~28: The Truth~
Kailua finally explains everything to the Sully boys, from her mother's pressure at the start to the near-impossible choice at the end.
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Only For the Better, Own Paradise, The Lost Soul Down.
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She continued to stare at the ground for a while. Neither of the brothers spoke either, which didn't help the situation much. The animals rustled around in the brush, most likely settling in for the night. She refused to look up from the ground, even when one of the brothers moved. "I'm only gonna ask you this once," Lo'ak began. Kailua shut her eyes, still directed at the ground. "What the hell is he on about?"
Finally, she glanced up to meet his eyes. She puffed out a breath, trying to scooch herself further up the tree trunk. "It's a long story," She began sheepishly. Lo'ak gestured to the sky. "We've got the time,"
Damn it.
"Fine," She sighed again. "Basically, for starters, I'm not even Ronal's biological child. I am a direct extension of Eywa herself. Mates cannot mate for 8 weeks after the birth of a child, and Mama found out when Ao'nung was only 6 weeks old." She started. "Plus, Eywa told me herself." She added. "When I was born, my mother immediately knew something was different. My eyes, for one thing, are the colour of the sky, not the sea like my family." She pointed. "They darken at night and lighten at day as well," She added.
"As we grew, with Reya arriving only 9 months later, things began to happen. When I cried, the waters grew choppy and dangerous. When I laughed, they were calm and gifted us seashells," She smiled fondly, remembering some of the memories of her and Tsireya wading through the surf for the prettiest shells. "One day, I fell into the water while my dad was teaching us to swim... he panicked, obviously, and dove in after me, but saw I was breathing on my own with no issues,"
She briefly met the eyes of the brothers, before looking away again. "Shortly after I turned 10, at which point I was eligible to start my Iknimaya, I began to get visions," She kept her gaze firmly on the ground. "Some were good, like a new baby or new relationship, and others were bad, like a sick animal or a dying clan member,"
"I went with Dad and Nung on a hunting trip once and had a vision there. All of the warriors would die protecting us. When I told my father, and the others by accident, they fled and left us to fend for ourselves. Mama was furious when word got out." She pulled her chest cover down slightly, revealing a large scar on her breast. "That's how I got that," She pointed. "Dad had to have his leg sewn up, and Nung's arm was bitten by an akula," She shuddered softly. "We never went back to that spot,"
She briefly glanced up again. Both brothers, to her surprise, weren't watching with anger or disgust but with intrigued eyes. "Mama forbade me to tell anybody else of my visions in fear something like that would happen again, but not go quite too well next time," She pulled her chest cover back on properly, securing it over her shoulders. "I wasn't allowed to tell anybody I had visions, no matter the pleading they did to me," She sighed. "Because of that, I suspect, was one of the main reasons I became slightly outcast. People didn't believe I could do the tasks my siblings could to the level they could. Such as breath holding. I don't need to do that," She paused. "Didn't need to do that," She added in correction.
"When you guys arrived, I had a vision that one of you would die. Just a Sully. It didn't say who, when, where or how. Just a Sully would die," She looked to the sky again. "I had a few visions about the death of one of you guys. Sometimes it would be after it happened, and how your family grew from it, other times it would be happening in front of me, and rarely I stopped it," She glanced to Neteyam. "But a vision's rarely wrong. Eywa showed me it to try and prevent it from happening. She didn't want you to die, Neteyam. It was an event she had no control over,"
Kailua softly touched her numb legs. "Nothing could've been done to stop it," She added. Neteyam touched his bullet wound by his heart with a small sigh. "But because of my mama's fear, she forbade me to tell you anything at all, worrying that it'd somehow turn to us and take one of our lives instead," She explained. "But then you guys saw one, a particularly bad one at that. I told her and she gave me a choice. Remove the memory for you to stay, or she would've taken you back to the jungle personally." Kailua said quietly.
"She was going to give us to Quaritch... wasn't she?" Neteyam asked softly. "To protect our lives, yes, I think she would've done," Kailua agreed. "Which is why I removed the memory as quickly as I could, as painlessly as I could,"
She dared to meet Lo'ak's neutral face. "And it worked for a while. I couldn't risk telling you; not whilst mama was so uneasy about your stay in the first place," She searched his eyes for anything. They remained blank. She shut her own and turned back to the sky. "So I did as she asked. Even though it ruined the happiest relationship I've been in," She added softly. Lo'ak looked away.
"Then that Quaritch kidnapped me and tortured me for information on you," Kailua said. "On Jake, more specifically." She added quickly. "He'd beat me and starve me if I didn't give an answer he wanted," She said, staring into the distance, unblinking. "If I said something to his liking, I'd be given extra food." She said. "That pink Spider was the only thing to keep me going," She sighed softly. "Then I escaped and ran into you guys," She shook her head softly. "After I was shot, Eywa came to me multiple times. After my spleen ruptured," She looked at Lo'ak, who ducked his head quickly, "She gave me three choices. Keep my gift, but lose my legs. Exchange my gift for my legs, or exchange my gift for Neteyam," She looked to the ground. "So I did the latter... obviously,"
It was silent for a few seconds before Neteyam asked: "But why didn't you choose the first one? Keep the gift but lose your legs? If Norm's fixing them now, surely he could've fixed them anyway?" Kailua shook her head. "No. It would be impossible. The condition of keeping my gift meant that no matter what happened to my legs, they would be irreparable. And nobody wants a life like that," She sighed again, reaching for her mental support. "And anyway," She grunted, pulling herself up the trunk of the tree. "It was the right choice. I would've picked it anyway,"
Her hand slipped as she grabbed at the metal support. The metal side cut into her palm deeply, sending a river of red down her forearm. "Fuck," She hissed. Within an instant, the brothers were by her side. Neteyam ripped a bit from his cloth to wrap it up tightly, while Lo'ak helped her by her armpits. Neteyam, content her hand was protected, grabbed the metallic support and pulled it upright. "How does this go on?" He asked. Lo'ak shrugged. "I dunno bro,"
Kailua pointed to the end knob. "That's a ribbon that unties and goes around my waist," She pointed. It then clicks in on the side there. Then you tie the arm supports over my stomach, over my shoulders and into the back ring." She directed. With a fair amount of swearing (surprisingly not from Lo'ak) they got the support onto her body correctly.
Silently, but so much happier, they made their way back into the village.
Hopefully, their friendship would pick up again.
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