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Chapter Text

The shuttle doors hissed open with a metallic sigh, and Pandora hit her like a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding her entire life.
Heat rolled over her in a thick, damp wave, clinging to her skin and soaking through the thin fabric of her shirt within seconds. It wasn’t just warmth—it was presence. The kind of heat that wrapped around you like a living thing. But it was the smell that caught her off guard. Rich and strange. The sharp tang of something green and growing, the peppery musk of damp bark and moss, the faint sweetness of unseen blooms. It was a scent layered with age and wildness, with life and decay wound together like the vines that draped from the trees.

Myra Lane stepped out onto the landing platform of Hell’s Gate and simply… stood.

The air vibrated. Not loudly, not intrusively—but insistently. A background hum that grew louder the longer she listened. Insects whispered with wings she couldn’t see. Distant bird calls arced overhead, melodic and unfamiliar. And beneath it all was the rustle of leaves brushing against one another like secrets passed between lovers.

This was not a world to be conquered. It was a world that watched.

The twin suns hung low, casting molten gold across the horizon, streaking the sky in soft peach and violet. Jungle canopy glinted in the distance, every shifting leaf refracting the dying light. Her boots—scuffed and faded from years spent traipsing through Earth’s wilted reserves—sank slightly into the red soil beneath her. Pandora’s dirt clung differently. It was softer. More alive. She moved forward one step, then another, pulled not by curiosity but by something deeper. Something thrumming under her skin like a memory she hadn’t made yet.

This wasn’t just a new assignment.

This was communion.

“You Lane?”

The voice broke through the moment like a rock skimmed across still water—rough and sudden, but not unkind.

She turned.

He was seated in a wheelchair just a few yards away, backlit by the shuttle’s lights. Dust swirled around him in the thick air. His posture was relaxed, easy even, like he didn’t have anything to prove—though she suspected that wasn’t true. He wore cargo pants and a standard-issue RDA T-shirt that clung to his chest in the heat. No armor, no helmet. Just a duffel bag slouched at his side and mirrored sunglasses tucked into his collar like a lazy afterthought. His grin came first—wide, boyish, practiced—but it didn’t quite make it to his eyes.

“I’m Jake Sully,” he said, offering a hand. “You must be the tree-hugger.”

Myra arched a brow. “Environmental scientist.”

Jake let out a low chuckle. “Same thing out here.”

She shook his hand briefly. His palm was warm and rough, calloused from work—not from battle, maybe, but from living hard. Her fingers were cooler, more delicate by comparison, though ink-stained at the edges. The contrast felt symbolic.

“And you?” she asked. “Another soldier-turned-tourist?”

“Something like that.” He tilted his head toward the compound behind him. “I’m here for the Avatar Program. Grace Augustine’s my handler. You?”
“Same,” she said. “Botany and ecological systems. And I prefer ‘plant expert’ to ‘tree-hugger.’ It’s more accurate.”

Jake raised his brows in mock seriousness. “Noted.”

A beat passed. She glanced past him toward the towering fence line. Beyond the barrier, the jungle loomed impossibly close—so close it felt like it was pressing inward, held at bay only by metal and wire. Even from this distance, she could see the faint veins of bioluminescence along the bark of the trees, flickering like the slow, steady pulse of a giant animal dreaming in its sleep.

And somehow, she could feel it watching.

“Does it always feel like this?” she asked, voice hushed.

Jake followed her gaze. “Like what?”

“Like the planet is… listening.”

He didn’t laugh at that. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and looked out at the darkening forest. “I think it’s just the bugs. But yeah, kinda. Gets under your skin.”
Before she could respond, the metallic clang of boots against steel echoed from the corridor behind them. Grace Augustine burst through the outer doors like a stormfront, clipboard in hand and lab coat flapping behind her with the fury of a flag in battle.

“Oh, thank God,” Grace muttered, eyeing Myra. “Someone who might actually give a damn about the biosphere around here.”

Myra stiffened slightly under the scrutiny but offered a quick, “Hi, Dr. Augustine. It’s an honor to meet you.”

Grace waved her off. “Save the flattery. You’re already behind. Get your gear stowed and report to the lab within the hour.” She jabbed a finger in Jake’s direction. “And you—quit loitering. Your Avatar’s still detoxing from that stunt you pulled last week.”

Jake raised his hands innocently. “Hey, I didn’t know the stingbees would follow me into the pod.”

“You set off an entire hive, Sully.”

“They looked cool!”

Grace’s groan was long and well-practiced. “Use your brain, not your biceps.”

She stalked away, already barking orders at a technician before she disappeared into the compound.

Jake turned back to Myra with a crooked grin. “She likes you already. I can tell.”

Myra adjusted the strap of her satchel. “She’s intense.”

“She’s brilliant,” he said, and this time there was no sarcasm in it. “She’s also the reason I’m still breathing. You’ll get used to the bark.”

“And the bite?”

“That, too.”

They fell into step, heading into the interior of the base. The temperature dropped as they entered, the artificial cool of recycled air brushing clammy fingers across her skin. The corridors were narrow, lined with flickering monitors and a tangle of humming wires. People moved like they were always in a rush—scientists with samples, soldiers with guns, techs with tablets. Myra passed a pair of guards in combat gear arguing over something called a thanator, and a group of researchers gathered around a tank filled with translucent, pulsating spores.

Everything buzzed with motion, with tension. Like Hell’s Gate wasn’t built to last—just to hold on long enough.

Jake led her to a small dorm room. Spartan. Bed, desk, terminal. A single metal shelf above the bunk already held a few personal effects from a previous occupant—an old coffee mug, a frayed paperback, a broken pen.

Jake lingered in the doorway as she stepped inside and set her bag down.

“Well, plant expert,” he said, his voice lighter now, “welcome to Hell’s Gate. Hope you like sweating and getting yelled at.”

Myra smirked faintly. “I grew up in Florida. I’m used to both.”

He let out a low, honest laugh and, for the first time, she saw something real behind his grin. Not charm. Not bravado. Something wounded and searching. A man who’d been broken, maybe more than once, but hadn’t given up trying to be whole.

“I’ll see you in the sim room,” he said, and then he was gone.

The door closed with a soft hiss.

Myra stood there for a moment longer, letting the silence settle. Then she reached out and touched the wall—cool, smooth metal. Sterile and foreign. Not like the world outside.

She knelt beside the bed and pulled out a slim, leather-bound notebook. The edges were worn soft from years of use. She flipped to a blank page, settled cross-legged on the mattress, and began to write.

She didn’t know it yet, but that notebook would one day hold the story of a woman who fell in love—with a man, with a world, and with something far greater than either.

Hell’s Gate, Pandora

I’ve never felt anything like this. Not in any forest, greenhouse, or expedition. When the shuttle doors opened, the air felt alive. Thick, wet, and breathing—like the planet noticed me, took stock of me, and decided I could stay.

The jungle is impossibly close. Ancient trees shimmered with bioluminescence even in the fading light. It looked like a dream—wild, dangerous, and watching.
Jake Sully greeted me first. A sarcastic ex-Marine in a wheelchair who called me a “tree-hugger” before I’d even spoken. Something’s broken in him—but something burns there too. I don’t know what to make of him yet. I think he’s more than he lets on.

Then came Grace Augustine—a hurricane in a lab coat. No small talk. Just orders. I respect it. She reminds me of the field botanists I used to chase through rainforests. If I can keep up, I’ll learn more than any textbook could teach.

Hell’s Gate feels like scaffolding—cold, temporary, humming with tension. My bunk is a shelf with a mattress. No window. No life. Just the moss I accidentally tracked in.

But beyond the fence... there’s everything. Wild, ancient, undimmed life. A pulse I can feel in my chest. The forest is calling.
And I think it already knows my name.

—M. Lane

Outside her window, the jungle pulsed with light, and a vine slowly coiled upward toward the fence—curious, reaching.

Chapter Text

The sky over Pandora was still deep indigo when Myra arrived at the link lab, the last traces of night clinging to the horizon like mist. The artificial lights inside buzzed faintly, cold and sterile against the warm pull of the world beyond. Her boots echoed on the floor as she entered, heart thudding with a rhythm she couldn’t quite calm. This was it—her first full link. The culmination of years of study, months of training, and a lifetime of wonder.

And still, she felt like a child staring into the deep end of a pool she wasn’t sure she could swim in.

Jake was already there, lounging in his wheelchair near the link bed like he had all the time in the world. He looked up as she entered, his eyes scanning her face before curling into a grin that was half amusement, half reassurance.

“You look like you’re heading into battle,” he said.

Myra let out a shaky breath. “I feel like it.” She glanced at the link bed—its cradle-like curve, the overhead arc of machinery, the hum of power waiting to surge through her mind. “I’ve gone through all the training. I understand the process. I’ve done sims. But this is different. This is the real thing.”

Jake rolled forward slightly and stopped beside her. His presence was solid, grounding in a way she didn’t expect. “It’s weird, yeah. Your brain kind of fights it at first. But then it clicks. One minute you’re you, the next... still you, but stretched out in a body that feels like it was always meant to be yours.”

She studied his face. There was something in his eyes—something he tried to mask with a casual slouch and dry humor—but it was there. A quiet understanding. He knew what this felt like. Not from a manual. Not from a lecture. From experience.

“Was it scary? The first time?”

Jake nodded slowly. “Yeah. But also... freeing. Like stepping out of a cage you didn’t know you were in.”

Before she could respond, Grace swept into the lab in a gust of authority and caffeine. Her lab coat was half-buttoned, a tablet clutched in one hand, and a full mug of coffee in the other—untouched and likely forgotten.

“Don’t distract the new kid, Sully,” she said without looking up. Her eyes flicked to Myra’s vitals on the monitor. “Heart rate’s climbing. You nervous, Lane?”

“I’ve got a steady hand,” Myra replied, lifting her chin.

Grace smirked. “We’ll see how steady it is after the link.” She set her tablet down with a quiet clack. “Your Avatar’s prepped. Resting in the med wing. You know the protocol. Lie back, don’t fight it, and don’t forget to breathe.”

The link bed opened with a hiss. Myra hesitated only a second before stepping forward and lying down. The surface was cool, molded to her body’s contours, but it felt too much like a coffin. She swallowed hard. The technician leaned over, attaching sensors to her temples and spine, fingers brisk but gentle.

“You’ll feel a little pressure, then the interface engages,” he said. “Try not to panic. You’ll adjust.”

Jake hovered near her head, just out of her line of sight. “You got this,” he said softly. “I’ll be there when you wake up.”

His voice steadied her more than she expected.

The lid began to slide closed. Myra took one final breath in the human body she had always known—and let it go.

Pressure. Light. A sound like rushing wind—and then nothing.

No, not nothing.

Everything.

Her first breath came like a crash of waves—sweet, oxygen-rich, alive. It wasn’t just the air—it was the sensation of breathing. Her lungs filled easily, deeply, without tightness or resistance. Her heartbeat felt stronger, slower, more deliberate.

She opened her eyes.

Soft light filtered down through a curved ceiling, filtered and dappled. The world felt brighter, bigger. She sat up, slowly, feeling weight shift across her chest and down her spine. Her hands rose into view—long fingers, blue skin, five digits. Her movements were cautious, curious. She flexed her toes, feeling the floor beneath her—warmer than it had been in the link bed, more real.

A technician nearby nodded, confirming vitals. “First link successful. Heart rate steady. Good reflexes.”

Her tail flicked once, making her yelp softly in surprise. She caught it with her hand, startled, then laughed. It was hers. All of it was.

She stood.

The motion felt impossible and natural all at once. The Avatar body responded as if she had never known anything else—graceful and powerful, fluid and strong.

Her queue shifted behind her, brushing her shoulder like a long braid. She touched it, reverent.

And then Jake was there.

His Avatar was already up, arms crossed, leaning casually against the doorframe—but the look in his eyes wasn’t casual at all. He was watching her. Not with amusement or teasing, but with something gentler.

“You made it,” he said.

Myra turned toward him, unsteady but smiling. “I did.”

“How’s the view from up there?” he asked.

She blinked, still adjusting to her new height. “Tall,” she said, laughing softly.

He stepped forward and offered his hand. She took it. His palm was large, warm, familiar now. They stood for a moment, Avatar to Avatar, her fingers curled around his.

“You’re doing better than I did,” Jake said. “My first time, I tripped over my own feet and knocked over a crash cart.”

“I’m still a hazard. Just... slower about it.”

He grinned and led her gently down the hallway. The lab felt smaller now, the lights less blinding, the floors more responsive beneath her bare feet. They passed a mirrored panel, and she caught her reflection—tall, lithe, her green eyes nearly glowing against her blue skin. She looked like someone else. And yet... she didn’t.

Outside, in the small fenced yard, the world opened like a book she’d waited her whole life to read.

She stepped into the light.

The sun soaked into her skin, warming her shoulders. The air was dense with scent—wet leaves, distant blooms, a trace of something electric. She closed her eyes and tilted her head toward the jungle. Her ears twitched. The sounds were layered: bird calls, insect drones, the creak of distant branches moving. She could feel the vibrations under her feet.

Jake stood beside her, silent.

“It’s incredible,” she whispered. “Everything’s more... alive.”

He nodded. “It is.”

They walked slowly along the path, the perimeter of the enclosure just a faint boundary between her and the forest beyond. With every step, her new body moved more naturally. Muscles remembered what her mind hadn’t yet learned. Her tail flicked in balance, her spine straightened. And with each moment, she felt more at home.

“This is why you stayed?” she asked.

Jake didn’t answer right away. He looked past the fence, toward the jungle canopy blazing with morning light. “At first, it was the body,” he said. “The freedom. Then... it became something else. This place has a way of getting inside you.”

Myra turned her gaze to the forest. “I used to think I came here for the science,” she murmured. “But now... it feels like something was waiting for me.”

Jake looked at her closely. “You get it. Most people don’t.”

Their eyes met, and something passed between them. Recognition. Not romantic—not yet. But real. A kind of belonging neither of them had expected to find in someone else.

“Alright, greenhorns,” Grace’s voice crackled through the comm. “Bonding time’s over. Back inside for debrief.”

Jake rolled his eyes skyward. “She always knows how to kill a moment.”

“She’s probably right,” Myra said, her steps more confident now. “I’m still figuring out how to walk in a straight line.”

He smiled. “You’ll get it.”

As they made their way back to the lab, Myra looked down at her hand—still faintly tingling from where Jake had held it. And when she turned back for one last glance at the jungle, the vines along the fence swayed slightly.

She told herself it was the wind.

But part of her knew better.

Back in her human body, Myra sat on the edge of her bunk. The cold of the room felt harsher now, more sterile. She stared down at her pale hands, the ones she’d known for years. They felt small. Fragile. Like gloves over something truer.

She heard wheels pause in her doorway.

Jake.

“You alright?” he asked.

“I didn’t want to come back in,” she said. “Not yet. I wanted to hold onto it longer.”

He nodded. “It’s like waking up from the best dream. And realizing the dream might be the real you after all.”

He turned to go but hesitated.

“You were beautiful out there,” he said. Quiet. Honest. Without a trace of flirtation.

Her throat tightened. “So were you.”

Jake didn’t say anything more. He just gave her a small smile and rolled away.

She lay back on her bunk and closed her eyes, but sleep didn’t come.

Instead, she remembered the sun on her blue skin. The weight of her braid against her shoulder. The feel of the ground breathing beneath her feet. And the soft pressure of Jake’s hand in hers, warm and steady, like an anchor she hadn’t realized she needed.

She didn’t dream of Earth that night.

She dreamed of the jungle.

And it dreamed back.

Bunk

Today, I woke up human and went to sleep feeling like something more.

The link worked. I opened my eyes in my Avatar body and everything—everything—was different. The air tasted alive. My lungs felt deeper, my limbs stronger. Even the light looked brighter.

Moving was strange at first, but it felt right. Like the body already knew me.

Jake was there when I woke. He offered his hand—no big speech, no teasing, just steady, quiet support. I didn’t realize how much I needed that. We walked together outside. Just the small training yard, but it felt like stepping into another world. The sun on my skin, the jungle beyond the fence... I swear the planet was listening.

He told me I’m not like the others. That I get it. I think maybe he gets it too.

Back in my human body, everything felt smaller. Duller. I already miss the way I breathed out there.

Jake said I looked beautiful in the Avatar. I told him the same.

I didn’t dream of Earth tonight.

I dreamed of Pandora.

—M. Lane

Chapter Text

The sun spilled over the canopy in ribbons of molten gold, soft and angled, painting the forest in warm, flickering light. As the perimeter gate slid open with a reluctant groan, Myra’s Avatar stepped past the barrier and into the jungle beyond.

Her boots sank slightly into the moss, which gave with a springy resistance. It was unlike anything she had ever walked on—damp but not wet, thick but not heavy, like the skin of something living. The air was rich with scent: flowers in bloom, decaying leaves, something electric like ozone before a storm. A pulse moved beneath it all.

It felt like stepping into a breath held by the world itself.

Jake moved ahead with the kind of ease that only came from experience, cradling his rifle in one arm like a casual afterthought. He wasn’t tense, but he was alert—watching, listening, absorbing. Grace followed beside him with her usual clipped pace, a scanner strapped to her back, eyes already scanning for anomalies. Myra trailed behind, caught in a sensory storm. Her breath came slow, reverent. Her fingers ached to touch everything.

This wasn’t just a walk. It was arrival.

Pandora wasn’t simply alive. It responded. Insect wings shimmered through shafts of light. Blooms turned as she passed. The vines underfoot shifted with weight—or intention.

She crouched beside a patch of purple, fan-shaped fungi and brushed her fingers lightly across one. It recoiled, folding back like it had been startled.

“Reactive tropism,” she murmured. “They feel me.”

Grace’s voice came through her earpiece, dry and fond. “Move along, tree-hugger. We’ve got a long route.”

Myra smiled faintly. The nickname no longer felt like a jab. It was starting to sound like Grace approved of her—reluctantly, but genuinely.

As they moved deeper, Myra’s Avatar body adapted with growing grace. Her balance adjusted. Her pace matched the rhythm of the jungle. She stopped constantly to observe—glowing moss that pulsed when she knelt beside it, blossoms that seemed to bloom in anticipation of her touch. She reached for a curtain of vines, and they shifted toward her hand, brushing her skin like a pet seeking attention.

Jake looked over his shoulder. “You making friends with the plants?”

“I think they’re curious,” she said softly. “It’s not just instinct. It’s awareness.”

Jake chuckled. “Well, they’ve got good taste.”

It made her laugh—an honest, startled sound—and the moment warmed something in her chest. This place didn’t feel so alien with him nearby. It didn’t feel so lonely.

The terrain thickened with towering trees and layered roots. Grace stopped them briefly, issuing instructions, then sent Myra and Jake to scout the ridge.

They veered off together, following a narrow trail up a slope slick with moss and dew. The higher they climbed, the quieter the jungle became—more watchful.

“You ever get used to this?” she asked.

Jake glanced back. “What, the size?”

She smiled. “No. The feeling. Like you’re walking inside someone’s thoughts.”

He slowed a little. “I don’t think I want to get used to it.”

At the ridge’s crest, the forest opened into a high glade. Shafts of sunlight poured through the canopy. Spores floated lazily through the air. Giant petal-like plants turned as they entered, tracking their motion—not by heat or light, Myra thought, but presence.

She crouched beside a broad-leafed plant and touched its glowing veins. They pulsed outward in a sequence, a rhythm like communication. Another plant across the glade answered with a ripple of its own.

“Jake,” she whispered. “They’re talking.”

He crouched beside her, close. “You sure?”

She nodded. “This isn’t reaction. It’s a network. A signal. Grace was right—this place has a system.”

Jake stood slowly. “An intelligent system?”

She looked up at him. “I think it knows I’m here.”

Before he could respond, the forest screamed.

A roar split the air—a deep, monstrous sound that vibrated in Myra’s chest. The thanator crashed from the underbrush like a nightmare in motion, black scales gleaming, jaws wide.

“Run!” Jake grabbed her wrist, pulling her up.

They sprinted, feet pounding over moss and roots, ducking under low-hanging limbs. Jake fired behind them—warning shots, just to buy time. But the creature was relentless.

They burst into a clearing—only to skid to a halt.

A cliff.

“Shit,” Jake muttered. “Dead end.”

The thanator stalked out of the trees, low and growling.

Jake raised his rifle.

Myra didn’t move.

The thanator locked eyes with her.

And stopped.

It stared at her, not with hunger, but with something deeper. Understanding. Recognition.

She stepped forward.

Jake whispered sharply, “What are you doing?!”

But she couldn’t answer. The jungle had gone silent. Vines around her lifted. Leaves turned to her. A pressure filled the air—an attention that had weight.

The thanator took one long breath... and turned.

With a final, echoing snarl, it vanished into the trees.

Myra stood frozen.

Jake slowly lowered his weapon. “What the hell was that?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her voice shook when it came. “It saw me. And the forest saw me.”

Jake stepped close, eyes searching hers. “You’re not just part of this place. It’s part of you.”

She didn’t know how to explain the feeling. But it was real. And undeniable.

When their comms cut out moments later, neither of them panicked. They were stranded, yes—but not alone.

Jake found them shelter beneath a massive root arch, where vines curled naturally into a canopy. It was dry, hidden, and glowing faintly with bioluminescent moss.

Myra sat at the edge, fingers trailing over the vines as they lifted gently to meet her.

“They’re shielding us,” she murmured.

Jake dropped his pack beside her. “The plants?”

She nodded. “They know we’re exposed.”

He watched her closely. “I wish I could feel what you do.”

“You do,” she said, meeting his eyes. “You just don’t know it yet.”

The look that passed between them was quiet and intense. Not romantic—not yet. But something was starting. Trust. Wonder. A fragile thread of something more.

They sat together under the roots as night fell, listening to the soft, rhythmic sounds of the forest—one that no longer felt separate from them, but surrounding, holding.

When a glowing seed drifted between them, Myra smiled and let it pass.

Jake did too.

And for a moment, nothing else existed.

Upland Ridge
I don’t know how to explain what happened today without sounding unscientific. But I felt it. Every step into that glade, every shift in the vines, every breath the forest took around me—it knew I was there.
The thanator should’ve killed us. It had every chance. But it stopped. It looked at me like it recognized something. And then it walked away.
The forest protected me. I didn’t ask it to. It just… did.
Jake saw it too. He hasn’t said much about it since, but the look on his face—he felt it. Maybe not the same way, but close. He watched the way the vines moved around me. He saw the way the light shifted when I touched the roots.
He said I’m not just connected to Pandora. That it’s connected to me.
And I believe him.
We’re spending the night under a tree root, surrounded by glowing moss and curious vines. I should be terrified.
But I’ve never felt safer.
—M. Lane

Chapter Text

The forest before dawn was even more alive than it was in daylight—but quieter, as though it had drawn in a long breath and was holding it.

Mist curled low over the roots, delicate and ghostlike, rising in slow waves from the warm, breathing earth. The trees pulsed faintly, their bioluminescence dimmed but steady, casting soft glows in shades of blue and violet. Every branch, every leaf, every twisted vine shimmered with the rhythm of some ancient heartbeat. Myra could feel it beneath her.

She sat with her back against the massive root that arched like a cathedral above them, knees drawn to her chest, arms looped loosely around them. Her braid was damp with dew and draped over her shoulder like a ribbon of shadow. Her Avatar eyes picked up every gradient of light, every flicker of motion among the glowing leaves, but she wasn’t focused on anything specific. She was simply being—present in a way she never had been before.

Jake sat nearby, arms resting on his knees, his head tipped back slightly to watch the canopy. Neither of them had spoken much. Neither had slept. They knew what sleep meant: separation. Consciousness would snap back to their human bodies, leaving their Avatars empty and unprotected in a jungle that never stopped moving.

They couldn’t risk that.

So they sat side by side in the hush of pre-dawn, suspended in the space between night and morning.

Myra watched a slow-moving line of bioluminescent beetles crawl across a curling vine beside her. The plant dipped under their weight, then rose again smoothly, almost tenderly, as if cradling them. Even here, in stillness, nothing was truly still.

Jake shifted slightly and muttered, “Remind me not to take shortcuts next time.”

Myra turned her head, the faintest smile touching her lips. “I’ll add it to your list of survival tips. Right after ‘Don’t tease the giant predator.’”

Their voices were low, almost whispered. It wasn’t fear. It was reverence. Speaking too loudly felt like a kind of disrespect here—like waking something that was still dreaming.

And then, without warning, the jungle exhaled.

Silence fell like a curtain.

The insects stopped crawling. Leaves that had been swaying gently stilled. Even the floating pollen in the air—those softly glowing spores that drifted lazily all night—froze in place, suspended.

Myra’s body tensed.

Jake’s hand crept slowly toward his rifle, not lifting it—just a quiet readiness.

Something was coming.

From the trees came a sound: footsteps. Light. Controlled. But purposeful. They pressed into the moss like music—soft and steady, ancient and sure.

Then she stepped from the shadows.

The Na’vi woman emerged from the underbrush like she’d always belonged there—like the jungle itself had parted to let her pass. Her movements were so fluid Myra couldn’t tell where she ended and the forest began. Her bow was raised, an arrow already notched. Her eyes—golden and sharp—locked immediately on Jake, narrowing with instant suspicion.

Jake lifted his hands slightly. “Wait—”

She barked a command in Na’vi, sharp and guttural. A curse, maybe. Then in English, clipped and hard: “You do not belong here. You are like a baby. Stupid. Loud. Blind in the dark.”

Jake froze, keeping his hands up. “We got separated. From our guide. We weren’t trying to—”

“I do not care,” she snapped.

Myra raised her hands slowly, palms forward. “We’re sorry. We didn’t come to harm anything.”

The woman’s gaze flicked to her.

And held.

She studied Myra in silence—not just her posture or clothing, but her breath, her stillness. Her awareness. The bow lowered just a hair.

“You,” she said. “You walk carefully. You listen. The forest sees this.”

“I respect this place,” Myra said gently. “It’s not ours. I know that.”

The Na’vi woman didn’t answer. She looked conflicted—unsettled, almost—but not hostile. Her expression shifted slightly. Then she looked up.

A glowing seed floated down through the still air. Pale, luminescent, and slow, it drifted like a snowflake caught in its own gravity.

It hovered for a heartbeat.

Then it settled in Myra’s outstretched palm.

The Na’vi inhaled sharply.

“They see you,” she whispered. It wasn’t addressed to anyone. More like something said to herself. A realization.

Another seed floated down, this one brushing past Jake’s shoulder. Then another, spinning gently between them. The clearing filled with their soft light—watching, waiting.

Jake looked at Myra. “Is that… good?”

Myra didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She was too focused on the seed in her hand, pulsing softly with light that felt familiar. Like it had known her for longer than she’d been on this moon.

“They are atokirina,” the Na’vi woman said. “Seeds of the Sacred Tree. They are very pure spirits.”

She lowered her bow fully, staring at both of them. Her shoulders shifted, not relaxing, but re-aligning.

“You have been chosen,” she said. “By Eywa.”

Jake blinked. “Oh. Wow. That’s… something.”

The woman scowled. “Do not speak like that. You are like a child.”

“Right,” Jake muttered. “Noted.”

She turned sharply. “Come. Before the daylight burns the path.”

Myra stepped beside Jake as they followed, her feet moving automatically, though her mind was still fixed on the seed in her hand.

“You get called a baby often?” she whispered.

Jake shot her a sidelong look. “Only by women who terrify me.”

The Na’vi woman moved through the forest like wind—her tail swaying behind her, her feet never stumbling. The jungle opened before her and closed behind her, like it breathed with her.

“Do you think she likes you?” Myra asked, half-teasing.

Jake shrugged. “No. But I think she might not murder me. That’s progress.”

They walked in silence after that, the sky slowly warming with pale gold. The seeds had vanished. But Myra could still feel the pulse of them on her skin, in the roots underfoot, in the hush between birdsong.

The forest had seen her.

And it had chosen not to look away.

Before Sunrise

The forest stopped breathing today. Just for a moment. Everything stilled—leaves, spores, even the air itself—and I felt it watching.
Then she stepped out of the trees.
A Na’vi. Bow drawn. Fierce. Beautiful. Ready to end us if we made one wrong move.
But she didn’t.
She looked at me—and something changed. Not in her, maybe. In the forest. In the space between us.
The seed landed in my hand like it had been waiting. A soft, glowing piece of something sacred. She said it meant we were chosen.
Jake made a joke. Of course he did. But I saw his face when the seeds came. He felt it too.
The Na’vi is taking us to her People. Not because she trusts us. But because the forest does.
And right now, that’s enough.
—M. Lane 

The first sight of Hometree stopped them cold.

It rose from the forest floor like a mountain sculpted by time and will—its massive trunk wide enough to hold the skyline of an Earth city block, its bark the color of burnished stone laced with pale, glowing veins. The canopy stretched beyond the eye’s reach, lost in mist and sunlight, supported by great limbs thick as towers. Vines hung in long, silken arcs, some gently swaying, others still and solemn. Wooden bridges and woven platforms circled its enormous trunk, spiraling upward like rings on an ancient planet.

Even in the soft light of dawn, the tree pulsed with color. Glimmers of violet, green, and deep gold shimmered in its folds. The air around it was warmer, quieter—charged.

Myra’s breath caught in her throat.

She had seen satellite scans. Topographical diagrams. Even 3D models rendered by Grace herself. But none of it—none of it—had prepared her for this.

This wasn’t biology.

It was presence.

The weight of history. Of spirit. Of something vast and alive and far beyond human science.

Her Avatar feet stepped softly over the moss-laced roots as Neytiri led them into the great hall beneath the base of the tree, where the roots arched high overhead like the ribs of some great cathedral. The light inside was dim but dappled with shafts of sun, flickering with bioluminescent threads woven into the walls.

Na’vi figures emerged from the shadows, dozens of them—tall and lithe, with eyes that burned bright even in the half-light. Some wore ceremonial beads that clicked softly as they walked. Others bore spears tipped with obsidian. Children peered from behind trunks. Elders stood in silence. All watched.

And none looked welcoming.

Myra felt the heat of their gazes like a slow burn across her skin. Her Avatar body was steady, but her heart pounded in her human chest miles away, like it knew she had crossed into sacred ground.

Jake shifted beside her. “I don’t think they rolled out the welcome mat,” he muttered.

“Hold,” Neytiri commanded, raising one hand. Her voice rang with quiet authority. “They are not here to harm. The forest has spoken for them.”

That made the murmurs louder. Some stepped forward, hands drifting to blades. Others argued in Na’vi, fast and harsh. Myra couldn’t understand the words, but she understood the tone: anger. Distrust. Fear.

Then he emerged from the crowd.

A warrior—broad-shouldered, sharp-jawed, with eyes like flint. His braids were tight, precise. His presence was like a wall suddenly risen between them and safety.

“Tsu’tey,” Neytiri said. “Next to be Olo’eyktan.”

He glared at Jake with open contempt, then at Myra—less hateful, more suspicious.

“You bring sky demons into our home?” he asked, voice low and biting.

“They were chosen,” Neytiri said. “By Atokirina’.”

The name cut through the crowd like a blade. The murmurs halted. Heads turned.

“They were marked,” Neytiri said louder, with conviction. “Eywa saw them.”

Myra didn’t move. She let their eyes search her. Judge her. She stood with hands open and shoulders relaxed. Then she bowed her head—not in surrender, but in quiet respect.

It was instinct. But the Na’vi noticed.

Then came another voice—deep, aged, calm as water carving stone.

“Bring them.”

The crowd parted.

And there she was.

Mo’at.

The Tsahìk.

She moved with a grace so complete it seemed to still the very air around her. Her eyes were like molten amber—ageless, burning, soft and unrelenting. Her shoulders were draped with bones carved into symbols, beads that told stories Myra could only guess at. Her presence was sacred, commanding, beyond science.

She approached first Jake. Her long fingers touched his chest gently, testing something unseen.

Then she turned to Myra.

And stopped.

She placed her hand over Myra’s heart.

A moment passed.

Not movement. Not words.

Just a shared understanding Myra couldn’t explain. A stillness. A thread drawn tight between them and held.

Mo’at’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Then she looked to Neytiri.

“Why do you speak for them?”

“They are not like the others,” Neytiri said. “They listen. They see. The forest chose them.”

Mo’at circled them both slowly, her voice low and musical as she spoke to the People. The words were fluid, purposeful, rhythmic—part language, part ritual.
Myra didn’t know what she was saying. But she felt it. Like the forest around them answered.

Then Mo’at faced them again.

“You may stay,” she said. “But you will learn. Our ways. Our voice. Our world.”

Jake blinked. “Wait—we’re staying?”

Neytiri nodded once. “I will teach you.”

Tsu’tey’s hands curled into fists. His expression didn’t soften, but he said nothing.

Mo’at gestured once more. “Feed them. Let them rest. Watch them.”

And then she was gone, vanishing into the gathered Na’vi like wind through leaves.

The crowd slowly began to disperse. Not all the tension lifted. Many still stared. Some whispered. A group of children peeked out from behind a root wall, eyes wide and curious.

Jake exhaled a long breath. “Well. That could’ve gone worse.”

Myra didn’t answer. She was still staring upward at the trunk rising above them, its twisting shape fading into sky.

“We’re inside something sacred,” she said.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “And we just got handed a one-way ticket into the deep end.”

They were escorted to a platform halfway up the tree, woven from branches and supported by living limbs. It was simple—sheltered by giant leaves, with mats of bark for resting and a low table set with fruit, water, and small wooden bowls.

Myra sat down slowly. Everything around her felt like it was waiting to be earned.

The forest sounds carried softly up to them—flutes in the distance, the calls of animals, the rustle of wind high in the canopy. Somewhere below, a child laughed.

Jake leaned back on his hands, watching her.

“You really think the forest chose us?” he asked.

Myra turned one of the fruits in her hands. It was smooth and pale green, cool to the touch. “I don’t think,” she said. “I know it did.”

He studied her, something unreadable behind his eyes. “They looked at me like I was a tourist who wandered onto holy ground. You? They looked at you like you belonged here.”

“I don’t,” she said.

“Not yet,” Jake murmured.

She glanced at him, caught off guard by the sincerity in his voice.

He looked away first.

She smiled faintly. “Grace is going to kill us when she finds out we went native.”

Jake chuckled. “Assuming we don’t get eaten first.”

They both laughed—quietly, shoulders relaxing, the first real moment of ease since they’d arrived.

Myra leaned back against the woven wall, letting the sounds of Hometree surround her. There was still danger here. Still judgment. Still work ahead.

But for the first time, she didn’t feel like she was intruding.

She felt like she’d stepped into the living heart of a world that was willing—just willing—to let her stay.

Hometree

I thought I understood Hometree.
I’ve seen the scans, studied the architecture, even mapped the way its roots follow the ley lines. But standing beneath it… it’s like being inside the lungs of the planet.
It breathes. It watches. It remembers.
The Na’vi didn’t want us here. I felt it in every stare. But Neytiri spoke for us. The forest spoke louder. And when Mo’at placed her hand over my heart… she felt something. I know she did.
I don’t belong here. Not yet. But today, the door didn’t close on me.

It opened.

—M. Lane

They were still sitting near the edge of the woven platform when Neytiri returned, the sound of her footsteps soft against the wooden planks.

She didn’t speak at first. She approached with the solemn grace Myra was starting to recognize in everything Neytiri did—measured, grounded, poised. Her arms were full, each holding a carefully bundled stack of cloth, beads, and braided fibers. She moved with the reverence of someone delivering ritual objects, though her expression remained unreadable.

She set the bundles down on the low table in front of them with gentle precision, not tossing, not offering—just placing.

“For training,” she said simply. “You cannot wear those sky garments.”

Jake glanced down at his RDA cargo vest and standard-issue pants. His dog tags clinked quietly as he shifted. “Fair.”

Myra reached forward slowly and let her fingers rest on the fabric. It was softer than it looked—woven plant fiber, dyed in shades of earthen green and pale ochre, knotted together with an artistry that spoke of generations. The texture was smooth, but not uniform. It had been made by hand, likely by someone who knew how to feel the shape of a person by the weight of their breath.

There were feathers in the shoulder strap of hers—brushed with dark blue at the edges, likely from one of the jungle’s long-tailed birds—and tiny carved seeds sewn into the bindings like quiet blessings.

No seams. No zippers. Just curves and lines meant to move with the body instead of trapping it.

Neytiri turned to go, already slipping back into the rhythm of the clan around them.

But Myra, voice low, said, “Thank you.”

Neytiri paused.

Just a breath. Then she nodded once—grudgingly, but not without meaning—and disappeared into the branches above.

Jake raised an eyebrow. “I think that’s the Na’vi version of ‘you’re welcome.’”

Myra smiled. “More like, ‘You’re not dead yet.’”

They slipped behind one of the thick tree trunks for privacy. Jake was fast—efficient, stripping off the vest and pants with the casual detachment of someone used to cramped locker rooms and field showers. Myra, though, moved slower.

She took her time. Every tie she made in the fabric felt symbolic. The wrap crossed her chest and shoulders, hugging without squeezing. The belt cinched low on her hips, layered with simple strands of vine cord that hung loose at her thighs. Small shells tinkled lightly from one side, each carved with swirling lines—no doubt meaningful, though Myra didn’t yet know how to read them.

The cloth breathed with her. It didn’t bind—it adapted. When she lifted her arms, the ties shifted but didn’t pull. When she knelt to adjust her footwraps, the fabric folded and flowed, never fighting her movement. It wasn’t clothing. It was coexistence.

When she stepped out again, Jake was waiting. He had his arms folded and a smirk brewing, but when he looked at her, it faltered just a little.

He gave a low whistle. “Not bad.”

She arched a brow. “We’re dressed in bark and beads, Sully.”

“Exactly. And you pull it off.”

She tried to roll her eyes, but her blush gave her away. He didn’t tease her for it.

A sudden whoop of laughter echoed above them. A Na’vi child darted across one of the platforms like a streak of blue lightning, his tail swinging behind him. Two more followed, leaping between roots with impossible grace. Their voices bounced off the walls of Hometree—pure joy, no fear.

Jake watched them. “They don’t look scared of us.”

Myra’s voice softened. “Children never are.”

They wandered a little, staying close to their platform, but no one stopped them. A few of the Na’vi watched from higher levels with guarded expressions, but most returned to their routines. A woman stirred something in a clay pot beside a small fire. A group of hunters sharpened spears with gentle, rhythmic motions. An elder taught two young girls how to braid beads into their hair.

It didn’t feel primitive. It felt purposeful. Every movement was part of something larger.

They paused near a chamber carved naturally into the base of Hometree. A trickling stream wound through the roots, and bioluminescent fish moved beneath its clear surface, casting a galaxy of tiny reflections on the curved walls. The space was quiet—almost sacred. The kind of place meant for listening.

Jake crouched by the edge and let his fingers trail through the water. “It’s insane,” he murmured. “I used to think Earth was beautiful. The beaches in Thailand, the redwoods out west. But this?” He shook his head. “It’s like the world here never forgot how to breathe.”

Myra knelt beside him, resting on her heels. “It’s more than that. It’s aware. Every part of it knows the others exist. You can feel it—the harmony. Nothing here is out of place.”

Jake looked over at her. His voice was quiet when he asked, “Do you think they’ll really let us stay?”

She hesitated. Then: “I don’t think it’s their choice.”

He frowned slightly.

“I mean the forest,” she added. “I think it already made that decision.”

A long silence stretched between them.

Then, softly, Jake said, “My brother would’ve loved this.”

Myra turned, surprised. The edge in his voice was gone. What remained was something raw and heavy.

“He was supposed to be here. The scientist. The one who knew what to say. I was just the backup plan. The grunt with matching DNA.”

“You’re more than that,” she said gently.

He glanced at her, skeptical.

“You don’t know me,” he said.

“Not yet,” she replied. “But I know you didn’t let me get eaten. You didn’t run when the thanator came. You listened to Neytiri. And you’re here.”

Jake didn’t answer right away. He looked back at the stream, his hand still trailing through the water.

“You’re not what I expected,” he said finally.

She smiled slightly. “Let me guess. You thought I’d be a stuck-up scientist with no aim and too many opinions.”

“Exactly,” he said with a grin. “But instead, I got someone who sees the world like it’s singing to her.”

She looked down at the fish again, watching how their glow shifted in time with the ripples. “Pandora doesn’t want to be studied. It wants to be remembered.”

They sat there in easy silence. Not awkward. Not tentative. Just present.

Jake leaned back, hands behind him, eyes on the canopy. “So, when you dreamed of being a scientist, did it ever involve getting adopted by ten-foot-tall jungle warriors?”

Myra laughed. “No. But it would’ve made the lab work a hell of a lot more exciting.”

He grinned. “Seriously though… are you scared?”

She thought about that. About the way the vines had moved to protect her. About the seed that had chosen her. About Neytiri’s silent nod.

“No,” she said. “I’m not scared. I’m just… open.”

Jake nodded. “Yeah. That’s the word.”

Their eyes met—briefly, gently. A moment passed. There was nothing grand in it. Just something quiet and growing.

Then Neytiri’s voice called from above.

“Come,” she said, arms crossed, her silhouette framed by the filtered morning light. “It is time.”

Myra stood first. She dipped her hand into the water before rising, feeling the cool pulse of it flow across her palm.

Jake followed, falling into step beside her.

They didn’t speak as they ascended, but they didn’t have to.

Above them, Hometree swayed in the soft wind, branches rustling like breath, like memory, like a voice just beginning to whisper the words they hadn’t yet learned to hear.

Hometree

Neytiri brought us clothes today. Woven by hand. No metal, no plastic. Just feathers, beads, fiber, and purpose.
They don’t restrict—they move. When I breathe, they breathe with me. It’s strange how quickly something can feel like it was always yours.
She didn’t say much. But she saw me. I think… she’s starting to believe I’m listening.
Jake and I sat by a stream inside Hometree. Bioluminescent fish. Roots like ribcages. It felt more like a cathedral than anything humans ever built.
We talked. About belonging. About his brother. About why we’re really here.
He said I’m not what he expected. I told him the same.
And for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was pretending to belong.

I just was.

—M. Lane 

Chapter Text

The morning light filtered through the canopy in wide, golden shafts, slanting across the platforms of Hometree like brushstrokes from a sacred painter. The leaves above shimmered in shades of emerald and jade, swaying gently with the breeze. Birdsong rang high in the branches, bright and quick. From somewhere overhead came the distant sounds of laughter—young Na’vi chasing one another across woven walkways, their voices echoing down like music.

Myra stood still on the outer platform, her hands clasped loosely behind her back. The wind lifted strands of her braid and brushed them against her neck. Her new clothing—the gifted wrap of plant-dyed cloth and braided cord—still felt unfamiliar. It clung to her differently than anything she’d ever worn, weightless and open. It didn’t hide her. But it didn’t feel like it needed to.

It felt… honest.

Across from her, Jake was pacing. He moved like a caged animal—impatient, uncertain what to do with his limbs. His bare feet made almost no sound on the wooden planks, but his presence was loud, buzzing with restlessness.

“This is the part where we get bows, right?” he asked, arms crossed, trying for casual.

Myra gave him a sidelong look. “You just want to shoot something.”

Jake grinned. “I want to learn.”

“You want to win.”

He opened his mouth to protest, then closed it with a shrug. Guilty.

Before he could reply, Neytiri appeared—soundless, sudden. She seemed to step out of the tree itself, all shadows and breath. Her arrival made the space shift. Myra straightened instinctively.

Neytiri’s eyes passed over them like a scan—steady, unreadable, unblinking.

“You will learn what I teach,” she said, voice low but firm. “Not what you want.”

Jake snapped to attention. “We’re ready.”

Neytiri turned. “Follow.”

And they did.

The trail she led them down was not a path—not in the way humans thought of paths. It wound through the forest with no markers, no breaks, just gentle bends in the undergrowth where others had moved before. Vines curled overhead. Glowing spores floated in patches of filtered sunlight, like the forest had drawn in a breath and held it for them to pass.

The air grew thicker with green as they moved, the world narrowing to sound and scent and light. The quiet here wasn’t empty. It pulsed.

Eventually, Neytiri stopped at a wide clearing. A ring of trees arched overhead, their trunks curving in on one another like guardians.

She turned to them.

“You will begin by listening.”

Jake blinked. “That’s it? Listen?”

Neytiri turned on him like a sudden storm. “You do not hear. You talk. You step loud. You breathe like thunder. You crush what is beneath you.”

Then she turned to Myra.

“She listens.”

The words were not praise. They were observation. But they landed like a stone in Jake’s chest.

He frowned, chastened but silent.

Neytiri crouched, placing one hand to the forest floor. Her fingers splayed gently across the moss. “Everything is connected. You must feel where you are before you move through it.”

Myra knelt beside her, knees sinking into the soft ground, and lowered her palm.

At first, all she felt was cold. Dampness. The faint give of root-webbed soil.

But then—slowly—something more.

A rhythm. Deep, subtle. Like the faintest pulse. Not a sound. Not a vibration. A presence.

The forest was breathing.

She closed her eyes.

And felt it.

A stillness bloomed inside her chest.

“She is beginning to hear,” Neytiri said softly.

Jake crouched too, touching the moss. He tilted his head.

“Feels like nothing.”

“Because you are not quiet,” Neytiri snapped. “Your mind is loud.”

Jake muttered, “Thanks,” but didn’t give up.

They stayed like that for hours.

No weapons. No drills. No shouts or instruction manuals. Just feeling. Watching. Learning to be.

Neytiri taught them how to move without being seen, how to feel the wind before it touched their skin, how to place their feet by listening first. Jake kept trying to step faster. Myra tried to move slower. And something in her began to shift—not change, not become—but unfold.

At one point, when Neytiri pulled Jake aside to guide him through a tangle of hanging vines, Myra drifted toward a nearby tree. Its leaves were flat, broad, layered like fans stacked atop one another. The entire thing tilted slightly toward her as she approached, though the air was still.

She raised her hand and touched the nearest leaf.

It shivered.

Then the next leaf.

Then the next.

A chain reaction, slow and deliberate, moved through the tree like a wave. Each leaf lit faintly at the edge with a greenish glow, responding in turn, like breath expanding through the canopy.

Myra’s breath caught.

The tree had recognized her.

Behind her, Neytiri had turned. She said nothing. But her expression shifted—no longer aloof, but alert. Focused. Like something she had only suspected was becoming undeniable.

Jake pushed a branch out of his face and looked over. “Something happening?”

Neytiri didn’t answer.

The tree stilled when Myra stepped away. The glow faded.

The forest exhaled.

Later, they sat beneath a thick-rooted tree to rest. Neytiri handed them hollowed gourds filled with cool water, and then vanished into the trees again—whether to scout or to watch unseen, Myra didn’t know.

She sat cross-legged, pressing her palm into the moss absently, like she missed the rhythm already.

Jake flopped down beside her with a groan, sweat on his brow. “I’ve had easier combat training.”

Myra smiled faintly. “That’s because this isn’t combat.”

He leaned back on his elbows, glancing sideways. “What happened with that tree?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t do anything. It just… responded.”

Jake was quiet for a beat. Then he said, “It’s like you’ve already got one foot in their world.”

Myra looked down at her fingers. The moss clung to her skin like it didn’t want to let go. “I think I’m starting to realize I never really belonged in mine.”

He nudged her shoulder gently. “Maybe we’re both meant to be here.”

She smiled, but it was tinged with something deeper. “Maybe. But I don’t think we’re here for the same reason.”

Jake’s brow furrowed. “No?”

She shook her head. “You came to fill your brother’s place. I came to stop running from mine.”

He didn’t answer, not right away. Just looked down at his hands—calloused, scarred, too human for the body he wore. “Do you think Neytiri hates me?”

Myra tilted her head. “I think she’s waiting to see if she’s wrong about you.”

Jake nodded slowly, absorbing that.

Then, softly, he said, “I’m tired of trying to prove I belong.”

Myra met his eyes.

“Then stop trying,” she said. “Just listen. Let this place show you.”

They sat in silence after that, the forest pressing in not with weight, but with closeness. Leaves rustled gently above. Light filtered through, flickering on their skin like blessings. A root shifted beneath them as though adjusting to cradle their backs.

Neither of them moved.

Neither of them wanted to.

Because in that moment, they were not outsiders.

They were becoming.

Under the broadroot shelter, south of Hometree

Today, Neytiri made us listen. Not speak, not move—just listen.
I felt the forest’s heartbeat through the moss. A rhythm older than any language. A tree recognized me. Its leaves lit up under my hand like it knew me.
Jake didn’t feel it. But he’s trying. That matters.
I told him I came here to stop running. Maybe I meant it more than I realized.
I’m not afraid of being seen anymore.

– Myra

By late afternoon, Neytiri released them from training with a single word: “Enough.”

Jake practically collapsed backward onto a thick, arched root with a groan of relief. “Finally.” He stretched out, limbs splayed, sweat gleaming along his arms. “I don’t think I’ve ever worked that hard just to walk quietly.”

Neytiri shot him a sidelong glance—not quite approval, not quite amusement. Then she turned and slipped into the trees without a sound, vanishing between the glowing leaves like breath fading into mist.

They lingered a moment in the hush that followed, then began the slow walk back toward Hometree. The forest around them glowed gently in the descending light, gold melting into lavender-blue. Myra’s legs ached, but her mind hummed. Everything around her felt sharper—every sound, every scent, every breath of wind on her skin.

As they neared the upper platforms, a subtle change bloomed in the air. The energy around Hometree had shifted—not tense or expectant, but warm, buzzing with life. The hum of daily survival was giving way to something else.

They heard it first in the bones: a low, steady drumbeat, rising like the pulse of the tree itself.

They stepped onto a broad platform bathed in the last blush of sunset. The world here had opened into community. The Na’vi were gathered in small, intimate groups. Children darted between woven lanterns, their laughter rising like wind chimes. Fires flickered in low stone bowls. Hammocks swung gently between roots. The scent of roasted fruit and sweet herbs drifted on the breeze.

And always, the music—three Na’vi seated at the platform’s far end played hand drums in perfect synchrony, their rhythm ancient, easy, and sure. A fourth played a reed flute that sang in low, haunting tones like wind through canyon stones. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be.

The music was the heartbeat.

Myra stopped walking. She didn’t speak.

Jake almost bumped into her. “What—?”

She held up a hand, eyes fixed on a small domestic moment across the way. A Na’vi woman sat with her legs crossed, weaving fine braids into the hair of a child nestled in her lap. Each strand wound with slow reverence, beads and colored fibers added like blessings. It was tender and unhurried, a ritual passed down from memory, not necessity.

Myra’s throat tightened.

They didn’t need lights or screens. They didn’t need noise. They had presence.

A small boy darted past, clutching a glowing seed pod that lit up with every step. Another chased him, both of them shrieking with laughter. Neither gave more than a passing glance to Jake or Myra. Not fear. Not curiosity.

Just inclusion. Just acceptance.

Jake exhaled beside her. “Still not scared of us, huh?”

Myra smiled faintly. “They probably think we’re just really big and really slow.”

He chuckled. “Can’t argue that.”

They edged toward the gathering, still holding a respectful distance. Myra paused beside a woman who was threading a net with long, sure fingers. The woman looked up and met her gaze—just for a moment—and gave a faint nod. No words. No instruction. Just... welcome.

There was no ceremony here. No test to pass. The invitation was quiet, unspoken: If you are here, stay.

Jake looked around with narrowed eyes, like he was trying to understand a language written in wind and water. “No officers. No chain of command. Just… rhythm.”

Myra nodded. “And everyone knows their part.”

They sat side by side at the edge of a woven mat, close enough to feel the music in their skin, but far enough not to intrude.

Then, a moment of quiet generosity. A young woman with intricate ink-like tattoos up her arms approached them and held out a shallow bowl, piled high with bright fruit—spirals of orange and red, soft pink segments, something like a glowing fig split open to reveal luminous seeds.

Jake blinked. “Is that… for us?”

The woman didn’t answer. She just nodded and moved on.

Jake took a piece cautiously. Myra followed. The fruit burst in her mouth—sweet, tangy, cooling like mint rain. Her eyes fluttered closed.

“I haven’t tasted anything this fresh in years,” she whispered.

Jake was chewing slowly, reverently. “Tastes like it grew with music playing.”

The drums began to shift, picking up a new pattern. The dancers responded like waves rising to moonlight—soft steps, subtle turns, hands held low, then high. It wasn’t choreographed, but it was practiced. It was in their bones.

And the platform seemed to hum with it all. Not just joy. Belonging.

Myra placed a hand on the mat, grounding herself. “They don’t just live with the forest,” she murmured. “They live like the forest. In rhythm. In relationship.”

Jake’s voice was quiet, almost lost in the flute’s song. “You think they’ll ever really accept us?”

She watched a small group of children braid bright grasses into long cords, their fingers nimble and smiling. An elder passed behind them and gently corrected a knot without a word.

“I don’t know,” Myra said. “But they’re not sending us away.”

Jake nodded slowly. “Feels like a start.”

She looked over at him. He wasn’t tense anymore. He was… softer. More grounded than he’d been since she met him. Maybe for the first time.

Above them, the platforms swayed gently. Lanterns bobbed on their cords. The forest beyond sang in low wind and high-pitched insects. And somewhere between that song and the drumming, the two humans sat quietly, hearts beating just a little closer to the rhythm of Pandora.

It wasn’t belonging—not yet.

But it was welcome.

And that was enough.

Upper platform of Hometree, beneath the lantern vines

We returned from training exhausted—body sore, feet aching—but something had shifted. Hometree wasn’t just a shelter tonight. It was alive with music, with laughter, with breath.
Drums echoed like a second heartbeat. Children ran barefoot between lanterns. A woman braiding a little girl’s hair stopped to meet my eyes—and nodded.
No fear. No question. Just… welcome.
We didn’t ask to be included. But they fed us. Gave us fruit that tasted like sunlight and mint rain. No ceremony. No speeches. Just rhythm and silence and belonging.
For a moment, I forgot I was wearing a borrowed body.
For a moment, I didn’t feel like an outsider.
For a moment, I felt home.

– Myra

As the final drumbeats faded into the hush of twilight, Neytiri emerged from the shadows like a figure carved from the dusk itself.

“Come,” she said, her voice low but clear. “There is something you should see.”

She turned without waiting, and they followed—silent, reverent. The climb wound upward through Hometree’s inner skeleton, past knotted roots and platforms suspended by thick ropes of woven vine. The deeper they ascended, the quieter the world became, until even the chatter of the forest below faded into a kind of suspended breath. The path narrowed with each level, carved into the living wood by careful hands and time.

At last, they emerged onto a slender outcropping near the tree’s crown—a platform of interwoven branches and ancient bark polished smooth by generations of footsteps. The wind met them instantly, rushing in cool and clean, laced with the faint perfume of flowering mosses and highland blossoms. Myra paused as it caught in her braid and danced across her skin, electric and pure.

Then she saw them.

Beyond the cliffs that cradled Hometree, the horizon split open into sky. And there, silhouetted against the fading burn of sunset, soared the Iknimaya peaks—those impossible floating islands, draped in veils of mist and anchored by vines as thick as cathedral pillars. They drifted like mountains held aloft by spirit and memory, a sacred geography untethered from gravity.

And from them came the riders.

The Ikran—great winged banshees, their bodies rippling with color and muscle—cut through the air like living storms. Their wings carved the sky with grace and fury, each stroke a hymn to the wind. The riders clung to them not as masters, but as partners—leaning into the wind, bodies curved in unison with each swoop and dive. The bond was more than balance. It was trust, sculpted by instinct and earned in silence.

One dove sharply into the spray of a distant waterfall, disappearing for a breathless second before bursting free again, droplets spiraling in his wake like shattered light. Another hovered momentarily at the edge of a stone bridge, then fell backward into a barrel roll that turned the sky upside down.

Myra gasped aloud. Her hand clutched the railing of braided vine as if anchoring herself to something solid.

“They don’t just ride,” she whispered. “They… become part of the sky.”

Neytiri stood near the edge, unmoving, her profile framed by the violet sky. There was no pride in her gaze—only memory, and purpose.

“They do not conquer the Ikran,” she said. “They connect. If the bond is strong, the Ikran will carry you. If it is weak… you fall.”

Jake let out a slow breath, his eyes locked on the display of impossible flight. “That’s not flying,” he murmured. “That’s freedom with wings.”

Neytiri gave the smallest nod, but her words held steel. “One day, if Eywa wills it, you will climb. And you will choose. Or be chosen.”

Jake gave a dry laugh. “You think I’m ready to throw myself off a cliff and hope something catches me?”

Neytiri turned her head, eyes sharp. “You will not hope. You will know.”

Myra barely heard them. Her heart was thudding in her chest—not with fear, but with longing. Watching the Ikran twist and spin through the air, the clouds burning with the last gold of day, she felt something open in her—a door that had been closed since she was a child.

They were beauty made motion. They didn’t belong to the air. They were the air.

She found herself whispering, “They aren’t ridden. They’re met. Like a mirror.”

Neytiri glanced at her, something quiet and approving passing through her expression. “Yes.”

A younger rider veered close to the cliffs, his Ikran shrieking with joy. The wind tore through his braids and sent leaves flying into the abyss. He laughed—a sound so free and fearless it echoed across the chasm like a song.

Jake stepped forward, resting his hands on the railing beside Myra. His face had softened, his expression caught somewhere between awe and ache.

“When I was a kid,” he said, “I used to dream I could run again. Then I dreamed I could fly. Always ended with me falling.” He exhaled through his nose. “But this… this might be the first time I think I’d be okay with the fall.”

Myra turned her head toward him slowly. He wasn’t looking at her, but something about his voice—the rawness of it—tightened something in her chest.
“You won’t fall,” she said quietly. “Not if the forest says yes.”

He looked at her then, and there was something vulnerable in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

They watched together as the last of the Ikran vanished into the clouds, the sky deepening into dusk. Below, the jungle began to pulse with light—leaves and branches awakening into hues of blue and violet, as though the planet itself breathed in color.

Above them, wind sang between stone and sky. And the wild called to them—not just as visitors, but as challengers, as potential.

As chosen.

The moment her Avatar eyes slipped closed, Myra felt it—that lurching sense of being unmade, of falling upward and inward at once, as if some invisible thread had snapped and the world had dropped out beneath her.

There was no sound.

Just pressure.

And then—

Impact.

Not physical, but something deeper, like slamming back into a body that didn’t quite fit.

She gasped as the link severed.

Her eyes blinked open to sterile light.

The hum of Pandora—the heartbeat of the forest, the songs of glowing leaves and distant birds—vanished all at once, replaced by the mechanical whirr of life support systems and the cool hiss of filtered air.

She was in the link room again.

Dim and fluorescent. Cold and humming.

Myra’s chest rose and fell too quickly. Her heart pounded in a rhythm that no longer matched the jungle. The scent of disinfectant bit at her nose. Her skin, pale and bare, felt foreign against the pod’s metal edge as she slowly sat up.

Her first thought was not a word but a grief.

Jake groaned beside her, dragging both hands down his face. “God,” he muttered. “Every time feels like getting hit by a goddamn truck.”

Myra pressed her palm to her sternum. “I can still feel the air… the canopy,” she whispered. “It’s like I left my heartbeat behind.”

Jake flexed his fingers and looked down at his legs—whole and strong in the Avatar, motionless here. “I can still feel a tail I don’t have,” he said. “Like I forgot how to fit inside this body.”

Myra gave a soft, lopsided smile, tired but real. “Phantom limb syndrome. For a whole other self.”

Before either could say more, the door snapped open.

Grace Augustine stormed in like a thundercloud in a lab coat—hair tied back in a no-nonsense knot, tablet clutched in one hand, and a look on her face that said someone was about to get read the riot act.

“I hope you two have a damn good reason for dropping off the grid for over thirty-six hours,” she snapped. “Because I’ve been fielding calls from Selfridge and Quaritch, and let me tell you, neither of them appreciate radio silence.”

Jake didn’t flinch. “We made some new friends.”

Grace narrowed her eyes. “Did those friends happen to have claws and a hunger for human flesh?”

Myra carefully swung her legs over the side of the pod. Her muscles felt clumsy. Her breath caught in her throat. “Thanator found us,” she said. “We ran. Got separated from the group.”

Grace’s mouth tightened. “And you didn’t think to check in the minute you were safe?”

“There wasn’t time,” Jake said. “We were taken in.”

Grace tilted her head. “By what? A nest of viperwolves with good manners?”

“The Omaticaya,” Myra said softly.

That stopped everything.

Grace froze mid-step.

Jake gave her a sideways smile. “Yeah. Thought the same thing when they didn’t spear us through the chest.”

Grace stepped forward slowly, her voice sharper now. “You’re telling me the Omaticaya not only didn’t kill you—but took you in?”

“They were going to,” Myra said. “Then something changed.”

Grace’s gaze flicked between them. “What changed?”

Jake scratched the back of his neck. “The seeds. Atokirina’. They… showed up. Surrounded us.”

Myra nodded. “It wasn’t random. It felt… like recognition. Like a decision.”

Grace exhaled, pinching the bridge of her nose. “This moon gets stranger by the hour.”

She looked up again, eyes sharper now. “Alright. Start talking. Everything. From the moment you left the trail to right now. Don’t skip a breath.”

Jake glanced at Myra. “You want to start?”

She shook her head, a half-smile on her lips. “You go first. I’ll correct the parts you exaggerate.”

He smirked, but started speaking—about Neytiri, about the forest path lit by bioluminescence, about the silence that came before she stepped out of the trees. About Hometree, and Tsu’tey’s fury, and the dancing children, and the taste of fruit that made everything else seem synthetic. About the drums. The riders.

While he talked, Myra didn’t move.

She sat quietly, hands folded in her lap. Human hands. Pale and still. They looked smaller than she remembered. They looked borrowed.

The air inside the lab felt thin. Filtered. Safe in all the wrong ways. She wanted to feel soil beneath her feet, not polished concrete. She wanted the pulse of moss under her fingers, the brush of leaves greeting her as she passed. She wanted to hear the forest whispering again.

This body—her original body—felt like a facsimile. A ghost of a thing she used to be.

Not wrong… just incomplete.

She wasn’t just returning from another world.

She was leaving it.

And something in her had stayed behind.

Link Room, Hell’s Gate

I opened my eyes and the world felt… wrong.
No green. No hum. No heartbeat under my hands.
Just cold air, stale light, and the weight of a body that used to feel like home.
I can still feel the wind from the cliff. Still hear the Ikran cry. Still smell the moss.
But it’s fading.
And I don’t want it to.
Every time I wake up here, I feel further away from where I’m meant to be.

—M.

Chapter Text

Waking in her Avatar body no longer felt like stepping into a costume.

It felt like coming back.

Myra’s eyes opened slowly to the dappled shimmer of early morning light, soft and green as it filtered through the towering canopy of Hometree. The leaves above shifted lazily in the breeze, casting dancing patterns on the woven walls around her. Every breath she took filled her lungs with warm, humid air tinged with the scent of flowering moss, sap-sweet and spiced faintly with something wild.

She lay still for a while in the cradle of her leaf-woven hammock, listening. Not just hearing—but listening. The jungle sang in layers: birds with lilting, unfamiliar cries, the flutter of tiny wings, the distant splash of a waterfall far below. Somewhere nearby, a child’s laughter echoed off the bark walls. Branches creaked softly as Hometree swayed with the wind.

Her tail curled beneath her as she stretched, a long, slow unfurling of limbs that felt more natural now than anything she remembered from her human body. The strange, awkward weight she used to carry in her avatar form had vanished—this was her body now. The muscles that rippled beneath her skin were hers. The strength in her legs. The fine-tuned balance of her tail. The ears that flicked toward the sound of a drifting insect. It didn’t feel borrowed. It felt right.

The link room—the cold slabs, the blue-white hum of machines, the bitter scent of sterilizer and static—was just a shadow now. A fading ghost. This… this was the dream she didn’t want to wake from.

A groan came from the hammock beside hers. Jake rolled over and cracked one eye toward the light, squinting as the sun’s golden beams danced across his face.
“Ugh,” he muttered. “What time is it?”

Myra was already sitting up, swinging her legs down and letting them dangle from the edge of the hammock. She smiled over her shoulder at him, her braids slipping down her back, catching the morning light. “Morning,” she said. “And definitely too early for your whining.”

Jake stretched his arms behind his head and grinned sleepily. “You ready for this?”

Myra smirked at him, “Ready to listen to you get yelled at all day? Always.”

He laughed—a real, belly-deep laugh that made a pair of passing children pause and giggle before scampering off. Jake rubbed the back of his neck as he sat up, eyes scanning the platform around them.

Above, the Omaticaya were already beginning their day. Elders walked slowly across the woven bridges, speaking in low, melodic tones. Women sat in circles with children, weaving patterns into each other’s hair with beads and string made from seeds. Bright birds flew overhead, their calls sharp and musical. Everything moved with a rhythm—not rushed, not idle. Just alive.

Myra’s gaze drifted to the horizon visible between the vines. The sun was rising, spilling fire and honey through the jungle canopy, and in that light the world glowed like it was breathing.

Then a soft thump echoed across the platform behind them.

Neytiri had arrived.

She stood tall, poised like a statue carved from water and wind, her long braids falling over her shoulders, arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes, golden and bright, were fixed on the two of them.

“Today,” she said, her voice like river-stone, smooth and sharp at once, “you learn connection.”

Jake, still bleary-eyed but upright, blinked. “That sounds better than getting scolded for stepping on the wrong root.”

Neytiri arched a brow in reply. “You will still be scolded.”

Myra fought back a smile as she climbed down from her hammock, her feet landing softly on the springy platform floor. She approached Neytiri, heart already quickening—not with fear, but with anticipation. Whatever connection meant, she felt the call of it in her blood. A thread tugging at her chest, invisible but insistent.

She didn’t know where this new path led, not yet. But she could feel it waiting—somewhere just ahead, just beneath the skin of the forest.

A voice, a rhythm, a bond she hadn’t yet made.

And Myra Lane was ready to find it.

Neytiri led them deeper into the heart of the forest, far beyond the familiar woven platforms and pulsing energy of Hometree. The air shifted as they walked—cooler, richer, thick with the scent of damp bark and blooming orchids. Sunlight streamed through the canopy in fractured beams, catching on threads of mist that curled low to the ground like wandering spirits.

They moved in silence, their footsteps softened by moss thick enough to cradle a fall. Towering roots arched around them like cathedral arches, carved by centuries of wind and rain and time. Bridges grown from living vines swayed gently beneath their feet, the tension of each step answered by a whispering creak. Streams threaded between trees, their waters so clear they shimmered with hidden bioluminescence even in daylight—like starlight caught in motion.

The forest felt awake.

Alive.

Watching.

Eventually, Neytiri stopped without a word. Before them stood a tall, elegant plant, its feather-like leaves fanned outward in concentric spirals, each tip glowing faintly with an inner pulse of blue-white light. From its center rose a single twisting tendril, like a living ribbon of silk, swaying not with the breeze but with purpose.

Electric shimmer ran beneath its surface. It hummed softly, almost inaudibly—like a thread being plucked.

Jake eyed it with caution. “Is that… thing alive?”

“Everything is,” Neytiri said, her voice quiet but firm. “And everything speaks. Today, you listen.”

She turned to Myra, and her gaze, sharp as ever, softened just slightly.

“You first.”

Myra stepped forward.

Her heart thudded once, hard, but she didn’t hesitate. Something in the plant called to her—not with a sound, but with a presence. A familiarity she couldn’t name.
She reached out, her fingers brushing the vine with reverent care.

It responded instantly, shivering under her touch—not in fear, but in recognition. The tendril reached toward her braid, pulsing with waves of soft, translucent light. It moved like a living breath, as if drawn by her heartbeat.

Myra’s hands didn’t shake. She felt no fear. Letting her queue fall forward, she let it brush against the tendril.

The moment they touched, her world shifted.

She inhaled sharply, lips parting as if gasping in wonder.

Light.

Not the light of sight—but of sensation. It filled her lungs, her chest, her limbs. It moved through her like warm water, like wind threading through every hollow space she hadn’t realized was empty.

The plant did not speak—but it knew her. She felt it: the slow pulse of memory, the centuries curled into its roots, the water it had drunk from stone, the sunlight stored in its veins. She felt the hush of the forest’s breath, the vibration of life in the deepest soil.

Time became irrelevant. She was not standing in a body—she was being in a world.

She pulled away slowly, breath caught somewhere between awe and ache.

Her hand hovered over her chest as she looked at Neytiri. “It saw me,” she whispered. “It knew me.”

Neytiri’s expression was unreadable, but her eyes were not.

“You felt Eywa,” she said.

Jake stepped closer, brow furrowed. “You okay?”

Myra gave a dazed nod. “I’ve never felt anything like that. Not ever.”

Neytiri turned to Jake with sharp precision. “Your turn.”

Jake approached the plant with less grace. He moved cautiously, hesitantly, like a soldier checking for traps. He reached out, fingers brushing the tendril, which waved sluggishly in return.

When he brought his braid forward, the connection came—but slower, more strained. The light that pulsed through the vine flickered unevenly.

Jake frowned. “It’s… resisting me.”

Neytiri’s tone was cool. “You resist yourself. You think. You want. You try to control.”

Jake bristled. “I’m trying.”

“Trying is not being,” she said. “Trying is fear.”

They continued, moving from plant to plant across a sacred glade veiled in sunlight and shade. There was no trail—only living guides: ferns that glowed at their approach, flowers that turned to face them, trees whose leaves whispered when touched.

They bonded with flora that shimmered like moonlight, moss that pulsed beneath their fingers like a sleeping heart, and once, a great insect with wings like stained glass that buzzed gently against Myra’s palm, its thoughts fleeting like sparks.

With each connection, Myra felt herself sinking deeper into something sacred. The plants welcomed her—not as a scientist, not as an outsider—but as part of the rhythm. Her body knew what her mind had no words for. She didn’t need to ask how to connect.

She only had to remember.

Jake struggled more, but he improved. When he finally knelt beside a patch of luminous moss and placed his hands on it, the thrum of life echoed gently under his palms. He smiled. Just a little.

At last, Neytiri called them back. The sun had arced low, gilding the treetops in molten light. The air smelled of wet bark and fresh fruit. Birdcalls turned soft and strange as the forest prepared for night.

They made their way home slowly, every step quieter now.

Exhausted—but not in a way that hurt.

They weren’t just tired. They were opened.

And though no one said it aloud, they both knew: something had changed. Something within.

Something they would never again be able to leave behind.

beneath the whispering canopy

I touched something today.
Not with my hands—though I did that, too—but with everything I am.
The plant didn’t just connect to my braid. It saw me. It knew me. It let me feel the hum of the forest, the weight of centuries curled into roots and light. It didn’t speak in words, but in memory. In presence.
And for the first time, I didn’t feel like an intruder here. I felt like I belonged.
Jake said the plant resisted him. I think he’s still trying to fight the silence. I didn’t fight it. I let it in.
And it welcomed me.

—M.

The upper platforms of Hometree shimmered in the rising dusk like something out of a waking dream.

As the sun melted into the horizon, the canopy above caught the last gold of daylight, then dimmed into soft blues and purples. Lantern-globes—woven from vines and filled with bioluminescent nectar—blossomed to life, casting pools of warm, living light that danced across woven floor mats and swaying hammocks. From somewhere above, music unfurled: the low, steady heartbeat of drums, the airy call of flutes, and voices, soft and clear, winding through one another like wind through leaves. Harmonies built and fell again like waves.

Jake and Myra wandered to the edge of a wide platform, the woven floor gently flexing beneath their steps, and sat down side by side. The forest stretched below them, a sea of glowing green and gold, pulsing gently with the rhythm of night.

All around, life carried on—not rushed, not posed, simply present. Na’vi families passed bowls of sliced fruit that glistened in the lantern light. Elders wove cloth with long, careful hands, fingers moving in patterns that spoke of decades. A child dozed in her father’s arms while another danced with wide, laughing steps, her bare feet thumping softly on the reed floor. A woman sat with another between her knees, braiding long hair and threading beads that caught the firelight and shimmered like stars.

It was simple. But Myra had never seen anything so whole.

Jake broke the silence, voice low. “I keep expecting someone to come tell us we don’t belong.”

Myra watched a pair of boys play with a reed whistle, laughing as they traded it back and forth. “No one has yet,” she said.

He glanced at her, studying her face in the golden light. “You really feel at home here, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she turned her hands palm-up in her lap—blue, sure, no longer foreign. The pads of her fingers still held the memory of moss and root and vine. “Yes,” she said finally. “I do.”

Jake leaned back on his hands, his tail curling loosely behind him. “You’re something else, you know that?”

Myra gave a soft huff of laughter. “You’re fire, Jake.”

He blinked, looking at her. “Fire?”

She nodded, eyes half-lidded. “You burn bright. You challenge everything. You don’t wait for the world—you meet it head-on.”

He chuckled. “That supposed to be a compliment?”

Her lips curved in a quiet, wry smile. “Take it how you like.”

He tilted his head, the way he always did when thinking deeply. Then: “You’re water.”

Myra turned to him, brows lifting. “What?”

“You said I was fire,” he said, eyes steady. “You’re water. Calm, until you aren’t. Quiet, but always moving. You make space. You change things. You wear down walls.”

The words caught her breath a little. Not because they were flowery, but because they were true.

She looked at him, really looked, and saw not just the soldier, not just the newness in his Avatar body, but the boy who used to dream of running and never thought he’d fly. The man who carried grief in silence. Who wanted to do better, even if he didn’t know how.

“You’re learning to listen,” she said.

Jake looked up at the stars overhead, faint pinpricks glittering through the canopy.

“I’m trying,” he whispered.

Then he turned back to her, his voice steadier, his gaze searching. “You think that’s why we’re both here?”

Myra looked out over the platform, at the music and the children and the lanterns, and beyond that, to the breathing, glowing wild that never stopped singing beneath it all.

“I think this world needs balance,” she said. “And maybe… we’re meant to learn it from each other.”

He didn’t answer. But he didn’t look away, either.

For the first time, Myra didn’t feel like she was reaching toward a world she’d never touch.

She felt like something was reaching back.

And maybe, just maybe, she didn’t have to be alone in it.

That night, after the songs faded and the last lanterns dimmed to flickers of amber light, they returned to the hammocks Neytiri had prepared for them high in the sheltering arms of Hometree.

The climb had felt quieter than usual. Not tired—just full. As if the day had poured something sacred into them that words would only cheapen. Neither Myra nor Jake spoke much as they ascended, their movements instinctive now, attuned to the flow of the tree and the forest that cradled it.

The hammocks swayed gently in the open-air roost, woven from thick, flexible leaves and anchored to curving branches that arched above like ribs. Myra sank into hers with a soft sigh, the leaf fibers adjusting to her weight. The material was warm and breathable, smooth where it cradled her shoulders, rougher where it clung to the branch. It smelled faintly of sap and sun.

Above them, the stars blinked through the canopy—piercing and bright, scattered like seeds across the sky. A soft breeze stirred the leaves around them, sending whispers through the branches: a language without words, known only by the wind and the trees. Somewhere far below, the forest hummed with its night rhythm—distant birdsong, the rustle of furred creatures, the sighing breath of Pandora itself.

Myra curled on her side, her limbs loose and relaxed, tail draped gently over her hip. Her eyes half-closed as the movement of the hammock lulled her like a heartbeat. Her braid rested against her collarbone, the queue twitching faintly as if still remembering the touch of the plant from earlier that day.

The air was warm, kissed with the scent of moss and glowing pollen. Somewhere above, a child’s laughter drifted down—light, sleepy, unguarded.
From the hammock nearby, Jake’s voice broke the stillness, low and thoughtful.

“You think we’re changing?”

Myra’s eyes opened fully. She stared at the stars a moment longer, then let her gaze drift toward the curve of a massive root arching overhead. She could feel the weight of the day still settling in her bones—the memory of connection, of breath shared with living things, of something larger than knowledge. Larger than even her wonder.

She didn’t answer right away.

When she did, her voice was barely louder than the leaves. “Yes,” she whispered. “And I think… we’re supposed to.”

Silence followed—but it wasn’t empty.

The forest heard her. The tree breathed it in.

And somewhere between the hum of the moss and the hush of the wind, Myra felt a knowing settle deep in her chest.

Not just that they were changing.

But that they were becoming.

They moved like strangers, even in borrowed skin.

Awkward and off-balance, their limbs too new, their breath too loud. They stepped too hard, looked too long, asked before listening. Like cubs, Neytiri thought.

Unshaped. Soft in the wrong places, sharp in others.

The man—Jake—was loud in his bones. His laughter came fast, like a blade drawn too soon. His questions spilled from him before the silence could settle. He watched everything, not to understand it, but to anticipate it. He walked like someone always preparing to run.

He carried war in his spine. Neytiri could feel it. Not the kind that roared with sound and fire, but the kind that settled in quiet, clenched places—shoulders that never quite dropped, eyes that always searched for exits. His past clung to him like ash.

And yet… he looked at the world like a boy who had never seen the sun.

There was a hunger in him—not for control, but for belonging. For sky. For meaning. When he looked at the Ikran overhead or the way roots glowed beneath their feet, Neytiri saw it in his face: wonder, wild and open, like the world was a song he didn’t know the words to but desperately wanted to learn.

He would fight hard, she knew. He had the heart of a predator, but also a child’s need to be seen.

But could he listen? Could he lay down his fire long enough to feel the breath of the land? Could he surrender?

That, Neytiri did not know.

The woman—Myra—was different.

She was still in the way prey is still when it trusts the earth to keep it hidden. Her movements were cautious, yes, but not fearful. Her silence was not empty—it listened. She did not need to ask questions. She felt the answers.

When she touched the world, the world answered.

Neytiri had seen it: how the leaves turned in her direction as she passed, how vines gently brushed against her skin, how small blossoms opened a fraction wider when she stood nearby. Even the insects paused on her fingertips, as if deciding not to flee.

The roots parted for her. The moss pulsed beneath her like a heartbeat.

And Eywa watched her closely.

Neytiri felt it—not as a voice, but a shift in the wind, a breath in the trees. A knowing.

She had not told them this. Not yet.

The woman did not need to hear it. She already walked with reverence. She bent when she should bend. She waited when she should wait. She moved not to pass through the forest, but to become part of it.

She had already begun to belong.

But Neytiri had seen enough to know: Eywa had not sent them by mistake.

There had been signs—too many to ignore. The atokirina' had descended, not once, but twice. The spirits had marked them both, though not equally.

They were not ready. Neytiri could see the edges still. The grief in Jake’s shadow. The doubt hidden behind Myra’s quiet.

But they had been chosen.

She would teach them. She would show them the rhythm of breath, the wisdom of roots, the voices that slept in the bark and the stone. She would not go easy on them—Eywa’s will was not soft.

Even the loud one. Even the one who burned like fire when he moved.

Fire and water.

That was what she saw when she looked at them—opposites drawn together, clashing, flowing. Breaking and mending. She did not yet know what they would become, not in full.

But this much was certain:
The forest had reached for them.
And the forest does not make mistakes.

Chapter Text

The hum of the link room was louder in the morning.

Not because the machines had changed—but because she had.

The sterile air pressed close, too still, too quiet. It held no scent, no life. Just filtered oxygen, plastic, and the faint metallic tang of coolant. Myra stood near the edge of the room, arms folded tight across her chest. The floor beneath her boots was smooth and cold, as indifferent as the steel walls around her.

She wore her RDA fatigues—grey, pressed, standard issue. But after so many days wrapped in bark-fiber and handwoven leather, the uniform felt alien. The seams chafed. The synthetic fabric scratched at her skin. She tugged absently at the collar, suddenly aware of every stitch.

It didn’t belong on her body anymore.

She didn’t belong in this body anymore.

She glanced at the monitor bank nearby, its light spilling soft blue across her face. Her Avatar’s vitals scrolled steadily across the screen—heart rate even, brainwaves calm. Waiting. Ready.

Her other self.

The one that breathed the forest like it was born to it.

Behind her, the door hissed open.

Jake wheeled himself in, hair tousled, eyes still heavy with sleep. He wore a t-shirt two sizes too big and loose fatigues that bunched at his knees. A corner of a blanket was still caught in one of his wheels. He yawned wide, then muttered, “Mornin’.”

He rolled over to the supply shelf and tore open a protein bar with his teeth, already chewing as he tossed the wrapper into the bin with a practiced flick.

Myra raised an eyebrow. “That’s your breakfast?”

He gestured with the bar. “Peanut butter. Kind of.

”
She gave a dry smile. “Kind of isn’t food.”

He grinned. “You sound like Grace.”

On cue, the door slid open again with a whisper, and Dr. Grace Augustine strode in, tablet in one hand, annoyance already radiating off her like static. Norm trailed behind, bleary-eyed and yawning, a coffee in each hand.

“Vitals are good,” Grace said without preamble. “Link stability’s improving across the board. You two are holding longer sync times with fewer fluctuations.”

Jake raised a hand in mock salute. “Gold star for the lab rats.”

Grace didn’t dignify that with a response. “You’ll be continuing physical conditioning today. Neytiri’s been easing you in, but that’s over.”

Myra looked up at Grace, “She mentioned something last night… Iknimaya. That’s not just training. That’s the rite of passage.”

Jake blinked. “That the one with the banshees and the cliffs?”

Grace nodded. “It’s sacred. And extremely dangerous.”

Jake gave a low whistle. “Awesome. Climbing floating rocks to make friends with flying dragons. How hard could it be?”

Myra didn’t laugh.

She stepped forward, gaze steady. “It’s not about conquering. It’s about trust.”

Jake turned his chair slightly toward her. “You really believe in this stuff, don’t you?”

She nodded slowly. “Because it believes in me.”

Grace crossed her arms. “Just remember you’re still scientists. You collect data. You don’t lose yourselves out there.”

Myra glanced down at her hands—her human hands. Pale. Small. Still. They felt disconnected, like gloves worn too long.

The link room used to feel like a marvel—this great scientific frontier. A portal to something bigger. But now, it felt like a waiting room. Like a dim hallway between two versions of herself.

Her eyes drifted to the pod beside her—curved, smooth, and silent. Her other body lay in Hometree, motionless but alive. When she closed her eyes, she could still feel the echo of the forest: warm air on her skin, the weight of a vine across her shoulder, the brush of leaves that leaned toward her when she passed.

The link room had no scent.

No rhythm.

No breath.

Jake wheeled back a little, fiddling with the wheel rim. “You alright?”

She looked at him, and for a moment, didn’t answer. Then she said, “I’m not sure which one of me is real anymore.”

Jake tilted his head. “Maybe both.”

“Maybe,” she said quietly. “But one of them feels like dreaming. And the other feels like waking up.”

Jake gave her a long, thoughtful look. Then nodded. No teasing. No grin. Just understanding.

Grace tapped her tablet again, oblivious. “Suit up. We’re syncing in ten.”

But Myra was already gone, in her mind. Already half in the forest. Already feeling the pull of it like a heartbeat waiting to find its rhythm again.

And she doesn’t know when it changed, but, she wasn’t anxious about the pod.

She craved it.

They sat beneath an arch of flowering roots near one of the upper walkways of Hometree, high enough that the breeze carried the scent of distant blossoms and faraway rain. The roots above them twined together like the ribs of a living cathedral, thick and ancient, bursting with violet blooms that shimmered faintly in the shifting morning light. Vines hung in long curtains, catching the sunlight and breaking it into scattered shafts of gold, green, and ocean-blue that danced across the mossy floor like flickering spirits.

The air was warm and damp, sweet with sap and crushed petals. Below, the whisper of moving water echoed up through the roots—soft and steady, like the pulse of the tree itself.

“Again,” Neytiri said, her voice low and firm.

She stood in front of them, arms crossed over her chest, her braid falling like a cord down her back. Her gaze was sharp but not unkind—like the edge of a blade honed for precision, not harm. She had the patience of a river: deep, quiet, persistent. But not without end.

Jake sat cross-legged beside Myra, his posture military-tight, hands resting awkwardly on his knees. His tail twitched behind him as he tried not to fidget.

“Oel ngati kameie,” he said, stretching the syllables out like they might snap under the weight of his accent.

Neytiri winced. “No,” she said. “Again. You must feel it. Not force it.”

Jake exhaled sharply. “I am feeling it.”

“You are thinking with your mouth.”

Myra bit her lip to keep from laughing. Jake shot her a look.

Neytiri’s eyes shifted to Myra. “You. Say it.”

Myra nodded and closed her eyes for a breath. She didn’t chase the sound—she let it come. Let the word rise through her like breath through soil.

When she opened her eyes again, she said, softly but clearly, “Oel ngati kameie.”

There was a pause.

Neytiri did not smile. But her shoulders softened, her jaw eased.

“Better,” she said.

Jake gave Myra a sidelong glance, half-impressed, half-exasperated. “You’ve got the magic touch.”

“No,” Myra murmured, still watching Neytiri. “I just listen more than I talk.”

Without a word, Neytiri turned and plucked a blossom from the arch above them. Its petals were translucent violet, rimmed in soft blue. It shimmered with faint bioluminescence even in the daylight. She knelt and laid it on the moss between them like a gift or a challenge.

“This is zunui,” she said, tapping it once with a finger. “Say it.”

“Zunui,” Myra repeated, careful to match Neytiri’s rhythm, the lilt of breath that turned it from sound to meaning.

Jake followed. “Zuh…noo…?”

“Zunui,” Neytiri corrected sharply.

Jake squinted. “This is worse than French class.”

Neytiri turned her eyes to him. “It is not a class. It is a life.”

The words landed hard, but Myra heard something else underneath them—not annoyance. Grief. Devotion. Expectation.

They kept practicing. Neytiri named everything she touched: the moss with leaves like feathered velvet; the tiny green birds that flitted overhead, chirping in triplets; the braided ropes that doubled as ladders. Every word was shaped by breath, softened by intention. The language didn’t sit on a page. It lived in the air, in the body. In the way the Na’vi moved through the world.

Myra found herself moving with it—her voice slipping more easily into the flow, her fingers echoing the gestures Neytiri made, her heart steady and listening.
Jake, after a while, stood and wandered toward the edge of the platform, probably giving his tired tongue a break. He leaned on the railing, his tail flicking once, watching the birds spiral in lazy arcs through the shafts of light.

Neytiri watched him, her expression unreadable.

Myra stayed where she was, knees tucked under her, fingers brushing the blossom Neytiri had laid down. The petals were soft and cool against her skin, like a sleeping heartbeat.

“He tries,” Myra said softly, not looking up.

Neytiri nodded slowly. “He is loud. But not blind.”

They fell into silence, the kind that didn’t press for words. The light filtering through the vines painted them both in shifting patterns—leaf shadows across Myra’s cheek, gold across Neytiri’s collarbone.

Then Neytiri spoke again.

“The forest listens to you.”

Myra looked up. “What?”

Neytiri still did not meet her eyes. She was watching the canopy now, where the breeze stirred the long strands of vine.

“It feels you,” Neytiri said. “Not only when you touch. When you are near.”

Myra’s breath caught in her throat. “Does that frighten you?”

Now Neytiri looked at her.

“No,” she said. “But it is not something I can teach.”

Their eyes held for a moment—one born of the forest, the other claimed by it. No more words were spoken.

And none were needed.

They arrived in a wide glade just beyond the shadow of Hometree, where the morning light spilled through tall grasses in rippling waves. The air was warm and thick with the scent of sun-warmed earth, damp moss, and something sweet—like crushed bark and wildflowers. Trees with roots like arches ringed the clearing, creating a quiet, sunlit bowl in the middle of the forest.

The pa’li moved in small herds across the open space—graceful despite their size, their long necks swaying with each step. Their six legs moved in a mesmerizing rhythm, and their tails flicked lazily as they grazed. Towering and striped, they looked like creatures from an ancient dream—but there was no menace in them. Only stillness. Patience. A quiet intelligence behind wide golden eyes.

Jake let out a low whistle. “Those things are huge.”

“They are gentle,” Neytiri said. “They will not fight you. But you must approach with respect. With stillness in your spirit.”

She turned to Myra and Jake both. “This is your first tsaheylu with a creature. You will not force it. You will ask.”

She stepped forward, approaching a nearby pa’li with unhurried grace. The creature turned its massive head toward her, ears flicking. She held out her hand—not in command, but in greeting—and let her queue fall forward. The pa’li bent its head, revealing the tendril at the base of its crest. Their queues touched.

The bond flared to life like a breath held and released. The pa’li shivered once, then stilled, its eyes softening. Neytiri closed her own, and for a moment, rider and animal simply breathed together—no words, no signals, only presence.

She turned slightly. “Now, you.”

Myra stepped forward first. Her heartbeat was quick, but her hands were steady. She moved slowly, choosing a pa’li that stood a little apart from the others—tall and dappled with pale stripes along its shoulders. It turned to her as she approached, nostrils flaring gently, but it didn’t back away.

Myra extended her hand, palm up. The pa’li lowered its head.

She could feel it—something between them, not emotion exactly, but a recognition. Like the forest acknowledging one of its own. She reached back, unhooked her queue, and brought it forward. The pa’li’s neural tendril unfurled.

They met.

The connection was instant—warm and deep. Not a jolt, not an invasion. It was like stepping into a quiet stream and finding it already knew your name. She gasped softly, blinking as new sensations bloomed behind her eyes. The feel of the grass under heavy hooves. The hum of blood moving through strong limbs. The slow rhythm of breath.

It was overwhelming. And beautiful.

The pa’li leaned into her touch, steady and calm.

“You are accepted,” Neytiri said, her voice quiet but certain. “You listen. It listens.”

Jake approached next, a little more hesitant. He moved with more care than usual, his typical swagger dimmed by the presence of the animals. One of the pa’li turned toward him, curious. He paused, then copied Myra’s movement—hand out, head lowered.

The bond came slower for him, but it came. When their queues connected, he jolted slightly, then let out a low breath. His eyes widened.

“Whoa,” he murmured. “It’s like… I can feel its thoughts.”

“You feel only what it shows you,” Neytiri corrected gently. “You must show yourself in return.”

Together, they mounted—the creatures kneeling easily beneath them to offer their backs. Neytiri gave a signal, and the three of them began to ride, moving in slow circles around the clearing.

Myra let the movement guide her. It wasn’t about steering. It was about being in rhythm. She leaned when her pa’li turned, breathed when it breathed. The animal moved like an extension of her own body—strong and certain.

Jake was less graceful, bouncing slightly at first, but he found his balance soon enough.

“This is… actually amazing,” he said over his shoulder, grinning.

Myra didn’t answer. She was still absorbing the silence of the bond, the steady pulse of the pa’li’s trust in her bones.

When they finally dismounted, the animals stood beside them for a moment longer before wandering back into the herd.

“You are beginning,” Neytiri said. “The bond is sacred. Tsaheylu is not for control. It is for unity.”

Jake nodded, sweat clinging to his temples. “That was… intense.”

Myra looked at her hands—still tingling from the bond. “It felt… right.”

Neytiri turned to her. “It felt like Eywa had already touched you.”

No one spoke after that.

The forest was quiet around them. But inside Myra, something was awake—and listening.

The forest had quieted.

Not into silence—Pandora was never silent—but into a gentler hum, like a great living body easing into sleep. The heat of the day had softened into warmth that clung gently to the skin. Light filtered through the canopy in long amber shafts, painting the leaves gold and setting the dust motes dancing like tiny spirits. The wind, soft and warm, rustled through the tall grasses, carrying the faintest scent of crushed bark, sun-warmed moss, and the earthy musk of the Pa’li who had just trotted away.

Their hoofbeats had long since faded.

Training was over. Neytiri had left them with her usual air of calm command, vanishing into the undergrowth like mist parting in the morning. Her final words—“Return to Hometree before eclipse, or be hunted”—still lingered in the air, part warning, part ritual.

Jake lay sprawled across the wide, low arc of a root, his arms thrown out to either side, tail flicking absently in the grass. His chest rose and fell with deep, even breaths, sweat drying on his temples in a sticky sheen.

“That,” he groaned, “was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done willingly.”

Myra sat nearby in the soft grass, legs stretched in front of her, fingers digging absently into the dirt. The ground was warm beneath her palms. Living. Everything on Pandora breathed, even the soil.

“You’re improving,” she said, brushing a blade of blue-green grass from her knee.

Jake rolled his head just enough to glance at her. “Yeah? Tell that to my spine. I think one of those things stepped on my dignity.”

“You stayed on,” she offered with a small, teasing smile. “That counts.”

He snorted, then turned his gaze to the open sky between the trees. “You made it look easy.”

“I didn’t,” Myra said honestly. “I just didn’t panic.” She paused, brushing her hair back behind one ear as a breeze swept through the clearing. “I listened.”

Jake slowly sat up, groaning as he stretched his back. “Everything they do… It’s not just movement. It’s meaning. It’s like even walking is a prayer.”

Myra tilted her head, thoughtful. The light shifted over her face, dappling her skin like the forest was painting her with gold. “Because everything is something else here. The ground isn’t just ground. The wind isn’t just air. It’s… story. Memory. Connection.”

Jake studied her for a long moment. His face was more serious than usual, quiet with something softer than exhaustion.

“You’re not just talking about the forest, are you?” he asked quietly.

Myra didn’t answer at first. Then she shook her head. “No.”

He leaned back again, propping himself on his elbows, eyes tracing the shapes of the leaves above. The sun had begun its slow descent, painting the undersides of the branches in peach and violet.

“You think we’re really changing?” he asked. “Not just learning how to ride and speak Na’vi—but really changing?”

Myra was quiet, listening to the wind whistle faintly between the tall grasses. Then she nodded. “I think change is what we came for. Even if we didn’t know it.”

Jake took that in, slowly. “Before this… I used to think you had to fight for purpose. Prove it. Earn it through blood or grit.”

“And now?”

He looked down at the dirt still smeared across his palms. “Now I think maybe… it’s like roots. You don’t force them. You grow into it. You find where you’re meant to be by being still long enough to listen.”

A slow, surprised smile crept across Myra’s face. Not mockery—something warmer. Something proud.

“You’re listening,” she said softly.

Jake glanced over, a little sheepish. “Only when you talk.”

She rolled her eyes, but the blush across her cheeks betrayed her.

They fell into quiet again, but it wasn’t hollow. It felt full. Like the hush that follows a song.

The sky was darkening now—clouds stained lavender, stars beginning to blink through the gaps in the canopy. Somewhere distant, a flock of birds lifted into the air with a musical whoosh, wheeling toward their nests. A soft call echoed through the glade, long and low, like the forest exhaling.

“We should head back,” Myra said after a while, voice barely above a whisper.

Jake didn’t answer right away. Then he pushed himself up and offered her a hand, fingers curling in gentle invitation. Myra reached out without hesitation, and when he pulled her to her feet, neither of them let go.

Not right away.

Their hands stayed clasped, warm and steady, even as the last of the sunlight vanished into the trees.

They returned to Hometree just as the sky turned a deep, dusky violet, the last rays of sunlight sinking below the horizon like a secret being tucked away for the night. Above, the stars were beginning to bloom—first one, then a scatter, then a thousand shimmering lights across the heavens. The air was cooler now, threaded with the sweet scent of night-blooming flowers and the faint musk of the forest settling down.

Lantern-globes—delicate sacs filled with bioluminescent light—floated between the massive limbs of Hometree, their soft glow dancing across the curved walls of woven bark and polished stone. Soft laughter drifted upward. Murmurs. The clatter of wooden bowls. The steady rhythm of daily life winding to its restful close.

But Neytiri waited.

She stood alone near the highest living level, at the edge of a platform where the walkway curved into shadow. Her silhouette was still and sharp against the glowing night—barefoot, tall, a short hunting spear strapped across her back, braids brushing her shoulders in the breeze.

Jake arrived first, panting slightly from the climb. He raised his hands in mock surrender. “We made it back before dark. No hunting required.”

Neytiri didn’t reply right away. Her eyes lingered on him for a moment, unreadable in the blue light. Then she turned her gaze outward, toward the trees—and gestured for them to follow.

She didn’t speak again.

They obeyed without hesitation.

The path she chose was unfamiliar—narrow, winding, a swaying bridge of braided roots and vines that connected branches like veins through a body. They climbed higher than they’d ever gone before, above even the highest hammocks, past the clusters of resting families, until the hush of the canopy swallowed the noise of the tree below. The breeze sharpened into a chill that bit at their skin, carrying the faint mineral tang of stone and mist.

Leaves rustled around them like whispered secrets. Bioluminescent moths fluttered by, lighting the path for a heartbeat, then vanishing.

The jungle dropped away beneath them like a forgotten world.

And then, finally, the trees opened.

They emerged onto a wide cliffside ledge, carved naturally into the trunk of one of the great trees that hugged the mountainside. Here, the air was thin and bracing, full of movement. It rushed past in sudden gusts, pulling at their hair, tasting of cloud and wind and something electric—like the edge of a storm that had never come.

And there, stretching out before them like a dream from another life, floated the Hallelujah Mountains.

Massive stone islands drifted in slow circles above the jungle, suspended in the clouds, draped in vines so long they disappeared into mist. Waterfalls spilled from their sides and vanished into the sky. The fading light kissed their edges in shades of blue and silver, and distant flashes of bioluminescence flickered in the shadows, like the stars had been plucked from the sky and placed among the rocks.

Even Jake, who always had something to say, fell utterly silent.

Myra stepped forward, her breath catching like a knot in her chest. Her pupils dilated, heart thudding against her ribs. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t even awe.

It was memory.

Recognition.

Some deep, wordless piece of her stirred—something ancient, something waiting—and she knew, without understanding why, that she was meant to see this. That she had always been meant to reach it.

Neytiri’s voice was quiet when it came. Reverent.

“That is Iknimaya,” she said. “The path to rise.”

Her words fell into the wind like stones into water, rippling outward.

“You will climb. You will reach the high nesting place. And if you live…” Her gaze didn’t waver. “You will bond.”

Jake let out a slow breath, eyes still wide. “With an Ikran.”

Neytiri nodded once. “Only those who ride the Ikran are truly Omaticaya.”

The silence returned. The wind gusted again, carrying the low, distant cry of a flying creature echoing from between the cliffs. It sent a shiver down Myra’s spine.
She stepped forward, planting her feet near the edge, toes gripping the stone. Her braid shifted behind her like a waiting promise. The view stretched out below her, infinite and unbound. Her skin tingled with the cold, her lungs drank in the air like nectar.

Jake looked at her, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “You ready for that?”

She didn’t answer right away. The floating islands hovered like gods beyond reach, impossible and yet so real. Myra reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her expression unreadable—then she gave him a quiet, sure smile.

“No,” she said. “But I think I was born for it anyway.”

Jake blinked, then huffed a quiet laugh.

Neytiri studied them both—watchful, searching. Her eyes rested on Myra for a breath longer, as if trying to glimpse something just out of sight. Then she turned back to the ledge, facing the wind head-on.

“The Ikran do not wait,” she said. “They challenge. They fight. They choose. They do not come to you. You must rise. You must earn them.”

Jake folded his arms. “Yeah. That sounds familiar.”

But Myra didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. The wind was already moving through her like an echo.

The longer she stared at the mountains—the impossible, drifting titans of sky and vine—the more they felt like a calling. Like they weren’t floating away from her…
…but waiting for her to catch up.

Chapter Text

The air thinned with every step, crisp and sharp in Myra’s lungs. Each breath felt like drawing in a piece of the sky—pure, cold, and laced with the scent of stone and wind and clouds. Her muscles ached, her palms were scraped raw, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t dare.

The Hallelujah Mountains loomed like gods suspended in the heavens—vast, floating monoliths draped in vines and waterfalls, their roots stretching toward nothing and everything at once. Below them, the forest looked impossibly far away, a living sea lost in mist. Above, the sky churned with streaks of silver and soft gold, wind currents whispering through the hanging vines like a chorus of voices.

They climbed in silence, save for the howl of the wind and the soft scrape of hands on stone. Neytiri led them up ancient footholds carved into the cliff face by generations of Na’vi before them. She moved like she belonged here—fluid and weightless, one with the rock. Myra followed, steady, her breath controlled. Jake trailed behind, grumbling under his breath, but climbing with determination.

They reached a ledge where the climb seemed to level. Jake collapsed briefly onto a rock. “That’s it, right?” he panted, sweat glistening on his forehead. “That’s the top?”

Neytiri didn’t answer with words. She merely raised one hand and pointed across a narrow stone bridge, crumbling at the edges and suspended between two cliffs. It swayed subtly under the pressure of the wind, with nothing but open sky yawning beneath.

“This is the climb,” she said.

Jake stared at the path. “Great. A death bridge.”

But Myra had already stepped forward. Her fingers brushed over a vine as she passed it, grounding herself not in courage, but in trust. The stone beneath her bare feet was warm from the sun, worn smooth by time. The wind tugged at her hair, threaded through her fingers, but she moved like water—calm, balanced, in rhythm with the world around her.

Every step was deliberate. She didn’t rush. She didn’t hesitate.

Behind her, Jake muttered, “She’s gonna shame me into falling.”

“You fall,” Neytiri said behind him, “you do not come back.”

At the end of the bridge, the path widened into a jagged, open plateau. The air was colder now, sharper, and thinner. Her lungs had to work harder. Her heart did too. They stood on the lip of the sky itself.

And then came the sound.

The unmistakable cry of Ikran—high and guttural, like metal tearing through thunder. They swept in from above, massive wings slicing the air with a rush of pressure. Their claws scraped against the stone as they landed, aggressive and alive. Their hides shimmered with color—violet and gold, emerald and fire-orange, like they’d swallowed the sunrise and refused to let it go.

The rookery was chaos. Some paced in territorial circles, others clashed briefly, snapping their jaws in challenge. Their eyes gleamed with intelligence and fury.
Jake stumbled back half a step. “Okay… they’re a lot bigger up close.”

“They are not tame,” Neytiri said. “They do not obey. They do not serve. You must face them. You must earn them.”

She turned to Jake. “You do not choose your Ikran. It chooses you… when it tries to kill you.”

He blinked. “Seriously?”

She nodded.

Myra wasn’t listening. Something had shifted.

Her gaze locked on one of the Ikran perched higher than the others, its body tense and coiled like a storm about to break. Its scales shimmered deep violet, streaked with green so dark it was nearly black. The moment their eyes met, something ancient stirred.

The Ikran screamed—a raw, shrieking challenge—and lunged forward.

Myra didn’t flinch. Her blood surged, not in fear, but recognition. She stepped toward it slowly, matching its intensity with her own steadiness.

It lunged again, snapping its jaws just inches from her face—but she stood her ground.

She waited until it paused, circling her, wings half-open like a breathing flame.

Then she moved.

With a sharp breath, Myra sprang forward—not aggressively, but boldly—and leapt onto its back. The Ikran bucked and thrashed beneath her, wings flailing, tail whipping. Her hands gripped the ridge behind its neck, her legs tightening around its sides.

It screamed again, rearing onto its hind legs—and Myra released her queue.

The tendrils at the end of her braid unspooled like reaching roots, and the Ikran’s neural tendrils emerged, twitching, seeking.

And then—connection.

Tsaheylu formed.

It hit her like wind through her soul—no words, no thoughts, just sensation and instinct and pure flight. She felt the Ikran’s heart pounding in her chest. Its wings were her wings. Its hunger, her hunger. The wild in its blood echoed her own.

They stilled.

The creature shifted beneath her, adjusting to her weight—accepting her.

Myra exhaled shakily, a smile blooming across her face.

Neytiri’s voice came from somewhere behind her. “You are matched.”

Air punched from her lungs as the Ikran launched off the cliff—and then the world tilted.

They dropped like a stone.

Myra’s body seized with instinct, heart slamming against her ribs as the wind roared in her ears, a wild, screaming force that tore through her braids and dragged tears from her eyes. The sky became a blur, blue and blinding, streaked with violet and silver. The floating cliffs above vanished, and the jungle below rushed toward them like a living ocean.

Her legs locked tighter around the Ikran’s body. Her fingers dug into the ridges of its crest. Every part of her wanted to scream, but she didn’t.

Hold. On.

She leaned forward, pressing into the creature’s spine—and he felt her.

The Ikran’s wings snapped wide, catching an updraft with a thunderous crack. The freefall jerked into flight, smooth and powerful, and her breath came flooding back in a gasp that broke into laughter.

Not fear. Not anymore.

Elation.

The wind wrapped around her like silk now, no longer violent but alive—bracing, cold, and full of light. They soared in a sharp arc, banking hard to the left, and she moved with him instinctively—her weight a counterbalance, her body an extension of his own.

They slipped between two towering spires of floating rock, clouds curling around their wings, mist breaking like surf across her skin. The sun cut through in golden beams that painted the sky in amber and fire. And then—Pandora opened before them.

A wild, endless canvas of jungle and waterfalls, rivers winding like silver threads, the pulse of the world visible in every rustling tree and glowing bloom. It took her breath again, but gently this time—like a hand pressed to her chest.

She laughed, breathless and untethered, her voice lost in the wind but heard in the bond.

She could feel it—his joy, his pride, his fierce satisfaction in the rhythm of flight.

It surged through her queue like fire in her veins.

They weren’t rider and mount. They weren’t even separate anymore.

They were one thought, one motion, one soaring flame streaking across the sky.

Somewhere far above, on the ledge she’d leapt from, Neytiri stood with the wind pulling at her braids. Her eyes followed the shape diving and rising through the clouds.

Beside her, Jake stood frozen at the cliff’s edge—jaw slack, hands clenched at his sides.

“She lives,” Neytiri said, voice barely louder than the wind. A reverent whisper.

She didn’t smile.

“She flies.”

The wind screamed past her ears. Trees became blurs. The sky opened around her like a song sung in light. She didn’t need to hold on. She just had to feel.

The Ikran soared, banking left with a snap of its wings, then dove—cutting through a thin cloud like it was water. Mist kissed her cheeks. Her hair whipped back. Her whole body vibrated with the thrum of speed.

And then they rose—up, up—until the earth was only a memory and the sky was all that remained.

Myra laughed.

It burst out of her unbidden, raw and real and full of life. She spread her arms wide and let the wind catch her.

This wasn’t flying.

It was becoming.

She wasn’t a passenger.

She was free.

And in that moment, high above the world with a creature that had tried to kill her and instead claimed her, Myra knew: she had crossed a threshold. Not just in training. Not just in trust.

But in becoming Na’vi.

written beneath the clouds

I flew today.
Not in a machine. Not in a dream.
Real.
The moment our queues touched, I felt it—this raw, wild force press into my chest like lightning and breath all at once. Not language. Not even thought. Just yes.
He fought me. And then… he knew me.
And I knew him.
We leapt.
The world fell away, and I didn’t fall with it. I rose.
The sky wrapped around us, screaming and laughing and alive.
I felt weightless and more real than I ever have.
My hands are still shaking.
I don’t know who I was before this.
But I know who I am now.
And I will never forget the way the wind sang when I let go.

-Myra

The wind still clung to Myra’s skin like the ghost of flight—cool, electric, sacred. Her lungs burned, her braid throbbed with the aftershock of connection, and every part of her felt stretched wide, as though she hadn’t landed at all. As though some part of her still soared above the clouds.

Her Ikran—hers, now—had landed in a blur of scraping claws and wind-torn feathers, wings flaring wide as they skidded to a halt near the rookery. She slid down carefully, legs trembling with adrenaline. Her knees buckled slightly, but she steadied herself with a palm to the warm, ridged hide of her companion.

The creature huffed against her hand, eyes blinking slowly—wary, wild, and somehow… curious.

Myra smiled and pressed her forehead lightly against the side of his jaw. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The moment lingered—bonded, alive, breathing.

Then the air shivered again.

Stone grated beneath heavy talons. A deep, vibrating growl cracked the hush. On the far side of the rookery, Jake stood frozen, his eyes locked on a beast twice the size of hers—a blue-and-rust-colored Ikran with long scars trailing down its neck like clawed lightning.

It growled again, feathers flaring, tail lashing behind it.

Jake exhaled, jaw tight. “Great,” he muttered. “Mine’s got an attitude.”

Neytiri, arms folded behind her, didn’t blink. “He sees you. He will test your heart.”

Jake glanced over. “What happens if I fail the test?”

Neytiri didn’t answer.

The Ikran did.

With a sudden screech, it lunged.

Jake dove aside just in time, the talons slicing the air where he’d stood a heartbeat earlier. The beast wheeled on him, wings half-open, massive and menacing. Dust spiraled in the wind from its breath.

Myra’s hands flew to her mouth.

Jake rolled up to his feet and ran toward it.

“You want to dance?” he growled, low and desperate. “Fine. Let’s dance.”

The Ikran screamed and reared.

Jake leapt—arms reaching—catching the crest behind its skull as it shook like a hurricane. It slammed him against the stone once, twice, dragging him in a jagged arc toward the ledge. Myra’s heart lurched. He was too close—too far—

He climbed, leg over the ridge, tail flailing for balance. He was upside down at one point, fingers scrambling.

“Jake—!” Myra gasped.

He snarled through gritted teeth, “No—no, I’ve got you, come on—”

His queue whipped forward, missing once, twice, then—

Contact.

Tsaheylu.

The jolt was visible. The Ikran shrieked, its whole body tensing as the bond lit through them like fire. Jake recoiled from the force of it but didn’t break.

It wasn’t union yet. Not trust.

It was a struggle.

“Fly!” Neytiri called, voice sharp as a blade. “Fly now—or be thrown!”

The Ikran didn’t wait.

With a roar, it took off—exploding into the sky in a gale of wind and power.

Jake screamed. Not in fear, but in shock, in holy-shit-what-am-I-doing disbelief.

The creature bucked in midair, twisting like a cyclone, wings slicing through cloud.

“Level out! Damn it—LEVEL OUT!” Jake yelled.

The Ikran twisted again, nearly throwing him, but Jake held, his hands glued to the ridge, his legs locked.

They plummeted.

Then—at the last second—the wind caught. The wings steadied.

They rose.

The flight shifted—rough, jolting, wild—but it held.

From the rookery ledge, Myra didn’t breathe. Her chest ached with held air. Her eyes never left him.

He was flying.

Crooked, flailing, swearing the whole way—but flying.

The Ikran looped once, badly off-center, but Jake compensated, tugging his weight, adjusting. It banked wide, turned, glided low—slowly, gradually, trust forming in the friction.

They came back in a clumsy, skidding landing—talons scraping stone, wings lashing the air. Jake hunched low over the Ikran’s neck, panting like he’d just run through fire.

Silence.

Then—“Holy shit,” he breathed. “I did it.”

Neytiri approached, expression unreadable, arms still crossed. She studied him for a long moment.

“You were loud. Clumsy. Afraid.”

Jake looked up. “But I stayed on.”

And then—barely, just barely—Neytiri smiled. “Yes. You did.”

Myra moved to him, slow, breath shallow with leftover fear and pride. Her eyes met his. His were glassy, stunned, filled with triumph and exhaustion.

“Still think you made it look easy,” he said hoarsely.

Myra smiled softly, warmth blooming in her chest. “You made it look… impossible.”

They stood there, side by side on the wind-scoured ledge, as the sun bled into the clouds behind them.

And for a single, eternal moment—they were no longer strangers in borrowed skin.

They were Na’vi.

The sky burned with color—deep amber streaked with violet, clouds lit from beneath like embers drifting through the upper reaches of the forest. Their Ikran cut through it all, shadows in flight, wings carving the light into ribbons. Myra leaned into the wind, fingers curled into the coarse ridge behind her Ikran’s skull. She could feel the pulse of it—strong and sure—through her legs, her spine, her breath.

Every wingbeat echoed in her chest. She wasn’t riding. She was flying.

Beside her, Jake moved in uneven bursts—still learning, still adjusting—but better than before. Every sway of his body was more sure. Every correction came faster.

He whooped once as they crested a high current, and his Ikran dipped just low enough to brush a tree’s highest branch. Myra smiled into the wind.

The forest below seemed smaller now. Not because it had changed—but because she had. It no longer loomed. It welcomed.

As Hometree rose on the horizon—its colossal roots glowing faintly in the dusk and its living platforms spiraling upward like braided threads—Myra felt her breath catch again. Not in fear. In anticipation. The sky had opened its arms to her. But the people… that was still unknown.

They circled once, then twice, wings slicing silence. Dozens of Omaticaya had gathered at the upper levels, lantern-globes casting golden pools of light along the woven paths. Children pressed close to the edges, eyes wide with awe. Hunters stood still, watching. Elders sat unmoving, faces unreadable.

Jake and Myra descended together.

Their Ikran landed in twin bursts of wind and wing, claws clattering against the platform. The gust stirred beads and braids, sent dried leaves spinning through the air. Then—stillness.

A silence that pressed like weight.

Myra slid from her Ikran’s back, legs trembling but steady. She gave the beast one last stroke along the jaw. It leaned into her touch for a moment—then turned and leapt off the edge, soaring away into the deepening dusk.

Jake landed a second later, stumbling slightly as he dismounted. His Ikran lingered longer before following the first, leaving only the rush of wind in its wake.

All eyes were on them.

Myra stood tall, chest tight, heart loud in her ears.

Then—Neytiri stepped forward from the crowd.

She said nothing at first. Only looked at them—at Myra, then Jake. Then turned to the clan.

“They did not fall,” she said, voice steady as stone. “The bond was made. The sky has accepted them.”

From the far side of the platform, Mo’at emerged, robes trailing, eyes sharp and ancient.

She crossed the distance in silence, stopping before Myra. She laid one hand flat over Myra’s heart, then moved to Jake and did the same. Her fingers lingered.

“You have come closer,” she said softly. “Closer to one of us. The path is not finished. But today… you have risen.”

The murmurs began then. Quiet but growing. Names spoken. Small nods. Recognition.

Myra exhaled slowly. Her limbs ached. Her skin was streaked with wind and sweat and dust. But she had never felt more whole.

Tsu’tey stood near the back—arms crossed, jaw clenched. His gaze met hers briefly. He didn’t speak. But he didn’t look away.

It was enough.

Neytiri turned to them once more.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “you begin to hunt.”

And the night welcomed them with open branches and distant song.

Written beneath the upper boughs of Hometree

I flew.
I can still feel the wind in my bones. My skin hums with it. My ribs ache like they had to stretch to make room for the sky.
The Ikran chose me. I don’t know why—but it looked at me like it had been waiting. And when the bond formed… the world fell away. No fear. Just knowing. Just flight. We moved as one, like we’d been made for it.
And Jake...
His Ikran nearly threw him off the cliff. Twice. He cursed the whole time. Held on like hell. But he did it. I watched him in the sky, wild and crooked and fierce. His joy was loud, bright as a flare. And when he landed—rough, panting, eyes shining—I couldn’t look away.
There’s something about him. Something steady, underneath all the noise. Something that makes the sky feel a little less impossible.
I think I’m starting to see him. Really see him.

-Myra

Later, after the lights in the bunkhouse had dimmed to a faint blue hum and most of the lab had gone quiet, Myra lay flat on her cot, staring up at the low ceiling. The bunk felt too small. Her body felt too still. Her skin—her human skin—was a tight, ill-fitting suit. She tugged the blanket higher but didn’t feel any warmer.

Jake lay across the narrow aisle, arms folded behind his head, staring into the dark.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. But the silence wasn’t comfortable.

It felt like waiting.

Then, finally, Jake’s voice came—low and unguarded.

“Do you miss it when we’re here?”

Myra didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

She rolled onto her side to face him. He did the same, propping his head up on one hand.

“You feel like a stranger in your own skin now?” he asked.

Myra looked down at her fingers. Pale. Smooth. Still human.

“I don’t think this is my skin anymore,” she said quietly.

Jake didn’t smirk. Didn’t joke. He just nodded.

“Same.”

The word settled between them like a shared heartbeat.

Outside, beyond the bunkhouse walls, the jungle breathed without them.

Inside, they lay still—two bodies returned, two souls left behind.

Jake’s voice broke the quiet again, gentler this time. “You looked like you belonged up there. In the air.”

Myra blinked. Her chest tightened with something she didn’t have a name for.

“You didn’t look so bad yourself,” she replied softly.

He gave her a small, self-deprecating grin in the dark. “Next time, maybe I’ll manage a flight without almost falling off a mountain.”

Myra smiled faintly, her voice dry. “I’ll try not to laugh when you do.”

Jake let out a breath—part laugh, part sigh. “Deal.”

Another stretch of silence followed, but this time, it felt different. Warmer. Like a blanket of unsaid things.

Myra turned back toward the ceiling, her lids finally heavy.

“Good night, Jake.”

He waited a second. Then, quieter than before: “Good night, Myra.”

She closed her eyes.

And for the first time, the sound of the machines didn’t press quite so hard against her chest. Because maybe—just maybe—she wasn’t as alone in this skin as she thought.

Chapter Text

The scent of morning in the forest was like nothing on Earth.

It breathed up from the roots—warm and ancient. Sweet pollen from night-blooming vines still hung in the air, mingling with the musk of dew-wet bark and the faint spice of crushed ferns. A thin mist curled between the woven limbs of Hometree’s upper paths, catching the softening light like strands of silver smoke.

Myra stood barefoot on the platform, the cool weave of roots grounding her. Her muscles ached pleasantly from yesterday’s climb, and she rolled her shoulders back to ease the tension, exhaling slowly. The sky above the canopy was beginning to brighten, brushing everything in pale blue and soft lavender. Birds stirred in the branches—low calls, delicate trills—while something rustled in the underbrush far below.

She felt alive. Not just awake. Alive.

Down the path, Jake stretched with a grunt, arms overhead, spine popping as he bent side to side. He looked sleep-rumpled and alert all at once—messy braids half-tamed, tail flicking restlessly. A woven strap crossed his chest, securing his bow, and the first rays of morning light caught on the curve of his cheek, turning his skin to carved gold.

Myra approached quietly.

“You look like you slept in your armor,” she murmured.

Jake smirked over his shoulder. “Better than those bunkhouse mattresses. Two springs and a spinal injury waiting to happen.”

She smiled, her lips twitching despite herself. “Big day.”

He nodded, slinging the strap higher across his shoulder. “First real hunt. Think they’ll let us do anything?”

“Letting us come means something,” she said, adjusting the band on her wrist. “Neytiri doesn’t waste time on ceremony.”

He turned his head to look at her, expression softening. “You seem calm.”

“I’m not.” Her voice was quiet, but steady. “But the forest is. That’s enough.”

Before he could reply, a hush fell across the platform.

Neytiri stepped into the clearing like wind—silent, precise, impossible to ignore. Her leathers were simple but worn with purpose, her longbow slung across her back. Her braids were tighter today, adorned with small feathers and beads that whispered with every step. Her gaze found them instantly.

“You will not speak unless you are spoken to,” she said. “You will not move unless told. You will not kill unless it is needed. The forest decides what it gives.”

Myra nodded solemnly. Beside her, Jake echoed the motion, though more stiffly.

Neytiri studied them for a breath longer, then stepped forward. She held out a woven sash—deep green, its texture rough but finely made.

“For your waist,” she said to Myra. “You carry nothing on your back. Today, you learn to move like the leaves.”

Myra took it with both hands. Their fingers brushed. Neytiri didn’t pull away.

When she turned to Jake, her expression shifted—not harsh, but measured. She handed him a matching sash, then added, “You are loud. Be less.”

Jake’s ears twitched. “I’ll do my best.”

Myra nearly smiled, but something warm caught in her throat as she tied the sash around her hips. She felt Jake step closer beside her, just enough that his shoulder almost brushed hers. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. There was something different in the air when he was near now—like warmth from a fire you hadn’t meant to sit beside, but now couldn’t leave.

Other hunters were already gathering—a dozen silent figures moving with elegant purpose. Slings adjusted. Arrows tested. Knives sheathed in silence. It was a ritual of motion, of breath and rhythm.

Tsu’tey arrived last, broad and regal, his gaze scanning like a blade. When it fell on them, Myra could feel it like a cold river through heat.

“They are not ready,” he said to Neytiri.

“They will learn,” Neytiri answered, her voice like stone.

Tsu’tey said nothing else. But he didn’t look away.

Then came the signal. A low whistle from Eyt’kan, one of the older warriors whose face bore scars like tree rings. In one smooth motion, the hunters mounted their

Pa’li—each movement fluid, precise, born from years of knowing the forest like blood.

Myra stepped to her Pa’li. The creature turned its head toward her, calm and waiting. Her hand slid along its neck, feeling the pulse beneath the skin, the quiet readiness.

Behind her, Jake mounted a little slower—but cleaner than he had days ago. She caught his glance across the herd. He gave her a nod—no words, just that—like a silent tether strung between them.

She returned it, her throat tight.

Then they rode into the morning.

Leaves scattered in their wake. Sunlight broke clean through the mist. And Myra found herself listening, not just to the forest—but to the rhythm between their heartbeats. One beat steady, the other reckless. Fire and water, keeping pace.

The forest was a breath that never stopped moving.

It inhaled and exhaled through leaf and light, through the hush of branches swaying high above and the soft murmur of insects threading between the roots. A thousand voices whispered in harmony, not loud, not clear, but constant. Alive.

The jungle floor beneath the hunters wasn’t dirt—it was memory. A thick, spongy tapestry of moss and ancient loam, littered with fallen blossoms and the pale husks of forgotten leaves. Every step left no mark, only a gentle press in the weave of the forest’s skin.

Myra rode low against the Pa’li’s neck, one hand curled into the animal’s mane, the other steady on the reins. The muscles beneath her moved with the slow, powerful grace of something half river, half beast. Her legs ached faintly from gripping its broad back, but she didn’t care. Her eyes scanned the dense underbrush ahead while her ears opened wider than they ever had before, drinking in every rustle and trill, every absence.

The Na’vi did not speak. They didn’t need to.

They listened.

To the sudden stillness when birds stopped calling—like a curtain dropped.

To the almost-not-there hiss of leaves disturbed not by wind, but by a body.

To the way sound bent around weight—one soft thump on moss giving way to the silence that followed, sharper than any cry.

Jake’s Pa’li stepped hard on a gnarled root, snapping a dry twig beneath its front foot. The sound cracked through the stillness like a whip. Immediately, a nearby cluster of vines—thin and bright green—twitched and recoiled as if offended.

Neytiri’s head turned, sharp as a hawk’s. “Softer,” she said without turning back fully.

Jake grimaced. “Right.”

He adjusted in his saddle, easing his posture. His arms were tense, shoulders high, but he was trying. Myra could see it in the way his eyes tracked Neytiri’s every move now—less like a soldier looking for threats, more like a student trying to understand the grammar of a new world.

She felt the same. Only, it didn’t feel new to her.

It felt like a language she’d forgotten and was slowly learning again. Like something older than English. Older than science.

Myra began to see it in layers—the way Eyt’kan’s Pa’li only stepped where the light pooled thickest, as if warmth made the ground more honest. The way Neytiri’s head turned first toward a sudden absence of birdsong, then to the upper branches, then to the stillness of flowers that usually swayed. She noticed how no one parted vines with their hands. Instead, they moved around them, honoring the lines the forest had already drawn.

The jungle was not an obstacle. It was the host.

She whispered a word Neytiri had taught her, her voice low against the Pa’li’s ear: “Tam tam.”

Steady.

The Pa’li huffed quietly and slowed, its broad hooves softening their fall onto the moss.

Ahead, a hand lifted.

All at once, the hunting party stopped like threads pulled taut.

Eyt’kan dropped from his mount in one fluid motion. He crouched low and swept his fingers over a patch of petals on the ground. Beneath them, half-hidden in the soft soil, was a curved impression—shallow, wide, barely more than a crescent.

“Yerik,” Neytiri murmured from her mount. “Adult. With calf.”

Myra leaned over, squinting. To her, it looked like nothing—just a shadow in the earth, a trick of roots.

But then she stilled. Breathed deeper.

There.

A faint scent on the air—musky and warm, earthy with a hint of something sharp, like crushed fern. Ahead, a swath of undergrowth had been subtly shifted. A single vine hung snapped at an unnatural angle, its tear too clean for wind or accident.

“East,” Myra said quietly. “It went east.”

Neytiri’s gaze flicked to her. There was no smile. But her silence wasn’t dismissal.

It was trust.

They moved again, and Myra moved with them—this time not just watching, but feeling.

She began to sense the rhythm of it—the way each Na’vi tilted their heads slightly when the wind shifted, how their bodies paused in synchrony at a certain birdsong. Each gesture meant something. Each silence was part of the hunt.

Even Jake was changing.

His back was straighter. His movements more deliberate. When his Pa’li began to veer too close to a flowering vine, he leaned into the turn, guiding it gently away with a whispered word.

Once, a cluster of tiny fliers darted from the upper branches overhead, chirping in a staccato rhythm that seemed to ripple through the trees.

Neytiri whispered, “Srung si Eywa.”

They warn us.

Myra whispered it back: “Eywa helps.”

And she believed it.

She thought of the first time she touched the glowing seeds and felt the hush inside them. The way the vines sometimes reached for her without wind. The Pa’li that had responded to her presence like it already knew her.

And now this—this sacred silence between footfalls. This language made not of sound but of movement, of respect, of reverence.

This wasn’t hunting the way the RDA used the word.

This was a prayer.

This was listening so deeply the world answered back.

The forest stilled—so completely it felt as though Pandora itself had paused to watch. Even the leaves held their breath, trembling just slightly in the high canopy.

The yerik stepped into the clearing.

Graceful. Unaware. It moved like mist given shape, its six slender legs barely bending the moss beneath it. Light poured through the gaps in the branches above, scattering soft gold across its fur. Its antlers shimmered faintly with iridescence—pale violet and pearl glinting along each elegant curve, catching the rising sun like threads of woven starlight. It turned its head once, ears flicking toward the faint buzz of insects, then lowered its muzzle to graze again.

Myra crouched low, fingers curled gently into the living mat of moss. Her heart beat slow and steady—yet her chest ached with awe. The yerik was so close. So still.

It didn’t seem possible that a creature like that could ever be part of death. And yet…

Beside her, Neytiri was stone-still. Her breath did not stir a single fern. Jake crouched on the other side, his body tensed—not with aggression, but with alertness.

Watching. Listening.

They had come to observe. Only observe.

“No weapons,” Neytiri had said that morning, standing with arms crossed, her expression unreadable. “You will not take part. You will learn to see before you act. You are not hunters. Not yet.”

So Myra watched. She let the forest speak.

The yerik stepped forward—closer to the hidden semicircle of hunters. Its antlers brushed the edge of a hanging vine. Myra could feel the ripple of collective breath held tight.

Then—crack.

A branch snapped.

It was soft—barely more than a whisper—but in that silence, it rang like thunder.

The yerik froze, its body jerking upright. Muscles bunched under its fur, nostrils flared wide. Its luminous eyes flicked left. Then right.

One second more, and it would flee.

But before anyone could move—Jake did.

Not toward the animal, but toward one of the younger hunters, who had dropped their bow in shock.

He didn’t hesitate.

He grabbed the bow, nocked an arrow in one swift motion that looked more instinct than thought—and fired.

The arrow struck clean behind the creature’s front shoulder. Not too deep. Not too high.

The yerik gasped—then dropped to its knees with eerie grace. Its eyes fluttered closed, breath leaving its lungs in one long, quiet sigh.

The forest exhaled with it.

For a heartbeat, everything was still. The vines swayed gently again. A few leaves fell, slow and spiraling, landing near the creature’s still body like a final tribute.

Myra turned to Jake, breath caught tight in her throat.

Neytiri stepped between them.

Her face was hard—not furious, but brimming with something sharper. Judgment. Fire. Deep emotion that hadn't yet found words.

“You disobeyed.”

Jake didn’t shrink back. He stood his ground, breath ragged from the rush of movement.

“It was going to get away,” he said, voice low. “I didn’t think. I just… reacted.”

“You were not given a weapon,” Neytiri snapped. “You had no right.”

Jake opened his mouth—then paused. His eyes dropped to the yerik, then back to her.

“But it was a clean kill.”

Silence spread again like mist.

From the edge of the trees, Eyt’kan stepped forward. The lead hunter, old and scarred, with eyes that weighed everything.

He looked at the body. At Jake.

And then he nodded once.

Neytiri’s jaw tightened. She looked at Jake—then Myra. Then back at the yerik.

Finally, she stepped forward and knelt, laying her hand over the creature’s heart. Her fingers splayed gently over its soft fur, reverent.

“Eywa ngahu,” she whispered. Eywa be with you.

Jake hesitated, then mirrored her. His movements weren’t awkward this time. His head bowed. His hand settled near hers on the yerik’s chest.

Myra knelt beside them.

The creature’s hide was still warm. She let her fingers brush its flank—slow and tender, not claiming, not triumphant.

“I hope you forgive us,” she whispered, voice nearly breaking. “And thank you.”

When she looked up, Jake was watching her—not with pride. Not even relief.

With something quieter. Something that lived in the pause between breaths.

And when their eyes met, they both smiled.

Not because they were victorious.

But because, for the first time, they truly understood what it meant to take life on this world—and carry its weight.

Jake’s smile was crooked, his eyes rimmed with unshed emotion. There was awe in his expression, and something else—something softer, wordless, flickering just beneath the surface.

Myra’s chest tightened.

She didn’t have a name for the feeling rising in her throat, only the ache of it. The wonder. The fear.

They had walked into the forest as strangers.

But here, kneeling beside something they had taken together—not for glory, but for survival—they were no longer apart.

Not from the forest.

And not from each other.

By the time the hunting party returned to Hometree, dusk had painted the forest in its gentlest colors. The canopy shimmered in hues of indigo and rose. Light no longer streamed—it shimmered, diffused in pale mist that clung to the underbrush and made every surface glow. Leaves caught the last gold of the day, trembling as soft breezes stirred the canopy. The air was heavy with the scent of moss and sap and something fainter—sweet and smoky, like memory.

Bioluminescent threads had begun to bloom along the bark of the great tree. Spiraling vines pulsed faintly with life, soft greens and blues illuminating the hunters’ path as they entered the sacred hollow. Tiny atokirina drifted lazily through the air, weightless spirits blinking in and out of existence with each breath of wind.

The Pa’li stepped carefully over twisted roots and winding branches, their hooves muffled on the woven wooden paths. The party did not speak. No one laughed.

Even Jake, usually unable to contain some wry comment, rode with his head bowed slightly, one hand resting lightly on his mount’s neck, the other clenched around the leather strap at his waist.

The yerik’s body was carried between two elder warriors, wrapped in fibers of bark and braided vine, its antlers tied with threads of woven cloth. Flowers had been placed at its chest—yellow blossoms that bloomed only in the hour before eclipse. The yerik had been blessed where it fell. Its body had not been dragged. It had been honored.

When they emerged into the central hollow of Hometree, the Omaticaya were already gathered.

Myra could feel the weight of the clan’s gaze as they dismounted. She stepped lightly to the ground, her legs sore but steady, her thoughts a strange mix of fullness and ache. The silence wasn’t cold—it was reverent, the way still water holds sound rather than reflecting it.

Children stood quietly, their large golden eyes wide and curious. Elders bowed their heads, fingers resting on staffs carved with patterns older than memory. There were no drums. No dancing. Just the hum of life beneath bark and root and air.

Neytiri moved toward them, calm and deliberate. Her hand rested lightly on Jake’s shoulder as she guided him and Myra toward a wide ceremonial platform, open to the sky. A small flame crackled there, low and contained in a shallow stone bowl. Its smoke curled upward, straight and clean, like a thread meant to lead a soul home.

Mo’at stood on the far side of the fire.

Her face was painted in bold white and deep blue—thick lines down her cheeks, a curve across her brow. Her eyes seemed to catch the light and hold it. They moved first to the yerik, then to Jake, then Myra. Her gaze lingered.

“Only those who understand the price,” she said slowly, “may take from the forest.”

The words echoed—not in volume, but in gravity. Every hunter stood straighter.

Mo’at turned to the clan.

“This yerik gave its life to Eywa. And now, it gives life to us. We remember. We honor. We do not forget.”

One by one, the Omaticaya approached the body. They came barefoot, heads lowered, hands open. Each placed a palm gently on the yerik’s flank, whispering words too soft to hear. The youngest children carried folded leaves filled with sweet water. They sprinkled the droplets over the animal’s back like dew returning to the earth.

Myra stood motionless, arms folded loosely, her breath caught in her chest. She felt no guilt—this death had not been cruel. But the enormity of it, the weight of it, pulsed through her like a second heartbeat. The air shimmered against her skin. Her throat ached with emotion she couldn’t yet name.

Jake stood beside her, his energy quieter than usual. She could feel it in the way he shifted—less out of restlessness, more from reflection. His usual bravado had gone somewhere softer. She wondered if he even noticed how much more still he’d become.

When their turn came, Myra stepped forward first.

The heat of the fire licked at her ankles. She knelt beside the yerik, its fur still warm where the cloth had been peeled back. She laid both palms to its chest. The heartbeat was long gone, but something else remained—an echo, maybe. A memory.

Her voice was a whisper meant only for Eywa.

“I will not waste your gift,” she said.

A beat later, she felt the brush of Jake beside her. One of his hands settled lightly over hers. The other pressed to the animal’s flank.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “Eywa ngahu.”

Myra didn’t look at him right away. But she felt it—his presence beside her, steady and warm. The quiet reverence in his voice. The way his fingers lingered against hers a moment too long.

When she finally glanced over, he was watching her—not with a grin, not with smugness or pride.

Just something real.

Something honest.

She felt heat rise to her cheeks, though the forest air had cooled into evening.

Neytiri stepped forward then. She moved like shadow over water—fluid and quiet, yet undeniable.

She looked first to Jake.

“This was your first hunt,” she said. “You acted when the forest called. You did not wait for permission. But the forest accepted your choice.”

Then she turned to Myra.

“And you—see what others miss. You do not speak to prove something. You listen. This is the way.”

Mo’at’s voice followed, calm and final.

“They have taken their first step.”

A murmur swept through the clan—low, approving, like wind through tall grass.

Then silence again.

And in that stillness, Myra felt it settle deep in her chest: belonging. Not complete. Not permanent. But beginning.

She and Jake knelt there a while longer, side by side in the soft hum of dusk, surrounded by light and silence and the unspoken promise of something changing between them—something they both felt but did not yet name.

And overhead, the fire crackled once, flaring gold.

A spirit remembered. A life honored. A path begun.

The ceremonial fire had been moved to a shallow hollow nestled in the arms of Hometree’s great roots, where thick moss curled upward like cushions and glowing mushrooms cast a soft green-blue light across the earth. Their light shimmered across the twisted bark and broad, hanging leaves, bathing the space in a kind of dreaming stillness. The scent of wood smoke and damp soil wrapped around the clearing like a blanket, warm and earthy, tinged with the faint spice of burning resin.

Myra sat cross-legged beside Jake on a wide, gently sloped branch that arched above the gathering space. The platform dipped slightly under their weight, creaking quietly beneath the layers of living fiber and woven vines. They were close enough to feel the warmth of the fire’s breath rising through the open space below, but tucked just far enough away to stay out of the way. From here, the view was intimate without being intrusive.

Below, the preparation had begun—not with haste, but with care so meticulous it felt sacred.

The older Na’vi moved slowly, deliberately, their movements unhurried, almost ceremonial in their precision. Each cut into the yerik’s body was smooth and reverent, accompanied by the soft murmur of thanks and the brushing of hands across fur and flank. Their skin was dusted with white ash in ritual patterns, and

Myra could see the faint lines of sweat and light catching in the hollows of their arms as they worked.

Children moved in soft barefoot circles around them, carrying baskets lined with wide leaves and polished stone bowls. The smell of crushed herbs and wet earth mingled with the musk of the yerik’s fur. The meat was handled like a story—each piece passed with care, each motion telling the next line. Nothing was wasted.

Not a tendon. Not a sliver of marrow. This wasn’t just food. This was memory. This was thanksgiving in the deepest sense.

Myra watched in silence, chin resting lightly against her knees, heart slow and full.

It reminded her of her grandmother.

Not the food, not the tools—those had been battered metal and gas burners in a cramped kitchen back on Earth—but the rhythm. The care. The quiet reverence behind each motion. Her grandmother had cooked like it mattered, like it meant something. This felt the same.

It wasn’t about feeding the body. It was about honoring what fed the spirit.

Beside her, Jake was still. His body radiated the worn edges of spent adrenaline, his breathing steady but not quite relaxed. His bow lay across his lap, untouched since they’d returned. His fingers traced along the curve of the wood, not tightening, not grasping—just there.

Myra turned slightly toward him. “You good?”

Jake didn’t respond immediately. He was watching a young Na’vi boy crouched by the fire, slicing a pale root into thin, even strips. The child’s face was drawn in deep concentration, tongue tucked into one corner of his mouth, his motions patient and exacting.

Finally, Jake said, “I didn’t think it would feel like this.”

She watched him for a moment, letting the quiet stretch. “Like what?”

He shrugged with one shoulder, eyes still on the child. “Heavy. But not in a bad way. Just… I don’t know. Like something real happened, and I can’t explain it.”

Myra nodded, curling her hands around her ankles. “It feels honest.”

Jake picked up a small stone from beside him, turning it slowly between his fingers. His thumb ran over the grooves in its surface like he was memorizing it. “I’ve been in firefights before,” he said, voice low. “I’ve made harder kills. Messier ones. But this—this stays with you. It gets under the skin.”

Myra gave him a faint smile, the kind that didn’t quite reach her lips but softened her eyes. “Because you’re not outside of it anymore. You’re not just surviving. You’re part of it now.”

He finally looked at her.

And for a breathless moment, the noise of the forest fell away—the crackle of fire, the rustle of leaves, the soft footfalls of children.

All of it blurred behind the quiet click of something unspoken passing between them.

Jake’s eyes—usually guarded behind a wall of humor and grit—were unguarded in that second. Open. Soft in a way he rarely let anyone see. She saw the question in them, the reaching. And felt the way something inside her reached back.

But neither of them moved.

Below, Neytiri stepped into the firelight. Her hair caught the glow like strands of polished obsidian. In her hands was a carved gourd, filled with a glistening paste of crushed roots and sacred herbs. She knelt beside the meat and, with deft fingers, began to anoint each piece. Her movements were graceful, meditative. The scent of the paste lifted into the air—sharp and sweet, like crushed mint and cedar bark, pulling the senses deeper into the moment.

Jake turned his gaze back to the clearing. “Do you think we’ll ever… really belong here?”

Myra’s voice came after a pause. “I already do. In pieces.”

He looked at her again, frowning slightly, curious.

She pulled her knees closer, hugging them loosely to her chest. “Like parts of me have always been from here, and I just didn’t know until I touched the ground. But other parts… they’re still waking up. Still figuring out how to breathe.”

Jake was quiet. His eyes dropped to the stone in his hand again.

Then, softly: “I think I’m starting to breathe, too.”

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t need to.

The moment was full enough without words.

Around them, the fire continued to flicker, its flames casting shadows that danced across the root-walls of Hometree. The air had cooled, but the warmth between them remained—silent, steady, unspoken.

Myra sat beside him, not touching, not speaking—but there.

And sometimes, there was everything.

The low hum of the air system greeted her first.

That, and the sharp, clinical glow of overhead fluorescents—too white, too still. Light without warmth.

Myra blinked against it, the contrast jarring after hours in her Avatar, where sunlight filtered through leaves and every breath was filled with the scent of life. Here, the air was filtered and stale, tinged faintly with the acrid bite of machinery and bleach. The pod walls around her felt too close, her skin too dry. The transition from forest to steel always came with a dull ache behind her eyes and a hollow feeling in her chest, like something essential had been scraped away.

She sat up slowly, the link gel drying on her arms, her muscles heavy with remembered motion. Her Avatar body—so strong, so fluid—was miles away now, curled somewhere in the roots of Hometree, still breathing the rich, wild air of Pandora. But she was here. Small again. Human again.

Beside her, Jake was already out of his pod, seated in his wheelchair, elbows resting loosely on his knees. His shoulders slouched with fatigue, but his gaze was sharp, distant. Like he was still halfway in the sky.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

It wasn’t awkward. Just… off. The silence in the compound felt empty, sterile. Not like the hush of the forest, which was always alive with the whisper of wind, the rustle of leaves, the quiet presence of unseen things. Here, even silence had been bleached.

Jake turned his head toward her and offered a crooked smile, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You okay?”

Myra nodded, slow. “Yeah. Just feels like being cut off mid-thought.”

He gave a soft huff of agreement, running a hand over his face. “I came out and thought—where’s the wind? Where’s the color?”

She swung her legs over the edge of the pod and stood carefully. Her knees felt shaky, like her body hadn’t caught up to the shift. She moved toward him and fell into step beside his chair as they made their way down the corridor toward the common area.

Her boots clacked too loudly on the tile, echoing off the metal walls. Every sound felt sharper here, unnatural. No soft soil, no birdcalls. Just the faint whine of fluorescent lights and the distant, rhythmic ping of machinery at work.

Jake reached into the cooler and pulled out two bottles of water, offering one without a word.

They found a quiet corner by the cots. Myra lowered herself onto the edge of one, letting her feet hover above the floor, close to where Jake had rolled up beside her. Not touching. But near.

He took a long drink, capped the bottle, and sat with it resting between his knees. “I didn’t think it would hit me this hard,” he said eventually. “The kill. The ritual. The way they looked at us afterward.”

Myra twisted her bottle between her hands. “Not like outsiders,” she said quietly. “Not entirely.”

Jake nodded. “Yeah.”

A soft hum buzzed from a monitor across the room, rising and falling like a mechanical breath.

She glanced sideways at him. “It’s weird, coming back here. Like I’m putting on the wrong skin.”

His expression didn’t change, but his gaze dropped to his legs—motionless, solid beneath the chair’s straps. He didn’t need to say it.

“Same.”

Silence stretched again, but it wasn’t empty this time. It was full of things—unspoken threads, half-realized thoughts, the tension of two hearts circling the same orbit but afraid to close the distance.

Jake’s voice broke the quiet again, soft. “You think there’s ever going to be a moment where we don’t want to come back at all?”

Myra didn’t answer right away. The question settled deep in her chest, sinking like a stone. Her gaze drifted upward to the ceiling, where cold light hummed overhead in artificial rhythm.

“I think that moment already started,” she said at last.

He exhaled—a quiet, heavy breath—and nodded once. “Yeah.”

They sat together in the glow of machines that pretended to be stars, the only warmth between them shared in proximity, in presence.

Jake leaned forward slightly, bracing one arm on his knee, the other hand reaching out, slow and deliberate. He brushed a strand of hair from Myra’s cheek, tucking it behind her ear. His fingers lingered for a heartbeat too long—warm, calloused, gentle. His touch was hesitant, but full of meaning.

“I’m glad you were there today,” he said, voice low, almost reverent. “I don’t think I could’ve done any of this without you.”

Myra swallowed hard, her heart a slow drumbeat in her chest. “I feel the same,” she whispered.

They didn’t kiss.

They didn’t need to.

But something passed between them in that stillness—a spark lit by shared breath, held between their ribcages like something sacred. They didn’t speak. They didn’t move. But the air between them pulsed with something alive and waiting.

And though they sat in a world of metal and wires, far from the pulse of the forest, a quiet warmth settled between them.

Not yet love.

But the beginning of it.

Journal Entry – Bunkhouse

The yerik fell with grace.

Its breath left the forest like a prayer.

No cheering. No pride. Just reverence.

We touched its body and whispered thanks, and I understood—for the first time—what it means to take a life with your heart open.

Not for dominance.

But as part of the giving back.

He moved before anyone else. Not for himself, but for the moment.

The forest didn’t turn him away.

And when we stood over the yerik together, his hand found mine.

Not tightly. Not intentionally.

But enough.

And later, when the cold metal of Hell’s Gate swallowed us whole, I felt him watching me like I was still part of the forest.

Like I hadn’t left.

Maybe I haven’t.

Not all of me.

Not when I’m with him.

-M.