Chapter Text
She's on fire, she's on fire, apocalypse teeth tearing at her skin and ripping her open, ashy guts falling at her feet. She's running, blood pumping molten in her veins, screaming louder than the end of the world. She's a marui gone up in flames, she's a bird caught in the searing draft, she's howling in fury as her sandy skin is scorched raw.
There's an earsplitting hiss as she slams into the water, the ocean like a freezing gut punch after the inferno. She thrashes deeper, deeper, opening her mouth to let the water in, desperate to cool her smoldering insides.
"Kiri-- shit!" Strong arms lift her from the deep and she coughs, yowls, raging at him like the Sky Boy in Na'vi garb had raged at the demon soldiers when they dragged him away. She claws at his arms, his face, three nails ripping down the side of his skull, fucking corporal all his fault that the kid's mad stupid fucking
She twists out of the grip and hits the water again, the second time shocking her back to something like clarity. Kiri sits up, heaving for air, stars and fire swirling in front of her as she scrabbles for a gun, for her mate's hand, for her daughter's shoulders as she heaves for air in the shallows.
"Kiri, honey." Dad's hands warm on his shoulders, his eyes peering gold into hers, huge with terror even though Dad doesn't get scared. "It's okay, you're safe."
"Fire...." she whimpers. Behind him, she can see Mother and the others running their way, seeing other villagers coming to gape at them yet again.
"No fire, babygirl," he promises. "Not here."
Not here no. But far, far down the shore, she can feel it, the rasp of waves as the Ta'auni stagger from their burning village, seeking desperate refuge in the sea as their world goes up in flames.
Kiri doesn't know how she knows, but she knows, and deeper than knowing. She can feel the raw scrape along her wrists the cuffs had dug in, can smell the fresh blood of the dead ilu, can hear a child sobbing at burns along his back, see the marui she built with her mate vanish into heat, smell the soot and smoke clogging the water.
And at the same time she's adjusting her gun as she looks down at the carnage with her ikran, she's scuttling across the shore as her shell starts to melt, she's the ocean shuddering with the weight of filth, she can feel it, she can feel everything--
"Sweetheart," Dad whispers. "What's wrong?"
Kiri opens her mouth and feels something start to bubble in her gut. She twists out of her father's grip and vomits, ashes and bullet casings spewing out of her throat to mix with the murmuring surf.