried to find the right words to talk to the others without scaring them off.

lo'ak made a noise of complaint as his brother remained silent, kiri telling him to cool down and wait as tuk held her bigger sister's arm.

"whatever" murmured lo'ak his eyes shooting on the, weirdly, silent spider.

neteyam groaned in annoyance

"listen here" he took a deep breath to prepare himself one last time "months ago we had a little fight because you pretended to see a t'herkaya" recalled neteyam as he looked into his brother's eyes.

the others looked at lo'ak to get a confirmation and that's what he gave them as he nodded to the other's words.

"i walked away wanting to cool off and i met her" explained the omaticaya, there was a moment of silence as the others waited for something more.

when they realised that that was all that their brother was going to give them kiri rolled her eyes in annoyance, spider still silent looking at all the others reactions.

lo'ak scoffed "really? that's it?" he started to got up ready to walk away "i can't fucking believe it, she's a whole ass assassin and you were willing to let her kill us" neteyam quickly copied his actions walking in front of him to stop him from going somewhere else.

the others got up on their feet too and neteyam moved his eyes on them for a second.

"i wasn't gonna let her kill you!" talked back neteyam.

"oh please" scoffed again the younger brother his hands moving around as he mocked the other "panther this is lo'ak" he moved in his brother's face, his voice rising up.

"you didn't even tell us her real name" he said angrily "always if you know it" added with a lower tone.

"you don't understand!" neteyam's tone was pleading as he tried to make them listen to him.

"then let us understand" kiri's voice felt like a miracle to his ears, the hope that they would've accepted you still little in the back of his mind.

"when we met she was pointing her bow at me, ready to kill me" tuk's hand moved to cover her mouth as she felt scared for her brother's life "but she didn't."

he watched as lo'ak was ready to say something, opening his mouth to try and find an excuse.

he understood it, of course.

he knew that if the role were inversed he would've tried to make his brother reason too.

he knew that his brother's heart was in the right place and that's why he looked right into his eyes as he kept on going.

"we were alone, in the dark of the forest, nothing nor anyone near; she could've killed me without consequences but she didn't, she didn't." he marked the last words his gaze moving on the others.

he watched as the other's expression changed, nothing extreme just something in their look, but he knew that they were more willing to understand him, you, the both of you.

"so, what happened next?" asked tuk, and they all noticed as a small smile appeared on his face.

"a lot."

ꕤꕤꕤ
a/n:
tadaaaa!
everything's okayy, or is it?
my edits on tik tok are flopping rip :(
anyways i know nothing crazy happens in this chapter but i have an amazing idea to make the story longer and give it a more interesting path soooo, stay tuned 🤭
love you alllll thanks for everything

-sa :)