Chapter Text
Humans put their dead in boxes. Sometimes, So'lek has learned, that is also where they put the living.
The Sarentu rise unsteadily and Alma flits between them, straightening their clothes, their hair, exclaiming over their survival. When she is satisfied with Ri'nela's condition, she moves to the final box and taps at the controls. "This is Tamtey," she says, as the segments of the lid slide back. Alma takes her hands and helps her up as she screws her eyes shut against the light. "You made it," she proclaims breathlessly, for perhaps the tenth time.
"What—" Tamtey croaks, and then coughs. "Ms. Alma?"
"You were asleep for a long while." Alma fusses with her hair, smoothing a few wisps.
"Oel ngati kameie," So'lek says, to be polite. Tamtey blinks at him, uncomprehending as the other three. Her eyes are a startling color. The others have light green eyes much like his own, but hers are darker, a hot yellow.
She looks back to Alma. "What's going on?"
"You need to take it easy, your body is still waking up." Alma's coddling tone makes So'lek want to pin his ears. He does not. It is a narrow thing. "We're going to go somewhere, and I'll explain everything when we get there, alright?"
"The Sky People have returned," he tells her plainly, ignoring the look Alma sends him. There is no use in hiding it. "We thought you were lost to this world, but this dreamwalker thought to lock you up in a box instead." With growing irritation, he gestures at how Alma continues to bother Tamtey. "Must you prod at her like this? If she can walk, she can walk."
Tamtey frowns and slides her hands from Alma's grasp. She presses her palms to her eyes as though her head pains her, and Teylan cheerfully calls, "If you're hungry, we found some old snacks in the canteen! I bet there's more!"
"Thanks, T," she murmurs, and slips off down a hallway.
"Let's hurry things up, RDA are en route," Billy Nash says, abrasive but correct.
"I will check the perimeter." So'lek doubles back along the route they had taken coming in, thinking deeply. He is unsure of these Sarentu. They do not look entirely healthy. They are tall enough, Nor of a height with So'lek himself, but their skin is too pale, and they are too thin, without enough muscle on their arms. He sees a bag of RDA rations on a table and tears into it out of a sense of morbid curiosity. The little brown nuggets inside are dry and almost entirely without smell. It does not seem like proper food for anyone, human or Na'vi. He drops the bag, wrinkling his nose. The Sarentu are young. He can only hope that they will recover quickly.
His ear flicks at a quiet squeak and he eases into the shadows of a doorway, bow at the ready. He peers around the corner.
There is an RDA soldier walking down the hallway, boots squeaking on the concrete floor. He is unhurried, his grip on his rifle relaxed. So'lek grimaces. Their estimates were off, the RDA quicker to respond than they hoped it might be, but this one is not alert. Perhaps they do not yet know that the Resistance is here as well. So'lek's bowstring twangs quietly, and the arrow finds its mark without the soldier ever knowing anything was amiss.
He strides into the cryo room. "The RDA is here. We need to leave."
"Here? Already?" So'lek's responding look is answer enough for Alma. "Okay, we need to get to the safe place, let's go. Does everyone remember the way to the emergency exit?"
"Sir? Where's Tamtey?" Teylan asks, wringing his hands.
Wiya. "You lost her?"
So'lek had been addressing Alma, but Teylan replies. "She went to the canteen to get a snack, but she hasn't come back yet," he says worriedly. "Do you think she's okay?"
"I will find her," So'lek says. "Now go."
They file out, steered toward an exit by Alma, and So'lek begins to hunt. Tamtey is not in the canteen, and he is unsure of where to begin looking beyond it. He has barely met her, he can only guess at where she might have gone. And she knows this place far better than he; she would be able to go wherever she wished directly, instead of wandering blindly through the maze of gray corridors as he is. Perhaps she went in search of her belongings.
He hears an explosion chased by rapid gunfire, and the facility's alarm starts to blare. So'lek moves toward the sound, quickly, quietly, hoping he is not already too late. He cannot take a straight path, dereliction forcing him to take a circuitous route through air vents and around collapsed hallways. There is more gunfire, too much.
He cuts the throat of a soldier and eases him to the floor. He looks sharply to his right, through a thicket of fallen metal slats, when something clangs. It is Tamtey, staggering upright after dropping through a vent in the ceiling. "Over here," he calls. "Are you alright?"
"I'm alright," she says, but she is trembling, and covered head to toe in a thick layer of gray dust.
So'lek takes a spare radio set from one of his pouches and passes it through a gap in the slats. "Here. This goes around your neck, like this," he says, tapping his own, "and this goes in your ear. It is already tuned to my frequency."
When she ducks her head to fasten the radio at her throat, her eyes linger on the dead soldier, her ears and the corners of her mouth pulling down. So'lek is not unsympathetic. He remembers well what it was like, at first. He takes his knife from its sheath and holds it out to her. "You should not go unarmed." She considers it a moment, then accepts, expression hardening. "You need to keep moving."
She starts to go, but hesitates.
"What is it?"
"What's your name?"
"So'lek," he says. "Now go. Fast and quiet."
"Yes, sir." She jerks her chin once in a quick nod, loops her kuru around her neck, and dashes away.
He continues on his own path and waits until he thinks she has gone far enough to avoid feedback to ask, "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, sir." Wiya, he will have to tell her to stop saying that, but it is a problem for later. He shoots a soldier. Tamtey's voice comes through again, quiet and stressed. "They're everywhere."
"It's okay," he says, pulling his arrow from the man's chest and hoping he is not lying to her. "Breathe. Look for a way through."
A couple of minutes pass in silence as So'lek creeps through the facility, then his radio crackles. "Sir? What happened to everyone else?"
"They have already left." They should have, at least. "Just keep moving. Find a way out, and I will find you."
"Roger."
So'lek does not like that this place has forced them to stay separated; he does not know how well-trained Tamtey is, but she seems to be keeping her head well enough. If she had not— no. That is an unfair way to think. The cold sleep leaves one hungry, he knows this much, and she was told she could look for food. That she became lost is simple misfortune.
"I think I'm getting close to an exit; the air feels different. Where—" She pauses, and speaks again in a whisper so faint he can barely hear it through his earpiece. "So'lek, silence," she breathes, and the terror in her voice roots him in place. "I say again, silence."
The transmission ends.
He stands uselessly in the crumbling hallway, tail lashing, gripping his bow. He raises a hand to his radio, but drops it again with a low hiss. Whatever Tamtey saw, she felt it would be safer not to communicate; he cannot endanger her further. He paces, and thinks. TAP was built into the side of the canyon, with only the front wall exposed. During Alma's briefings, she spoke only of coming and going through the front, even in emergencies, so if Tamtey was close to the outside, she must be somewhere near that wall. The facility now bears little resemblance to the plans they had studied, but he tries to recall the path he had taken and how it matches with the blueprints.
Yes. He thinks he can get close enough to Tamtey to find her and help her, if she needs it. He carries his bow on his back, switching to his rifle. The noise of it could draw enemies away from her. Minutes drag as he navigates the warren of passages, and Tamtey does not call. He slows when he feels the air grow fresher and more humid, looking and listening for some sign of her.
So'lek's radio crackles. Voice shaking, Tamtey says, "Silence lifted."
"Are you safe?"
"I think so. I— wait, I think you're on the other side of this stuff, let me—"
The stuff must be the collapsed ceiling blocking the hallway. He can hear scuffling and scraping sounds. "What are you doing?"
His earpiece wails feedback. He digs it from his ear.
"Agch!" There is a thump. "Ow."
A narrow blue hand emerges from the rubble and scrabbles at the floor. So'lek kneels, moving stuff aside until he has cleared a way large enough to grip Tamtey's hand and haul her through. She is a mess, even dustier than before, her plain braid picked nearly apart. He takes her elbows and gets her to her feet. "Mawey," he says, because she is shaking hard, eyes darting all around, gripping his knife so hard her knuckles are pale. The blade is clean. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." She shies away, hugging herself. She looks uninjured, at least, so So'lek decides to leave it be.
"Do you know how to use a bow?"
"No, sir."
Wiya. "A rifle?"
"Yes, sir." He passes it to her, exchanging it for his knife. She slings the strap around herself and brings the stock to her shoulder to look down the sights, and he is pleasantly surprised to see she rests her finger outside the trigger guard. He gives her an extra magazine as well, and when she puts it in her pocket, it clicks against something. She frowns, quests in the pocket, and takes out a small, orange-cased device. "Oh!" she says, but does not elaborate. So'lek does not ask.
"Come," he says, and follows the scent of the forest through a vent and into a maintenance tunnel overtaken with moss and small mushrooms. Tamtey stays close at his heels, and though he doesn't know it, he leads her outdoors for the first time in her memory.
"Wow," she murmurs, and So'lek looks over his shoulder at her. She takes a few steps forward, squinting against the sun but looking around at the trees and creek in wonderment.
"Now you see what they kept from you." He puts a hand on her shoulder, urging her forward. "We need to hurry."
"Yeah," she says distantly, looking at the sky. "Okay."
He takes off at a jog, eager to put some distance between them and the RDA forces. They slipped away unseen, but every meter is valuable. Tamtey keeps pace well, and for longer than he thought she might. He slows to a walk when TAP is far behind them and he can hear her flagging, and when he looks back at her, realizes he had been harder on her than he thought. She has stopped, hands clasped behind her head, gasping air and wet with sweat. So'lek feels a twinge of shame— he should have checked on her sooner.
"Here." He unclips his water bottle from his belt and holds it out to her. She grabs it and drinks probably half in a few quick gulps. "It is not much further."
Tamtey just gives him a thumbs-up, still panting. She finishes the water and passes the bottle back to him. "Thank you."
"Irayo." He corrects her gently, not wanting her to think it a rebuke. Her brow twitches in a momentary frown and she tilts her head, quizzical. "It is how you say thanks in Na'vi."
She nods slowly, clearly thinking. "Irayo."
"Good." He motions for her to follow him and starts walking again. After a couple of minutes, and fearing he already knows the answer, he asks, "Do you not speak Na'vi?"
"Um, not really? Nor and—" She falters. "Nor remembers the most. Ms. Alma was teaching us a little, and my reading is okay, but my listening and speaking aren't very good."
He stops, turning to face her. "Reading?"
"Yeah?" she says, hesitant. "We had textbooks, and—"
"We do not write," he tells her, incredulous.
"Oh." She blinks. They resume walking, and So'lek hears her murmur I like reading to herself.
"That is why we use songcords." So'lek taps a loreyu, and Tamtey makes a little noise when the entire patch retracts one after the other. "Our histories are sung, and the cords aid the memory."
"I used to have my mom's songcord." Tamtey's voice is small. "Mercer took it."
When So'lek glances at her, her eyes are downcast, ears folded. "You do not have your own?" She shakes her head. "We will change that."
She jerks her head to look at him, yellow eyes wide with surprise.
Finally, the Resistance headquarters comes into view through the trees. A pair of humans are tending the plants in the raised beds, and they fall silent when So'lek and Tamtey pass, regarding her with curiosity. When they reach the airlock, the doors do not open. So'lek frowns. Priya appears in the narrow window, clearly speaking quickly and gesturing as she does, but, "It is soundproof, Priya."
So'lek gives Tamtey a sidelong, long-suffering look and is pleased when she laughs to herself.
The airlock doors slide open, and they pass through. Priya is waiting for them inside, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Sorry, sorry, filter got stuck." She turns to Tamtey, who shifts uncomfortably under the force of her attention. "Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're here. Welcome to Resistance HQ! Oel ngati kameie!"
Her pronunciation is still very bad.
"Um, thanks," Tamtey says. "Do you have showers? I feel. Kind of disgusting."
"Oh," Priya says. "Yeah, of course! Cryo, right? I felt so gross when I came out, like, gooey."
Tamtey laughs softly. "Yeah. Pretty much."
She gives So'lek's rifle back and follows Priya's cheerful this way! So'lek watches her go. One of four, all that remain of the once-great Sarentu. But they are safe, for now.
He turns away, goes back outside. There is much work to be done.