Pathfinder || OC X Neteyam

Aha'ri's feet hit the slick, hard rock. Jake, Lo'ak, Spider, and Tsireya all turned, giving her grave looks, not saying a word. Behind them, she could hear labored breathing and groans of pain.

No. Not him.

No, this was some sort of dream. It had to be.

There had been so much going on that she didn't realize that the sun had been creeping behind the planet in the distance. And now, they were plunged into darkness.

Lo'ak and Tsireya barely had time to get out of the way before Aha'ri rushed past them.

There he was. Lying on the rock, hands clutching his side with blood seeping through his fingers.

Neteyam was shot.

Aha'ri's knees gave, and she hit the ground hard enough to pierce the skin on her knees. But she didn't feel the sting of pain. She didn't feel anything other than her heart beating violently beneath her chest.

Neteyam found her eyes and smiled, as though he was rolling over to say good morning and nothing at all was wrong in the world. He struggled to form a word between his gasps of pain.

"You promised," Aha'ri said barely above a whisper. Her throat was closing up and her eyes stung with tears that began to fall down her cheeks. She wanted to be mad—at him, at the recoms, at everything. So much that it hurt. "You promised to be careful."

His smile that he put on for her didn't last long against the pain he must have been feeling. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

Flashes of Lurei dying in the sand barreled into her mind. Gone too soon. Her sister's death was going to haunt her forever. Now, her mate was lying in front of her with the same fate threatening to pull him under.

No.

No, no, no. This was all wrong. It wasn't supposed to happen this way.

Neteyam must have seen the shadows of the past in her eyes and quickly tried to assure her. "It's not that bad. It just really hurts."

She saw that he was clutching the lower right side of his abdomen, right above his hip bone. Her mind began to fly through the possibilities.

"Did it go through?" she asked Jake.

Jake blinked, as if he had been remembering something from his past, too, and nodded. "Yea-yes, it did."

She looked over her shoulder at the demon ship slowly sinking in the distance. Quaritch and the recoms had Kiri and probably Tuk too. On one hand, a cold, dark side of her told her to fly back over there and kill them all. After all, what did she have left to lose? Wasn't that the whole point of all of this fighting? To take the recoms out once and for all so everything could go back to normal? It frightened her that she could think of such a thing. On the other hand, her heart told her that she could save him, even if she had no idea how. But she could hope.

Kick the Sky People's ass.

With Eywa with her, she was probably one of the only ones who could take them on and win besides Jake. But she couldn't just leave Neteyam. He was her mate for life. Her cheeks heated at the fact that she even thought about abandoning him for her selfish desire for revenge.

Time was running out. She couldn't lose him. They hadn't been mates for long but their love had been budding for months now. Aha'ri just didn't see it. She wasn't going to let him off that easily.

She took a deep breath. "Okay," she said, letting the exhale of her breath push the shame and guilt and worry away, "I can fix this. But we need to get back to the village as soon as possible." She turned to Tsireya, "I'm going to need your help finding supplies."