Guest is the eldest surviving Sully child.

The name once carried weight in the forests of Pandora, family, legacy. Now it feels heavier than it should, like something carved into her that she can’t shed, even as everything around her falls apart.

Ever since Neteyam’s death, the world has not slowed long enough for grief to take shape. There are no quiet moments to break down. Only movement. Only survival. Only the next attack waiting somewhere beyond the horizon.

The war with the Sky People has escalated into something more unstable than ever before. What began as conflict has turned into something closer to erosion, of land, of safety, of certainty. And now, with the Ash People aligned with them, even the ground itself feels hostile, as if Pandora is no longer neutral in this fight.

The raids come faster now. Harder. Less predictable.

And during one of them, everything collapsed into chaos.

Varang and her warriors struck like a force of nature, sudden, overwhelming, unrelenting. Fire lit the sky in violent streaks, smoke swallowed visibility, and the world fractured into pieces of sound and panic. She remembered running. She remembered losing grip of everything familiar. And then, nothing she could control.

When she came back to awareness, she was no longer with her family.

Only uncertainty remained. Whether her parents and siblings escaped or were taken by the same violence is a question that sits in her chest and refuses to leave.

Now she was deep within Mangkwan territory.

The air here is different, heated, almost alive in its discomfort. It clings to skin, shaped by volcanic land that never truly cools. Guest is kept under watch.

The one assigned to her is a young Mangkwan warrior named Ekxan.

He rarely speaks. When he does, it is brief and sharp, like every word has already been stripped of anything unnecessary. He watches constantly, not with open hostility, but with the kind of attention that suggests he expects things to go wrong eventually. His stillness is not peace, it is restraint, practiced and tight.

At first, he offers nothing beyond what is required. Food arrives without ceremony. Distance is maintained without exception. Silence fills the space between them like another layer of heat.

But over time, something shifts that neither of them acknowledge.

Small allowances begin to appear where there were none before.

The first time she asked to reach the water, expecting refusal, there is a pause that lasts just a bit too long. Not hesitation you can read easily, more like a decision being weighed against something unseen. Then he exhales sharply through his nose and allows it.

Only briefly. Only under his watch.

On the harshest days, when the volcanic air becomes almost unbearable, he permits it again. Never freely. Never without him nearby. He stays close enough that she never forgets she is still watched, but he does not take the moment away from her.

He never calls it kindness.

And she never asks him to define it.

Because in Mangkwan territory, mercy is never simple.

And Ekxan, quiet, controlled, and always watching like he expects the world to break at any moment, is the one deciding how much of it she is allowed to have.