Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Mo’at shows up the day after Max and Norm arrive. Norm didn’t even know, having only popped out of his link with the Omaticaya to sleep a few hours and not starve his human body.

Even Neytiri had never seen her ride an ikran. It was for those who choose to be warriors, and she had never been anything but Tsakarem and Tsahik. This was possibly the first flight of the bond and it had been done for her and her children. Such a great love.

“The Atokirina would not let me ignore Eywa. I am relieved that her will seems to allow me to see my granddaughter’s healing with my own eyes.” She gave proper dues to Tonowari and Ronal. Meeting around a larger fire for dinner with the foreign Tsahik where they didn’t for the human and dreamwalker before. The metkayina are still reserved, but more used to the proceedings of these circumstances of visiting groups.

“You spoiled the children Kiri. Rawm cried for your sweeter mix with his nasal cold just last month.”

Both Ronal and Tsireya are shocked to realize they never thought about how Kiri would be the tsakarem. Neytiri was so clearly not engaged with the practice, and no one thought to ask after siblings.

“How is Tarsem getting on?” Jake finally asks, trying to keep quiet about it.

“He considers carefully and often asks what I think you would do. I usually say that you’d do something unnaturally stupid for Na’vi but fine for a sky person and he stops fingering his song chord where he marks his grief for Toruk Makto.”

Jake flinches alongside his boys, Tonowari dips his head in respect for the pain the new Olo’eyktan.

Mo’at continues on, “He is courting Vineya, she is already a great healer. Hopefully I will actually get to pass on Tsahik after 4 tries.” Neytiri smiles with her, both with an air of unheard giggles before the sadness creeps in. After all she had lost Sylwanin, then let Neytiri pass on the title to Kiri until they both left. She has a right to be tired of starting the teachings.

Respect is given to the newcomer, but it is stilted. Until the message travels around, “The tulkun are spotted some distance away. They will come by soon.”

Ronal asks Mo’at cordially if there is a time for stories in her home the way there is with the tulkun. Suddenly there is images, visions in the mix of fire and the small waterfall in the nearby fishing lagoon. Like a projection screen.

At first it is a reflection of the here and now. Then the images gain colour, and dimensionality, Grace Augustine appears speaking with a voice not her own, only Kiri can almost place it.

“See, see, see. Truth is here.”

The two tsahiks look to each other. But it is Kiri who says, “Eywa help us understand? Can we see more?”

“Baby girl, I know you like seeing your ma. Just be careful.”

“We can all see it, it must be a message. Eywa must like the humans a little bit to replicate their videos.” Mo’at settles in to see what must be known closer to her family.

Ronal brings Aonung and Tsireya closer to her, Roxto follows and places himself on the other side of Tonowari. Other Metkayina spread out in the comfortable sand behind their leaders, interested but still protected.

There is only the drums before a foggy forest appears like one choosing to focus after a long blink. “When I was lying there in the VA hospital, with a big hole blown through the middle of my life, I started having these dreams of flying. I was free.”

“That looks like the area where your old shack is Papa.” Tuk piped up immediately.

“It is definitely our forest.” Neytiri ran her hand over her youngest’s braided hair.

“It is beautiful,” Tsireya commented, “It looks like how your family feels, like the breath you each take before diving.” She directed this part mostly to Lo’ak.

“It was home,” Netayam ends as the Sully’s markedly focus on the image.

“But sooner or later though you always have to wake up” Suddenly there is a blinking eye, immediately human.

“So you were seeing Pandora, like you were flying, since way before you ever even decided to go to the planet?” Norm questioned, “like? Before Tommy?”

“I mean, he was studying to have his doctorate in Pandoran environments, so no, not before Tommy ever made any decisions, but yeah, I got out of the hospital just before he started training, or you both started training.”

“When did you make the connection between-”

“I’ll tell you when if this is going over what I know we are both thinking it will.”

“Oh yeah! That’s perfect, yeah. Let’s continue then.”

Jake is surrounded by masked people, looking both as young as his 22 years and immeasurably older than everyone else. Trains whoosh around him and no sky is visible around the tracks and the lights.

“I am confused as to why Sky People would be wearing masks on their own planet with their own air?” Tonowari interjects.

“We were constantly burning things so that we would have enough: enough food, enough energy, enough fuel. Anyway, just like a fire for warmth or for cooking, what you burn makes the smoke different, the stuff we were burning on earth… left a smoke that never really goes away and hurts the lungs, so we protect ourselves.” Max explains. With the same patience and respect as when Spider or the Sully children asked. No one else had reason to ask.

“Then you are ignoring your own health, Jake Sully?” Ronal questioned.

“I didn’t really care if my lungs hurt or even killed me at the time.” Jake answered, “It is one of my many regrets about my own nature and way of seeing when I was younger.”

It was a measured answer, one with weight and meaning from a great leader, but it brought their own chest tightening to his family.

“You have not been that reckless in a long time, I hope it has not returned?” Mo’at’s stern tone and eye contact with her son-in-law had him dipping his head respectfully.

Everyone’s eyes went back to the images before them.

“They can fix a spinal, if you got the money, but not on vet benefits, not in this economy.”

“Vet benefits?” Aonung asked.

“Help paying for medical needs after serving as a warrior,” Jake answered only to notice the increase in furrowed brows.

“So, I wanted to stop the bad guys, the people that were hurting those they should be responsible for. So I gave myself to the warrior group we called Marines,”

“Your Jarhead Clan,” Mo’at remembers and Neytiri chuckles at him. Norm and Max guffaw.

“Yeah, so I tried to do what they taught me, to protect people and hurt our enemies so they couldn’t hurt us. But they were more successful, at least with me.” He turned to the Metkayina, “The weapon I prefer, is like a bow, but it uses fire to make the very small arrow have more strength. The bullet went through me, through the line of bones in the back that connects the legs to the body. So they were as far away from my control as if they had been removed. Like I was cut in half at my hips.”

“I am very sorry you were in pain.” Neytiri had said it before, had asked her mother many questions before his transfer into the Na’vi body about any healing he might need afterwards. It had been so long since it was even a memory. With a squeeze to her thigh and a smile, it was left in the past again.

“They were able to heal you then? But wouldn’t? even though you were to be supported as any previous warrior injured should be?” Ronal asked, leaning forward enough that her small bump was hanging off her hips almost.

“They thought that I didn’t really need it to survive, so why give me more than that. I can’t give them anything more either way.” Jake said with a calm voice, it was unfortunate truths of someone’s thought process that he knows will be taken as goading no matter what. He must remain as civil as possible while explaining something so alien to the strong-hearted communities he loves.

“I can’t promise we can communicate exactly what the system humans use is. It’s been warped in so many ways, but we can try to explain each example as it comes? Otherwise, we might be here forever, unweaving all of humanity.” Max offered with hands outstretched, open and unthreatening despite his species, it was accepted.

In his cubicle like apartment Jake rocks back and forth to remove his pants. It’s especially difficult given the atrophied lower limbs that do not cooperate with him. His “Born Loser” tattoo is noticeably visible.

He is barely listening to the newscaster on his television speaking, “    The Bengal tiger, extinct for over a century, is making a comeback. These cloned tiger cubs at the Beijing Zoo are…”

“I became a Marine for the hardship. To be hammered on the anvil of life. I told myself I could pass any test a man can pass.”

  Suddenly there is a bar scene, with Jake balancing his wheelchair and a small glass with liquid in it. The trick is getting cheers from the people around him, who are all just as rough and tumble as Jake is.

“Was it hard to balance? You’ve always kept me balanced in the trees Papa. So why would they cheer you on?” Tuk asked as she crawled to sit half in Jake’s lap.

“Well, it was a little hard, but that’s cause I was…” How does he explain drunk to his 7-year-old, “The drink was called tequila, like kava, a party beverage.” He adds for the Metkayina not having kava specifically themselves.

“I’ve been injured in a battle, does that means I get to drink kava?” Lo’ak edged in.

“No!”

“But-“

There was eye contact, a sternness, and a refocus on the younger version of Lo’ak’s father.

Where men played running sports with animal legs spliced onto their bodies.

Norm flinches, that has always creeped him out.

Jake’s young, human face appears again. Frustrated, angry even, with barely any of the real sadness and grief peaking through.

“Let’s get it straight up front. I don’t want your pity. I know the world’s a cold-ass bitch”

  The bar is the same but new, the frivolity is gone. Now the image of a man smacking the woman he is with becomes painfully obvious. Like it’s the only thing happening in the room, “an eternal tableau”.

Outrage follows immediately.

Tsireya’s hands cover her mouth, her eyes wide.

“Terrible! How dare he!” Neytiri holds her sons closer like she can keep them from being infected by the abusive virus.

“THIS IS HOW SKY PEOPLE MATE?” Ronal is indignant, thinking of how much her own daughter is flirting, possibly considering a demon-blooded boy for her forever. This will not be allowed to happen to her women.

“No. No. This is not usual. It’s just a problem for some,” Jake assures Ronal glancing at Mo’at as well trying to communicate that he would never treat Neytiri like this, “Some people have no sense of power and try to create it with pain, with fear. It is penalized… but only if the partner being hurt chooses, before then… as a clan, we don’t have what we need to get her things that he provides so she needs to make the choice to get those things first.”

Norm pops in, “So many times, if someone steps in, the woman there would get hurt more when they are hidden in their own house. We cannot help without being asked to help, this is what we have decided as a society, as a clan with too little resources to share.”

“Your sky people have brought enough here for you all, why not give these out there instead?”

“Because the people deciding where to give resources don’t care about the group. But instead they care about what they will be given in return for their distribution choices.” Norm continues, trying to make respectful eye contact with Ronal, but she is quite scary.

“I’d drank quite a bit at this point, and I forget that she could be in more danger, but I… I promise you I do something, just not the same choices I’d make now.” Jake gestures back to the display to continue.

“You want a fair deal, you're on the wrong planet. The strong prey on the weak. It's just the way things are. And nobody does a damn thing.”  Jake’s hand is steady as he wheels to the offender. No one notices him lean further down out of their notice to pull the chair own from under the man. Once down, he goes ham, won’t pull a single punch no matter how hard the bouncers pull him off.

“YAAAH!” arms around the Metkayina went up and tongues out in pride.

“What the…” Lo’ak leans his head into Netayam, “I’d get in so much shit for that!”

“You’d get in shit for that with Dad, not Mom.” Kiri adds around them.

“So is a punch a Sky person thing, or a Sully thing?” Aonung asks, rubbing his still bruised cheek bone.

“All I ever wanted in my sorry-ass life was a single thing worth fighting for.”

 “And I found you,” Jake whispered, bending his head into her neck the same way he would when they would tell their small children bedtime stories.

Jake is tossed into the alley, with his wheelchair following behind him bouncing out of immediate reach.

“Hope you know you’ve just lost a customer! Candy Ass Bitch!”  He’s tonging a bleeding lip, falling back into the rainy night.

“You need that to move, and they just toss it! Disrespectful of a good warrior!” Neytiri is critical.

“Candy Ass Bitches!” Tuk sides with her.

“Don’t repeat that!” Jake jumps.

“If it ain’t raining, we ain’t training.”

“What does this mean?” Roxto lilts.

“It’s a nonsense rhyme that marine’s sing to remind themselves that they are better than other groups cause they can be warriors in any weather.”

“Cause they aren’t Candy Ass Bitches!” Tuk cheers.

“NO! TUK!” Jake moans and pokes her stomach lightly.

Two figures approach darkly, the first asks,    “Are you Jake Sully?”

“Step Off. You’re ruining my good mood.”

“You are hurt after a good fight. This is a proud moment that should be celebrated in the place they kicked you out.” Tonowari extends to pick up the mood.

Jake chuckles is thanks.

“It’s about your brother.”

“Your brother? Do we have more human family?” Netayam asks. Tuk is crawling around her father to look him in his eyes with her hands on his chest. Neytiri’s hand goes to the side of Jake’s head.

“I did have a brother. He was all I had after our parents passed just before we became adults.”

Neytiri knew, they had addressed how closely they both knew the loss of a sibling, especially the more accepted one. Mo’at and Ronal were the one to immediately note the us of past tense.

“It’s about your brother”  an agents voice brings with it a black plastic sheet being removed to show the identical face of Jake in Tommy, deathly pale and still.

There is a flinch throughout the Omaticaya.

“Jesus, Tommy.”

“His name was Tommy?” Lo’ak looks to his father pleadingly. What if this is the family that he would have been closer to? What if he lost him too early as well?

“So, a week before Tommy’s gonna ship out, a guy with a gun ends his journey, for the paper in his wallet.”

“I still don’t understand this paper, stone, worth, economy things you reference.” Neytiri intonated.

“It does make no sense.” Ronal hopped on, even though she had never been in a lesson with Grace for it like Neytiri had.

Norm was at a loss, much like when he tried to ask about phytosynthesis and other botany terms with the Na’vi. Jake took up the mantel though.

“It’s difficult to explain this but... It’s like you have no arrows to hunt or nets to catch fish, so you take whatever you can off of someone else who is hopefully walking around with one of these things, or at the very least you’ll take the jewelry to give to someone else for the extra arrows or nets they made. Cause without it, you can’t get food to eat, for you or your family. Without them, you die.”

“Because there is not enough for everyone to just get what they need.” Kiri remembered, “Or the people handing out food tells you that while feeding only their family?”

Jake spread his hands palm up as if presenting her addition before him on a platter for its perfection.

“Poisonous, Eywa would never allow such an Olo’eyktan or Tsahik to remain.” Ronal sniffs.

“There is no Eywa to connect to… there is only fear that there might be. Most call him God in some way or form, and we are never sure what he really wants or if other humans are just pretending to know so they can take too much from us.” Max adds.

“Not evil, lost, unable to see and refusing to open their eyes in case it is too painful.” Kiri gives like a diagnosis, there is a reason she was the tsakarem.

“And causing others pain to not feel alone in your own suffering. Pretending to not suffer.” Jake nods.

Two agents hover near Jake as he makes the identification of his brother’s body, sad and shocked. The cardboard casket closes with all grey and so little light.

“The suits concern was touching”  Sarcasm ripped out of the words .

“Your brother represented a significant investment. We’d like to talk to you about taking over his contract.”  The numbered box is slid into it’s slot as the agents convince Jake.

“You weren’t coming until this?” Neytiri puts the forgotten details together.

“I still feel guilty about it. He would have been so much more at home than I was at first. You probably would have welcomed him so much easier than Grace or me ever were.”

“Eywa’eveng is your home, Eywa brought you home. We just had to catch up to her, we welcomed you as soon as we could understand that.” Mo’at placed a hand on Jake’s shoulder, the last elder from the time of his acceptance, who would know him well enough from the beginning to truly comment.

“You were always welcome in your true home Ma Jake, always with Eywa.” The conviction that his wife held without any of the doubts that plagued him made his back a little straighter, but Jake still held so much shame. He had done so much to hurt this world before he started loving it, when it was only the world Neytiri loved and he loved her enough to start repairing.

“Tommy was the scientist, not me. He was the one who wanted to get shot light-years out in space to find the answers.”

“What answers do you want?” Tonowari directed this at Norm and Max.

“Why?” Norm responded enthusiastically.

“Why what?”

“Everything… Why does a tree grow this way? Why do the animals have the number of legs they do? Why do they have certain skin? Or colours?” Max is ever the biologist.

“Why does tsaheylu exist? What does it really do to the brain? The body?” Norm carries on using the same voice one of his favourite XENOANTHROPOLOGIST professors used.

“Oh. You are like children, but do not give up when told because Eywa blessed us so.”

“Well yeah, I guess so. Cause if Eywa designed it this way, why? Why not any other way? And given that there is no physical hands that shaped these things, there is only the environment, the decisions Eywa would make have to be enacted by the physical forces on each other, so how did that happen?” Norm is continuing.

“Why and How are the most common words used by children until they pretend to know everything like they think they are supposed to, we have worked very hard to keep asking instead and to think of ways to find the answers.” Max concludes, there is a positive, hopeful energy in the air. Jake pats their shoulders and is reminded of Tommy like he is so rarely anymore.

“Since your genome is identical to his, you could step into his shoes,”  they look at each other very purposefully,  “so to speak.”

“Genome?” Mo’at asks.

Max pipes up again, “So a child is part of their father and their mother, right?” He waits for the Na’vi nod to continue, “So that combination makes a genome, or what we call DNA. This is then partly given to their children to mix with their mate.”

“Why a child might look like their grandparents as well. Lo’ak has Eytukans markings around his ears.” Mo’at spaces out a bit, “It delighted me when I first held him. I was so proud of our daughter and her children.”

“YES!” Max continues with sympathy and kindness, “And Lo’ak got that from Neytiri, who got it from Eytukan, who got it from one of his parents. We are a collection of our ancestors, yet also uniquely our own cause even though it’s the same parents Netayam didn’t get those genes, he got different bits and so did Tuktirey.”

“So genes are different but genomes are the same?” asked Ronal with accented weight on the new words.

“No, they are almost the same thing. What made Tommy and I different than other siblings is that…” Jake pauses to put his thoughts in order, trying to explain it more in terms of Na’vi experience than scientific conjecture, “Our mother was growing one body, but made 2 souls, so the body had to pull apart so that we could each have our own. Meaning we were made of the exact same mix of our parents.”

“I’m not very theologically inclined, but that actually gives a pretty good understanding.” Norm passively trails into the conversation.

“What makes you say she made souls? Grace once told me that souls were thought to be ghosts reborn or a thing made by your Eywa, the God you’ve mentioned?” Neytiri asks.

“Because you showed me Eywa. She holds their souls, uniquely their own soul after their death yeah? So if she was using old spirits again, they would have to be taken apart for the pieces. Energy and Matter cannot be created or destroyed only borrowed right?” Jake looks for confirmation, Ronal is the one nodding the most.

“Thank you for my soul Mama.” Tuktirey nuzzles into Neytiri, Mo’at reaches around to connect her as well. Ronal reaches for her own daughter.

Jake’s head is down, eyes barely seeing as his brother’s body is packed away with no ceremony.

“Yeah, Tommy was the scientist. Me, I’m just another dumb grunt going someplace he’s going to regret.”

“I’m sorry about Uncle Tommy’s passing,” Netayam offers to Jake, “But I hope you know that we see you, and that we do not regret you coming.” Jake pulls his family into the circle of his arms, trying so hard to show them he loves them back.

Aonung bobs his head from side to side. Grief is always a motivator for connection, for forgiveness. Maybe he will decide to be slightly less annoyed by the Sully’s.

“it’d be a fresh start, on a new world.”

A button is pushed by sterile, gloved hands. Tommy burns.

“One life ends. Another begins.”

“Why is he burning?” Tonowari flinches along with the other Metkayina given their preference for water burials.

“Because this is how he wanted to return to the world. There is not enough space to bury him whole and he wanted his ashes to be packed up small and buried beneath a plant, to decide how his borrowed energy will be used next. For his love of the earth.” Jake explains easing the opinions of many around him.

Jake is breathing heavy, face focused on the floating tear in front of him. Beeping Monitors give way to,    “In cryo, you don’t dream at all. It doesn’t feel like 6 years. More like a fifth of tequila and an ass-kicking.”

“Well, you apparently are very familiar with that given what we saw in the bar.” Max jests.

His cubby ejects from wall to weightless environment.    “Are we there yet?”

“Yeah. We’re there, sunshine. We’re there.”

“You’re floating!” Kiri vibrates with awe.

“Yeah so, the planet is huge, so big that it keeps you safely attached to it even within the sky. But outside of that, there is no down otherwise known as towards the center of the ball. So with no up or down, you float.” Norm explains just like he used to when he babysat them.

“You’ve been in cryo for 5 years, 9 months and 22 days. You will be hungry. You will be weak. If you feel nausea, please use the sacks provided for your convenience. The staff thanks you in advance.”

“Yes, please do not make more work for others when you can avoid it.” Tsireya seems to be pointedly saying to Aonung. Maybe she is getting a little tired of sharing most of the teaching duties with Roxto then him when it was the two of them charged with it.

He steadfastly remains looking at the story still though, “That is a very long time to sleep. Or would it be like preserving fish, put in a different state until cooked later?”

“Actually, that’s pretty spot on.” Aonung almost forgets that Norm is not true Na’vi is this exchange. It is a strange moment when he realizes he forgot.

The outer spaceship is surrounded by black, not even stars. Eventually showing the reflection of polyphemus and pandora.

“Up ahead was Pandora. You grew up hearing about it, but I never figured I’d be going there.”

Drums and a deep melody bring the true view of Naranawm with nari anawm spot lining up with where it is holding Eywa’eveng in its gravitational dance.

“Eywa!” Kiri leans forward with pure live in her eyes.

“Our home is beautiful,” Neytiri reaches out not just addressing her family but the Metkayina as well.

“Yes, she is.” Ronal nods back with a pleasant almost smile on her face. There is a swell of pride among the tribe.

Pandora comes into focus with the spaceship looking more cobbled together next to the giant planet’s pure colours.

The same burning powers to the ship descending through the clouds..    FLYING OVER A LANDSCAPE of massive cliffs and towering mesas carpeted in rainforest. Great scarves of cloud swirl around the mesa tops. There are waterfalls, rivers, and distant flocks of WINGED CREATURES.

 “This is the forest we used to call home.” Lo’ak explains to Tsireya quietly, shyly. She grins back so that her dimples look like they are berries about to burst.

Inside the ship there are lines of seated people, mostly men, in fatigues.

“Exo-packs on! Let’s go! Exo-packs on!”  A leader announces, his assistant repeats,  “Exo-packs on! Let’s go!”

“Remember, people, you lose that mask, you’re unconscious in 20 seconds, you’re dead in 4 minutes. Let’s nobody be dead today! Looks very bad on my report.”

Passengers don their EXO-PACK breathing gear with practiced moves. Everybody except JAKE, who's turning his this way and that trying to figure out the straps Jake struggles a little more than those around him, still moving fluidly and with situational skill.

“isn’t it just instinct to put one on?” Lo’ak asks, “Why are you struggling?”

Jake’s brows furrow, “I hadn’t been taught to put one on yet, so I was just guessing based on what it was supposed to perform… You don’t remember when I taught you and Kiri how to put it on Spider and activate it?”

“When was this?” Lo’ak tilts his head so his side braid crosses his face.

“You were a year old, almost 2 maybe. Kiri had just turned 2. Neytiri taught Netayam since I wasn’t as good with only using 3 fingers.”

“I don’t remember.” Lo’ak looks down.

“That’s alright,” Jake places a palm on his second son’s shoulder, “You were barely bigger than a baby, sitting on my lap. You cooed whenever I clicked the buttons.”

Children don’t remember the before times as well as parents, Jake reminds himself, they are your responsibility to protect no matter if they remember you taught them to be safe only that they are.

My father remembers being happy teaching me things, Lo’ak thought, He thought of me fondly at one point. Maybe I could get that back.

  “Hell’s Gate tower, this is TAV 1-6 on approach. Crossing outer marker. Mine is in sight”

Suddenly the carpet of virgin rainforest gives way to AN OPEN-PIT MINE. A lifeless crater -- as if a giant cookie-cutter took a chunk out of the world.  The dead pit with pathways carved in through continuous use.  Down among the terraces are EXCAVATORS and TRUCKS the size of three story buildings.  Giant machinery looms over human figures with titanus danger and powerful lethargy.  And beyond the mine is the HUMAN COLONY.

Jake swings his head away from the sight seeing Neytiri and Mo’at do the same, holding back moans of pain.

The Metkayina watch in gruesome fascination. Like a tragedy that must bear witness unless it will get so much worse.

As the plane lands the flight leader announces  , “Harnesses off! Get your packs!”  the assistant is already repeating  “Harnesses off!”  as he continues,  “Put it together, let’s go! One minute. Let’s go”

“When that ramp goes down, go directly into the base. Do not stop! Go straight inside. Wait for my mark!”

The first true look of Pandoran land is blocked by all the bodies, Jake is still sitting.    A BLUE INHUMAN HAND reaches to part the foliage revealing the shuttle hover-taxiing across the compound. Two intense, cat-like golden EYES are watching.

“You were watching us?” Max asks, hoping there is no unintentional judgement in his voice.

“Yes, you watch as you hunt prey or an enemy. It is how good and just battle is done.” Neytiri repeated like it had been drilled into her.

“It was respectful,” Jake pipes up making her meet his eyes, “It is more respectful than the tactics they wanted and did use. And I thank you for teaching me how to be more respectful with my sky people battles. It is balanced, better for Eywa. I see you.”

Neytiri is closer to tears than she has been since leaving the forest. It’s painful for her children to see, but their fathers words bring so many questions while none of them being fully formed.

INSIDE everybody is queued up in the aisles, with duffles ready. Rows of tense, expectant faces in breathing masks and we DIP DOWN to find Jake, wheelchair putting him at the level of everyone else's WAISTS.

“Go, go, go, go! Get out of there! Keep moving let’s go. Let’s go!”

Everyone is moving on as Jake pulls open a basic structure of a wheelchair.

“There’s no such thing as an ex-Marine. You may be out, but you never lose the attitude. I told myself I could pass any test a man could pass.”  Jake pants as he hauls his pack around the oxygen mask.

“A warrior lives as a warrior their whole lives, just as a healer will always have the practice in their hands. You have been tested and found to be a good man. I know this always.” Neytiri speaks to Jake, Mo’at can only think of the last two Olo’eyktan’s she has counciled. Both her Husband and Son-in-law were great warriors who fought with the care of protection and safety for others over themselves, it was the warrior that never left them, it was a part of their good hearts. She loved that about her family.

“Let’s go, special case! Do not make me wait for you!”

“You should wait for those that need it if you know what’s good for you!” Kiri grumbles at the man. Tsireya nodded in agreement making direct eye contact with Aonung and Roxto.

The soldiers marching past get watched by Wainfleet saying    “well, well, ladies. Look at all this fresh meat!”

“Have we been referring to you improperly? Should we be calling you women?” Asks a little curious Metkayina of Max.

“No, I use he/him pronouns.” Max says shocked into blankness, “Why do you ask?”

“Well, he is in a male body,” the child gestures to Norm, “So I know he has a man’s human body, but you look like those humans that are being called ladies and I don’t know if you are in a male or female body.”

“Oh dear,” Max laughs a bit, “I am in a male body, I am a man, but there are some humans (very stupid) that think having a female body makes you their servant, and if you change yourself to be a woman when you were born with a male body, they think it is even more shameful.”

The little ones, mothers are not happy about this, wrapping their arms around their child and pulling a little farther away.

“They are very wrong, and very stupid, so they are trying to hurt the other people a little to feel better.” Jake leans down to the child and pretends to whisper while still loud enough for the others to hear, “I’ll tell you a secret, it doesn’t work and they lose.”

Parents smile a little more and maybe he could be the hero of a story. Maybe his family weren’t as dangerous as they worry.

“Back on earth, these guys were Army dogs, marines, fighting for freedom.”

Jake has to take the time to get out of a robotic suits way. It’s driver turns around enough to comment,    “Look out, hot rod!”

“That’s rude! They are larger, shouldn’t they get out of your way? You had to work harder for it!” Kiri is indignant, Netayam nudges her with raised eyes.

“But out here they’re just hired guns, taking the money, working for the company.”

“Check this out man. Meals on wheels.”

“Oh, man. That is just wrong.”

“Candy Ass Bitches!” The closer children chorus with Tuk.

“NO!!!” Jake bemoans worried until Tonowari lets out a great laugh.

“Well, your youngest has definitely made her mark on our children.” Ronal purses her lips, shoulders shaking either from Tonowari’s laughter or her own is unknowable.

A huge TRACTOR, taller than a house, ROARS past on muddy wheels. He notices something sticking in the tires -- ARROWS. The neolithic weapons are jarring amid all the advanced technology.  Especially given how brightly fletched they are.

To all of the Sully’s great surprise, Mo’at laughs at this. 

Beyond the tractor, two VTOL vehicles take off. Armored and heavily armed, they are AT-99 "SCORPION" GUNSHIPS. MITSUBISHI MK-6 AMPSUITS -- human operated walking machines 4 meters tall -- patrol the perimeter. They are heavily armored, and armed with a huge rotary cannon called a GAU-90.

Beyond the outer fence stands a black wall of forest hundreds of feet high.   A SENTRY GUN OPENS FIRE from a tower. TRACERS light up the twilight. A shadowy SHAPE SHRIEKS and drops off the fence. It is an armed camp in a state of siege. WAINFLEET and Fike give Jake and his chair the hairy eyeball as he approaches.

“What're you two limpdicks starin' at?”  Jake volleys back for the first time.

“I know the bald one is back as an avatar, the other I think we sent back to earth.” Jake mentions.

“Of course, the misogynist get’s a second chance at life.” Norm grumbles.

As Jake rolls past, SOMETHING SWOOPS down behind him and -- K-KRASH! SMASHES against the chain-link right next to his head. A vicious AERIAL PREDATOR a meter across gnashes glass fangs against the steel. It STABS at him through the chain link with a tail ending in a glistening stiletto. A STINGBAT.

Many Metkayina flinch, but only those closest to the Forest family notice they did not.

WAINFLEET casually BLASTS IT with his PISTOL. It drops off the fence, tail still lashing.

“NO CLEAN KILL!” Netayam gestures wildly, “Disgraceful, sadistic, balance tossing, …”

“Yes, yes, terrible, can we get along now. I wanna see my ma.” Kiri gives him a sisterly punch in the arm.

“Seen a lotta guys leave this place in a wheelchair. Never seen anybody show up in one.”

Jake stares at the gnashing fangs of the dying alien.

“You’re not in in Kansas anymore.”

The Colonels boots gleam.

“DEMON!” “PERV!” “PENIS FACE!”

Jake jumps to face his daughters together, “When did you teach her that?!”

Kiri shrugged, Neytiri rolls her eyes. Jakes face is now in his palm, tired.

“You are on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen.”

His gun is old school, his fists clenched by his sides like KGB were trained to.

“Respect that fact, every second of every day.”

Norm watches without thought or emotion.

“Even then I knew he meant fear, power, control, not true respect, not seeing.” Norm passably mentions.

“If there is a hell, you might want to go there for some R&R after a tour on Pandora.”

“that’s blatantly untrue.” Max mumbles through the mask.

“Out there, beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies, or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for Jujubes.”

“What are Jujubes?” Roxto asks, almost scarred of the answer if it has anything to do with eating eyes and the demon-blooded family.

“1. It’s a candy that you pop into you mouth without biting, so it’s that we are so small that creatures could do that. 2. It’s pronounced JuJubes rhyming with cube otherwise there would be a second motherfucking e!” Norm says rising in volume for his second point.

“Yes, yes, you have opinions on food none of us will ever eat again.” Jake placates jokingly.

Jake rolls into the back of the meeting.

“We have an indigenous population of humanoids called the Na’vi. They’re fond of arrows dipped in a neurotoxin that’ll stop your heart in one minute. And they have bones reinforced with naturally occurring carbon fibre. They are very hard to kill. We operate -- we live -- at a constant threat condition yellow.”

“Don’t kill us and we won’t kill you!” Lo’ak hisses with fire in his eyes, a protective warrior fire. It’s so familiar to his family, but startlingly new for Tonowari, Ronal, Aonung, Roxto, and Tsireya who are close enough to hear and notice. Tsireya blushes at how much she thinks she might like it.

Jake starts to remove his pack and Quaritch’s scars are on full display.

“As head of security, it is my job to keep you alive. I will not succeed. Not with all of you. If you wish to survive, you need to cultivate a strong mental attitude. You’ve got to obey the rules. Pandora rules: Rule number 1…”

“There’s nothing like an old-school safety brief to put your mind at ease.”

“A warrior, who is too used to not filling his cup properly.” Neytiri teases. Aonung is incredibly curious as to what this references.

In a busy hallway Norm catches up to Jake.

“Excuse me. Excuse me. Jake! You’re Jake right? Tom’s brother. Wow! You look just like him.”

“Yeah, not my best moment. Sorry!” Norm twitches into a remorseful smile.

There’s a wistful pause,    “Sorry, I’m Norm. Spellman. I went through avatar training with him.”

“He was a hoot then.”

“A Hoot?” Tuk asks, Lo’ak is hanging on for the answer.

“Funny, he made jokes and made people happy. He was very good at what he did,” Norm gestures to Jake then to the kids, “Must run in the family.”

He continues…    “… into the bio-lab”

“We’re going to spend a lot of time up here”  Then speaking to another person,  “Hey! How you doing? Norm, avatar driver.”

“Uh, Link… Here’s the link room right here.”

Jake trails behind glancing where Norm’s eyes drift over with familiarity.

“This is where we’re connecting to the avatar…”  Jake pulls himself away.

“Me and Norm are here to drive these remotely controlled bodies called avatars. And they’re grown from human DNA mixed with the DNA of the natives.”

“Does that mean you are like your own father to this body?” Netayam asks wandering through the thought that stops Jakes blood cold.

“No,” Max sooths, “We translated his DNA into Na’vi versions using examples and helper proteins or worker cells, so mostly human just grown into Na’vi form. It’s all your dad, or your uncle… It’s fully Jake Sully matching DNA.”

“Well then who is the Na’vi that helped us out?” Jake asks.

“All avatars were created using a body buried where the mine was. They weren’t buried ceremoniously, so maybe an outcast?”

“May they be at peace with Eywa, I still consider Norm your uncle though, you listen to him still too. You copy?” He says the last half to the kids. There’s playful laughter and nods.

There are two tanks of amniotic fluid with vague body shapes in them.

Max comes up,  “Hey. Welcome.”  With his hand out for a shake.

Jake responds    “Hey.”

“Welcome to Pandora. Good to have you.”

They walk over to one of the avatar bodies.    Norm stops to stare, and Jake rolls past him as if drawn by some unseen force, toward -- THE AMNIO TANK. There is a FIGURE floating languidly inside, which looks like a man. A very large, very blue, man. Blood circulates through a synthetic UMBILICAL in the abdomen. As the figure turns in the amniotic fluid, the lemur-like TAIL floats by. The skin is cyan-blue. Long black hair drifts, graceful as seaweed.

“Damn! They got big.”

“Yeah, they fully mature of the flight out.”  Norm responds beside a noticeably familiar face in the tank.  “So the proprioceptive sims seem to work really well.”

“Yeah. They’ve got great muscle tone. It’ll take us a few hours to get them decanted, but you guys can take them out tomorrow. There’s yours.”

Greetings continue as Jake rolls around to the other side of the tank. The heartbeat of the body is noticeable, consistent, soothingly natural.

THE FIGURE'S sleeping face turns toward us, and the features are -- despite feline ears and a long feral snout -- definitely JAKE'S.

The body slightly twitches unsettlingly, but Jake smiles for the first time.

Tuk whimpers and shrinks.

“What’s wrong babygirl?” Jake holds her close.

“You look sick there.”

“Oh, no baby. This was just a fake womb. This body is twitching the same way a baby does before they are born.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Neytiri adds, “I felt you doing that when I was pregnant with each of you.”

“And I felt it with my children,” Mo’at added unable to say her eldest’s name, “and eventually they get big enough for you to feel on the outside.”

“WOAH” Tuk’s eyes went wider with wonder. Jake was thankful she didn’t think it as scary as he did.

“Looks like him.”  He chuckles.

“No, it looks like you. This is your avatar now, Jake.”

“I’ve always been comfortable seeing his face more than my own. I don’t even miss mirrors I used them so little with Tommy around.”

“Even though your hair was longer before he died?” Lo’ak asked cautiously, aware that his uncle’s death is a very delicate topic to bring up.

“Yeah, I grew my hair own after having to have it short as a marine, I didn’t have to work so hard on it and I felt like a person rather than a small part of a big machine. A lot of ex-military guys do it, or tattoos, or piercings.”

“Tattoos and piercings are for strong hearts and warriors,” Tonowari states, “this transcends worlds.”

“Is that why you let your hair grow out after the war with the sky people?” Neytiri asks.

“Yeah, kinda,” Jake shrugged, “I also remember playing with my dad’s hair as a kid, he’d put me on his shoulders and I’d hang on. I wanted that peace for my kids too.”

He and Lo’ak make the briefest of eye contact, neither are sure what the other is saying with it anymore. Like they are both taking off glasses that made the world upside down for so long they’d gotten used to it and everything is upside down again trying to correct itself.

“And the concept is that every driver is matched to his own avatar, so that their nervous systems are in tune…”  Jake is on a screen recording himself.

“… Or something.”  He shrugs,  “Which is why they offered me the gig, because I can link with Tommy’s avatar, which is insanely expensive.”

“It would be like feeding a fish to make it bigger to feed more people and it having rotten insides.” Jake explains, hoping to get ahead of a question from the capitalistically ignorant. Them being the lucky ones.

He keeps looking behind him,    “Is this right? I just say whatever to the video log?”

“Yeah, we gotta get in the habit of documenting everything. You know, what we see, what we feel. It’s all part of the science.”

“And good science is good observation.”

“Plus it’ll help keep you sane for the next 6 years.”

“Alight. Whatever.”  He looks to a side screen,  “So. Uh… Well, here I am…doing science. Never been in a lab before.”

“You look so nervous; I don’t think I’ve seen you like this other than when the children were born.” Neytiri reaches out again.

“I had no idea what I was doing, didn’t know how to help or how to plan. I couldn’t think of anything to do. Didn’t even know the problem that needed to be fixed. So yeah, same insecurity that having a baby does.” Jake slid up closer to her. Their children hadn’t seen them this relaxed, in over a year.

Max pulls focus with a, “   Log off. It's time to meet your boss for the next five years.”

He leads Jake and Norm through the short corridor to the -- LINK ROOM contains a dozen PSIONIC LINK UNITS, which look like coffins crossed with MRI scanners.

“They’re coming out .” A technician calls out before the robotic reinforcement repeats,  “Attention, Drivers coming out of link.”

There is a technician typing away frantically as the unit comes out of connection, before running away.

GRACE AUGUSTINE sits up in her link, stretching and cracking her neck after a long session.

"Oh god,” she sighs and groans.

“Where’s the lab coat? Where’s the lab coat?”  the technician is whispering to herself.

“Who's got my goddamn cigarette?!”  She swings her legs around.

“Guys! What’s wrong with this picture? Thank you.” A TECH scurries to bring it to her, already lit.

“Grace Augustine is a legend. She's the head of the Avatar Program, and she wrote the book -- I mean literally wrote the book -- on Pandoran botany.”  Norm explains to Jake as they enter the circle of monitors.

“That's because she likes plants better than people.” Max says low, over his shoulder.

“What’s not to like?” Kiri whines like she’s grasping at an ilu playing keep away, “Eywa is in the plants, and I like her more than most people.”

Jake winces making eye-contact with Norm, thinking about what he said about possible seizures if she connects again.

Neytiri holds Kiri, Mo’at reaches over questioningly.

“The sickness attack she had, Norm and Max say it happened to sky people, and that it might happen again.”

“And it’s impossible to tell when so if I connect to a tree of souls anytime, I could die from it.” Kiri tries to contain her sobs, tries to be strong. Neytiri holds her closer, Mo’at surrounds them both in her arms, mourning this news with a shocked face.

“We will help every way we know how. But they are right, if she connects and seizes again without someone there in time to get her breathing again…” Ronal dips her head in sadness.

Tsireya leans over to offer a hand, no one should be disconnected to the water, to the spirits, to Eywa. Especially a previous Tsakarem so spiritually inclined.

“We’ll take it one day at a time, we’ll find a way baby. Maybe Eywa is showing this for a reason? To help?” Jake tries, “You love seeing your ma, let me show you her in all her grumpy I hate Jake glory? Yeah?”

Kiri sniffles and leans her head to his shoulder away from the circle of women around her.

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

Grace stands, scowling, as Jake, Norm and Max approach.

“And here she is, Cinderella back from the ball. Grace, I'd like you to meet Norm Spellman and Jake Sully.” Max introduces.

Grace intentionally looks away from Jake,    “Norm. I hear good things about you. How's your Na'vi?”

“May the All Mother smile upon our first meeting.”  Norm says stiffly and primly, gesturing with his hand outwards as if saying I see you from his chest rather than his forehead.

There are a few raised brows and giggles at the speech, but no one can say it wasn’t correct.

Grace nods approvingly, taking a drag on her cigarette.

“Not bad. You sound a little formal.”  She gives a little point with the fingers holding the cigarette.

“There is still much to learn.”

Jake waits while they ignore him, chattering in fluent Na'vi.

“Uh, Grace, this is Jake Sully.”

Grace, turning to Jake when he hold out a hand saying, “Ma’am?”

“This is what you did to my father!” Neytiri remembered.

“Yes,” Jake smiled and nodded, “It is how you address a superior when first meeting, by either Sir or Ma’am and with a hand to grasp theirs showing that both of you are not immediately armed and you have enough time to react should they attack you.”

“You were showing peace?” Mo’at confirms.

“Yes, respect and peace. That is what I wished to show the warrior father of the woman that saved me and the leader of a great people, even if I didn’t know how great he was at the time.”

“I got along with Grace and the dreamwalkers more than he did. But he respected the show of peace in the sky people school, in your openness to learn, eventually.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know who you are, and I don't need you. I need your brother. You know -- the PhD who trained three years for this mission.” She turns to Max.

“He's dead. I know it's a big inconvenience to everyone.”  Jake bites.

Norm winces.

“How much lab training have you had? Ever run a gas chromatograph?”

“No.”

“Any actual lab work at all?”

“I dissected a frog once. High school chemistry. But I ditched.”

“Hey, you skipped lessons, but when I’m a little late I get grounded?” Lo’ak grumbled between Netayam and Jake.

“Because you should be more like your mother,” Jake nudges back, “Never missed a lesson, cup always full.” He grins making eye contact and seeing her roll her eyes.

Grace wheels on Max, “You see? You see? They're pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain. I'm going to Selfridge.”

“Pissing and calling it rain?” Aonung looks scandalized.

“It’s just a metaphor, I don’t think anyone’s ever actually done it.” Norm reassures.

She shoves past Jake.

“No, Grace, that's not a good idea.”  Max calls after her,  But she's already out the door and clomping down the corridor. “No, man, this is such bullshit! I’m going to kick his corporate butt! He has no business sticking his nose in my department.”

Max turns to Jake with a pained look. “Here, tomorrow, oh eight hundred. Try to use big words.

“I thought you said you and ma became friends?” Kiri asked.

“We do, I come to think of her like a big sister,” Jake assures her. At this point, the Leading Metkayina family finally put together that Kiri is adopted and is biologically related to this crabby woman in the story. It explains a lot.

The OPS CENTER looks like an air-traffic control tower, with lots of screens and bay windows showing the whole complex.

ADMINISTRATOR PARKER SELFRIDGE takes a ball from a newly opened case of TITLEISTS and sets it on the floor. He assumes the stance and lines up his putt, toward a practice cup across the control room floor.

Laughing at his put he addresses the man at the screen closest to him,    “You see that?”

“Yes, sir.”  He responds.

“No, you didn’t. You were looking at the monitor. I love this putter Ronnie. I love this putter.”

“Why is he playing a game on fake grass when he could get a mask and play outside?” Roxto asks.

“Because golf started out like that, then became about talking to people and making business deals, showing off power. So, he’s being an ass!”

“Candy Ass Bitch!” Roxto chimes with Tuk.

Jake has given up and just laughs along.

He glances up as Grace strides toward him.

“Parker, I used to think it was benign neglect, but now I see you're intentionally screwing us.”

“Grace.” Selfridge responds, “You know I enjoy our little talks.”

Selfridge looks down  dismissively  and hits the ball.

Grace kicks the practice cup aside, and the ball rolls past. “oops”  she says with sarcasm biting.

“I need a research assistant, not some jarhead dropout.”

“I did graduate,” Jake mentions, “And technically I got a degree through experience or whatever by working with the marines. Jarhead proudly though.”

Lo’ak almost feels better about the lessons comment earlier. He is getting experience learning, especially here with Tsireya. He can still be like his father the way he wants to.

Selfridge looks at her with a sigh, “Actually, we got lucky with him.”

“Lucky? How is this in any way lucky?”

Selfridge saunters over to retrieve the ball, “Well -- lucky your guy had a twin brother, and lucky the brother wasn't an oral hygienist or something. A Marine we can use. I'm assigning him to your team as security escort.”

“The last thing I need is another trigger happy asshole out there!”

“Look, look, you're supposed to be winning the hearts and minds of the natives. Isn't that the whole point of your little puppet show? If you look like them, if you talk like them, they'll trust you? We build them a school, we teach them English. But after -- how many years? – relations with the indigenous are only getting worse.”

"This is why there are dreamwalkers?” Mo’at lets out with a look of ‘what’s this nonsense’

“Well kinda, they wanted to learn properly, so they gotta give someone a reason to spend the money on them by doing something for them too.” Max explains.

“At least it served Eywas purpose, Jake and Kiri are family and Norm is Omaticaya.”

“That tends to happen when you use machine guns on them.”  She crosses her arms angry and protective.

“She was supposed to fix a problem they kept making worse?” Kiri asks.

“While also doing her main research job, yeah.” Jake confirms, “Your ma was doing it all, so you know we had to give you another one that does it all. So, to us you came!” there’s a giggle between the two.

“Right! Come here. I can’t… I can’t” Selfridge  mutters as he  crosses to his office, behind a glass wall nearby. Grace follows. On Selfridge's desk is a magnetic base, and hovering in mid-air, in the invisible field, is a lump of METALLIC ROCK. Pure UNOBTANIUM. He grabs it and holds it up between thumb and forefinger, in front of Grace's eyes.

“This is why we're here. Unobtanium. Because this little gray rock sells for twenty million a kilo. No other reason. This is what pays for the party. And it's what pays for your science. Comprendo?” He places it back in the magnetic field.

“Those savages are threatening our whole operation. We're on the brink of war and you're supposed to be finding a diplomatic solution. So use what you've got and get me some results.”

“If she didn’t do what they asked they’d take it away. They’d hurt more and faster. So, you try your best and hope it’s enough.” Jake said, making sure his children would not see the weakness he felt when trying to do the same for their safety.

“She loved the Na’vi so much, wanted us safe and tried to give us what we needed to know how.” Neytiri added with a sniffle.

“You made all the right decisions because you knew what to take from her lessons, and I love you for it all.”

How long had the stress of the second invasion kept them from saying these things regularly, from taking the time to just lay together and talk like this? Too long, but it felt so good to love each other openly with their children safe with them.

Chapter Text

MORNING, GRACE, NORM and JAKE approach their link units.

Jake glances through a PRESSURE WINDOW. In an adjoining chamber (the AMBIENT ROOM) JAKE'S AVATAR lies on a gurney, breathing slowly in PANDORAN AIR. NORM'S AVATAR is on a second gurney. Both are attended by med techs in exo-masks.

“How much link time have you logged?” Grace asks.

“Five hundred and twenty hours.” Norm answers.

“That’s good. You’re in there.” Grace points to a link. Norm slips into his LINK CHAIR, expertly donning biometric sensors.

“You’re here, how much have you logged” Grace looks pointedly at Jake, “Zip. But I read a manual.”

“Tell me you're joking.” Grace opens the hood of Jake's link unit.

“They sent you to do work without teaching you how to do the work?” Ronal is very confused in that round-about logic, ouroboros snake eating its own tail way.

“There wasn’t time. It was a week, or 7 days before I was in cryo. There was so much to do at the time: let go of my apartment, see Tommy’s ashes planted, paperwork, so yeah, no training, no plan. You saw how terrified I was with nothing to really do on that first video log.”

“You learn well,” Neytiri flirts with her husband bringing him into a kiss, the Sully kids pull out a groan trying to cover their eyes from the teasing horror of their parents’ overt love.

He pushes a finger into the goo of the link bed fascinated.

“This is cool.”

Jake starts hauling himself across from his wheelchair. She reaches to help him but –

“Don't!” Jake holds out a hand to stop her, “I got this.”

Grace steps back, hands raised in surender . He drags himself into the unit.

“So you just figured you'd come out here to the most hostile environment known to man, with no training of any kind, and see how it went? What was going through your head?”

He meets her eyes with a defiant glare, “Maybe I was just tired of doctors telling me what I couldn't do.”

Grace watches him laboriously pull his inert legs into the link chair by hand.

“you said it was like being cut off, yet you have to haul the weight of them. That seems very laborious and tiring to just get around, even for strong arms.” Roxto comments.

“Yes, I see the stubborn will here as when you ride the skimwings.” Tonowari adds.

“Lo’ak is the same way with his ilu!” Tsireya comments to her father.

Pride shines from the youngest Sully boy.

“So I can go connect again soon then?” Kiri asks.

“No!” Ronal orders, “Not yet, you are still healing.”

“Dad pushed beyond what he was supposed to be able to do!”

“And he still has to use the wheelchair and needs help from all these people to connect to his Na’vi body.” Mo’at points out, “You need support and help the same way, take your time and have patience.”

Jake doesn’t make eye contact with anyone, given what he knows is coming up fast, even when Norm smiles smugly at their peripheral acknowledgement.

Jake settles into the warm fluid gel packs lining the unit. It seems to enfold him. Grace adjusts his biometric sensors, then lowers the UPPER CLAMSHELL –

“Relax and let your mind go blank.” Grace explains, “That shouldn't be hard for you.”

Jake stays still as be pokes back, “Kiss the darkest part of my lily white –” But the SLAMMING HOOD muffles the rest.

“Sorry, what was that Jake?” Max asks.

“Yeah, yeah, I swore a lot. This is me pre-kids, I tried really hard to be better for them, give them better. Okay?” Jake excuses.

“How could we get any better than you?” Lo’ak pipes in, “You are Toruk Makto? You are great here, and a great Olo’eyktan, and a great warrior, We can only hope to follow you.” He’s grumpy by the end of it.

“Oh, no my boy.” Neytiri moves over to run her hand along the shaved sides of his head, “You are already such an amazing boy, so strong, we will make sure you are safe enough to grow up even better than us, that is our task as your parents.”

Jake is reeling in his own head, trying to think of how to fix the miscommunication that is his son’s opinion of both of them.

He’s not good at humour, but he’s so thankful that Norm brings levity to this spiral, “Just you wait, this net little bit is going to show you how silly your dad was at one point!”

“Initiate link.

The LINK TECH touches some controls.

ON A LARGE MONITOR a 3D SCAN of Jake's brain appears. Regions of activity flow with complex shifting colors.

MAX comments, “That's a gorgeous brain. Nice activity.”

“Go figure.” Grace starts walking away, “Alright, I'm going in.”

TECH “Phase-lock at forty percent. He's in transition.”

Max watches a display showing the avatar's nervous system aligning with Jake's -- two ghostly networks of light merging.

“That's it. Find your way home.”

“Yes, home!” Neytiri holds both Jake and Lo’ak hands to her heart.

JAKE, inside the link unit, His eyes move under the lids, like a dreamer in REM sleep as -- INSIDE JAKE'S MIND -- radiant streamers coalesce into a pulsing TUNNEL OF LIGHT and -- THE SCREEN FLARES WHITE -- ZZZWHAP! -- resolving into an overexposed, out-of-focus image -- two BLURRY FACES wearing masks, looking down. JAKE'S AVATAR -- two very intense eyes FILL FRAME, the pupils contracting. Golden irises pulse with life.

“It looks the same as Eywa, as the tree of souls,” Jake informs Max, Norm bobbily nodding his head.

“It was like connecting all day?” Mo’at asks, Ronal is too speechless to assert her own curiosity at the commonality.

“Yeah?” Jake nods.

“Connecting to Eywa for so long is draining and fulfilling, it is hard on the body. No wonder your energy throughout the day picked up after your transfer.”

“I thought it was the kids?” Neytiri shouldered her husband.

“Maybe it was both, cause I will say I was so energetically nervous and excited to take care o our little ones.”

“Every time!” Neytiri pets his head.

MAX Through the glass, “He's in.”

TECH confirms “Phase-lock ninety nine percent. The link is stable.”

“Can you hear me Jake? Jake, Can you hearme?” A tech is asking fuzzily. Another is shining a light into his eyes, watching them contract and expand accordingly. “pupillary response good.”

Hands snap behind either of his ears causing them to twitch for a better reading, “Pinna response normal.”

“How’re you feeling Jake?”

“Hey, guys.” Blinking, Jake slowly sits up on the gurney.

“Welcome to your new body, Jake. We’re going to take this nice and easy, Jake.” He looks down at his AVATAR BODY, touching his chest with one hand.

“Look at how much he looks like Lo’ak!” Tsireya comments.

“Lo’ak actually looks like him.” Tonowari corrects.

“Yes,” Norm ruffles Lo’ak’s hair, “Carbon copy almost, but so much Neytiri in you as well.”

“What about me?” Tuk asks, “and Netayam I guess.”

That gets a loud, breathy laugh out of the eldest.

“Netayam is such a close translation of Neytiri, but you, Tuk, you have your father’s habit of cursing and I see the bit of Neytiri that she and Sylwanin got from me in you.” Mo’at explains.

The Metkayina make a point of looking at the screen of water again, letting the family sit in the realizations and grief that must be marinating given their tones.

Norm is going through motor control motions according to direction, “Ane touch your thumb to your fingers.”

MAX Tries to speak through the glass, “Take it slow, Jake. We need to check your motor control. Try touching your fingertips together –"

But Jake isn't listening. He's staring at his legs. Feeling them! Starting to move them. H e eases them off the gurney and -- HIS BLUE FEET touch the concrete floor, taking his weight. JAKE STANDS, feeling the strength in his legs. His expression is child-like with wonder. He’s giggling and ignoring the scientists trying to get him to do things on their timeline, asking about numbness, dizziness, and getting ahead of himself.

“It’s okay,” Jake assures them, tilting forward into the glass between Max and him.

“You should have been more careful, spirit jumping is already so involved I know, then you are also getting your legs back for the first time.” Mo’at chastises passively.

“I just got my legs back, I could feel them, I wasn’t about to let more doctors hold me back,” Jake teases, “Besides, I’m a marine, we can figure out anything.”

Neytiri laughs at this.

He’s looking down at the med techs, who seem the size of children next to his 9' tall frame.

“It’s all good. I got this.”

“Guys get him back on the gurney now!” Max orders.

MED TECH run around to try and shove him, from where? Around the knees?

“Easy, Jake, I need you to sit down –” But Jake takes a step, then another.

MAX “Jake! Wait, we have to run some tests –"

He sees something like a blue tentacle curl across his arm and he JERKS AROUND in alarm. HIS TAIL. As he turns to see it, the tail sweeps instruments off a table with a crash. Jake laughs and grins at Max.

“Even I forget that humans don’t have tails.” Mo’at theorizes, “It seems like an oversight given that you all make a skill out of balance.”

“What do you even use your tails for though?” Aonung asks, “Metkayina swim with ours, they make us the great swimmers we are, yours just seem, to jump around behind you.”

Ronal squeezes his arm trying to get him to stop the vaguely insulting inquiry.

“Well,” Mo’at takes on the same tone Max did, like she was explaining to a much younger child than the boy was, “for balance, like I was saying, but also to feel around the trees, the hair on the end gives senses around a trunk, it’s not eyes in the back of the head as I heard Jake say once, but it is close, and good for surviving and hunting in the forest.”

Jake laughs at her reference, “Yeah, there’s a saying on earth that once one becomes a parent, usually a mother, they grow eyes on the back of their head.”

“Not because they actually grow eyes,” Max adds to assuage any fears, “But that they always know when their child is trying to get away with something.”

“My mother got an eye tattooed on the back of her neck after I was born!” Norm adds.

“Oh!” Tsireya perks up, “That would be so beautiful, like the tulkun, always eyes on their children and on their spirit sibling.”

She turns to Ronal and Tonowari whispering the next only for them, “Maybe I could get something like that when my spirit sister and I both have children?”

“Not for a very long time, you can reconsider it when the time comes, many years after you get even your first tattoos, you hear me child?” Ronal firmly intones.

Tsireya feel as sedated as the techs are now calling for a young Toruk Makto to be in the water screen.

“Sedate him! A thousand miligrams of Supitocam. STAT!”

The wires to the bio-monitors pull taut, and he yanks them off his chest.

“Jake, listen to me: you’re not used to your avatar body. This is dangerous.” Max urges

“This is great.” Jake responds, gleeful to the point of being high maybe.

“They’re gonna put you out…” Norm warns lilting upwards at the end almost like a commanding question.

“Hey! This is basically what I did with the raids!” Lo’ak protests, “How can you tell me not to do the same things you did?”

“Because you are a young little baby!” Kiri teases, knowing that she is barely older than him will usually get a laugh out of him and Netayam. It doesn’t this time.

“Then he should already know better, if it isn’t an option for me at my age as an adult after my Iknimaya, then when? When will I be adult enough?”

“You do not need to repeat my mistakes.” Jake tries to stifle the panicky anger in his voice that is more directed at himself than his child (not that he’d know it), “You are to be safe and have a good life without these hardships.”

“What hardships? You are a great warrior, you are getting your legs back, you lead a clan with love and happiness after great sorrow and through another great sorrow!”

“No, I didn’t.” Jake sighs, “I became a sky person warrior through pain, without guidance, alone, then went through the pain of losing my legs pushing away my brother to figure out a new life, alone again, this scene you see I am so sure I can figure it out alone because that is what earth taught me, I never want you to ever learn that lesson, it is the wrong lesson, I will shield you from that pain as it serves no purpose to you.”

Lo’ak is stunned, trying to open his mouth to say something but he’s too lost in thought to really get anything coherent out. Neytiri is nervous, fidgety, so Netayam steps in.

“Then let us see you father, in the vision. Let us learn from the lessons you learned from, otherwise we will be here having to relearn our own over and over again, yes?”

There is a tension between everyone, especially the onlookers as the misty screen continues on.

Jake pushes past the protesting med techs, toward the door and emerges, blinking in the morning sun. He finds himself in the AVATAR COMPOUND -- a living and training area. Norm trying to get out of the leeds to follow him for the smaller, slower, techs.

Nearby, a couple of AVATARS are playing one-on-one in front of a (non-regulation height) basketball net. Others go about their daily activities around the compound.

Jake flexes his legs -- JUMPS -- and lands a little unsteadily, but his expression is joyful.

He takes a few steps and breaks into a RUN. People are calling to him, somewhere, but he doesn't hear them -- he's running. RUNNING!

Howling with happiness as he gains his footing, like it never left him. He passes by obstacle courses that look like his Marine bootcamp days without noticing. Norm tries to keep up insisting that they aren’t supposed to be running as he falls behind.

“This is what I would have recommended for a new body, for good functioning, to push as far as possible and bring joy.” Mo’at mentions.

“We will have to go running and climbing again soon, or as close to climbing as there is here.” Neytiri jokes.

“I haven’t seen you this happy in a long-time dad,” Lo’ak reahes out, “I guess, I guess I’m sorry I’ve stopped it.”

Jake feels like he’s been stabbed in the gut.

“You have not stopped my happiness Lo’ak, you and your siblings are my happiness, you are your mothers children after all,” He tries for a chuckle, “I am trying to give you all my happiness, safety and space to be this happy again, like when you were a child. When you were bouncing around with and stuffing your face with Yovo fruits, you get that from me too. Want to see the first time I ever got a taste? It’s coming up just now.”

He finds himself in the COMPOUND GARDEN, and stops amidneatly tended rows of ALIEN PLANTS. He looks down, wiggling his toes in the warm soil. Then inhales deeply – revelling in the alien smells -- earth, plants, the nearby forest. He looks at his bare footprint in the soil of an alien world.

GRACE’s voice eches, “Hey Marine!”

Jake turns at the familiar voice to see -- A statuesque FEMALE AVATAR walking toward him.

JAKE “Grace?”

GRACE “Well who'd you expect, numbnuts? Think fast!”

She throws him a piece of Pandoran fruit, which he catches.

GRACE “Motor control is looking good.”

Jake bites into the fruit, the juice running down his chin.

This gets a nostalgic giggle from Neytiri, running her hand around Lo’ak’s chin like he was the one eating messily. He went to swat away the embarrassing gesture before thinking twice, he would be more open to the lessons Eywa was giving them, he would, even if he had to force it on himself with great effort.

AVATAR GRACE is magnificent, with panther thighs, flat muscular stomach and firm athlete's breasts. She wears shorts and a T-shirt. In human years she would be about 35.

“She looks younger than her human body.” Kiri notes, “I thought she stopped aging in the tank?”

“No baby girl,” Jake answers, “Her body here and in the tank is younger because it hasn’t had the same everyday use growing up with a spirit in it, the same amount of time smiling, but is still alive, still aging.”

“It’s like your dad’s human legs,” Max tries, “They still aged with him, but did not grow with training because they couldn’t be worked, her body is catching up with her spirit age slower because it hasn’t been worked the same amount of time. But your ma loved the Na’vi and being out in Eywa’eveng in her avatar so much it was getting close.”

“This is why we had to love you just as much as she would have, the love had to go somewhere! And we were already built to give love as parents to your siblings.” Neytiri brushes her hair behind her ear, fingering Kiri’s piercing that matches her own when she started out before stretching.

This answers the question of who Kiri’s refering to as “Ma” versus Neytiri’s Sa’nok/Mom, that the trying to be polite and not asking Metkayina wanted to know but then who’s the biological father?

Jake sits on a wooden bed in a long hut of tropical-style construction -- beamed ceiling, open sides covered by screen.

Around him the other avatars are bedding down for the night, pulling insect netting around their cots. In one hand, Jake holds the end of his long-braided QUEUE of hair. The ends of the hair writhe slowly with their own life, like tendrils of a sea creature.

“That's kinda freaky.”

“Don’t play with that. You’ll go blind!” Grace teases.

“Freaky?”

“Blind?”

Norm and Jake are guffawing loudly.

“Humans don’t have anything external that moves on its own, the closest we get is hair for signals to the nervous system, but none of our nerves or sensing organs are actually exposed like the Queue. There is no way to connect with the mind unless we make a way with our metal and machines like the avatar systems and that is very rare and only works with things that we made even a little bit.” Max is starting to enter university lecturer tones.

“And Grace, your ma!” Jake directs a bit to Kiri, “Made a joke about a lie that people told so much that some thought it was real.”

“Going blind? Why?”

“So, trying to control who was having kids to the powerful peoples benefit includes controlling desire, so the spiritual leaders made physical pleasure against the rules and then to get even the rebels they taught everyone that not obeying the rule would steal their sense of sight.”

Ronal is particularly grossed out, Lo’ak nudges Netayam and Kiri whispering the dreaded “masturbation” teasingly just loud enough for Aonung to hear and chuckle as well without Tuk learning too early about things that she doesn’t need to worry about.

“The Sin, Grace spoke of?” Mo’at tried, “the rules that Sky People are constantly changing, hoping that they are following their Eywa without any confirmation yes or no?”

“Yeah!” Jake finishes.

GRACE switches off the overheads. “Lights out amigos. See ya' at dinner.”

Jake sits in the twilight, listening to the SCREECHES and HOOTS from the forest. Finally he lies down, CLOSING HIS EYES and -- ECU HUMAN JAKE -- his eyes OPEN.

Jake blinks, disoriented, as Max opens the upper clamshell of his link unit. In the next chair Grace sits up, yawning and cracking her neck as the scared tech runs to her with a lit cigarette.

GRACE looking down mumbles, “Damn. Same old sack a' bones.”

JAKE struggles with the dead weight of his legs as he hauls himself out of the unit.

JAKE sits with GRACE, NORM and the other avatar "drivers", while around them miners, troopers and other base personnel wolf their breakfasts. Grace is engaged in a heated conversation with another SCIENTIST.

Jake, isolated from the conversations around him, notices -- PILOT TRUDY CHACON approaching, dressed in her flight suit.

“Ma Trudy.” Norm looks dreamily at her with a distinct air of loss as well.

“Trudy?” Tuk asks, Jake gives Norms shoulder a comforting pat, raising his eyebrows asking if he’s good to talk about it?

“Yeah, we were… well, I was defnitely in love with her. I’m pretty sure she didn’t hate me.”

“She loved you, don’t ever doubt that.” Jake assures him.

“We don’t know her. Why don’t we know about her?” Lo’ak asks.

“She was never able to connect to Eywa, she is remembered only in the memories of those who knew her and it’s really only the two of us left on Eywa-eveng.” Jake answers trying not to be too sad.

“But she was your mate?” Tsireya confirms.

“As close as humans get naturally, yeah.”

“Then we mourn with you now and she can live in our memories too!” Tsireya especially reaches for Kiri as another Tsakarem that would also hold the spiritual weight, but also Lo’ak as another person that overflows with love and protection, at least around her.

Norm gives the young Metkayina a watery smile of thanks.

TRUDY “Sully -- Colonel wants to see you in the Armor Bay.”

Jake gives Norm a puzzled glance and pivots from the table. He wheels away, led by Trudy. GRACE, scowling as she watches him go.

JAKE AND TRUDY enter the ARMOR BAY, passing TILT-ROTORS under repair. There are the heavily armed SCORPIONS as well as several SA-2 SAMSON workhorses outfitted with door guns and rocket pods.

"I fly all the science sorties. And this here's my baby, hold on" She taps her vehicle mentioning to Jake. Then frowns at those around it, "Hey, Wainfleet. Get it done! We bounce at 09."

"Yeah, I'm on it capitaine." He attaches a door gun with speed and sass.

Trudy guides jake again mentioning why she's disappointed with it, "Vine strike's still loose!"

JAKE comments, “You guys're packing some heavy ordinance.”

He almost gets hit by another vehicle, Trudy is the one yelling, "Watch it!" trying to command some respect from dead-eyed brainless robot workers.

"Really! why won't they take a second to not almost kill someone else!" Mo'at is concerned, "This is not how Grace ran her lab! I like that better when she invited me in there."

Jake shrugs, and Norm preens a little.

“Yeah, `cause we're not the only thing flyin' around out there. Or the biggest. I'm gonna need you on a door gun, I'm a man short.”

“I thought you'd never ask.”

She extends her fist and he taps it with his.

“See ya on the flight-line, zero nine.” she points, “He's down there.”

“She was a warrior?” Aonung confirms.

“Yes, she flew in the closest to human ikran without fear and great skill.” Jake notes to the boy he still holds a little responsible for Lo’ak’s Tulkun misfortune.

Jake rolls his chair along the central gallery of the Armor Bay, passing rows of AMPSUITS standing in service racks. Techs clamber over the `suits, loading ordinance with cranes and lifts.

At the end of the row is a makeshift GYM area. QUARITCH is bench-pressing massive plates.

“This low gravity makes you soft.” He starts without a hello, pushing the last rep, “You get soft, Pandora will shit you out dead with zero warning.” Quaritch racks the bar and sits up, sweating but not winded.

“No, it won’t,” Neytiri tries.

“Yeah, it will.” Jake responds, “Humans are not built for this world, we have adapted, but only because of your help, otherwise we would be dead. I would be nothing but dust unconnected to Eywa without you Neytiri, and they didn’t have you.”

“Through their own fear of seeing.” Mo’at reminds about Kiri’s earlier diagnosis of the particularly stubborn homo sapiens.

“I pulled your record, Corporal. Venezuela -- that was some mean bush. Nothing like this here, though. You got heart kid, coming out here.”

“I figured -- just another hellhole.” Jake shrugs. Quaritch chuckles appreciatively, claps him on the shoulder.

The CHIEF MECHANIC yells from the nearest AMPSUIT, “That servo's in, Colonel, if you want to try it.”

Quaritch crosses to the `suit, with Jake following.

I was in First Recon a few years ahead of you. More than a few. Two tours in Nigeria, not a scratch. I come out here and –” He points to his scarred face.

“They could fix this if I rotated back. But you know what? I kinda like it. Reminds me every day what's out there. Besides, I can't leave –” He looks out, as if he can see through the wall to the treeline. “This is my war, here.”

“War is not supposed to be like this.” Tonowari asserts.

“But humans have decided that some of us have to be terrible, to take the pain, to be punished, so that the rest can be honourable. So, we pretend the acts ordered and that we follow are honourable, even when they are the worst weight on our spirits.” Jake tried, starting to get the far-off look Neytiri had seen more in the last year than the ten before.

“It is honourable to put yourself between those who serve the group in other ways and war, but there is no hell to survive here. Not until sky people.”

“Yes, and those of us that are honoured to stay will never be able to apologize enough.”

“You have always been honourable, you don’t need to shame yourself for fake honour decorating dishonour. It was never there.” Neytiri whispers again, like the first couple years after the expulsion of the RDA. When she had to assure her husband that he deserved a happy life with his wife and children. That he hadn’t acted on any orders other than proactive protection, but Jake always hedged his agreement.

Quaritch climbs the `suit and reaches into the cockpit, throwing some switches. The `suit's gas-turbine spools up with a rising WHINE.

“The avatar program is a joke – buncha limpdick scientists. But we have a unique opportunity here, you and I. A recon Marine in an avatar body could get me the intel I need, on the ground, right in the hostiles' camp.”

The WHINE is now a roaring WHOOSH as the `suit trembles with power. The air boils above the exhaust vents. Quaritch reaches in and operates the controls, flexing one huge hand. He nods to the waiting mechanic – “Looks good.”

Then to Jake, “I need you to learn about these savages, gain their trust. Find out how I can force their cooperation or hit `em hard if they don't. Maybe you can keep some of my boys from going home like you. Or bagged-and-tagged.”

“Savages! Hostiles!” Netayam feels cut.

“He and everyone he talks to all tell each other the lie that they are right and anyone not them is wrong, that they are lesser, that they are a threat. So he can’t not believe it,” Jake tries to sooth.

“This is why I call him demon, he called me one first. I will kill him in his new body too and any other they deem to send me to whet my blades on.” Neytiri grips her sheath to calm herself.

“That sounds real good, Colonel.” Jake’s NODDING, “So – am I still with Augustine?”

“On paper. You walk like one of her science pukes, you quack like one, but you report to me. Can you do that for me?”

“Why pukes? I got that in high school too.” Norm is puzzled, and trying to bring up the depression for the Omaticaya family that is sure to settle if they brood together too long.

It at least gets a giggle and a fake gag from Tuk, that got Aonung smiling as well.

Jake nods. Quaritch brings the `suit to life. He steps forward and pivots smoothly. He balances the two ton machine on one foot while sweeping the arms in strong, graceful arcs. Jake realizes he is doing a WU-SHOO KATA. A flawless display of strength and control. He's impressive, and Jake is impressed. Quaritch is the kind of man he respects -- focused, hard. Determined.

“Look, son -- I take care of my own. Get me what I need, I'll see you get your legs back when you rotate home. Your real legs.”

He raises the `suit's hand, and slams the canopy shut like the visor of a helmet. Jake watches Quaritch walk past, huge feet CLANGING -- KUNG! KUNG! KUNG!

“Sempu, Papa,” Tuk elongates the last vowels of the synonyms, “You’re looking at him how all the warrior boys look at you in the forest! No one is better than papa and mama, He does not have any great songs, why would you call him Sir?!”

“I will say, it is very strange to hear you calling anyone sir, you are sir.” Netayam scoops up Tuk into his own lap, trying to look like he’s comforting her rather than that he needs some himself.

“I had to call him sir,” Jake starts, “He had a higher rank, a warrior title above mine, so calling him anything but sir would be a punishable offense, and I still had my eyes closed, I thought I was supposed to want to be like him. It is another great regret.”

Jake is considering how he called his father sir, and he called his, how Tommy and he were raised in a squad more than a family for survival on their planet.

“I know I asked you to call me sir if you were going to be on the parties as equals to the other warriors, but we are not at war here, you are not my students here, I don’t have to be Sir anymore if you don’t want?” He’s scared that his kids won’t respect him, let him protect them, but maybe this could be healing. Tsireya had respect for him as an adult enough to at least keep them from going against him into danger maybe.

“You are sir because we will follow you into battle without question. You are the reason we are part sky person skilled, and that we are strong warriors, the children of the Great Toruk Makto, even though you died as Olo’eyktan, you have not died as our commanding officer.” Lo’ak straightens like a marine “at ease” after a passionate salute, not one of procedure.

Jake hugs his son tighter than he has since he could be lifted in his arms.

“I see you dad.”

In the Bio-Lab GRACE is on the move, gulping coffee, in a hurry to get their FIRST SORTIE started. She hands a clipboard to MAX.

“Start calibrating. We're on the flight line in ten minutes.”

Max nods and jogs ahead toward the LINK ROOM. JAKE and NORM fall in with Grace as they enter the CONNECTING CORRIDOR.

“What did Atilla want?” Grace asks.

“Just Marines comparin' tattoos.” Jake covers, badly.

“Attila?” Tonowari asks, “I thought Trudy called him Colonel Quaritch?”

“She was attributing him to a famous war leader in our history,” Jake answers, “He killed many people and gathered many clans, he was vicious against his enemies to the point that he changed the environment.”

“So you become Atilla instead?” Aonung guesses.

Jake’s eyes widen almost hurt as Neytiri smiles in pride, “Well… many sky people use him as an insult because he was so vicious,” Aonung drops his head in worry for his insult and embarrassment for being wrong, “But given he protected his people and everyone else he brought into his group against Rome.”

Norms head tilts in agreement.

“And he had tattoos?” Aonung asks again a little more interested this time.

“Yes,” Max puts in, “There are many traditions on earth with tattooing for warriors, for healers, for different people in the community. And when the community linked the whole globe, they traded designs and art to everyone.”

“I did compare tattoos with many other warriors from my jarhead clan, evn got matching ones with them as we fought beside each other. But you don’t do that with your superior, I wouldn’t do that with Quaritch, ever.”

Grace is not buying it, “Yeah. Well, listen to me, Marine –” She stops, turning to drill him with a look. “-- you're driving an avatar, now. That means you're in my world, got it?”

“Got it.” Jake replies blankly.

“Ma knew?”

“Always baby girl, you come by it honestly.”

Grace crosses to the controls of Jake's LINK UNIT. As the others catch up --

“That son of a bitch has screwed up this program enough. All this –” she’s indicating the link room, “-- exists so we can go out there and build a bridge of trust to these people, who could teach us so much. But thanks to Quaritch and his thugs the Na'vi won't even talk to us anymore.”

“Candy Ass Bitches!”

“Hell Yeah.” Jake gives up and cheers on.

“Then how's this supposed to work?”

“We have a new face.” Grace is turning to Norm, “You're fluent, you've studied the culture. You're non-threatening. The ones we know best -- the Omaticaya clan -- may give you a chance. Maybe you can get them back to the table before things go tits-up for good.

“This is failing as a pep talk.” Norm mumbles nervously.

“How do we contact them?” Jake hauls himself across from wheelchair to link.

 “We don't. They contact us. If they see us taking our samples, treating the forest with respect –” Grace says pointedly to Jake, “Not trampling everything in sight -- they may reach out to us.”

“Or they may skin us and make a drum.” Jake jokes morbidly cheerful.

Jake lies back, lowering the sensor array over his body when Grace pokes in , “Just keep your mouth shut and let Norm do the talking.” She closes his clamshell, HARD.

“Skin drums?!” Kiri is gagging.

“It was a joke, it was forever ago that one group of people did that, and everyone forever afterwards has found it scary. I think that was their point.” Jake references again, knowing his military or war history very well.

“Especially since it’s the blue flute clan, maybe our bones would make good ones?” Norm teases too.

Tonowari and Ronal have matching looks of grossed out confusion.

“There are better things to make flutes out of than your flimsy bodies. Eywa provides.” Mo’at laughs with them.

They are FLYING over a carpet of rainforest, past sheer cliffs and cloud-wreathed mesas. TRUDY'S SAMSON TILT-ROTOR chases its shadow across the treetops. Though big as a Blackhawk, it is tiny in the vast primeval landscape.

THROUGH the open side doors of the Samson. Trooper WAINFLEET, in exo-mask and body armor, leans on his door gun, scanning for aerial predators.

In avatar form JAKE, GRACE and NORM watch the forest unrolling beneath them, the wind blasting their clothes. Jake mans the other door gun, his feet propped on the skids.

“Family sized ikran?” Neytiri mentions, “Would have been very helpful just before Netayam went through Iknimaya, trying to get all four kids around.”

“And Mo’at when when we were trying to go out as a family.” Jake confirms, another part of why her ikran now is such a surprise.

Max guffaws really loud, startling Tsireya as he says, “Family van roadtrips, Pandora style.”

TRUDY flies from a pressurized cockpit. She banks to follow a shallow river.

Hundreds of purple winged creatures take flight from a lake, startled by the Samson. They skim the water above their own reflections. TETRAPTERONS.

The ground drops away as the Samson flies over a WATERFALL hundreds of feet high. Trudy banks hard, rolling in on the gorge below like it's a gun-run. Wainfleet WHOOPS while Norm looks like he's about to puke.

“She’s so lucky I liked her so much to go flying as often as I did.”

“Not everyone is a warrior for ikrans, just like not everyone is a healer, or a singer, you are good for extending yourself for your love.” Mo’at assures with her wry “dragon-lady” smile that Jake has come to appreciate.

WAINFLEET Calls out, “Yo Chacon! Get some!”

Jake grins into the airstream. Yelling out in joy, “Whoooo”

“Always a flier!” Neytiri nuzzles.

A small meadow among towering trees. The fern-like "grass" is beaten down in waves by the rotor-wash as the Samson settles to the ground. Jake pulls the massive door gun off its pintle mount and hefts it like an assault rifle. He and Wainfleet leap out to secure the LZ, scanning the tree- line warily, weapons aimed.

Grace jogs forward to the cockpit, motioning Trudy to shut down. Grabbing her throat mic, “Shut it down. We’re going to stay a while.” Trudy kills the Samson's TURBINES.

“Norm, your pack.” Grace reminds sending the new scientist hunched over back to the ship doors where Grace, towering over Wainfleet, motions him to hang back.

“Stay with the ship.” Motioning for Jake, “One idiot with a gun's enough.”

Jake grins cheekily annoyed to himself.

“Whatever you say, Doc. You da man.” Ever obedient.

“I thought she was a mother? Not a father?”

“More little bits of thinking men are more commanders than women, dumb English language.”

Kiri looks to Tsireya with the biggest eye roll of young feminist solidarity. Jake is proud of this, there is so much less for them to fight against than the young women back on earth, and with mothers like Neytiri and Ronal, even less. But you let them have their small, safe rebellions.

Jake takes point as they enter the jungle.

WAINFLEET LAUGHING, “Ya'll have fun out there.”

The forest engulfs JAKE, GRACE and NORM in cyan gloom. The shadows are alive with the CHITTERING sounds of unseen alien wildlife.

JAKE moves through the foliage, hyper-alert -- looking around like a tourist in Hell. A PLANT with swaying tendrils which reach toward him as he passes. This forest is more alive than any on Earth, with plants that react and move like animals. Jake white-knuckles his rifle as if every shadow conceals razor-fanged death.

A monkey-like PROLEMURIS leaping from limb to limb overhead, flashing through the sunlight streaming down in shafts. It chitters like a giggle, startling attention its direction. Jake faces it with him gun pointed the same way. They make eye contact with each other neutrally as Grace explains, “Prolemuris. They’re not aggressive.”

“Relax, Marine. You're making me nervous.”

“You are in Na’vi bodies, even dreamwalking it is less dangerous for you, yes?” Mo’at mentions, “So why are you still so nervous?”

“Cause anything happens to those bodies, and I’m in big trouble.”

“Wasn’t just you Jake,” Norm points, “It’s also being a warrior and maybe a little PTSD?”

Jake leans his head from side to side in possible agreement, “I was in charge of your safety though, if some animal or plant damages RDA property, which those bodies are, more than they were ours, then I’m on the hook for paying damages, and I didn’t exactly have any other way to pay now did I?”

Norm widens his eyes in understanding.

“Bodies being property of someone other than the one living in them?” Ronal looks disgusted.

“Yeah, they gave them to us to borrow, they aren’t ours to do what we want without permission unless we give them the equivalent amount of money back, which would be all of my 6 years of work for them. So technically I’m permanently riding around in stolen goods.”

“You like that though, don’t you?” Neytiri giggles like she’s the one enjoying it more.

Jake grins almost lasciviously at her.

“Your ma bought hers!” Max mentions, “after the Omaticaya agreed to open the school she started paying it off, she knew she would want to be here until she died and got more freedom to be better for the kids coming to her. She really did adore the Na’vi.”

Kiri grins both sad and happy, Mo’at gives her a squeeze having been closer to Grace professionally than even Neytiri.

“That’s why she was able to help me save your San’ok from an illness you know? We had to travel a ways, further than any dreamwalker or sky person had gone from their crater, and she took all the dangers that entailed just the same as she is there.” Mo’at gestures to the faux foliage in front of them.

She pushes ahead of him on the trail, forcing him to lower his muzzle as he follows her. Grace moves nimbly on the path, seemingly unconcerned.

The party moves between the huge trees, tiny as ants. The trail has gotten steeper, the going tougher.

“How will they know we're here?” Norm asks.

“I'm sure they're watching us right now.” Grace intones.

“Keep moving Norm,” Jake moves him along trying to keep both the scientists in his sight and safe.

“Keep up guys,” Grace is trailing ahead.

Norm gulps. Jake looks behind him as they approach the school, feeling unseen eyes.

Neytiri and Mo’at can’t take in a breath and Jake gives into a slow flinch.

They enter a clearing with an OVERGROWN BUILDING made of timbers cut from the local trees, with a thatch roof. It is covered with vines as the jungle reclaims it.

Jake steps among dried leaves and a few moldering CHILDREN'S BOOKS. Floorboards CREAK.

“The kids were so bright, so eager to learn... they picked up English faster than I could teach it to them.”

“Learning another language is always good.” Mo’at insists as if reading the judgement in the Metkayina’s minds for even the smallest co-operation with the sky people.

“It’s easier to think of the new underwater language as English!” Tuk mentions.

This was not the sibling the Metkayina thought they’d be hearing that from. Maybe Kiri or Lo’ak, but it’s easier to forget that Netayam and Tuktirey are not just Omatikaya, but the children of a sky person as well.

“That’s good, you bring me great pride for your many languages.” Mo’at sternly smiles.

As Jake explores the room. Grace and Norm are selecting INSTRUMENTS from storage cases on a wooden table.

“Bring the soil probe -- right there, yellow case.”

Jake looks up at a RUSTLING among the dark rafters. Roosting STINGBATS eye him warily, fluttering their wings. Grace picks up a moldering copy of "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss from the floor and puts it back on a shelf.

“I didn’t realize how appropriate that was.” Norm mentions.

“Why?” Tsireya asks him, trying more to be comfortable with another adult than a dreamwalker.

“It’s a story about a creature, called the Lorax, that speaks for the trees. It’s not real, Loraxes don’t exist, but the idea that trees didn’t have a voice we understood when we acted upon them, so we tried to write a world that did. Long before we could even dream up Pandora, or Eywa.”

“She is the Lorax; she speaks for the trees.” Lo’ak mumbles.

“What?” Netayam twists to look at his brother.

“I remember something about the story, or about Eywa being a Lorax.”

“Oh God!” Jake giggles to himself, “I told you that, every few nights when you would not sleep for a million little questions! I didn’t realize you even understood me.”

Maybe he wasn’t completely lost to his younger son. Maybe he could see him properly, he just needed to keep them all alive enough to get there.

GRACE WISTFULLY explains, “The stingbats knock them off. I guess I always hope somebody will come back and read them.”

“Why don't they come back?” Norm asks.

GRACE responds GRIMLY, “The Na'vi learned as much about us as they needed to know.”

“Kinda like you said mom,” Kiri mentions, “Did you get that from her?”

“I must have, sometimes you take in a bit of a friend’s spirit from spending time with them and we enjoyed each others company very much. It is why I name you as coming from a great joy in my life on my song chord.”

Jake sees something, and approaches the blackboard – reaches out to touch a pattern of holes blasted into the slate. Unmistakably BULLET HOLES.

JAKE turning to her asks, “What happened here?”

GRACE SHARPLY changes the subject, “Are you going to help with this gear? We've got a lot to do.”

She turns away.   Jake watches her as he jams equipment into his pack.

“What do those holes mean?” Roxto doesn’t recognise them from anything that could be hunted with or weapon for protection.

“They are what is left after bullets go through it. My fire arrows.”

“Oh no.”

“Yeah,” Jake is trying to give Mo’at and Neytiri a private moment.

“Who did you lose there?” Tonowari tries.

“Sylwanin.” Mo’at answers quietly, to the shock of her grandchildren and the discomfort of the Metkayina with her gutted tone.

“Miguel,” Jake answers as well, “A young boy that gone to his school early so his mother could get to work early too, there was an attack on the street. It was the day before I got shot in the back.”

“Knowledge is supposed to mean safety. I am sorry it failed you.” Tsireya tried to connect with the grown man who had strange experiences from another world, at least Neytiri tried to smile at her.

Grace's blue hand gently brushing away soil, exposing a tangle of ROOT TENDRILS.

“See, right here where the roots of the two trees interact.”

GRACE and NORM crouch among enormous octopoidal roots. She takes a tiny sample using a needle-like probe.

“And here I go.”

“Scanning.” Norm uses a digital DEVICE to scan the roots.

“Oh, wow. It’s that fast?” Norm is in awe, Grace is nodding and laughing with more joy than she can contain.

“Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“So, that is signal transduction from this root to the root of the tree next to it. So we should take a sample.”

“Okay, sample.” Norm says mostly to himself, “You know, it’s probably electrical, based on the speed of the reaction.”

“Norm, you’ve contaminated the sample with your saliva.”

“Samples of trees talking to each other?” Tsireya asks, “Why is that so special? Everything exists together, it is the way of water.”

“We want to see how it works; what parts of the plant do what. Like trying to see how something is woven, at some point you’d have to unweave it to really know. We are trying to unweave the world but only in little bits so as to damage as little as possible.” Norm supplies.

“Oh, how wonderful!” Tsireya claps a little.

“WHAT?” Ronal is not using an angry voice but does bring her daughters head down.

“It is the way of water,” She tries, “everything comes from it and returns to it, it is a part of everything, but to find the water outside the ocean requires opening up the world, knowing where it could be held. Like cutting up the plants for medicine so that we can burn the right part, yes mother?”

Ronal tries to nod along in approval.

JAKE, bored, scouts ahead a few meters. He comes to a GLADE filled with shoulder-high SPIRAL PLANTS called HELICORADIANS. He BRUSHES one and SHTOONK! -- it SUCKS DOWN into a tube in the ground so quickly it seems to simply vanish. Jake can hear the scientists behind him, safe and content with their work. Curious, Jake touches another -- SHTOONK! He laughs with the joy of a child in wonderment. And another -- like popping balloons after a party. SHTOONK! SHTOONK! SHTOONK!

“But I played with them and got scolded!” Tuk pouts.

“Yes, and I am being a sxkawng, you don’t need to be in the path of what’s coming to be for it.” Jake insists, “I protect you, from things I know will be bad, because it happened to me or someone, I trust to tell me the truth, yeah?”

“Fine.”

A chain reaction begins and the whole colony pulls down into he ground, REVEALING -- A HAMMERHEAD TITANOTHERE. Like a six-legged rhinoceros, but twice that size. Its massive, low-slung head has projections of bone giving it the look of a hammerhead shark.

Its baleful eyes lock onto him.   Jake raises his rifle.

“Oh, you sxkawng.” Neytiri gasps.

Grace, alerted by the creature's SNORTS, runs to where she can see the tableau. She presses her THROAT MIKE.

“Don't shoot. Don’t shoot, you'll piss it off.”

The bull HAMMERHEAD bellows and lowers its 3-meter-wide sledgehammer of a skull.

“It's already pissed off!”

“Jake, that armors too thick. Trust me.”

Jake starts to back away, Immediately pointing his gun away from the creature. The hammerhead bellows again, pawing the earth.

“You listened?” Tonowari wonders, “even though you still feel the threat?”

“Well yeah,” Jake shrugs, “I don’t want to waste the ammo on making it worse. It’s a waste.”

“So, you did understand waste before the Nantangs.” Neytiri nudges.

“It's a territorial threat display. Do not run, or he'll charge.”

“What do I do? Dance with it?” Jake teases semi-seriously.

“Hold your ground!”

The hammerhead SLASHES its head sideways, splintering saplings. It bellows again, lowers its head and CHARGES -- Jake SCREAMS at the top of his lungs, spreads his arms wide and runs straight at the thing. It STOPS abruptly, with an oversized BLEAT.

“Jeeze, I’m suddenly glad I never got into an avatar. I don’t think I could handle this stress regularly.” Max smiles rubbing his chest.

JAKE -- amazed the gambit worked laughs deliriously, “Oh yeah! Come one! What you got? Hoh yeah, Who's bad?! That's right.”

SOMETHING rises up behind him out of focus -- A THANATOR. It is a black six-limbed panther from Hell, with an armored head and massive distensible jaws.

“AH!” Neytiri and Mo’at make eye contact, but don’t bother to explain what the creature is to the Metkayina.

JAKE, unaware of the advancing thanator, is still bracing the hammerhead, “That's what I'm talkin' about, bitch! That’s right, get your punk ass back to mommy!”

“Wow, Tuk really did get your sailors mouth. I forgot how naturally it came to you.” Max notices blithely.

The bull wheels around, TRUMPETING in fear, and CRASHES away through splintering undergrowth.

“Yeah? Yeah, you got nothing. You keep running. Yeah, why don’t you bring back some of your friends, huh?"

A guttural SNARL behind him. Jake spins in time to see -- THREE TONS of rippling thanator LAUNCH over him, landing between him and the hammerhead. The ground shakes.

“Oh shit!”

“Oh shit indeed.” Tonowari is wide-eyed at the unfamiliar animal.

The thanator emits an earsplitting ROAR, enraged that the hammerhead got away. It twists on itself, turning to face Jake, and bares its fangs with a lethal HISS.

Many Metkayina flinch.

“What about this one? Run, don't run? What?”

“Run. Definitely RUN!” Grace is terrified.

Jake BOLTS as the thanator LEAPS after him. Jake launches himself between two large trunks, forcing the beast to claw its way around to the side while Jake scrambles up, around, over a tangle of roots and-

CLAWS SLASH the air behind him, EXPLODING bark off a trunk as JAKE wills himself forward in a frenzy. With rippling muscle the beast is airborne again, blacking out the sun but JAKE dives under a massive root system.

“AAAHHH!” Kiri ducks her head down into her arms, “Dad!”

CRASH! Kindling rains around him as the beast tears into the root-trunks above him. Claws SLASH down next to him as he rolls and crawls. Glistening jaws SMASH and SNAP against the barrier trunks, sending chunks of wood flying. It's spittle sprays across Jake, jaws inches away as he rolls onto his back, and FIRES his AR point blank but the rifle is SNATCHED out of his hands.

“So, they weren’t a fan.” Norm tries to joke.

The beast SCREECHES an ungodly WAIL of pain and rage and -- RIPS the ENTIRE TRUNK away. Jake scrambles to escape but GLISTENING JAWS lunge downward, SNAP SHUT and the creature rips Jake out of the tree, shaking him like a junkyard dog with a rabbit.

Only it has him by the BACKPACK, so Jake unlatches it and FLIES FREE as the thanator crushes the pack with its teeth. Giving Jake a moment to sprint away, but with a hideous BELLOW the thanator crashes after him, splintering trees.

“Smart decision,” Tonowari teaches Aonung and Roxto.

JAKE RUNS in a blur, dodging between trunks as a glistening black tornado shreds the forest behind him.

He sees WATER ahead and DIVES OUTWARD with all his might.

The thanator's jaws SNAP SHUT inches behind him as he flies out into open space.

JAKE SPLASHES down into a swiftly moving river.

The thanator LEAPS DOWN AFTER HIM, pursuing from rock to rock, its claws swiping like a grizzly fishing for salmon. Jake ducks under as -- FWHOOSH! -- black claws SLASH past his face amid turbulent bubbles.

A WATERFALL ahead. Jake hurls himself over the falls, with the thanator SWIPING at him from a rock, just MISSING and Jake disappears down the throat of the thundering cataract. Jake, ever the MARINE, straightens his legs together and crosses his arms over his chest. He even tries to keep his tail as close to the trunk of his body as possible.

The water boils below the cataract. Jake's head bursts through the surface, and he gasps for breath.

He is carried along by the current but manages to grab a limb on a fallen tree. He weakly pulls himself up, and just lies there gasping on the trunk. Above him, on the cliff, the THANATOR BELLOWS, a roar which echoes across the jungle.

Kiri sighs in relief, Lo’ak is almost swaying with curiosity.

“Why did you jump in the water that way?”

“Oh,” Jake turns, “It’s how I was taught to. The Marines work with water a lot actually, so the best way to leave as little trace into or out of the water so that we won’t be seen and can sneak up on enemies.”

“Why didn’t you teach us? That’s cool, we just jumped into the water here for the longest time.”

“I never thought to,” Jake furrows his brows almost mirroring Lo’ak, “You should learn from the Metkayina, they’d be better than my decades old knowledge, and then you’ll connect with the other young people, be a part of the clan more properly. I want that for you, that community safety.”

“I mean, Tsireya is a great teacher.”

“Yeah,” Tuk buts in, “She and Roxto taught us the breathing diving combination that lets us swim so far!”

“How about you teach us some of the Marine things? More than guns?” Netayam also asks.

“It is sky people things, unnecessary.” Mo’at.

“No,” Ronal interjects, “You may learn anything that will protect you and the Metkayina from any Sky People you bring around. Jake Sully, you will teach your children anything they see and want to know.”

It is a clear order that Jake almost doesn’t mind, it feels almost drunkening to be the expert in something again, even with Neytiri and Mo’at always having been guiding him as olo’eyktan.

JAKE, wet and bruised, crouches under a screen of giant leaves.   He hacks manically at the end of a cut sapling with his knife, forming a crude but sharp tip.

Jake as he walks through the forest like it's a minefield, carrying his SPEAR white-knuckled. He is freaked and hyper-alert.

The trees here are a hundred meters high, blocking out the sky. A few pencil beams of sunlight filter down into the cyan gloom.

Looking down through leaves we watch Jake move warily through the forest. As Jake passes under a tree limb. Invisible to him, draped on the limb like a leopard, is a striking NA'VI GIRL. She watches, only her eyes moving. Jake passes less than 2 meters beneath her, oblivious.

“Wow,” Jake blushes, “I really didn’t see, cup very empty.”

Neytiri smiles into his hair.

NEYTIRI rises soundlessly. In one fluid, sinuous movement she NOCKS an arrow to her BOW and DRAWS, aiming RIGHT AT JAKE. Utterly silent. Below her Jake is totally unaware of the arrow aimed at his THROAT.

Tuk inhales a little sharp, she hadn’t heard their love story as much as the rest of them, having come around so many years after their first three children.

As she follows him with the bow, muscles tensing for the shot and her eyes snap to SOMETHING drifting down in front of her. She hesitates.

FOCUS to the tip of the arrow -- where a single WOODSPRITE floats down to land on the arrow-head. Like a dandelion seed, but larger, the WOODSPRITE waves its silky CILIA, feather light, as it balances on the deadly point bouncing a few times, 4 to be exact . It glows faintly in the dark shadows. NEYTIRI frowns, puzzled, and LOWERS her bow slowly. The woodsprite WHIRLS away into the gloom. She watches it carefully, releasing the tension on her bow.

“Thanks be to Eywa,” Jake squeezed his wife close and reached out for his kids, “With the time the atokirina gave me there, I have been blessed.”

“You get very blessed very soon, though how much makes up for hitting them?” Neytiri teases.

GRACE and NORM peer down into the shadowed forest as TRUDY banks in a search pattern.

TRUDY announces over the INTERCOM, “I'm going to have to call it, guys. We're not allowed to run night ops. Colonel's orders.”

Grace looks to the west. The sun setting behind alien trees, “Shit.”

“Sorry, Doc. He's just gonna have to hang on `till morning.”

“He's not going to make it till morning.” Grace stares into the dark forest as the Samson banks hard, thundering away toward the setting sun.

“Not make it til morning and you are stopping the search?” Neytiri is appalled, “I can’t imagine not finding my hunting party.”

There is a sad agreement rolling through the crowd.