Brotherhood Chapter 28 - yes I'm still at it!

Oct 30, 2010 10:24

Plugging along, plugging along. This one is....slightly NSFW, be warned!


Brotherhood Chapter 28: Becoming Two of the People

While the new clan members were recovering from their uniltaron, Mo'at and Eytukan sat nearby, quietly discussing the possible implications of what those spirit journeys had taught them about Cathy and the twins.

"Ka'tsi seeing nantang is not a surprise to me," Eytukan shook his head, "one might almost have stated that without her needing to go through uniltaron at all, but Tom...worries me. If he is täftxuk, then how much of what he has said can be trusted to be more than him speaking in self-interest?"

Mo'at let a sly smile play across her face. "I had that concern also, briefly, but then I remembered another uniltaron from a year ago... Is it not said that the only person täftxuk will protect more vigorously than himself is his mate?"

"Hmm... This is true," Eytukan nodded, "and as well as they try to hide it, it is clear there is something between the two of them."

"More than clear," Mo'at agreed, "I do not think we need to fear that young man. If anyone should fear him it is those who would threaten Ninat...or even attempt to hint that they might make such a threat."

"And what of Jhake?" Eytukan broached the subject they had left for last since it was most difficult and contentious. "What do you think it was that he saw?"

"Something that greatly disturbed him," Mo'at shook her head, "and I do not believe he is one who is easy to unsettle in such a way. If I understood him better... Neytiri has been his teacher, she may have a better idea of what would put that look on his face, but I do not think even she could guess what was the cause, ultimately."

"It may be palulukan," Eytukan frowned, "that is never a good sign, if I remember correctly."

"He has faced palulukan before," Mo'at shook her head; "palulukan would not so upset him." Especially given the new perspective she knew he had due to Taka's children. It occurred to her she still hadn't mentioned them to Eytukan. She ought to do that sometime soon, but the right time would come soon enough, and now was not that time.

"Well, if not palulukan then I do not know what it might be," Eytukan sighed, "we will just have to wait until he is ready, but..."

"But there has not been any uniltaron so difficult and unsettling in many years," Mo'at nodded, glancing over at the three, "still, although I am concerned, I do not see it as a reason to deny him that which he has worked so hard for these three months."

Eytukan simply nodded thoughtfully. They would bring the boys into the clan - they had showed their worth, after all - and the situation would be carefully monitored until he was convinced everything was under control.

Grace had been waiting in the main gathering area at the base of Hometree for what seemed like hours, waiting to hear how it had gone for the boys and Cathy. In reality it had probably been just over an hour at the most, but she had felt like a nervous parent in a hospital waiting-room, waiting to hear if her children were going to be alright after the foolish thing they'd done.

The first to emerge from the spiralling root that led down below was Cathy, followed closely by her mate, and then Tom and Jake walked up together, the paint on their bodies obscuring the usually telling small differences between them so that it was almost impossible to tell which was which.

The three of them came to stand before Mo'at and Eytukan, and the crowd that had been waiting along with Grace gathered around them. As Eytukan spoke, welcoming them as "children of the Omatikaya", Grace couldn't help choking back a tear or three. She knew it was stupid, she knew scientists were supposed to stay objective, not become a part of the thing they were studying, but at the same time, a small part of her felt...almost jealous. These three had been able to go beyond that distance and instead of being hurt by the experience as she had been, they had been gathered to the bosom of the People...had become a part of something that Grace could only watch from behind the glass, even when the glass she was hiding behind was the eyes of her own avatar.

She fleetingly wished - as she watched one after another of the Na'vi come and place their hands on the new tribe members, and then, when they could not reach them anymore, placing their hands on each others' shoulders to create a massive, interconnected web of people in an dazzling physical display of the deep interconnection of the forest - that she could have been more brave to overcome her own ingrained sense of detachment and found some way to become a part of this herself. But then she shook her head. That was foolish, and she never should have thought it. She was far too well-trained a scientist and had seen far too much in her years on this planet and back home to be naïve enough for that. Becoming a part of the People was for children like these, not for old, jaded birds like her.

As the formalities of the day were concluded and the web of People disconnected ringing with laughter and congratulations for the newly adult uniltìranyu, Mo'at couldn't help but smile. Tom, Jhake and Ka'tsi were quickly dragged off to get cleaned up and preparations for the party began in earnest.

"Your children have done well," she said to toktor Grace, who had remained standing where she was, a slightly stunned and distant expression on her face as she looked to where they had gone.

"They have," Grace agreed, shaking her head, "but are they really my children anymore?"

"Of course they are," Mo'at smiled gently at her and set a hand upon her shoulder, "they will always be your children, no matter where their lives take them. The hardest part of being a parent has always been letting go."

"So I'm told," Grace sighed, "although I've never had reason to test the theory before now. I never had children of my own, although it wasn't for lack of trying. I just... Whether it was my fault or Earth's, I wasn't destined to carry a child long enough to bring it into the world," she shook her head.

Mo'at was surprised at this admission. She hadn't known that toktor Grace had ever been mated, although she thought she remembered being told that among the tawtute it wasn't always necessary to be formally mated in order to conceive - just one more strange and unsettling thing about the tawtute. She was curious, but she knew better than to push. The loss of a child was never an easy thing, and the loss of it before it was even born into the world even more so. She had known women who, for one reason or another, had lost pregnancies, and the mourning for those unknown children always echoed within them, even years later.

"Even if you did not bear them, they are still your children," Mo'at shook her head, "and you should be proud of them. They are far stronger than any of us thought."

Up at Site 26, Norm peeked into the link module to check on Grace and Jake again. Both their vitals were stable now, and Jake's had been stable for over an hour since the last time they had gone wonky (which Norm had figured must be related to his uniltaron experience. He'd actually let them get a little more wonky than Grace had wanted him to, but it had been brief, and then they had calmed again, and the last thing Norm had wanted to do was screw up a sacred ceremony) so Norm figured everything was fine and back to normal again. The alarms, he knew, would sound if anything serious started to change, and in the meantime...

In the meantime, he and Trudy had the camp to themselves for the rest of the day, and since she'd been worried about Jake's vitals, Grace had insisted that Norm's avatar be brought back up so that he'd be close enough to hear even if he wanted to work on anything outside, which meant that he wasn't around any of his usual projects anyway, so...

"What's taking you so long, nurse-boy?" Trudy grinned at him, lounging completely nude in the corridor connecting the two modules, "did you forget I was here or something?"

"Just making sure we're not going to be interrupted," he grinned back at her, his hands moving to the hem of his shirt to start pulling it up over his head as he walked toward her, "I'd never forget you, you're pretty unforgettable, you know?"

"I try," she laughed, "I do try."

As the festivities went on around them, Mo'at felt an arm wrap around her waist.

"Toktor Grace has gone for the evening, then?" Eytukan asked.

"She has," Mo'at nodded, "I sent a hunter to walk with her back to their place just in case."

"Then our obligations as hosts for the evening are done," he said, "and few will notice if we fade into the shadows."

"Few will notice," Mo'at nodded with a smile.

True to his word, Eytukan began to lead them through the press of people and away into the dimness which surrounded the base of Kelutral. "You have not been sleeping well lately," he said to her as he drew her into a hidden alcove they both knew very well.

"I am surprised you would notice," she teased, "considering that you usually sleep so heavily that I could make tsaheylu with you in the night and you would not even wake."

"I noticed," he took her face into his hands with a smile and rubbed at the corners of her eyes with gentle thumbs, "your eyes speak to me, even if no one else can read them."

She sighed. His smiles had always been precious to her, more so as the years passed and his burdens increased and the smiles came more and more rarely. "It is merely bad dreams," she said, "nothing you need to worry yourself over as yet."

"Bad dreams, hmm?" he nodded, "then for tonight, let me banish them for you."

He drew her in close, and she leaned into him with a smile. He knew her so well, this man who had once been a boy she tried to hate. She thanked Eywa for him again, as she had every day and every night for more years than she wanted to admit to, and as his hands began to smooth over her skin in a gentle massage she closed her eyes and just let herself be pampered, for once.

"You need to relax," Ninat laughed as she sat down next to Tom in the singers' alcove, "it is a time for celebration!"

"I know, I know," he smiled at her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and kissing her cheek. "And I am happy. Very happy. I'm just worried about what may be going on with the sawtute. I...saw things...in my uniltaron..."

"Let them wait until tomorrow," Ninat rubbed his shoulder. "You are here with me tonight, you are a man of the Omatikaya now..."

"...and it is my duty to do everything in my power to keep the Omatikaya safe," he kissed her gently, "I will be back as soon as I can. If I haven't woken by the time the small moon passes over the eye above, find Jake and tell him what's going on, but I am sure you won't need to. I just...don't trust those at Hell's Gate entirely. I don't trust that they won't do something foolish in the name of "progress" and I need to make sure you and everyone else are safe."

Ninat sighed, but she knew there was no changing his mind. "If you insist," she said, "but please be careful, and come back to me soon."

"I will," he reassured her, "I'm going to lie down here in the singers' alcove so nobody trips over me."

"I will wait with you then," she smiled, "so that the first thing you see when you open your eyes again will be my face. And then we will have many things to discuss."

"We will," he grinned at her, "and I promise I will give you my undivided attention for the rest of the night."

"You had better," she laughed and kissed his eyes as he closed them, "be safe, ma yawne."

Neytiri glanced back over her shoulder, making sure to catch Jake's eye, then darted away. She wanted to speak to him privately and she knew just the right place... She had almost come to a decision she knew she would regret, and yet... And yet she also knew it was the only decision she could make. She would ask at the utral aymokriyä for the permission of the only one who mattered, and then everything would come down to him, and what he wished to do.

She could hear him close behind her and she sped up, darting away and staying just out of reach. Her heart raced. The thrill of the chase blended with all the other feelings which were building up inside her, and she giggled happily as she loped around a corner and into the sacred grove. She felt a tug on her tail and heard his carefree laughter and for a moment she could hear nothing else, although she quickly recovered and pulled away from him again.

The kenten flock rose around them and he paused to enjoy them with the childlike wonder he always seemed to have for so many things that were commonplace to her - although no less beautiful for the fact that she saw them every day - and she turned back to him and took his hands with hers. "Come," she laughed, "come!"

She led him into the grove, letting go and turning once again to run her hands and arms through the trailing branches of the utral aymokriyä, her heart pounding in her chest at what she was contemplating.

She stopped before a tree, one of many, and gathered three fronds in her hand. "This is a place for prayers to be heard," she told him, "and sometimes answered. We call these trees "utral aymokriyä", the tree of voices." Making sure he was watching her, she lifted her tswin to the fronds she held and made the bond, "The voices of our ancestors," she explained. He took his own tswin in hand and began to bring it toward three fronds of his own with a question in his eyes, and she nodded, giving him the permission he did not need. She watched him make tsaheylu and then turned away, her eyes closing.

«Sister,» she called out with her mind, «Sylwanin, I have need of you.»

«I am here, Ney-tsyìp» she heard her sister's familiar voice, and it triggered both deep sadness and happiness of the memories they shared. «Why do you need me? Or do I even need to ask. He is the one, isn't he?»

«He is,» Neytiri admitted, «I would never do anything which would betray you, even now, but I wish...»

«To take him as your mate would not be a betrayal,» Sylwanin said firmly, «of me, or of Tsu'tey, although it may take him a little longer to accept that. He will be taken care of, Ney-ney, I've already arranged it. You are free. Now go, choose the one who is your destiny.»

«Irayo, ma tsmuke,» Neytiri smiled, and let her tswin disconnect as she turned to look at Jake.

"I hear them," he said, wonder clear in his voice, and she smiled at him.

"They live, Jake," she looked around them, noting a few atokirina' which had begun to approach, "within Eywa." She reached out to touch him, unable to completely resist the urge, although this must be his choice, ultimately. "You are Omatikaya now. You may make your bow from the wood of Hometree..." She paused, forced herself to look away, "and you may choose a woman."

She couldn't look at him, couldn't let him see the conflict on her face, couldn't bear the thought of seeing his eyes as she did this, "we have many fine women. Ninat is the best singer..." who was, of course, practically already mated to his brother, but she had to present him with those she would have chosen for him, had she not chosen the road she now walked. An atokirina' danced on her fingertips as she smiled with her heart in her throat.

"Well I don't want Ninat," he chuckled, "Did you forget which twin you're talking to?"

Her smile widened as she blew the atokirina' away on its path to whatever message it was meant to send. "Peyral is...a good hunter..." and a good choice for him, which he must know. This was the point which most worried her...what if he should choose to be good, to not break the bond he saw as being firm between herself and Tsu'tey, and to take Peyral as his best choice of mate. It was clear that Peyral herself would not object to the thought of that outcome...

"Yeah, she is a good hunter," he agreed, and she couldn't help but turn to look at him, to torture herself with the look of farewell which must be in his eyes...

"You're back early," Moira said to Tom as he sat up out of his link bed and swung his legs over the side. "I'd thought you would be partying all night. Going through that dream hunt deal is a pretty big thing, isn't it?"

"It is," Tom nodded, "and I plan to go right back in, but I just have this bad feeling...I wanted to check what's going on with the dozers that were heading toward Hometree. Somehow I think...something isn't right," he shook his head.

Moira glanced around them, then motioned him over to her station, holding a finger over her lips to indicate he should be quiet. It was just them in the lab, but even so...

"What is it?" he asked in a quiet whisper as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to her.

"Since you've been busy over the last little while, we've been busy as well," she said, logging into the hidden files Dolan had showed her that afternoon, "and by "we" I mean the science faculty here at Hell's gate. We've been doing a little looking into what's really going on and, well...yesterday we found this." She turned the screen toward him.

She watched his eyes scan the document, and the further down the page he got, the more he paled.

"It's...bad, isn't it?" she whispered, concern clear in her eyes.

"It's worse than you know," he gritted out, "look at where the dozers are projected to arrive. If they don't change course really soon, they're going to hit the Omatikaya's "tree of voices" grove. That's...well, imagine you had a database in which you had all the memories of your ancestors stored, where you could go and link in and hear their voices again...like a combination of a library of congress archive and a memorial." He got to his feet and before she could try to catch his arm he'd disappeared out the door.

"Shit," she whispered to herself as she quickly closed the files again and hurried after him, but he was gone. She suspected he was going to speak to someone in charge, and she wasn't sure what she should do about it, so - trying to act as casual as she could - she headed down the hall to Dolan's quarters. They needed to do some quick thinking to get everyone out of this intact, including Tom.

By the time he'd made it to Selfridge's office, Tom was fuming. He didn't know if the man was the mastermind or just complicit in this mess, but he had a lot to answer for either way. And if he was ignorant - which Tom very much doubted - maybe he could be made to see that this was all a very bad idea, and would only lead to a massive escalation in the situation between the Na'vi and the humans.

It didn't even occur to him that it was late and Selfridge probably wasn't even in his office, until he'd forced his way into the main comms center only to find the office empty. Unfortunately, the rest of the office wasn't empty, and it didn't take long for the heads that had turned to register his rather loud entrance.

"Well, if it isn't the Science Puke half of the Sully boys," Miles Quaritch's scarred visage looked just a little too pleased for Tom's liking. "What brings you up here instead of getting it on with some hot monkey chick, or whatever the hell it is you do all day in that blue monkey puppet of yours?"

Tom grit his teeth as he forced them into a congenial smile. His mom had always taught him not to give in to bullies, and that was exactly what this nasty piece of work was. "I need to speak to Parker Selfridge," he said simply, "and I had forgotten how late it was. It is actually fairly important, do you know where I might find him at this time of night?"

"Probably in his lounge, why don't I take you there to see him?" Quaritch smiled back, and Tom could see it was dripping with insincerity. He wasn't about to start another scene right now though, not if he had any chance at all of speaking to Selfridge and possibly defusing this situation before it was shot all to hell.

"Right," Tom nodded, then gestured, "after you."

"Oh I think we'll walk together," Quaritch said firmly.

When they reached Selfridge's personal lounge, Quaritch gestured to Tom to go through the door first, then closed it behind them and casually took up a position leaning against it.

"What are you doing here?" Selfridge frowned when he turned to see them come in.

"Sully the second here wanted to talk to you about something," Quaritch shrugged, "he was making a fuss so I figured I'd bring him here to shut him up."

"Selfridge, do you know what's going on with the dozers you have heading toward Hometree?" Tom said quickly, "The course they're on... You need to turn them. Now. Otherwise you're going to have a massive mess on your hands."

"What? I thought they were making sure they weren't heading for the river?" Selfridge looked over at Quaritch.

"It's not the river," Tom shook his head, "I don't mean a mess physically, I mean you're going to ruin all the hard work I've been doing trying to repair relations with the Omatikaya. You're about to take out their most sacred grove!"

"Well it's gotta come down at some point," Selfridge shrugged, "maybe that'll help them decide to move, you know?"

Tom's eyes went wide. "Selfridge, you have no idea what you're doing!" he said frantically, "you're going to bring down a storm upon yourself that you can't even imagine."

"A storm of...what? Stone-age natives riding horses and dragons? I don't know if you've forgotten in all that time you've been playing in the mud with them, but we've got guns," Selfridge rolled his eyes.

"If you don't even care, then what the hell were you doing spending a month helping me build a new facility for the avatars to stay close to Hometree," Tom was genuinely confused.

Selfridge shrugged. "I figured it'll be easy enough to convert, and the engineers are gonna need someplace to stay while they're getting the new mine started, after all." He leered at Tom, "you've had your fun, now I get to have mine. Shouldn't you be in there making sure all those blue monkey girls you're leading on get moved out somewhere you can still...play with them?"

"You're right, I really should get back into link," Tom nodded, thinking 'and tell everyone just exactly how evil you really are.' He turned toward the door, where Quaritch was still leaning, providing a casual but complete barrier.

"Say, I've always wondered, are those blue monkey girls hot in the sack?" Selfridge asked, "Maybe I should talk the company into making me an avatar so I can go out and have some fun. God knows there's nobody worth more than one night's fun in here. Maybe I could even talk a few of your little groupies into..."

He never got to finish that thought. For Tom it was just the last straw. The temper he'd thought he'd gotten control of years ago boiled up and he turned and threw a roundhouse punch in one motion, taking Selfridge down with a firm blow to the gut. He knew Quaritch would be right there, attacking him from behind, and he tried to duck around the man and make it to the door, but it was a futile effort. His ears rang from the blow he took to the back of the head, and his hands were wrestled behind his back and bound, then he was force-marched down the hall to the brig.

As he was pushed into the room he rolled forward and got up to his feet, turning and throwing himself against the Perspex door as it was closing, but he wasn't quick enough. He heard a soft hissing sound and glanced around, unsure at first of what was going on, and then his fingers began to tingle...

His last thought as the soupy warmth of the tranq gas pulled him down into unconsciousness was worry for Ninat - his mate in his heart even if they hadn't formalized that as yet - and a swelling sense of panic.

When Tom still slept, motionless, his body empty, and the small moon had passed over the eye some time since, Ninat frowned with concern. She hadn't liked the idea of him going to confront the sawtute, something about the thought of it had made her instinctively nervous, and now she was wishing desperately that he'd listened to her. Something was wrong, she was sure of it.

She smoothed her fingers over his cheek, leaned over and kissed his sleeping eyes and then stood. It was time that she found Jake, as Tom had said. Although what he could do if Tom had been captured by the sawtute... She bit her lip. She had to trust that Tom wouldn't ask her to go to him if there was nothing he could do. She quickly scanned the party as she left the singers' alcove, but she couldn't see any sign of Jake right away. She slipped through the crowd, examining the faces of every male she passed, but none of them were Jake, and with each one who wasn't, the aching panic in her heart began to build. If Jake was no longer among those eating and drinking and celebrating the addition of three new full members of the clan, then...then what he was doing she could not intrude on, and she could only hope he would return in time to help. If Jake could not be found, then she would have to find someone else to help, only... Only she knew toktor Grace had returned to the house of the uniltìranyu, and that was too far for Ninat to travel on her own in the night...and there was every likelihood toktor Grace would have gone to sleep once she arrived there, and Ninat did not know how to work the machines that let one speak between the forest house and the place where her sawtute body stayed.

Maybe Ka'tsi would know what to do. Ninat began another search, getting more panicked and frantic by the second. Faces began to blur together, smiling, happy, laughing, drinking and celebrating and immune to her fear as though she existed inside a bubble - as though she was täftxuk, carrying a pool of darkness and shadow around herself. She could not find Ka'tsi...she could not find Antsu... And of course she could not. Why would a mated couple remain among the bulk of the party, especially a still-reasonably-newly-mated couple? Obviously they had found somewhere quiet and private, and she would never find them.

So there was...no one who could help her. She bit her lip, fighting back tears. She had to be strong for Tom, he would not want her to be upset, and if he was just taking a little longer, if he had woken already while she was looking for help... She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Either way there was nothing she could do right now. She would have to wait until morning, when Jake would be back, and Antsu and Ka'tsi would no longer be busy. Hands clasped tightly together to hide their shaking, she crept back inside the singers' alcove and curled up around Tom's sleeping body. She would guard it for him until he returned. She would not move from this spot until he opened his eyes. She had promised that her face would be the first thing he saw, and he had promised... He had promised that he would return!

She listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart and closed her eyes, the sudden exhaustion which overtook her as her panic caught up with her sending her into an uneasy sleep wracked with disturbing dreams.

"Peyral is...a good hunter," Neytiri said to him, and Jake shook his head internally, although he kept up a neutral expression. So this was the way it was going to be, was it? But was she being sincere, or was she being coy? Only one way to know for sure.

"Yeah, she is a good hunter," he agreed, and the look in her eyes as she turned to look back at him was...encouraging. 'Yeah, don't even try and play that game, girl,' he thought to himself, 'you're not nearly as good at it as I am.' He smiled at her and met her eyes. "I've already chosen... But this woman must also choose me."

The wait for her response was gut-wrenching. Jake tried to read her expression, to understand the mystery in her eyes, but he just couldn't be sure if he'd just taken a step way too far. And then she started to smile, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"She already has," she said, and he thought his heart had just stopped.

He reached out, almost without thinking, and took her face into his hands, leaning in and kissing her, lightly at first, and then with inevitably increasing passion. It was as if a dam had burst, and all the emotion he felt, everything that had been growing within him from the first moment he saw her leap out and take down the nantang pack with her deadly swift arrows and her flashing eyes, was all coming out at once. He needed this - needed her - like he'd never needed anything in his whole life. When he finally paused for breath he found his hands clutching her tightly to him and her passion-glazed eyes reflecting his own.

He leaned in to close the gap once again, but one of her hands came up and a finger pressed against his lips. His confusion must have been clear in his eyes, because she looked very amused as she reached over her shoulder and brought her queue up where he could see it. Oh yeah, that's right, tsaheylu was part of mating. He'd almost forgotten, and even after Taka's warning, too. He let go of her with one hand to reach over his shoulder for his own queue and brought it up to hers, wondering what it could possibly be like to sense another person the way he sensed a horse when he rode, or Luke as they flew together.

He watched her eyes as the tendrils of their connection joined, but the sensory overload was too much and he had to close his eyes to try and recenter himself. It was like that first time he'd linked to a pa'li and yet infinitely...more. He didn't just feel her breathing and heartbeat in time with his own, but her every emotion and, most strongly, the incredible love she felt for him. It was almost more than he could take.

He grasped her tightly to him and began kissing her again, his lips worshipping every inch of her face, and her arms held him just as tightly. She rubbed her jaw against his forehead and he thought to himself that such a simple touch had never felt so good as he moved his kisses to her long, graceful neck, her collarbones, and then lower, to nuzzle aside the pretty beaded necklace she was wearing and kiss and suckle at those pert little tits of hers that he'd wanted to taste for weeks now. She gasped (he could feel her surprise, she'd obviously never been touched like this and the thought made him incredibly hard) and then moaned as the tugging pleasure circulated between them.

"God, you're so beautiful," he groaned, laying her back onto the soft moss beneath the glowing trees and backing up just enough so he could see her, "so incredibly gorgeous." He lay down next to her, propping himself up on one elbow and watched her as his other hand smoothed down over her taught belly and beneath the strap of her loincloth. He was familiar enough with the garments by now to know where to look for the hidden knot that held it in place, and as he fiddled with it he suddenly became aware of a sense of amusement from her.

"Do you need help, ma Jhake?" she giggled.

"Naw," he frowned in concentration, "I got this." He managed to find the end of the knot, then and tugged it through, although he kept his hand there so the loincloth didn't fall off just yet. Her hands were busy stroking over his chest and starting to learn what made him feel good, and he thought he ought to reward her for that bit of exploration. Sliding his fingers down, he cupped her through the soft leather, rubbing gently at first, and then more firmly as their bond showed him that it felt good to her.

Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, short nails digging into his back just enough to feel so goddamned good, and when they started moving down over his back and his chest... his armour was long gone now... And then she was working her fingers around the knot of his own loincloth and every incidental brush of her fingertips against his stiffened cock felt like licks of heat.

He pushed her loincloth aside, letting it fall to the ground as his fingers continued to work against her, exploring and finding that indeed, the anatomy was quite similar enough that he wasn't going to get himself in trouble...and that she was already very, very enthusiastic about the whole process. The hand she was using to finally get rid of that loincloth he didn't know how he'd put up with began to tentatively explore, and the other moved down from where it had been resting against his lower back to grasp at the base of his tail, and...

Holy shit! Did the world just grey out there for a second? "Go easy, baby," he growled, "or this is gonna end before it's even started." How come nobody warned him about that little hot-button? He was gonna have to have words with Taka. Later. Much later.

"Does it not feel good?" she asked innocently, and he could tell she was teasing him just a little.

"Feels damn good, baby," he laughed, "but there's good and then there's too good. Here, lemme show you what I mean." He slipped a finger up into her and then rubbed with his thumb on her own little hot-button, and the way she arched into his hand was almost more than he could take.

"Please, Jhake," she whimpered, "I need..."

"I know, baby, I know," he leaned down to kiss her, then shifted overtop of her again, gently moving his hand over the one she had wrapped around him to guide the tip of his cock against her and into position, "you feel that? That's how much I need you, too." He took her hand in his and linked their fingers together, kissed her hard, and then sank into her with one long, slow glide.

Everything after that was a bit of a blur, the incredible sensory overload prettymuch frying his brain, but in was an incredible blur, and the most right thing he had ever done in his life, and then...then there was the dream.

In their dream, they soared on the back of toruk, and the land below them wasn't the wasteland he had seen in his uniltaron but the jade-green beauty that Pandora was supposed to be. He could feel her arms around him, and hear her joyous laughter in his ears, and everything was right with the world...

And then they were laughing together like children, running along the shore of a river he didn`t recognize, and he was chasing her again, trying to catch her tail, and she turned to taunt him, the sun shining on her sapphire skin where her belly grew swollen with their child...

And then they lay together on a large nivi, their children cuddled in between them. She was always such a pushover when it came to letting the kids get away with stuff, but then, he was too. It was a good thing they had their granny to keep them in line...

When they woke from that first, amazing mating their eyes met and she smiled up at him, and then the smile turned to a wicked grin and she flipped him onto his back. He had no complaints as he lay there and let her do whatever she wanted, and boy, did that girl of his have some wicked bits of curiosity... And then he rolled them over again...and then she...

When they were both exhausted, they dressed again and then lay spooned together, her head resting on his arm, her cute little butt pressed up against his now (finally) quiescent cock, and he buried his face into her hair and sighed deeply. "I don't want to go back there," he admitted in a whisper, "when I close my eyes this time I'll be back in my ruined body and alone again and I can't stand it."

She caught his hand with hers and placed it over her heart. "I am with you now, Jhake," she whispered, saying his name in that slightly fuzzy way that was uniquely her; that made him not want her ever to say it right, "we are mated for life."

As he lay in his link bed, Jake breathed and stared up into the darkness and tried to remember the sense of her. He sighed. "What the hell are you doing, Jake?" he asked himself out loud.

He knew what he'd done was stupid, impulsive, and was probably going to get him into more than a little trouble, but when it came right down to it...it was worth it. She was worth it, and woe betide the person who tried to ever come between them, because Jake would take off their balls so fast they wouldn't even notice they were gone 'til they looked down to see the blood pooling around their ankles.

Whew *fans self* it's getting a bit steamy in here! Honestly, I don't think much more needs to be said about that, except on, to the...

Vocab:

uniltaron - the dream hunt, rite of passage into adulthood
nantang - viperwolf
täftxuk - see the last chapter, this is my creature, the shadowcat or "shadow weaver"
palulukan - everybody's favourite Big Cat, Pandora style
uniltìranyu - dreamwalker
toktor - "doctor", English loanword
tawtute / sawtute - sky person/people
Kelutral - Hometree
tsaheylu - the bond
yawne - beloved
utral aymokriyä - tree of voices
kenten - fan lizard - those really cool lizards that turn into glowing discs when they're startled
tswin - queue
tsyìp - little...like "little Ney" for "Ney-tsyìp"
Irayo - Thank you
tsmuke - sister
atokirina' - seed of the sacred tree
pa'li - direhorse

fanfic, avatar

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