Work Text:
As Tsahik, Mo’at kept herself quite busy. Much too busy for silly things, like missing her daughter. Or her grandchildren. Or even her son-in-Eywa. Especially as she knew they would not be gone long, they would return before even the change of the season. It would be foolish to miss them.
Though, it would probably be a good idea for Mo’at to touch base with Ronal. She knew the woman’s mother well, before she joined Eywa, and she had attended the ceremony in which Ronal accepted her new position, but it had been a long time since then.
Mo’at shook her head, trying to focus on the work at hand – a new tincture using yannowbark. The few times she had tried it so far, her patients agreed that it definitely stung less than her previous ointments. How Kiri had figured that out, though, was beyond Mo’at, though she had long stopped questioning her miracle child. Except when she looked down, she realized she had overworked the mix, creating a much tackier substance that would likely irritate wounds.
Where was her mind these days? Mo’at began to put her herbs away. It wasn’t late enough in the day for Spider to even think about coming out of the machine that connected him to his body, but the scientists had been trying to pull him out earlier to encourage him to get more rest. Maybe she could-
“Tsahik?”
She looked up to see Norm approaching. “Good afternoon, Norm.”
“Good afternoon,” Norm bowed his head respectfully, before coming closer and sitting before her with his legs crossed. “So- something happened.”
If this was Norm’s way of telling her something horrific about her family in the same way he tried to tell her about Kiri’s brain illness-
“Nothing horrible!” Norm quickly assured, before holding his hand out to her. “Some of the little kids were playing about, knocked over a couple of tents.”
Mo’at nodded, she had heard about the chaos, accepting a woven, beaded object from Norm. It took her a moment to recognize it as a songcord, though not one she had ever seen before. Considering that all songcords of the Omaticaya were blessed by her, it was quite alarming.
“We were getting everything set back up. Neytiri and Jake’s tent got knocked over as well, but there wasn’t too much in there luckily, but- Well, we found this. No one recognized it,” Norm said.
Strange. Very strange.
“I do not recognize it either.” She started at the end of the cord. It had not yet been knotted, so whoever it belonged to should still be alive, but had recently gone through a very difficult struggle. The tightness of the weave suggested loneliness and the specific pattern of anger. Then, Mo’at noted the length. “This person should be quite young. I like to believe I would recognize every songcord I bless, but I definitely would remember one this young.”
“Is it not Omaticaya?” Norm asked.
“I would think so, except for everything about it,” Mo’at said. “These beads are Omaticaya. This style of weaving is Omaticaya. The materials come from our forest.”
Mo’at could practically hear her own mother in her head. You are rushing yourself, she would say, start at the beginning.
Somehow, the beginning confused Mo’at more. Four beads representing four siblings, but no parents, not even a bead to represent adoption later down. The first three siblings were close in age to the owner of the songcord, represented by the closeness of their beads to the single bead at the start of the cord. The fourth was farther down, showing a larger age gap. Throughout the beginning, there was tight weaving, loneliness again, then happy moments that Mo’at recognized as likely events like receiving their first bow or catching their first fish. All leading to the stretch of loneliness and anger at the end before an abrupt halt of weaving, not even a temporary knot to protect it.
Ignoring the lack of parental beads, Mo’at tried to think of a sibling group of five. It would be a unique one, to have such a close group of four children, then a fifth multiple years-
“Where did you find this, again?” Mo’at asked.
“Over by the tents near Neytiri and Jake’s,” Norm gestured.
“Was this one among the belongings from their tent?” Mo’at pressed.
Norm thought for a moment, before nodding. “I suppose you could say it was.”
Mo’at ran her fingers along the cord. She had wanted to present Spider with a songcord during his first communion with Eywa, but she and Neytiri quickly realized they would need Spider’s input in order to create one. The following week before they left for the Metkayina left no time for such an endeavor and Mo’at figured they would have time when they returned. There was something very Spider about the fact the boy had already been keeping one, for who knew how long.
“I believe that is Spider’s,” Mo’at said.
“But Spider doesn’t- Oh. Oh,” Norm’s voice broke slightly as his eyes fixed on the cord. “Um. Okay, I’ll give it to him tonight, then.”
“No, I will give it to him tonight.” Mo’at decided.
Norm blinked before nodding slowly. “Uh- Okay. Yeah. Sure. Um, it might be pretty late.”
“That is fine.”
Norm’s eyes went wide. “Of course it’s fine! Why wouldn’t it be fine, I was just- No, of course, I just-”
Best to let the awkward man out of his misery. “Do you not have better things to be doing?”
“Yep, have a good day, Tsahik.” And with that Norm scurried away.
Mo’at sighed deeply. Under her breath, “Grace, you were a dear friend, but you made very interesting decisions with the company you kept.”
The wind that blew through the cave almost sounded like laughter.
“I’m sorry!” The apology was already tripping out of Spider before he popped the lid of the link. “I am so sorry, I know I’m late!”
“Uh-huh,” was the unimpressed sound that came from Norm as he pressed a bowl of food into Spider’s hands. “Eat. What kept you this time?”
“Went hunting outside the reef,” Spider said through a mouth of food. “Eclipse is the best time to get- I don’t know what they’re called, actually. But they rise to the top of the water at night and they have these stingy tentacle things.”
“Like jellyfish?” Norm asked.
“What the fuck’s a jellyfish?”
“Never mind,” Norm rubbed at his face. “Your grandmother’s waiting for you- finish your food.”
Spider guilty picked up the bowl he had sat down at the words. “She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Norm pushed a canula and filter pack at Spider. “Which is why I grabbed this, if you feel like you need to go right this second, but I told her you would likely be late and she said that it was fine.”
“How’d you know I’d be late?” Spider asked as he slipped the cannula tube behind his ears and the prongs into his nose.
“Because you’re late seventy percent of the time- which is better than ninety-nine and I do accept that its difficult to keep track when you’re over there, but trust me when I say you are getting a watch the very next time I see you.” Spider liked how Norm meant seeing him in his avatar body when he talked about seeing Spider next. Like his human body was the wrong one.
“I really do appreciate everything you do for me,” Spider said earnestly.
“Yeah, I know,” Norm smiled, ruffling Spider’s hair. “Now, get on.”
Spider couldn’t imagine what Grandmother would want with him, even as he wracked his brain on the way to her tent. They talked sometimes, in the early morning, if Grandmother wanted to pass on a message to Mom or Dad, even Kiri once to let her know that the yannowbark was working. But she hadn’t summoned him in the time they had been away.
“Good evening, Grandmother,” Spider greeted, bowing his head in respect.
“Good evening, my child.” She gestured to the spot next to her at the fire. “Sit with me.”
Spider obeyed, crossing his legs and leaning into the fire. It was a bit strange, wearing a cannula again while trying to eat, being mismatched again with his surroundings. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken his human form outside the shack…
It was probably the day he received his avatar, now that he thought about it.
“Did you have a nice day?” Grandmother asked as Spider ate.
Spider nodded, careful to swallow before answering. “I went hunting outside the reef with Aonung, Tonowari’s son.”
“And did he abandon you like he did your brother?”
Spider chuckled at that, Lo’ak having asked the same thing when he realized what Aonung and Spider had been doing after dinner while he hung out with Tsireya. “No. But Payakan was basically stalking us the whole time, so I don’t know how much that had to do with it.”
“Ah, yes, the tulkun.”
Finishing his meal, Spider put the bowl down next to him. “Grandmother, is there a reason in particular that you summoned me?”
Grandmother considered him for a moment, before holding her hand out to him. Spider hadn’t noticed she’d been holding something and he recognized it immediately when he took it. “Oh.”
“Norm found it,” Grandmother explained. “A few of the little ones knocked over a few tents, including your family’s. This was among the belongings.”
“Yeah…” Spider felt his face heat uncomfortably as he fumbled with the cord. “I guess it must have been in the bag one of the scientists brought up from base camp. I thought I got rid of it. I stopped keeping it years ago.”
At that, Grandmother seemed surprised. “You did?”
Spider swallowed thickly, nodding. “When the Sky People returned.”
Grandmother nodded slowly. “I wanted to give you one at your first communion with Eywa. Your mother and I tried to make one, but realized that it was a bit difficult for us to account for what should be in your song at this point. We were going to make one with you when you returned from the Metkayina.”
“I would like that very much,” Spider said. “This- it’s not real, anyways.”
“Hm.” And fuck, Spider did not know what that meant. “I think this is a conversation we need to have with your parents.”
“No, we don’t.” They did not need to know this existed. This artifact of Spider’s patheticness.
“We don’t?” Mo’at asked the fake question, giving Spider her patented I-am-Tsahik-don’t-fuck-with-me look. Probably not how she would translate it, but how Spider and Lo’ak had for years.
“Sorry,” Spider hesitantly handed the cord back to her, watching as she held it gently, almost caressing the beads.
He had trouble falling asleep that night after Mo’at dismissed him. Tossing and turning in his cot, for once dreading coming home in the next few weeks. Dreading the conversation.
He regretted that dread the next day as he watched the ikran land not long before eclipse.
“Grandmother?!” Kiri exclaimed in shock as she came out of the water just moments after Spider.
“Grandmother!” Tuk screamed, running up the beach to the rocky formation where Mom and Dad were already greeting her.
This woman hated him, that was all Spider could think as he watched his siblings excitedly greet their grandmother.
“Aren’t you going to join them?” Aonung asked as Spider hung back.
Spider shook his head, “I saw her last night.”
“What do you mean you saw her- Oh, yeah,” Aonung scrunched his nose. “That’s so fucking weird.”
Apparently, Aonung was not the only one to forget about this fact, as Dad waved him over, calling, “Spider! Come greet your grandmother.”
But Spider walked forward anyways. “Hello, Grandmother. It’s nice to see you again.”
“I keep forgetting you are even taller than Lo’ak,” Grandmother said as she gave him a once over. “You are taking much better care of this body than your other one.”
Oh, for the love of Eywa. Not her, too.
After welcomes were made, the adults – Mom, Dad, Grandmother, Tonowari and Ronal – made their way to Tonowari and Ronal’s pod.
“All right, that’s weird, right?” Lo’ak asked once they were out of hearing range.
But Spider wasn’t in the mood to gossip about why Grandmother suddenly appeared, instead starting to make his way back to their pod. Not getting far until he was attacked.
“Tuk,” he groaned, catching her legs and hoisting her up higher on his back as she shrieked in giggles. “Warning, please.”
“You don’t need a warning,” Tuk said serenely, resting her cheek on Spider’s shoulder blade while her arms wrapped loosely around his neck.
Spider rolled his eyes, turning to look at Lo’ak. “Why does she never do this to you?”
“Because she knows I’d kill her,” Lo’ak said. Then, “Ow!”
“Be nice to your sister,” Tsireya scolded, having smacked Lo’ak on the bicep.
Tuk jeered. “Yeah, Lo’ak! Be nice to me!”
Aonung was laughing, having made his way next to Spider as they headed to the pod, having been all but banished from his own. It wasn’t at Lo’ak, though. “You are such a push over.”
Ignoring Tuk’s cry of “Hey!”, Spider just shook his head. “You don’t have long until Roak gets old enough to demand rides. Then I’ll get the joy of watching you act as a toddler’s pack ikran.”
“Simple fix, I just will not carry him, easy,” Aonung said.
“Mhm, sure.” As tough as Aonung liked to play, Spider saw him around Roak. Between him and his father, Ronal complained that Roak would never learn to walk on his own, let alone swim in time for the next tulkun visit.
“Go faster,” Tuk complained dramatically, queuing more laughter from the others and an eye roll from Spider, though he did pick up the pace just slightly.
Even amongst the camaraderie of the other kids as they piled into the pod, chatting about this and that, Spider couldn’t shake the queasy feeling in his stomach. Maybe Grandmother came for something else, but Spider knew it was wishful thinking. Even if the songcord was not the catalyst for her visit, she wouldn’t waste the opportunity.
Spider couldn’t decide if he wanted it brought up sooner or later. He wasn’t given much time to think on it.
When they came back to the pod, Grandmother quickly roped Lo’ak into helping her prepare dinner. She was the only one who could get Lo’ak to do so without any words of complaint whatsoever. Foolishly, Spider thought himself in the clear.
Until Mom crouched next to him, with a hand on his shoulder, whispering, “Spider, can you come with your father and me, please?”
He really, really did not want to, but he did, following them down to the beach, then a little bit aways from the village where few people were. On the way, he saw his sorry excuse for a songcord in Mom’s hand.
Maybe they would let him throw it into the ocean. Be rid of it, permanently.
When they got a quiet spot, they all sat down, Mom on one side and Dad on the other.
“So, you probably know what we’re here about, right?” Dad asked after a moment of silence.
Spider shrugged, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, resting his chin on his kneecaps as he stared out at the ocean. Nearly ten feet tall and he felt miniscule. He let his braids fall on either side of his face, blocking his peripheral vision of Mom and Dad.
“Spider,” Mom sighed, tucking the braids on her side behind his ear. “Why are you so upset that Norm found your songcord?”
“It’s not my songcord. It’s nothing.” Spider pulled away just slightly from her touch in his agitation. He ignored the flash of hurt that crossed her face.
“I mean, it looks like a songcord to me,” Dad said. If Spider wasn’t so fixed on keeping his eyes on the horizon line, he would have glared at Dad for that one.
“Why is it not a songcord?” Mom pressed gently.
Spider really did not want to be having this conversation at all. “Because it isn’t. I made it, by myself, with beads that I basically stole when the elders weren’t watching, and it wasn’t even blessed by Grandmother. And I started it when I was, like, eight, anyways, and stopped nearly three years ago. Hardly a record of my life.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Mom said. She looked down at the songcord in her hands, going through it. “You obviously started at the beginning and recorded what you remembered. That is typical, especially in times if a songcord is lost or damaged-”
“Well, mine wasn’t lost or damaged, because I never had one and I shouldn’t have had one, because I wasn’t one of the people, so why are we even talking about this?” Spider demanded, turning to Mom. “Grandmother already said you and her wanted to make one with me. I want to do that, too. Why do we have to talk about this thing?”
Mom stared, hard, at Spider, like he was some complex problem she didn’t understand. “Because this is even better than something we can make you, even if you’ve not tended to it in the past couple of years. If there are things you would like to correct, we can undo parts of it, we can replace the starter bead if you would like to follow the tradition of a parent picking that one, but I don’t understand the hatred you have for this one.”
“Oh, my Eywa,” Spider laughed, a stressed thready sound as he felt like he was about to vibrate out of his skin. “You of all people should understand!”
Which just seemed to confuse her more, “Why would I understand this?!”
Before Spider could react, though, Dad whispered, “Oh, fuck.”
Spider turned to him, seeing a pained look on his face and knew the words were involuntary. “Dad?”
“You stopped when the Sky People returned, didn’t you?” Dad asked. It wasn’t really a question, but Spider nodded anyways. “But not when they returned.”
Spider wasn’t sure what he meant by that as Dad reached past him, gently taking the cord from Mom’s hands.
Dad focused on the frayed ends. “Loneliness and anger. This was when they returned and you had to stay with the humans for a few weeks.”
Yeah. That had sucked.
…
Oh.
Oh, shit. Spider didn’t think Dad would actually remember this. He didn’t think Mom would remember this, just one of many times- He just thought Mom would understand because she hated Sky People. His plan to try and convince Dad to let him go through with a permanent transfer started with getting Mom on his side for a reason, her being the only person more excited than him to get rid of his human body.
Fuck, no, he really, really didn’t want to talk about this. Things were going so well, this would only be an awful, painful reminder of shit they moved past already.
But there was no stopping it now. “You stopped after you got into that argument with Mom, huh?”
Argument was a generous term for what happened. He should have listened, when Norm told him not to go to the new base up in the mountains. With tensions still so high, Spider was old enough to know better. But he hadn’t seen the other kids in weeks, he missed them.
Tuk was still so little at that time. Not that she was much bigger now, but she was more aware now. Back then, she was still learning.
She hadn’t learned not to call Spider brother in the vicinity of adults, yet. And Mom, who had made it clear in the early days she did not want Tuk around Spider, did not react…well.
But Spider didn’t want to think about that. He just shrugged in answer to Dad’s question.
It wasn’t a big deal. So Mom yelled for a bit. For a while. She’d done that plenty before. It didn’t matter.
Even if it did hit a bit harder after watching the Sky People burn what seemed like half the forest in seconds. Even if Spider was keenly feeling the eyes of everyone on his small frame. It didn’t matter.
It did take another few weeks for Spider to go back, though, all but dragged by Neteyam.
But suddenly Mom was no longer at Spider’s side, standing and walking away, further down the beach and away from the pods.
Alarmed, Spider went to go after her, to apologize.
Dad put a hand on his shoulder, keeping him sitting, “Let her go.”
“I need to apologize,” Spider said, but Dad shook his head.
“No, you don’t. Sit back down.” Spider sat fully, looking at his Dad. “She’s not upset with you. She’s upset with herself.”
“Why would she be upset with herself?” Spider asked, confused.
“Well, you did win her an argument,” Dad sighed, even in his attempt to bring levity to the conversation. “But it wasn’t one she wanted to win.”
Why were parents so confusing? “What are you talking about?”
“From the moment we realized that the humans might have figured out a way to make avatars quickly, your mom said you wouldn’t last long going between your forms,” Dad said. “Not with the option of a permanent transfer.”
Yeah, obviously.
“I said you would.” At Spider’s look, Dad laughed. “Yes, I am now realizing that I was very wrong. But I’ve told you why we don’t want to try yet.”
Spider fought the urge to roll his eyes. “You were twenty-two-”
“Not the point,” Dad interrupted. “You are our son. It was easy for me to make the risk when it was myself and your mom and I were so young, we didn’t even think about risk like that back then. I’m not putting your life in danger like that. Not for something that barely matters. Because we love you, regardless of what form you come in.”
“One of those forms is, quite literally, the form of our enemy,” Spider said. “And is tiny and weak and liable to get captured.”
“That. That right there is what your mom was right about – she said you had less love for your human body than even I did, which I thought was impossible. Except I never hated my body, I just felt ridiculously trapped.” Spider had only seen Dad cry once, alone on the beach after Neteyam’s funeral. He wasn’t crying now, but his eyes glistened in a way that made a clump form in Spider’s throat. “You don’t just want to be Na’vi, you actively hate being human.”
Except Spider didn’t understand why this was surprising or sad. He just felt frustrated, “Of course I do!”
“And your mom contributed to that.”
“No, she didn’t,” Spider said.
“Spider-”
“No, she didn’t,” Spider insisted, narrowing his eyes at Dad and suppressing the instinctual urge to hiss in defense of his mother.
“You stopped weaving your songcord after that argument,” Dad said. “You stopped going hunting with the other young hunters. You pulled away from your other friendships, except with your siblings, who, if I remember correctly, had to fight tooth and nail to keep you around at first. You almost gave up after that.”
“It wasn’t because of her,” Spider pushed. “It was the Sky People coming back. Life was hard after that, different. You remember. She just said what everyone was thinking anyway, no one wanted me around-”
“I wanted you around,” Dad interrupted again.
“You were busy-”
“I wanted you around. Your siblings wanted you around. Your friends wanted you around. Even if she wouldn’t admit it back then, Mom wanted you around. She asked about you and was glad to see you hanging out with your siblings again. You were wanted and I am so sorry we ever made you feel different.”
Dad was crying.
Fuck. Dad was crying.
“I’m sorry,” Spider said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“Oh, my God, why are you apologizing?” Dad laughed thickly, wiping away the tears as he wrapped his other arm around Spider to pull him into a tight hug. “You are so loved and that has to do with you, not this body.”
Spider relaxed into the hug. Hugs were one thing that were fantastic, regardless of if he was human or Na’vi. “I love you, too.”
After a few moments, Spider pulled away. Dad was composed once again, looking down at the beach to where Mom was standing, looking out at the water.
“Can I go talk to her now?” Spider asked.
Dad considered Mom, before nodding. “Go on. I’m gonna head inside, come back when you’re ready.”
Mom had her arms wrapped around herself loosely as Spider approached, though she unwrapped one to wipe quickly at her face as Spider approached. “Hi, love.”
“Hi, Mom,” Spider’s voice was quiet as he approached. “Are you okay?”
Mom huffed a short laugh. “I am fine.”
A moment of silence. “Dad says I shouldn’t be apologizing-”
“You shouldn’t be,” Mom agreed. “You have done nothing. I should be apologizing to you.”
“Please don’t,” Spider said. He looked down at his feet as he dug his toes into the sand. “I think- If there was anything that needed apologizing or- or something like that, you’ve more than made up for it, right? We’re a family now. Everything’s great now. Barring certain aliens trying to take over the world, but, you know, you can’t have everything you want.”
Mom laughed a little at that as well, but, to Spider’s disappointment, she still looked sad. “I suppose I should be glad, that you do not hate me, but it makes me sad that you do not know how you should have been treated.”
“Can’t you just accept that I don’t blame you, though?” Spider asked, already knowing the answer.
“Even if you do not blame me, I am angry with myself that I taught you the hatred that you have for yourself,” Mom said.
“I don’t hate myself,” Spider protested. At Mom’s suspicious glance, “I don’t! I don’t really like my human body, but I like me like this just fine!”
“I suppose you are in a unique position of being able to fully separate the two.” There was a pause before Mom continued, “You do know that I support the idea of postponing a permanent transition, right?”
Spider blinked. “Well. Now I do.”
“I will admit, it’s for slightly more selfish reasons than your father’s or the scientists,” Mom said. At Spider’s questioning look, “I didn’t realize how difficult it would be for me to bury your father’s human body, even with him standing beside me. I barely had any time with him in that form, but it was still difficult. I struggle to imagine putting your body amongst the roots, especially so soon after- well…” She cut herself off as it became too difficult to speak.
But Spider filled in the blanks. It would be so soon after Neteyam.
Immediately, Spider was hugging her. “I didn’t think of it like that.”
“It is different,” Mom said, holding him back, a hand pressing against the back of his head, holding him close. “It is very different. But I will admit that while I know how excited you will be and how I happy I am that we can give this to you, I will be sad as well. And I do worry about what it means, with you so young. I don’t pretend to understand the complexities Max speaks about or whatever secret affect the machine may have had, but I know it makes it perhaps even riskier than when we tried with your father.”
“So you don’t want me making this choice just because I prefer my avatar body,” Spider concluded.
Mom nodded. “I want you to make this choice when you’re ready. And I will trust you whenever you tell me that is, but I want you to really think about it, okay?”
“I will. I promise.”
“Now,” Mom took a deep breath as she pulled away. “About the songcord…”
“I think I would like it if you used the materials,” Spider said. “But maybe you or Dad could pick a new first bead? And ones for yourselves?”
“That sounds perfect,” Mom smiled, cupping Spider’s cheek. He leaned into the warm hand.
They made the new songcord that night, Mo’at assuring Spider that she received permission from Norm for him to be late. It was a family affair, gathered around the fire, with each member contributing memories to weave into the new cord.
“This isn’t fair,” Tuk whined. “You all have so many more memories than me.”
“We’re older, Tuk,” Kiri laughed, ruffling the young girl’s hair.
“Put this one for the Metkayina,” Lo’ak said, picking out a little pink shell. “Wait- is that my bead? Why is it purple?!”
“Because you’re starting bead is purple, skxawng,” Spider grumbled, pushing him away. “And it was your favorite color when you were little.”
“Aw, you do care,” Lo’ak teased.
It was a good night.