Merry Christmas + Brotherhood Chapter 34!
Yup, another happy chapter (less massive this time!)
Merry Christmas Everyone! Hope you're enjoying whatever you and your family (or whoever) do to celebrate on this day (or if you don't, whichever ^_~. Heck, I'm Wiccan and I still celebrate Christmas as a time to spend with my family and all that good stuff)
Anyway! Fresh, brand-spanking-new chapter for all of you to enjoy inbetween opening real presents and pigging out on way too much good food and candy and chocolate and all those other winter treats!
Oh, and before I forget, I've added a character list to my profile page on fanfic.net ( http://www.fanfiction.net/~amayashinkuyoake), for anyone who feels like they're getting a little lost in the "who was that random avatar driver she mentioned way back in chapter 12?" type of character craziness that I sometimes delve into. I've added only the relevent characters and made sure to strip any spoilers from my rather more expansive version, hopefully it will stand you all in good stead!
And now, on with the show!
Brotherhood Chapter 34: We Take to the Skies
Jake gazed down at Grace, and he was amazed to realize the look on her face was the most blissfully happy expression he'd ever seen on her. Quite frankly he'd never thought she could even form such an expression on her face at all. But she'd just said "I'm with her" and if that made her happy it was good. Now for the...passing through...whatever that meant. Suddenly her expression was as if she was a million miles away, and he tried to get her attention.
"Grace?" he called, "Grace, what's happening?" He tried to fool himself into believing she was just falling asleep like in a link bed, but he was a soldier - a warrior - he'd seen death before, and he knew she - scratch that, her human body - was dying before his eyes. Quickly he focused his attention on her avatar, the slow, steady rise and fall of its - her - chest reassuring, although it didn't seem to change, it didn't look as though she was waking...
"What's happening?" Tom echoed as Mo'at moved over to Grace's avatar, moving her hands over it as if feeling for her spirit, to see if it had moved over successfully. Her bangles were the only sound which broke the silence, and Jake felt his stomach drop as the tendrils that had been glowing with so much light suddenly went dark, fading quickly out to the rim of the bowl and beyond.
"Did it work?" Jake asked quickly, trying to convince himself he was misinterpreting the signs. He was just a dumb grunt, after all, what did he know about portents and shit like that?
Mo'at didn't look at him, staring instead somewhere far away. "Her wounds were too great," she said finally, regret clear in her voice, "it was not enough time."
Jake felt his ears dip in sadness as he could no longer deny the truth of what he was seeing. Not only had her human body...died...but her avatar also. Somehow it was no longer in the coma-like resting state all empty avatars displayed (which was what he'd expected to see) but it, too, had stopped breathing. He wondered if that was normal, if, somehow, the avatar knew there would be no soul coming back to make it move and simply...gave up.
Ah but how would he know shit like that? And what did it matter anyway? Grace was gone, and she wasn't coming back.
"She is with Eywa, now," Mo'at said, and Jake knew she was trying to be comforting, but it didn't help very bloody much, really. It didn't help him feel better about this amazing woman who he'd finally begun to really form a friendship with dying any more than his squad chaplain's assurances that his parents were "safe in God's hands" when he came to tell Jake about their death in a car accident one week after he landed in Venezuela.
Peripherally he was aware of Neytiri gently taking Grace's mask off and stroking her hair one last time, and he took a careful breath, blowing it out in an effort to focus. He could grieve later, after he'd taken out that Goddamned menace of a Colonel who'd done this. And not just for Grace, but for everyone who'd died when Hometree came down, for all the survivors who were lost now with nowhere to go, for every Na'vi in the other clans, who thought themselves safe and had no idea the storm that was brewing, that might one day take their home and their families from them...
Slowly, painfully, he got to his feet, holding his hand out to Neytiri, who took it quickly. He needed to know she was with him; right now, that was probably the only thing besides the thought of revenge that was holding him together. He turned to Tsu'tey, whose sombre but firm expression he was sure matched his own.
"With your permission, I will speak now," he said softly, his gaze not leaving his clan-brother's, imparting the seriousness of his resolve, "you would honour me by translating."
As the drama played out before him, Grace's struggle to survive the horrific wounds given to her by her own - no, not her own people, their enemies, Tsu'tey corrected himself - he realized he was hovering, much as one might hover outside the place of the healers while waiting to hear news of a loved-one who was ill. Grace...Grace had been his teacher once, long ago, and he still remembered her patience, her slightly teasing smile, and the way they had kept the secret between them that he was actually better at Ìnglisì than he let on in class. He had been a somewhat difficult student, he was sure, but she had never seemed to mind, simply laughing (and not in a cruel way) when he was late to class for the sixth time in a row, or "accidentally" let riti follow him into the classroom. There had always been something special between them, or at least, there had been before Sylwanin died.
Thus, it was with great sadness that he realized what Mo'at was already telling Jhake; Grace was gone. She was with Eywa now, her too-tired body of flesh giving up and letting her spirit escape. He would...miss Grace, he realized, even if they had not spoken in years, and he found he regretted the fact that he hadn't taken the chance since she had been allowed back among the Omatikaya to speak with her again. He had been a vain and foolish young man then...he still was now, although he was working as quickly as he could to stifle that part of himself, to be a good leader for the People.
He watched Jhake struggle to contain the pain of his loss, watched him rise to his feet with the slow, pain-filled movements of an old man, but as he squared his shoulders and stood tall (not quite as tall as Tsu'tey himself, of course) the new Olo'eyktan recognized the look of resolve on his face. He knew that look, knew that resolve, he had felt it himself less than two days ago when Mo'at came to him and told him of Eytukan's passing, told him that he was now the one who must lead the People.
Jhake met his eyes, and Tsu'tey could feel the fire beginning to kindle. It was easy sometimes to forget that this man was a warrior, experienced beyond his years, and a veteran of more than one battle. So often he acted childish and lighthearted, but then...then there was this other man, and it was the warrior who looked out Jhake's eyes now.
"With your permission, I will speak now," he said, one man to another, "you would honour me by translating."
Had the circumstances been different, Tsu'tey might have taken a moment to rib Jhake about his lack of facility with the language, but not today, not with this. Instead, he simply nodded, acknowledging that he would do as Jhake needed him to do, say to the People what Jhake - what Toruk Makto - needed them to hear.
They turned to address the gathered clan, and Tsu'tey waited in anticipation of what Jhake might say.
He didn't have long to wait.
"The Sky People have sent us a message," Jhake started, and Tsu'tey quickly started his translation, "that they can take whatever they want, and no one can stop them."
It was a sad message to translate, but it must be done. But Jhake was not finished, no, not by a long shot.
"But we will send them a message," Jhake's voice became firmer, stronger, and Tsu'tey found his own voice echoing Jhake's tone.
"You ride out as fast as the wind can carry you," he said, and Tsu'tey couldn't help the brief smile that passed across his face, "you tell the other clans to come," Yes! Yes this was what they needed, to do something! To move against their attackers! "You tell them Toruk Makto calls to them!"
The crowd had begun to see where this was going as well, and their excited whoops were getting Tsu'tey's blood up, getting his heart racing. He...could almost see what it was about this man that had so drawn Neytiri. He had a certain...magnetism to him, a quality that made him a leader in a way Tsu'tey had never suspected, and it was such an unconscious thing that Tsu'tey thought it likely even Jhake wasn't aware of what he did, not fully.
"You fly now! With me! My brothers, sisters! And we will show the Sky People, that they cannot take whatever they want, and that this...this is our land!"
Yes, this was a man worth flying for, a man worth dying for, if it came to that, and more than any of those things, this was the man he would follow...this was his warrior-brother!
As Jhake and Neytiri began to run to the rim of ayVitrayä Ramunong where the ayikran and Jhake's toruk waited, Tsu'tey was not far behind them, the crowd parting around them and then re-forming behind them as a stream of warriors and hunters ready and willing to go rally the clans. There would need to be a little conference, of course, to determine who would go where, but first, to the air! And he would fly with Toruk Makto, one of the lucky few in all the tales to call such a great man "brother".
"Weflyhuntagain?" Eampin asked eagerly as they took to the air.
"We fly," he confirmed to his ikran with a feral grin, "we fly, and then we hunt."
It wasn't until his eyes followed Jake and Neytiri as they ran for the roosts that Tom really put two and two together and ended up with Holy Frickin' Shit My Brother Tamed Toruk. Sure, he'd heard (vaguely) the healer refer to Jake as Toruk Makto, but he'd been far too focused on Grace at the time, and yes, in his rousing speech he'd referred toToruk Makto, and pointed at himself, but somehow Tom just hadn't made the connection. The only thing he could think was that with everything else going on, his brain had been just a little slow on the uptake. Clearly he needed rest, and food, and time for calm reflection, not necessarily in that order.
He, Ninat, Norm and Mo'at stood and watched as every able-bodied ikran makto in the clan took off, winging their way into the sky, and then, as the passion Jake had stirred began to settle a little as those who would stay and support the clan, as they always did, remembered themselves and their proper tasks, Tom remembered as well. All this had come about because Grace had (died) gone to Eywa, and now that Jake had gone flying off - and Tom knew that his rousing speech had been the only, best thing to do under the circumstances, although likely not the safest - his sudden departure left Tom and Norm in charge of what to do with Grace's body. He had never had to deal physically with the dead body of someone he cared about before. When their parents had died, their car had burst into flames, their bodies burned beyond the point where the authorities would allow identification by a family member before the crematorium finished the job. As far as taking care of their bodies, all their deaths had meant to him was signing a few papers and picking up two (far smaller than he'd expected) boxes filled with ash. He still wore the small vial he'd had made up with a few grains from each of them, it hung around his human neck now as that body lay in the link bed. Perhaps, though, it was time to do as he had promised he would and release that final scrap, to lay them to rest here, where his Da had always wanted to see.
His thoughts were interrupted as Mo'at laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Come, Tomsuuly, Grace deserves a proper rest. Will you help me to move her shell to where it can be properly adorned and prepared?" He turned and looked at the Tsahìk and was surprised by the sadness in her eyes, as well as the compassion and sympathy.
"She loved this place, and she loved the People," Norm spoke, obviously choking back tears, "I'm sure she would be touched to be so honoured as to be afforded a burial in such a sacred place, even though she was never actually a part of the clan."
"She would not allow herself to become one of us in life," Mo'at shook her head, "but I do not think she will be upset to become one of us in death. There is not one among the Omatikaya who would not acknowledge her now as one of our own. It is sad, only, that she did not survive to live fully among us. She was as a sister to me, in some ways, and I will miss her. It is only right that she be honoured this way."
Tom knelt and lifted Grace's human body into his arms, barely noticing her slight weight as he bore his sad burden away, following Mo'at and with Norm bringing Grace's avatar behind him. She looked at peace, he thought to himself, at least there was that. In the end, she had found Eywa, and she had found peace. He thought it likely peace wasn't something she had often enjoyed in her life. From what little his Da had ever mentioned of the time he'd known her, before she set out to the stars to become the head researcher and most noted authority on Pandoran botany, she had always seemed haunted by something that drove her to push her body to its limits and ignore its needs in favour of learning more, doing more, being the best at everything she attempted and getting away to the stars. He had always meant to sit down one day with her, in a quiet moment, when they had time, and ask about how they had met, about her side of the story, since Da wasn't there to ask anymore. But there had never been a quiet moment, there had never been a time when they had time, and now the chance was gone forever, the stories lost and faded, only the echoes of them remaining.
Her hair, where it brushed against his arm, was cool. That was wrong, he thought, shaking his head, it should burn like the flames it resembled, like the spirit of her whom it had served as a blazing beacon. He resolved something then. He might not be able to rally a people the way Jake had, but he had his own skill with words, and he would put that to use. He would write a song for her, reminding all those who had known her, and telling all those who would never, now, get the chance, of the spirit of fire that had been Grace Augustine. He might have been an anthropologist, and perhaps in a way he still was, but he was no longer Tom Sully, avatar driver and PhD, he was Tomsuuly, a Singer of the Omatikaya people, and he would give everything he had to ensure that her song was sung by the People forever.
Max had spent most of the day trying to act normal but living in hidden fear that the guard might have caught a glimpse of him before he knocked the man out. They still hadn't come for him, so by now he was pretty much convinced he was in the clear, which meant it was about time he started making preparations. Jake hadn't specifically said anything, and neither had Grace, but he knew they would be doing something sometime soon, and whatever it turned out to be, he needed to be ready, and the rest of the science group needed to as well. Even though the AVTR program had been temporarily shut down, it wasn't like they were confined to their quarters or anything like that, so nobody thought it strange that he would go visit a friend or two. Especially since the first visit he made was to his assistant, Sunny. She was a cute, attractive young woman, after all. Anyone who happened to see him going into her quarters would simply assume she was more than just his assistant.
Of course, they'd be wrong, but he wasn't about to correct that mistake.
"Mind if I come in?" he leaned casually against the door frame.
"Sure," she shrugged, "nothing better to do."
Once the door was closed he took a deep breath and leaned back against it.
"You were in on it, weren't you?" she raised an eyebrow at him.
"In on what?" he attempted an innocent look.
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms as she looked at him. "Really? I know you better than that, Max. You're never more guilty than when you're giving me that look."
"This is a little bigger than the time I put a fake spider on your seat," he pointed out, "maybe my guilty and innocent looks are different given a different level of possible negative outcome," he shrugged.
"Riiiiight," she shook her head, "It's starting, isn't it Max?"
Max sighed, "Yeah, you're right," he said, sitting down, "it's starting. It started last night, and now we have to be prepared for the next move, whenever it comes. I...can't ask anyone to do this, it's going to have to be on an individual basis, people are going to have to make the choice for themselves whether to go against the company."
"You've already made your choice, haven't you," she said thoughtfully, watching him as his hands tugged nervously on the lab coat he was still wearing. She vaguely wondered, and not for the first time, if he slept in the thing, too
"I'm already in this thing up to my neck," he confirmed, "but that was my decision on my own. I'm thinking it's time we had another general meeting, midnight tonight in the Terran plant atrium. You'll pass the word, won't you?"
"I'll let everyone know," she nodded, walking over to pat him on the shoulder. "And take a deep breath, Max, you're wound up tighter than a spring on the verge of breaking, and you can't break just yet; we still need you."
"I'll try," he shook his head, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, "because you're right, I am still needed, and if I start acting guilty too soon, everything is going to go all to Hell." He smiled at her. A little shaky and definitely forced, but at least it was a smile. "Now I'd better get going before the rumours about us spread. I'll see you tonight."
"See you tonight," she smiled back at him, and hers was much more genuine. To be totally honest she wouldn't have objected if those rumours were based on some sort of actuality, but at the same time, she knew it would never come to pass. After all, they had a perfectly good working relationship, and then there was also the rather glaring fact that she really preferred women. All the same, though, she felt a distinct (and odd) sense of honour that anyone would think her worthy of having a relationship of a more intimate nature with the (acting, until Grace returned) head of the biolab.
It was almost a day after the escape when the hospital finally released Private Ben Fratelli. Whatever Chacón had done when she knocked him out she'd obviously done her job right, because he'd had a moderate concussion and had been semi-incoherent most of the day. He was still quite pale, Quaritch observed as he watched the man standing at attention in front of him, although how much of that was from injury and how much was from pure, unadulterated fear of what his commander was going to do to him for being such an dipshit idiot was impossible to tell.
"So," Quaritch raised an eyebrow at him finally, after the man had stood there in silence for at least five minutes, "tell me what happened. How the hell did one little girl pilot manage to take you out, take out Pearson, steal your keycard and release four very sensitive prisoners?"
"She...had a meal cart, Sir?" Fratelli suggested, going a shade paler as he stared into the middle distance. At least the man had brains enough to know not to try to make eye contact.
"You are familiar with Chacón, I believe," Quaritch said carefully, "and you know she is a pilot?"
"Yes, Sir," Fratelli confirmed carefully.
"And what, exactly, made you think it made any kind of fucked-up sense that I would send a FUCKING PILOT TO DELIVER FOOD TO PRISONERS?" Quaritch leaned in close and yelled right into the man's face. Just in case he wasn't paying complete attention.
Fratelli swallowed hard. "I'm...not sure, Sir. I was too busy staring at her...um..."
Typical. Quaritch rolled his eyes. "Yeah, blame it on your dick, cause that's certainly the closest thing you have to a brain," he said derisively, "I should have you gelded as an example to the rest of the troops of what happens if you let your dick do the thinking for you."
"Yes sir," Fratelli said, his voice very hoarse. Then he went completely white and crumpled, luckily managing not to hit his head on anything on the way down.
Not that Quaritch would really have cared, except that it would make the medical types yell at him if he managed to give the useless waste of air another concussion, and there was nothing more annoying than lecturing nurses. Particularly since none of them was good-looking enough to make it hot. He hit the intercom button perhaps a little harder than he needed to. "Send someone in here to take this useless asswipe back to his quarters," he said, and closed the channel before waiting for confirmation. It wasn't more than half a minute before two men came in and picked him up between them, in any case, as he had known it would be. He was a good commander, after all, men obeyed him because they wanted to, and if fear came into it now and then, well, that was only as it should be as well.
After a brief, shouted conference in the air, the Omatikaya had broken into four groups, each covering a different quadrant of the forest. Jake had let Neytiri direct him, since of course he had never been outside the territory of his own clan, and at first everything was familiar, the trees stretching out below them, but then all of a sudden the ground changed. Instead of trees, from what he could tell in the darkness they were flying over plains. He and the toruk could see shapes moving below them before long, and he realized they were riders on pa'li-back, all rushing in the same direction they were.
Their landing had been yet another grand entrance (he had a feeling there were going to be a lot of those over the next few days) and after the clan's initial stunned reaction the explanations and the rousing speech had begun. The clan's leader, Akway - a man with a very distinctive (and distinctly painful-looking) piercing through the septum of his nose - had been wary at first, but as he heard the story of their clan, and with repeated glances over Jake's shoulder at the calm but terrifying toruk which was obviously partnered with him, it was not so very difficult to convince him to join their cause. He had made an impassioned speech of his own to his people, sending the first of his warriors on their way to the Tree of Souls, and then he took Jake and Neytiri aside.
"The hour becomes late," he said to them, "and your people look to be tired. Perhaps you will do me the honour of accepting our hospitality for the night? We have spare tents that are often used for visitors and traders when they come, and we would be more than glad to let you use them if you wish."
Neytiri looked over at Jake and frowned thoughtfully, and he gave a tiny nod, and she as well, then she turned back to him. "We will accept your hospitality gladly," she said, "my mate and I were separated when our Kelutral fell, and we have had little enough time to ourselves, we...would be glad of a chance to rest," she said, and Jake could see her little light-freckles flare up.
He squeezed her hand. It was true, though. They really hadn't had enough time to spend together, and their long flight with her riding behind him, her hands wrapped around his chest and the eddies of the air as it passed over the toruk's wings sending her scent wafting over him had been almost more than he could bear. If it hadn't been for the urgency of their mission, he very likely would have set down somewhere and...well, "ravished" is the only word he could think of to describe what he wanted to do with her. Make love so passionately that the lost themselves completely in one another.
"And you are only newly mated," Akway smirked, "it is clear in the way that you touch. Come, follow me and I will bring you to a place where you may...sleep. We would be more than honoured to provide such a haven for you."
Norm grunted softly as he tried to roll over and get comfortable. Link beds, he decided, were fine for linking, but if you happened to be a side-sleeper (like him) they were hellishly difficult to sleep in. The fact that his whole body hurt from the rough treatment of the Sec-ops types didn't help either. He hadn't exactly had a chance to check, but he was pretty sure he had at least one cracked rib on the right side, if not two, and there was a disturbing tenderness around about the location of his right kidney as well. Neither of the Sully boys had actually unlinked to go to sleep yet either, and the soft hum of their running link units should have been soothing white noise, but after all that had happened over the last couple of days, Norm was too keyed up, so instead of being soothed, he found the noise extremely distracting.
He found he didn't like trying to sleep facing the open lid of the unit, it was a little like lying in a coffin that might come down closed on him at any minute (a grim, morbid thought, but then, it had been a morbid sort of day, and he was now sleeping in the bed until recently occupied by Grace, so...) and besides that it was putting pressure on his sore side, so he rolled over to face the window again, and his eyes met Trudy's where she was lying in a hammock she'd strung up in the small amount of space between the link bed and the wall. He'd been rather surprised when she'd dug around under the seat of her Sampson and pulled out the very traditional Mayan rainbow-coloured knotted hammock, but then, if she carried around a blouse and skirt with her "in case of a special occasion" then why not a hammock as well. I would certainly be more comfortable if she'd ever gotten grounded for the night out in the forest than trying to sleep in the seats in her cockpit!
"Can't sleep?" she asked quietly, giving him a small, sympathetic smile.
"...yeah," he admitted, "it's...been a weird, long day and this "bed" really isn't set up for curling up in comfortably."
"C'mere then," she said, patting the hammock, "we can share."
"Um...are you sure?" he asked, "I mean, what if I make it flip trying to get in?"
She thought for a second, then rolled herself out, hopping down to the floor with alacrity. "You get in first," she gestured, "I have more experience getting into hammocks, and I've shared before. I was just a kid, mind you, but there's some things you never really un-learn."
Norm could have argued the point, but frankly he was too tired, physically, mentally and more than anything emotionally, to reject the idea of being able to sleep curled up with Trudy all night. That was something they'd never yet gotten the chance to do, since even though Grace and Jake knew about their relationship (it was hard to miss the signs, really) there really hadn't been room to share one of the tiny bunks in any position other than her sleeping right on top of him, and that was just a little...well, let's just say it wouldn't really have been very conducive to actual sleep.
He climbed carefully and somewhat awkwardly into the hammock, trying to arrange himself so that he was lying on his side looking out the window without accidentally flipping himself out. He was surprised at how comfortable it was, actually, and the way the net-like knotwork stretched meant that the sides almost curled up around him, seeming to wrap him like an embrace and making him much less worried that he'd accidentally fall out during the night. It was also a heck of a lot more roomy than it looked!
"Comfy?" Trudy asked, smiling at him.
"More than I expected to be," he admitted, and she laughed and stuck her tongue out at him.
"Hey," she protested, "my people wouldn't have been making these things for centuries if they weren't comfortable and practical. Now hold still while I get in too." She pulled out one side and hopped up, sitting (almost falling back against him) briefly before turning and pulling her legs in. The nature of the hammock itself, and the fact that (presumably to conserve space and keep its bundled-up size as small as possible for stowing) it didn't have any spreaders meant that there was almost no choice but to cuddle close when sharing it. Not that Norm was complaining about that fact any. Especially not when she snuggled in against his side, using his shoulder as a pillow and wrapping her free arm around his waist.
"Comfy?" he echoed her question from a moment ago, unable to resist the urge to run his fingers through her hair and pull the elastic out. Her ponytail was cute, sure, but the way her hair curled naturally when it was free was pretty close to how he'd always imagined a goddess might look. It lent a gentleness to her, a femininity that was so often belied by her "tough-as-nails" pilot persona. With him, though, he knew she felt safe enough to let the girly side out a little, and that made him blissfully happy every time it happened. He loved her, and not just the spunky side, but every side of her, and he was thankful every day for whatever it was that had brought him, of all people, to her attention. He would have been more than glad to worship her from afar, but she, in her infinite wisdom (or maybe just boredom?) had decided he was worth her time, and he intended to do everything he could to make sure she never changed her mind about that.
"Very," she smiled, patting him lightly just above the hip.
Unfortunately she managed to land right on the worst of his bruises, and he sucked in a pained breath...which only made his ribs hurt at the sudden, stronger movement, which made him whimper slightly.
"Norm," she frowned, her fingers quickly moving to tug the hem of his shirt up, then she swore. He knew she was taking in the colours of the bruises blooming all over his torso and not liking any of them. "Shit! Why didn't you say something?"
"I'll be fine," he shook his head, "I mean, yeah I'm a bit banged up, but I'm still in one piece. Grace is the one who..." He cut himself off, remembering, "Grace was the one who needed the medical supplies more than I did," he whispered.
Trudy sighed and hugged him very carefully, trying to avoid his bruises. "It's been a really sucky day," she agreed, "a really, really sucky day. You okay to sleep like that? I could hop down again and get some of the medical supplies and fix you up a little."
"Naw, I'm okay," Norm shook his head, pulling her against him a little tighter, "what would really make me feel better right now is just to be here and for you to be here too." He sighed, "and I know that sounds really corny, but..."
She kissed him gently to shut him up. "I know," she said, "it's been a hard day and sometimes we just need to remember that there are things about life that don't suck. I'll let it be for now, then, but only if you promise you'll let me patch you up in the morning."
"I promise," Norm nodded, shifting a little to curl up tighter around her and burying his face in her hair as he closed his eyes and breathed as deeply as his sore ribs would allow. Suddenly he found himself absolutely exhausted, and it wasn't long at all before he was out like a light, the slight swaying movement of the hammock rocking him to sleep and the warm comfort of Trudy's presence keeping him there.
Meanwhile, outside the link-mod, Tom and Ninat were preparing for sleep as well. They had made themselves a bed out of mosses and some soft undergrowth, and it was actually quite comfortable, but Ninat couldn't seem to find a good position for sleeping. She kept tossing and turning, cuddling up against Tom one minute, then shifting so that she was almost lying on top of him, then spooning against him. She'd never acted in such a way before so finally Tom sat up and pulled her into his lap, hugging her.
"What's wrong?" he asked her, "Are you uncomfortable in some way? Is there anything I can do to make it better?"
"No, I'm not uncomfortable," she sighed, shaking her head, "I just...I know when I fall asleep then you will go to sleep too, and that means you won't be in your uniltìrantokx, and I know...I know that doesn't mean you won't wake up again in the morning and come back to me, but I can't help worrying somehow."
Tom sighed and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry for making you so worried and making you so nervous about me unlinking," he said, "I wish there was more I could do to assure you I..." he blinked, then smiled a little, "Would it make you less nervous if you saw with your own eyes that they won't be able to hide me away from you again?"
"It...might. Perhaps," she bit her lip. "Ma Tom, what are you thinking?"
"I am thinking that my other body is just over there," he gestured with his head toward the link-mod, "and it would be no trouble at all for me to put on a mask and come back out here to see you after I leave this body for the night. Would that make things better?"
"It would not make things worse," she smiled, "and I find myself curious to see what your tawtute body looks like. There is no harm in trying this solution and if it does not work then we can move on to the next one."
"Alright then," Tom laughed lightly, "let me just lie down and get comfortable, then I'll be right back out to see you." He kissed her gently before setting her next to him and lying down, curling up in such a way that it would be no trouble for either of them were she to curl herself up against him as she had all the time they'd been traveling.
Ninat almost held her breath as she waited and watched the door of the strange tawtute structure for Tom's tawtute self to emerge. It wasn't a minute or two later that she heard a soft hiss-whirr sound and the door opened and a small shape stepped through and down the couple of steps onto the ground. His skin was a pale pinkish colour and his hair the colour of the dried grass on the plains, but neither of these was the first thing she noticed.
"You're injured!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and hurrying over to him, kneeling before him like she might do to a child and reaching a tentative hand out toward the arm he had tied against his body. "They hurt you!"
He shook his head, "it is nothing," he insisted, "it does not matter. It's only my arm, and it will heal, what really hurt was my heart when I was watching and so afraid for you. That's...how I got this," he admitted, "I was angry and foolishly let my anger get the better of me. I tried to hit the one who leads the tawtute warriors, to hurt him even a little so he would know the hurt I was feeling, but I was too slow, this body was too weak." He laughed a little then, and she thought there wasn't much humour in that sound. "If my mother had seen my feeble attempts she would have thrown up her hands in disgust and declared this injury all my own fault for being stupid, so I bear it with as much patience as I can. Besides, as long as I'm linked up I don't even notice it, since in that body my arm is fine."
She didn't quite know what to say to all that so she just wrapped her arms around him carefully - he seemed so breakable, so fragile in this smaller form - and held him against her. She had feared as she slept beneath the fallen Kelutral waiting for him to return to her, but, she was now realizing, his own journey had been far more harsh than hers.
"Are you feeling any better?" he asked as he reached his small arms around her as best he could and patted her shoulder.
"A little," she admitted, "Do you think you might sit with me in this form, just until I fall asleep?"
"I'll even sleep out here if that's what you need," he offered, but she shook her head and tapped a finger against the glass of his mask.
"That would not be very comfortable for you, I think," she smiled, "and besides, in this body you are so small I would fear accidentally crushing you in the night."
"I'm not that tiny!" he objected, but he laughed, which had been her intent. "Why don't you curl up and I'll sit next to you and tell you stories until you fall asleep."
"Alright," she agreed, "then tell me of your mother and why you think she would be upset with you for not being able to fight the leader of the warriors even though you are an Ansrropolotxìs and a singer, not a warrior."
"Alright," he agreed, "I can do that, no problem." He sat down near where his other body lay sleeping, and this time as she lay down and curled up against that body to sleep and closed her eyes, her heart didn't start racing with fear, and she felt altogether much more calm. His voice as he told the story of his mother was low and familiar, and she realized that she was going to have to ask him to tell the story again, because there was no way she would stay awake long enough to hear much more than the beginning.
"Alright," Max sighed as he looked around the slightly ragtag group gathered in the atrium. All the avatar drivers were there, and the link techs and most of the bio- and micro- techs as well. Some of them were dressed for work, some casually, and a couple had actually come in their pajamas, but they were all here, and now he had to tell them news that he had only learned himself a short while ago when he checked his private messages, "you all know why you're here, but before we go any further, I have a bit of news to share, and it's something that might change the way many of you think of the events of the past day or two." He took a deep breath and looked down at his hands, "I have been contacted by the escapees; Dr. Norm Spellman sent me a message which I've only just had a chance to access securely, and it pains me more than you all know to tell you this, but Grace Augustine has died."
There was a chorus of gasps around the table, and more than one choked-back sob, but it was Nala Ombayo, the zoologist avatar driver, who asked the question he was sure they were all thinking.
"What happened?" she asked, and as he looked up to meet her eyes he could see there were tears threatening to spill from them.
"Apparently she was shot during their escape," Max said softly, "whether deliberately or accidentally Norm didn't say, and although drastic measures were taken by the Omatikaya to try to preserve her life her wounds were too great. She died not long after sundown."
"Damn Quaritch, that twisted sumbitch," LeJun Dezwagger ran his fingers through his dreadlocks in a now-familiar nervous gesture, re-fixing them into a messy ponytail as Max had seen him do a hundred - maybe a thousand times before, "and damn Selfridge for letting him run roughshod over everyone here... What's the use in being "protected" if you can't bloody move!"
"Thank you for telling us this sad news," Nandu Maran sighed, "but as you say you only learned it a short time ago, this meeting must have had a different purpose in your mind when you called us together."
"I did," Max nodded to him with a vague smile. "Thank you for reminding me. This latest news only re-enforces what I had already intended to say to you. All of you know what has happened these last couple of days, first the attack on the Omatikaya's sacred grove to incite a violent retaliation from them, then the "sanctioned" felling of their ancestral home," Max made air quotes around the word "sanctioned" and he knew his derision of the tactics of the military arm of the RDA was more than clear in his voice, "and then the incarceration of those among the AVTR program who had become closest to the clan and, as we've now learned, the death of one of the most influential scientists on this planet... I don't need to remind any of you of the fact that this very program is on shaky ground. Selfridge has suspended all scientific endeavours and even locked us out of the link room, and I know you avatar drivers are very worried about your other bodies."
"At least we were able to convince him to let the doctors out there to put them on IV drips," Nala shook her head, "there's nothing he hates more than having to write off expensive equipment, after all."
"True," Max nodded, "and that may play to our advantage if things go the way they very likely will. I had called you all here to discuss the possibility of some sort of organized defiant action against the company, when the time seemed right and when it might have some actual effect, but there was one other bit of news Norm had to pass along in his message: The Omatikaya, with Jake Sully at their head as some sort of semi-mythical figure which he didn't go into nearly enough detail about, have begun the process of spreading out across the continent to call upon all the clans. There is a war coming, people, and we need to know our place in it."
"I'm in," LeJun said quickly, "whatever we plan, I'm in."
"And me," Nala agreed, "there's no way I wouldn't be!"
...and so it went around the group, all the avatar drivers quickly promising their support, and the link techs, and the micro techs, and the biolab techs... They knew what was coming, they knew it all had the possibility to be completely futile, but at the same time, they knew it had to be done, and so they would do it, because when it came right down to brass tacks, as his father used to say, they were human, with not only humanity's failings, but its remarkable ability for empathy as well, and they had seen who the true villains were in this fight and wanted to prove that not all of their race were totally blind.
Once they were in their borrowed tent for the night, and the door was closed and they had explored the interior and knew where the basin of water was, and the belongings-racks and the bed, Neytiri turned to Jhake and before she could even ask what they might do to fall asleep he had his arms around her tight, as though he thought she might disappear, and he was kissing her desperately. This wasn't like when they had first mated, in the innocence of the grove of utral aymokriyä before its destruction; it wasn't even like the needy, fleeting kisses they had shared as they waited for Grace to be ready for the ceremony in that fleeting time after their reunion; no, this was an insistent, almost forceful kissing, and his hands moved to strip her and clutch her to him with strength just this side of bruising, although she was not upset at what some might think of as slightly rough treatment. She was a strong hunter, and could stand up to it, but more than that, the sense she got from him as she linked her tswin to his was not one of anger, but of intense need, and great sadness. He had not really had a chance to mourn, she realized, neither of them had, and while she might have thought once that to engage in mating as a form of mourning seemed disrespectful at best, seeing it through his eyes, through his heart, she understood. He was still alive, and she was, and to join together in proof of their love and life was to show Grace that they would not let her passing set them back, that although they were sad (and they were sad) they would use that sadness to make things better.
And right now, making things better meant falling onto the surprisingly soft mattress on the floor of the tent, their bodies intertwining as he sank into her and she welcomed him in with open arms.
"Oh God, Neytiri," Jhake whimpered as he kissed her again and again, and she could sense the fear deep inside him that somehow he would lose her as well, that she might be torn from him by the storm that was soon to come.
"Mawey, ma Jhake," she soothed him, her hands stroking the far-too-tight muscles of his back as she wrapped one leg up around his hip and rubbed her heel just at the spot where his butt flowed into the back of his leg, "I will not leave you again, I promise you this."
His whole body trembled, but finally he melted against her, his strokes within her slowing and changing from desperate to delicious. His fear wasn't gone, she could tell, but for now he had fought it back with her help, and she intended to make sure it didn't surface again.
To that end, she decided it was about time she tried something she had thought of in the dreams which had kept her company as she waited for him to return to her. Picking a moment when he was deepest within her, she grinned and rolled them over, using her momentum to pin him down to the mattress.
He grinned up at her, not disconcerted at all by her taking this initiative. "Well," he said, "I guess it's your turn to do all the work."
She grinned back down at him. "Lazy," she teased, "I am always the one who does the work." She raised herself up a little on her knees and then slid back down, experimenting with tempos and rhythms, focusing on his arousal and working to bring him almost to the point where he could take no more again and again before backing off.
Finally, with a pleased sort of growl and a laughing grin on his face, he reached out to dig his fingers into her hips and direct her how to move, and all of a sudden their tender/teasing/playful lovemaking turned serious again. She could sense within him the need to lose himself inside her completely, and she was only to willing to give him anything and everything that he might need. The pace he led her at was almost frantic, and the friction soon brought her to the brink as well, as he pulled her body down against his and fused his lips to hers in a searing kiss and thrust hard one, two, three final times within her before slumping down into the embrace of the mattress, his fingers going limp and sliding down her hips and off to the sides.
They were both panting hard, worn out from their exertions and from the mad emotional stress of the day, and then he gave one low, quiet whimper and clutched her to him, burying his face in the crook of her neck, and she could feel the tears she knew he would later swear he had never shed. She rolled them onto their sides, keeping herself wrapped around him, and stroked his hair soothingly. She would never tell anyone about this moment of weakness, and for now she would be the one to be strong for him. She knew soon enough he would be the one to be strong for her again, and then she would allow herself to grieve this latest loss, but for now, for just a little while, she did what she had been told was the sacred duty of a mate but had never understood until this second; she let the strongest man she knew be weak, knowing she would never think less of him for it.
There were no more words spoken between them as they finally fell into an exhausted sleep, their bodies still tucked intimately close and wrapped around each other in the embrace that should never have been broken.
Well! Actually I realize quite a bit of this story consisted of people going to sleep, but it was a necessary, slightly mournful chapter, perhaps not quite as uplifting as I would have hoped for a christmas present, but there you go. With any luck (keep your fingers crossed folks! We have a windstorm here and this (and the other) was delayed by a brief power-outage) I'm hoping to get the next chapter of Histories out sometime today as well, as it's mostly written and just needs a few holes filled in.
In any case, now, for what you've all been waiting for with baited breath:
Vocab:
Ìnglisì - English language
riti - stingbat
Olo'eyktan - clan leader
Toruk Makto - legendary hero of the Na'vi and/or Jake!
ayVitrayä Ramunong - The Well of Souls
ikran / ayikran - banshee(s)
toruk - great leonopteryx
makto - ride, or, colloquially, rider
Tsahìk - spiritual leader
pa'li - direhorse
Kelutral - Hometree
uniltìrantokx - dreamwalker body, empty avatar
tawtute - sky person, human
Ansrropolotxìs - this isn't a real word, it's how Ninat attempts to say "Anthropologist"
utral aymokriyä - tree of voices
tswin - queue
Merry Christmas Everyone! Hope you're enjoying whatever you and your family (or whoever) do to celebrate on this day (or if you don't, whichever ^_~. Heck, I'm Wiccan and I still celebrate Christmas as a time to spend with my family and all that good stuff)
Anyway! Fresh, brand-spanking-new chapter for all of you to enjoy inbetween opening real presents and pigging out on way too much good food and candy and chocolate and all those other winter treats!
Oh, and before I forget, I've added a character list to my profile page on fanfic.net ( http://www.fanfiction.net/~amayashinkuyoake), for anyone who feels like they're getting a little lost in the "who was that random avatar driver she mentioned way back in chapter 12?" type of character craziness that I sometimes delve into. I've added only the relevent characters and made sure to strip any spoilers from my rather more expansive version, hopefully it will stand you all in good stead!
And now, on with the show!
Brotherhood Chapter 34: We Take to the Skies
Jake gazed down at Grace, and he was amazed to realize the look on her face was the most blissfully happy expression he'd ever seen on her. Quite frankly he'd never thought she could even form such an expression on her face at all. But she'd just said "I'm with her" and if that made her happy it was good. Now for the...passing through...whatever that meant. Suddenly her expression was as if she was a million miles away, and he tried to get her attention.
"Grace?" he called, "Grace, what's happening?" He tried to fool himself into believing she was just falling asleep like in a link bed, but he was a soldier - a warrior - he'd seen death before, and he knew she - scratch that, her human body - was dying before his eyes. Quickly he focused his attention on her avatar, the slow, steady rise and fall of its - her - chest reassuring, although it didn't seem to change, it didn't look as though she was waking...
"What's happening?" Tom echoed as Mo'at moved over to Grace's avatar, moving her hands over it as if feeling for her spirit, to see if it had moved over successfully. Her bangles were the only sound which broke the silence, and Jake felt his stomach drop as the tendrils that had been glowing with so much light suddenly went dark, fading quickly out to the rim of the bowl and beyond.
"Did it work?" Jake asked quickly, trying to convince himself he was misinterpreting the signs. He was just a dumb grunt, after all, what did he know about portents and shit like that?
Mo'at didn't look at him, staring instead somewhere far away. "Her wounds were too great," she said finally, regret clear in her voice, "it was not enough time."
Jake felt his ears dip in sadness as he could no longer deny the truth of what he was seeing. Not only had her human body...died...but her avatar also. Somehow it was no longer in the coma-like resting state all empty avatars displayed (which was what he'd expected to see) but it, too, had stopped breathing. He wondered if that was normal, if, somehow, the avatar knew there would be no soul coming back to make it move and simply...gave up.
Ah but how would he know shit like that? And what did it matter anyway? Grace was gone, and she wasn't coming back.
"She is with Eywa, now," Mo'at said, and Jake knew she was trying to be comforting, but it didn't help very bloody much, really. It didn't help him feel better about this amazing woman who he'd finally begun to really form a friendship with dying any more than his squad chaplain's assurances that his parents were "safe in God's hands" when he came to tell Jake about their death in a car accident one week after he landed in Venezuela.
Peripherally he was aware of Neytiri gently taking Grace's mask off and stroking her hair one last time, and he took a careful breath, blowing it out in an effort to focus. He could grieve later, after he'd taken out that Goddamned menace of a Colonel who'd done this. And not just for Grace, but for everyone who'd died when Hometree came down, for all the survivors who were lost now with nowhere to go, for every Na'vi in the other clans, who thought themselves safe and had no idea the storm that was brewing, that might one day take their home and their families from them...
Slowly, painfully, he got to his feet, holding his hand out to Neytiri, who took it quickly. He needed to know she was with him; right now, that was probably the only thing besides the thought of revenge that was holding him together. He turned to Tsu'tey, whose sombre but firm expression he was sure matched his own.
"With your permission, I will speak now," he said softly, his gaze not leaving his clan-brother's, imparting the seriousness of his resolve, "you would honour me by translating."
As the drama played out before him, Grace's struggle to survive the horrific wounds given to her by her own - no, not her own people, their enemies, Tsu'tey corrected himself - he realized he was hovering, much as one might hover outside the place of the healers while waiting to hear news of a loved-one who was ill. Grace...Grace had been his teacher once, long ago, and he still remembered her patience, her slightly teasing smile, and the way they had kept the secret between them that he was actually better at Ìnglisì than he let on in class. He had been a somewhat difficult student, he was sure, but she had never seemed to mind, simply laughing (and not in a cruel way) when he was late to class for the sixth time in a row, or "accidentally" let riti follow him into the classroom. There had always been something special between them, or at least, there had been before Sylwanin died.
Thus, it was with great sadness that he realized what Mo'at was already telling Jhake; Grace was gone. She was with Eywa now, her too-tired body of flesh giving up and letting her spirit escape. He would...miss Grace, he realized, even if they had not spoken in years, and he found he regretted the fact that he hadn't taken the chance since she had been allowed back among the Omatikaya to speak with her again. He had been a vain and foolish young man then...he still was now, although he was working as quickly as he could to stifle that part of himself, to be a good leader for the People.
He watched Jhake struggle to contain the pain of his loss, watched him rise to his feet with the slow, pain-filled movements of an old man, but as he squared his shoulders and stood tall (not quite as tall as Tsu'tey himself, of course) the new Olo'eyktan recognized the look of resolve on his face. He knew that look, knew that resolve, he had felt it himself less than two days ago when Mo'at came to him and told him of Eytukan's passing, told him that he was now the one who must lead the People.
Jhake met his eyes, and Tsu'tey could feel the fire beginning to kindle. It was easy sometimes to forget that this man was a warrior, experienced beyond his years, and a veteran of more than one battle. So often he acted childish and lighthearted, but then...then there was this other man, and it was the warrior who looked out Jhake's eyes now.
"With your permission, I will speak now," he said, one man to another, "you would honour me by translating."
Had the circumstances been different, Tsu'tey might have taken a moment to rib Jhake about his lack of facility with the language, but not today, not with this. Instead, he simply nodded, acknowledging that he would do as Jhake needed him to do, say to the People what Jhake - what Toruk Makto - needed them to hear.
They turned to address the gathered clan, and Tsu'tey waited in anticipation of what Jhake might say.
He didn't have long to wait.
"The Sky People have sent us a message," Jhake started, and Tsu'tey quickly started his translation, "that they can take whatever they want, and no one can stop them."
It was a sad message to translate, but it must be done. But Jhake was not finished, no, not by a long shot.
"But we will send them a message," Jhake's voice became firmer, stronger, and Tsu'tey found his own voice echoing Jhake's tone.
"You ride out as fast as the wind can carry you," he said, and Tsu'tey couldn't help the brief smile that passed across his face, "you tell the other clans to come," Yes! Yes this was what they needed, to do something! To move against their attackers! "You tell them Toruk Makto calls to them!"
The crowd had begun to see where this was going as well, and their excited whoops were getting Tsu'tey's blood up, getting his heart racing. He...could almost see what it was about this man that had so drawn Neytiri. He had a certain...magnetism to him, a quality that made him a leader in a way Tsu'tey had never suspected, and it was such an unconscious thing that Tsu'tey thought it likely even Jhake wasn't aware of what he did, not fully.
"You fly now! With me! My brothers, sisters! And we will show the Sky People, that they cannot take whatever they want, and that this...this is our land!"
Yes, this was a man worth flying for, a man worth dying for, if it came to that, and more than any of those things, this was the man he would follow...this was his warrior-brother!
As Jhake and Neytiri began to run to the rim of ayVitrayä Ramunong where the ayikran and Jhake's toruk waited, Tsu'tey was not far behind them, the crowd parting around them and then re-forming behind them as a stream of warriors and hunters ready and willing to go rally the clans. There would need to be a little conference, of course, to determine who would go where, but first, to the air! And he would fly with Toruk Makto, one of the lucky few in all the tales to call such a great man "brother".
"Weflyhuntagain?" Eampin asked eagerly as they took to the air.
"We fly," he confirmed to his ikran with a feral grin, "we fly, and then we hunt."
It wasn't until his eyes followed Jake and Neytiri as they ran for the roosts that Tom really put two and two together and ended up with Holy Frickin' Shit My Brother Tamed Toruk. Sure, he'd heard (vaguely) the healer refer to Jake as Toruk Makto, but he'd been far too focused on Grace at the time, and yes, in his rousing speech he'd referred toToruk Makto, and pointed at himself, but somehow Tom just hadn't made the connection. The only thing he could think was that with everything else going on, his brain had been just a little slow on the uptake. Clearly he needed rest, and food, and time for calm reflection, not necessarily in that order.
He, Ninat, Norm and Mo'at stood and watched as every able-bodied ikran makto in the clan took off, winging their way into the sky, and then, as the passion Jake had stirred began to settle a little as those who would stay and support the clan, as they always did, remembered themselves and their proper tasks, Tom remembered as well. All this had come about because Grace had (died) gone to Eywa, and now that Jake had gone flying off - and Tom knew that his rousing speech had been the only, best thing to do under the circumstances, although likely not the safest - his sudden departure left Tom and Norm in charge of what to do with Grace's body. He had never had to deal physically with the dead body of someone he cared about before. When their parents had died, their car had burst into flames, their bodies burned beyond the point where the authorities would allow identification by a family member before the crematorium finished the job. As far as taking care of their bodies, all their deaths had meant to him was signing a few papers and picking up two (far smaller than he'd expected) boxes filled with ash. He still wore the small vial he'd had made up with a few grains from each of them, it hung around his human neck now as that body lay in the link bed. Perhaps, though, it was time to do as he had promised he would and release that final scrap, to lay them to rest here, where his Da had always wanted to see.
His thoughts were interrupted as Mo'at laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Come, Tomsuuly, Grace deserves a proper rest. Will you help me to move her shell to where it can be properly adorned and prepared?" He turned and looked at the Tsahìk and was surprised by the sadness in her eyes, as well as the compassion and sympathy.
"She loved this place, and she loved the People," Norm spoke, obviously choking back tears, "I'm sure she would be touched to be so honoured as to be afforded a burial in such a sacred place, even though she was never actually a part of the clan."
"She would not allow herself to become one of us in life," Mo'at shook her head, "but I do not think she will be upset to become one of us in death. There is not one among the Omatikaya who would not acknowledge her now as one of our own. It is sad, only, that she did not survive to live fully among us. She was as a sister to me, in some ways, and I will miss her. It is only right that she be honoured this way."
Tom knelt and lifted Grace's human body into his arms, barely noticing her slight weight as he bore his sad burden away, following Mo'at and with Norm bringing Grace's avatar behind him. She looked at peace, he thought to himself, at least there was that. In the end, she had found Eywa, and she had found peace. He thought it likely peace wasn't something she had often enjoyed in her life. From what little his Da had ever mentioned of the time he'd known her, before she set out to the stars to become the head researcher and most noted authority on Pandoran botany, she had always seemed haunted by something that drove her to push her body to its limits and ignore its needs in favour of learning more, doing more, being the best at everything she attempted and getting away to the stars. He had always meant to sit down one day with her, in a quiet moment, when they had time, and ask about how they had met, about her side of the story, since Da wasn't there to ask anymore. But there had never been a quiet moment, there had never been a time when they had time, and now the chance was gone forever, the stories lost and faded, only the echoes of them remaining.
Her hair, where it brushed against his arm, was cool. That was wrong, he thought, shaking his head, it should burn like the flames it resembled, like the spirit of her whom it had served as a blazing beacon. He resolved something then. He might not be able to rally a people the way Jake had, but he had his own skill with words, and he would put that to use. He would write a song for her, reminding all those who had known her, and telling all those who would never, now, get the chance, of the spirit of fire that had been Grace Augustine. He might have been an anthropologist, and perhaps in a way he still was, but he was no longer Tom Sully, avatar driver and PhD, he was Tomsuuly, a Singer of the Omatikaya people, and he would give everything he had to ensure that her song was sung by the People forever.
Max had spent most of the day trying to act normal but living in hidden fear that the guard might have caught a glimpse of him before he knocked the man out. They still hadn't come for him, so by now he was pretty much convinced he was in the clear, which meant it was about time he started making preparations. Jake hadn't specifically said anything, and neither had Grace, but he knew they would be doing something sometime soon, and whatever it turned out to be, he needed to be ready, and the rest of the science group needed to as well. Even though the AVTR program had been temporarily shut down, it wasn't like they were confined to their quarters or anything like that, so nobody thought it strange that he would go visit a friend or two. Especially since the first visit he made was to his assistant, Sunny. She was a cute, attractive young woman, after all. Anyone who happened to see him going into her quarters would simply assume she was more than just his assistant.
Of course, they'd be wrong, but he wasn't about to correct that mistake.
"Mind if I come in?" he leaned casually against the door frame.
"Sure," she shrugged, "nothing better to do."
Once the door was closed he took a deep breath and leaned back against it.
"You were in on it, weren't you?" she raised an eyebrow at him.
"In on what?" he attempted an innocent look.
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms as she looked at him. "Really? I know you better than that, Max. You're never more guilty than when you're giving me that look."
"This is a little bigger than the time I put a fake spider on your seat," he pointed out, "maybe my guilty and innocent looks are different given a different level of possible negative outcome," he shrugged.
"Riiiiight," she shook her head, "It's starting, isn't it Max?"
Max sighed, "Yeah, you're right," he said, sitting down, "it's starting. It started last night, and now we have to be prepared for the next move, whenever it comes. I...can't ask anyone to do this, it's going to have to be on an individual basis, people are going to have to make the choice for themselves whether to go against the company."
"You've already made your choice, haven't you," she said thoughtfully, watching him as his hands tugged nervously on the lab coat he was still wearing. She vaguely wondered, and not for the first time, if he slept in the thing, too
"I'm already in this thing up to my neck," he confirmed, "but that was my decision on my own. I'm thinking it's time we had another general meeting, midnight tonight in the Terran plant atrium. You'll pass the word, won't you?"
"I'll let everyone know," she nodded, walking over to pat him on the shoulder. "And take a deep breath, Max, you're wound up tighter than a spring on the verge of breaking, and you can't break just yet; we still need you."
"I'll try," he shook his head, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, "because you're right, I am still needed, and if I start acting guilty too soon, everything is going to go all to Hell." He smiled at her. A little shaky and definitely forced, but at least it was a smile. "Now I'd better get going before the rumours about us spread. I'll see you tonight."
"See you tonight," she smiled back at him, and hers was much more genuine. To be totally honest she wouldn't have objected if those rumours were based on some sort of actuality, but at the same time, she knew it would never come to pass. After all, they had a perfectly good working relationship, and then there was also the rather glaring fact that she really preferred women. All the same, though, she felt a distinct (and odd) sense of honour that anyone would think her worthy of having a relationship of a more intimate nature with the (acting, until Grace returned) head of the biolab.
It was almost a day after the escape when the hospital finally released Private Ben Fratelli. Whatever Chacón had done when she knocked him out she'd obviously done her job right, because he'd had a moderate concussion and had been semi-incoherent most of the day. He was still quite pale, Quaritch observed as he watched the man standing at attention in front of him, although how much of that was from injury and how much was from pure, unadulterated fear of what his commander was going to do to him for being such an dipshit idiot was impossible to tell.
"So," Quaritch raised an eyebrow at him finally, after the man had stood there in silence for at least five minutes, "tell me what happened. How the hell did one little girl pilot manage to take you out, take out Pearson, steal your keycard and release four very sensitive prisoners?"
"She...had a meal cart, Sir?" Fratelli suggested, going a shade paler as he stared into the middle distance. At least the man had brains enough to know not to try to make eye contact.
"You are familiar with Chacón, I believe," Quaritch said carefully, "and you know she is a pilot?"
"Yes, Sir," Fratelli confirmed carefully.
"And what, exactly, made you think it made any kind of fucked-up sense that I would send a FUCKING PILOT TO DELIVER FOOD TO PRISONERS?" Quaritch leaned in close and yelled right into the man's face. Just in case he wasn't paying complete attention.
Fratelli swallowed hard. "I'm...not sure, Sir. I was too busy staring at her...um..."
Typical. Quaritch rolled his eyes. "Yeah, blame it on your dick, cause that's certainly the closest thing you have to a brain," he said derisively, "I should have you gelded as an example to the rest of the troops of what happens if you let your dick do the thinking for you."
"Yes sir," Fratelli said, his voice very hoarse. Then he went completely white and crumpled, luckily managing not to hit his head on anything on the way down.
Not that Quaritch would really have cared, except that it would make the medical types yell at him if he managed to give the useless waste of air another concussion, and there was nothing more annoying than lecturing nurses. Particularly since none of them was good-looking enough to make it hot. He hit the intercom button perhaps a little harder than he needed to. "Send someone in here to take this useless asswipe back to his quarters," he said, and closed the channel before waiting for confirmation. It wasn't more than half a minute before two men came in and picked him up between them, in any case, as he had known it would be. He was a good commander, after all, men obeyed him because they wanted to, and if fear came into it now and then, well, that was only as it should be as well.
After a brief, shouted conference in the air, the Omatikaya had broken into four groups, each covering a different quadrant of the forest. Jake had let Neytiri direct him, since of course he had never been outside the territory of his own clan, and at first everything was familiar, the trees stretching out below them, but then all of a sudden the ground changed. Instead of trees, from what he could tell in the darkness they were flying over plains. He and the toruk could see shapes moving below them before long, and he realized they were riders on pa'li-back, all rushing in the same direction they were.
Their landing had been yet another grand entrance (he had a feeling there were going to be a lot of those over the next few days) and after the clan's initial stunned reaction the explanations and the rousing speech had begun. The clan's leader, Akway - a man with a very distinctive (and distinctly painful-looking) piercing through the septum of his nose - had been wary at first, but as he heard the story of their clan, and with repeated glances over Jake's shoulder at the calm but terrifying toruk which was obviously partnered with him, it was not so very difficult to convince him to join their cause. He had made an impassioned speech of his own to his people, sending the first of his warriors on their way to the Tree of Souls, and then he took Jake and Neytiri aside.
"The hour becomes late," he said to them, "and your people look to be tired. Perhaps you will do me the honour of accepting our hospitality for the night? We have spare tents that are often used for visitors and traders when they come, and we would be more than glad to let you use them if you wish."
Neytiri looked over at Jake and frowned thoughtfully, and he gave a tiny nod, and she as well, then she turned back to him. "We will accept your hospitality gladly," she said, "my mate and I were separated when our Kelutral fell, and we have had little enough time to ourselves, we...would be glad of a chance to rest," she said, and Jake could see her little light-freckles flare up.
He squeezed her hand. It was true, though. They really hadn't had enough time to spend together, and their long flight with her riding behind him, her hands wrapped around his chest and the eddies of the air as it passed over the toruk's wings sending her scent wafting over him had been almost more than he could bear. If it hadn't been for the urgency of their mission, he very likely would have set down somewhere and...well, "ravished" is the only word he could think of to describe what he wanted to do with her. Make love so passionately that the lost themselves completely in one another.
"And you are only newly mated," Akway smirked, "it is clear in the way that you touch. Come, follow me and I will bring you to a place where you may...sleep. We would be more than honoured to provide such a haven for you."
Norm grunted softly as he tried to roll over and get comfortable. Link beds, he decided, were fine for linking, but if you happened to be a side-sleeper (like him) they were hellishly difficult to sleep in. The fact that his whole body hurt from the rough treatment of the Sec-ops types didn't help either. He hadn't exactly had a chance to check, but he was pretty sure he had at least one cracked rib on the right side, if not two, and there was a disturbing tenderness around about the location of his right kidney as well. Neither of the Sully boys had actually unlinked to go to sleep yet either, and the soft hum of their running link units should have been soothing white noise, but after all that had happened over the last couple of days, Norm was too keyed up, so instead of being soothed, he found the noise extremely distracting.
He found he didn't like trying to sleep facing the open lid of the unit, it was a little like lying in a coffin that might come down closed on him at any minute (a grim, morbid thought, but then, it had been a morbid sort of day, and he was now sleeping in the bed until recently occupied by Grace, so...) and besides that it was putting pressure on his sore side, so he rolled over to face the window again, and his eyes met Trudy's where she was lying in a hammock she'd strung up in the small amount of space between the link bed and the wall. He'd been rather surprised when she'd dug around under the seat of her Sampson and pulled out the very traditional Mayan rainbow-coloured knotted hammock, but then, if she carried around a blouse and skirt with her "in case of a special occasion" then why not a hammock as well. I would certainly be more comfortable if she'd ever gotten grounded for the night out in the forest than trying to sleep in the seats in her cockpit!
"Can't sleep?" she asked quietly, giving him a small, sympathetic smile.
"...yeah," he admitted, "it's...been a weird, long day and this "bed" really isn't set up for curling up in comfortably."
"C'mere then," she said, patting the hammock, "we can share."
"Um...are you sure?" he asked, "I mean, what if I make it flip trying to get in?"
She thought for a second, then rolled herself out, hopping down to the floor with alacrity. "You get in first," she gestured, "I have more experience getting into hammocks, and I've shared before. I was just a kid, mind you, but there's some things you never really un-learn."
Norm could have argued the point, but frankly he was too tired, physically, mentally and more than anything emotionally, to reject the idea of being able to sleep curled up with Trudy all night. That was something they'd never yet gotten the chance to do, since even though Grace and Jake knew about their relationship (it was hard to miss the signs, really) there really hadn't been room to share one of the tiny bunks in any position other than her sleeping right on top of him, and that was just a little...well, let's just say it wouldn't really have been very conducive to actual sleep.
He climbed carefully and somewhat awkwardly into the hammock, trying to arrange himself so that he was lying on his side looking out the window without accidentally flipping himself out. He was surprised at how comfortable it was, actually, and the way the net-like knotwork stretched meant that the sides almost curled up around him, seeming to wrap him like an embrace and making him much less worried that he'd accidentally fall out during the night. It was also a heck of a lot more roomy than it looked!
"Comfy?" Trudy asked, smiling at him.
"More than I expected to be," he admitted, and she laughed and stuck her tongue out at him.
"Hey," she protested, "my people wouldn't have been making these things for centuries if they weren't comfortable and practical. Now hold still while I get in too." She pulled out one side and hopped up, sitting (almost falling back against him) briefly before turning and pulling her legs in. The nature of the hammock itself, and the fact that (presumably to conserve space and keep its bundled-up size as small as possible for stowing) it didn't have any spreaders meant that there was almost no choice but to cuddle close when sharing it. Not that Norm was complaining about that fact any. Especially not when she snuggled in against his side, using his shoulder as a pillow and wrapping her free arm around his waist.
"Comfy?" he echoed her question from a moment ago, unable to resist the urge to run his fingers through her hair and pull the elastic out. Her ponytail was cute, sure, but the way her hair curled naturally when it was free was pretty close to how he'd always imagined a goddess might look. It lent a gentleness to her, a femininity that was so often belied by her "tough-as-nails" pilot persona. With him, though, he knew she felt safe enough to let the girly side out a little, and that made him blissfully happy every time it happened. He loved her, and not just the spunky side, but every side of her, and he was thankful every day for whatever it was that had brought him, of all people, to her attention. He would have been more than glad to worship her from afar, but she, in her infinite wisdom (or maybe just boredom?) had decided he was worth her time, and he intended to do everything he could to make sure she never changed her mind about that.
"Very," she smiled, patting him lightly just above the hip.
Unfortunately she managed to land right on the worst of his bruises, and he sucked in a pained breath...which only made his ribs hurt at the sudden, stronger movement, which made him whimper slightly.
"Norm," she frowned, her fingers quickly moving to tug the hem of his shirt up, then she swore. He knew she was taking in the colours of the bruises blooming all over his torso and not liking any of them. "Shit! Why didn't you say something?"
"I'll be fine," he shook his head, "I mean, yeah I'm a bit banged up, but I'm still in one piece. Grace is the one who..." He cut himself off, remembering, "Grace was the one who needed the medical supplies more than I did," he whispered.
Trudy sighed and hugged him very carefully, trying to avoid his bruises. "It's been a really sucky day," she agreed, "a really, really sucky day. You okay to sleep like that? I could hop down again and get some of the medical supplies and fix you up a little."
"Naw, I'm okay," Norm shook his head, pulling her against him a little tighter, "what would really make me feel better right now is just to be here and for you to be here too." He sighed, "and I know that sounds really corny, but..."
She kissed him gently to shut him up. "I know," she said, "it's been a hard day and sometimes we just need to remember that there are things about life that don't suck. I'll let it be for now, then, but only if you promise you'll let me patch you up in the morning."
"I promise," Norm nodded, shifting a little to curl up tighter around her and burying his face in her hair as he closed his eyes and breathed as deeply as his sore ribs would allow. Suddenly he found himself absolutely exhausted, and it wasn't long at all before he was out like a light, the slight swaying movement of the hammock rocking him to sleep and the warm comfort of Trudy's presence keeping him there.
Meanwhile, outside the link-mod, Tom and Ninat were preparing for sleep as well. They had made themselves a bed out of mosses and some soft undergrowth, and it was actually quite comfortable, but Ninat couldn't seem to find a good position for sleeping. She kept tossing and turning, cuddling up against Tom one minute, then shifting so that she was almost lying on top of him, then spooning against him. She'd never acted in such a way before so finally Tom sat up and pulled her into his lap, hugging her.
"What's wrong?" he asked her, "Are you uncomfortable in some way? Is there anything I can do to make it better?"
"No, I'm not uncomfortable," she sighed, shaking her head, "I just...I know when I fall asleep then you will go to sleep too, and that means you won't be in your uniltìrantokx, and I know...I know that doesn't mean you won't wake up again in the morning and come back to me, but I can't help worrying somehow."
Tom sighed and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry for making you so worried and making you so nervous about me unlinking," he said, "I wish there was more I could do to assure you I..." he blinked, then smiled a little, "Would it make you less nervous if you saw with your own eyes that they won't be able to hide me away from you again?"
"It...might. Perhaps," she bit her lip. "Ma Tom, what are you thinking?"
"I am thinking that my other body is just over there," he gestured with his head toward the link-mod, "and it would be no trouble at all for me to put on a mask and come back out here to see you after I leave this body for the night. Would that make things better?"
"It would not make things worse," she smiled, "and I find myself curious to see what your tawtute body looks like. There is no harm in trying this solution and if it does not work then we can move on to the next one."
"Alright then," Tom laughed lightly, "let me just lie down and get comfortable, then I'll be right back out to see you." He kissed her gently before setting her next to him and lying down, curling up in such a way that it would be no trouble for either of them were she to curl herself up against him as she had all the time they'd been traveling.
Ninat almost held her breath as she waited and watched the door of the strange tawtute structure for Tom's tawtute self to emerge. It wasn't a minute or two later that she heard a soft hiss-whirr sound and the door opened and a small shape stepped through and down the couple of steps onto the ground. His skin was a pale pinkish colour and his hair the colour of the dried grass on the plains, but neither of these was the first thing she noticed.
"You're injured!" she exclaimed, jumping to her feet and hurrying over to him, kneeling before him like she might do to a child and reaching a tentative hand out toward the arm he had tied against his body. "They hurt you!"
He shook his head, "it is nothing," he insisted, "it does not matter. It's only my arm, and it will heal, what really hurt was my heart when I was watching and so afraid for you. That's...how I got this," he admitted, "I was angry and foolishly let my anger get the better of me. I tried to hit the one who leads the tawtute warriors, to hurt him even a little so he would know the hurt I was feeling, but I was too slow, this body was too weak." He laughed a little then, and she thought there wasn't much humour in that sound. "If my mother had seen my feeble attempts she would have thrown up her hands in disgust and declared this injury all my own fault for being stupid, so I bear it with as much patience as I can. Besides, as long as I'm linked up I don't even notice it, since in that body my arm is fine."
She didn't quite know what to say to all that so she just wrapped her arms around him carefully - he seemed so breakable, so fragile in this smaller form - and held him against her. She had feared as she slept beneath the fallen Kelutral waiting for him to return to her, but, she was now realizing, his own journey had been far more harsh than hers.
"Are you feeling any better?" he asked as he reached his small arms around her as best he could and patted her shoulder.
"A little," she admitted, "Do you think you might sit with me in this form, just until I fall asleep?"
"I'll even sleep out here if that's what you need," he offered, but she shook her head and tapped a finger against the glass of his mask.
"That would not be very comfortable for you, I think," she smiled, "and besides, in this body you are so small I would fear accidentally crushing you in the night."
"I'm not that tiny!" he objected, but he laughed, which had been her intent. "Why don't you curl up and I'll sit next to you and tell you stories until you fall asleep."
"Alright," she agreed, "then tell me of your mother and why you think she would be upset with you for not being able to fight the leader of the warriors even though you are an Ansrropolotxìs and a singer, not a warrior."
"Alright," he agreed, "I can do that, no problem." He sat down near where his other body lay sleeping, and this time as she lay down and curled up against that body to sleep and closed her eyes, her heart didn't start racing with fear, and she felt altogether much more calm. His voice as he told the story of his mother was low and familiar, and she realized that she was going to have to ask him to tell the story again, because there was no way she would stay awake long enough to hear much more than the beginning.
"Alright," Max sighed as he looked around the slightly ragtag group gathered in the atrium. All the avatar drivers were there, and the link techs and most of the bio- and micro- techs as well. Some of them were dressed for work, some casually, and a couple had actually come in their pajamas, but they were all here, and now he had to tell them news that he had only learned himself a short while ago when he checked his private messages, "you all know why you're here, but before we go any further, I have a bit of news to share, and it's something that might change the way many of you think of the events of the past day or two." He took a deep breath and looked down at his hands, "I have been contacted by the escapees; Dr. Norm Spellman sent me a message which I've only just had a chance to access securely, and it pains me more than you all know to tell you this, but Grace Augustine has died."
There was a chorus of gasps around the table, and more than one choked-back sob, but it was Nala Ombayo, the zoologist avatar driver, who asked the question he was sure they were all thinking.
"What happened?" she asked, and as he looked up to meet her eyes he could see there were tears threatening to spill from them.
"Apparently she was shot during their escape," Max said softly, "whether deliberately or accidentally Norm didn't say, and although drastic measures were taken by the Omatikaya to try to preserve her life her wounds were too great. She died not long after sundown."
"Damn Quaritch, that twisted sumbitch," LeJun Dezwagger ran his fingers through his dreadlocks in a now-familiar nervous gesture, re-fixing them into a messy ponytail as Max had seen him do a hundred - maybe a thousand times before, "and damn Selfridge for letting him run roughshod over everyone here... What's the use in being "protected" if you can't bloody move!"
"Thank you for telling us this sad news," Nandu Maran sighed, "but as you say you only learned it a short time ago, this meeting must have had a different purpose in your mind when you called us together."
"I did," Max nodded to him with a vague smile. "Thank you for reminding me. This latest news only re-enforces what I had already intended to say to you. All of you know what has happened these last couple of days, first the attack on the Omatikaya's sacred grove to incite a violent retaliation from them, then the "sanctioned" felling of their ancestral home," Max made air quotes around the word "sanctioned" and he knew his derision of the tactics of the military arm of the RDA was more than clear in his voice, "and then the incarceration of those among the AVTR program who had become closest to the clan and, as we've now learned, the death of one of the most influential scientists on this planet... I don't need to remind any of you of the fact that this very program is on shaky ground. Selfridge has suspended all scientific endeavours and even locked us out of the link room, and I know you avatar drivers are very worried about your other bodies."
"At least we were able to convince him to let the doctors out there to put them on IV drips," Nala shook her head, "there's nothing he hates more than having to write off expensive equipment, after all."
"True," Max nodded, "and that may play to our advantage if things go the way they very likely will. I had called you all here to discuss the possibility of some sort of organized defiant action against the company, when the time seemed right and when it might have some actual effect, but there was one other bit of news Norm had to pass along in his message: The Omatikaya, with Jake Sully at their head as some sort of semi-mythical figure which he didn't go into nearly enough detail about, have begun the process of spreading out across the continent to call upon all the clans. There is a war coming, people, and we need to know our place in it."
"I'm in," LeJun said quickly, "whatever we plan, I'm in."
"And me," Nala agreed, "there's no way I wouldn't be!"
...and so it went around the group, all the avatar drivers quickly promising their support, and the link techs, and the micro techs, and the biolab techs... They knew what was coming, they knew it all had the possibility to be completely futile, but at the same time, they knew it had to be done, and so they would do it, because when it came right down to brass tacks, as his father used to say, they were human, with not only humanity's failings, but its remarkable ability for empathy as well, and they had seen who the true villains were in this fight and wanted to prove that not all of their race were totally blind.
Once they were in their borrowed tent for the night, and the door was closed and they had explored the interior and knew where the basin of water was, and the belongings-racks and the bed, Neytiri turned to Jhake and before she could even ask what they might do to fall asleep he had his arms around her tight, as though he thought she might disappear, and he was kissing her desperately. This wasn't like when they had first mated, in the innocence of the grove of utral aymokriyä before its destruction; it wasn't even like the needy, fleeting kisses they had shared as they waited for Grace to be ready for the ceremony in that fleeting time after their reunion; no, this was an insistent, almost forceful kissing, and his hands moved to strip her and clutch her to him with strength just this side of bruising, although she was not upset at what some might think of as slightly rough treatment. She was a strong hunter, and could stand up to it, but more than that, the sense she got from him as she linked her tswin to his was not one of anger, but of intense need, and great sadness. He had not really had a chance to mourn, she realized, neither of them had, and while she might have thought once that to engage in mating as a form of mourning seemed disrespectful at best, seeing it through his eyes, through his heart, she understood. He was still alive, and she was, and to join together in proof of their love and life was to show Grace that they would not let her passing set them back, that although they were sad (and they were sad) they would use that sadness to make things better.
And right now, making things better meant falling onto the surprisingly soft mattress on the floor of the tent, their bodies intertwining as he sank into her and she welcomed him in with open arms.
"Oh God, Neytiri," Jhake whimpered as he kissed her again and again, and she could sense the fear deep inside him that somehow he would lose her as well, that she might be torn from him by the storm that was soon to come.
"Mawey, ma Jhake," she soothed him, her hands stroking the far-too-tight muscles of his back as she wrapped one leg up around his hip and rubbed her heel just at the spot where his butt flowed into the back of his leg, "I will not leave you again, I promise you this."
His whole body trembled, but finally he melted against her, his strokes within her slowing and changing from desperate to delicious. His fear wasn't gone, she could tell, but for now he had fought it back with her help, and she intended to make sure it didn't surface again.
To that end, she decided it was about time she tried something she had thought of in the dreams which had kept her company as she waited for him to return to her. Picking a moment when he was deepest within her, she grinned and rolled them over, using her momentum to pin him down to the mattress.
He grinned up at her, not disconcerted at all by her taking this initiative. "Well," he said, "I guess it's your turn to do all the work."
She grinned back down at him. "Lazy," she teased, "I am always the one who does the work." She raised herself up a little on her knees and then slid back down, experimenting with tempos and rhythms, focusing on his arousal and working to bring him almost to the point where he could take no more again and again before backing off.
Finally, with a pleased sort of growl and a laughing grin on his face, he reached out to dig his fingers into her hips and direct her how to move, and all of a sudden their tender/teasing/playful lovemaking turned serious again. She could sense within him the need to lose himself inside her completely, and she was only to willing to give him anything and everything that he might need. The pace he led her at was almost frantic, and the friction soon brought her to the brink as well, as he pulled her body down against his and fused his lips to hers in a searing kiss and thrust hard one, two, three final times within her before slumping down into the embrace of the mattress, his fingers going limp and sliding down her hips and off to the sides.
They were both panting hard, worn out from their exertions and from the mad emotional stress of the day, and then he gave one low, quiet whimper and clutched her to him, burying his face in the crook of her neck, and she could feel the tears she knew he would later swear he had never shed. She rolled them onto their sides, keeping herself wrapped around him, and stroked his hair soothingly. She would never tell anyone about this moment of weakness, and for now she would be the one to be strong for him. She knew soon enough he would be the one to be strong for her again, and then she would allow herself to grieve this latest loss, but for now, for just a little while, she did what she had been told was the sacred duty of a mate but had never understood until this second; she let the strongest man she knew be weak, knowing she would never think less of him for it.
There were no more words spoken between them as they finally fell into an exhausted sleep, their bodies still tucked intimately close and wrapped around each other in the embrace that should never have been broken.
Well! Actually I realize quite a bit of this story consisted of people going to sleep, but it was a necessary, slightly mournful chapter, perhaps not quite as uplifting as I would have hoped for a christmas present, but there you go. With any luck (keep your fingers crossed folks! We have a windstorm here and this (and the other) was delayed by a brief power-outage) I'm hoping to get the next chapter of Histories out sometime today as well, as it's mostly written and just needs a few holes filled in.
In any case, now, for what you've all been waiting for with baited breath:
Vocab:
Ìnglisì - English language
riti - stingbat
Olo'eyktan - clan leader
Toruk Makto - legendary hero of the Na'vi and/or Jake!
ayVitrayä Ramunong - The Well of Souls
ikran / ayikran - banshee(s)
toruk - great leonopteryx
makto - ride, or, colloquially, rider
Tsahìk - spiritual leader
pa'li - direhorse
Kelutral - Hometree
uniltìrantokx - dreamwalker body, empty avatar
tawtute - sky person, human
Ansrropolotxìs - this isn't a real word, it's how Ninat attempts to say "Anthropologist"
utral aymokriyä - tree of voices
tswin - queue