Recombinant Bridgehead

Her

The surrealist jungle contorted into liquified swirls like oil paint mixed on a palette. The painterly trunks undulated and broke apart, reforming into new trees, new branches, new leaves, and the cycle of life would repeat. Behind the transparent vale was a golden web of wonder: the sacred neural network that permeated the moon. In the icy blue sky hung a brilliant prism that shone forth a myriad of rays. A toruk's black shadow passed overhead, and its song rolled across the land.

Jake roamed through the forest, accompanied by his mate and son. With bow in hand, he stopped to tap his forehead to both, and the family was happy. A hexapede darted through the forest, and Jake fired an arrow after it. In pursuit, his chase brought him to a glade where he stopped in his tracks. To his horror, in the centre of the clearing was a derelict AMP suit and lying before it was his daughter, shot dead from his arrow. Jake dropped to his knees in shock. He cradled the lifeless body in his arms and desperately called her name, but her eyes did not open. He stared at the blood dripping from his quivering hand. The red droplets splattered against the ground, and from them rose a black miasma.

The world darkened, and Jake looked up at the miasma as it swirled around a skeleton inside the AMP suit. The black mass took the shape of a man writhing about in his death throes, but instead of collapsing, the shape grew and grew till it towered over Jake. The shadow convulsed and, from its side, burst four sinewy limbs. The essence solidified into a palulukan. The beast roared, and the whole land trembled. Through eyes of fire, it spotted Jake and fell upon him.

Jake screamed.

Neytiri was startled out of her sleep and found her husband in a cold sweat. She shook him as she called his name. He opened his eyes, and the vision of her was enough to calm him down from his panic.

"Ma Jake," she breathed. |"This is happening so much."|

He sat up as she petted his brow. |"I know."|

|"I thought they had come to an end."|

Jake wouldn't look her in the eye. |"I thought so too. This one was...different."|

|"How different?"|

Jake didn't want to answer. He clutched his wife and set his head on her accepting shoulder. In the privacy of their placid tent, the hardened Marine entrusted himself so completely to her tender caress that he said what few men were brave enough to say.

|"I'm afraid."|

She breathed him in. |"Have you prayed to Eywa?"|

The question caught him unawares. Despite all the talk of Eywa, especially in the most recent clan meeting, compounded with the war, praying as a solution had been the farthest thing from his mind. He respected that there was a consciousness to the world, even miracles he'd been a firsthand witness to, but that wasn't to say he held a devotee's view of Eywa; She was a concept that always evaded him. While Olo'eyktan Zayksuli revered Her, Jake Sully couldn't help but raise a brow.

Neytiri took his silence for a no. |"I know it has been hard because of Her silence. Sometimes, I wonder if She has abandoned us."|

The skeptic could not offer much encouragement. |"Well, maybe She's resting—taking a breather after that last roar?"|

His plebeian explanation lifted her spirits more than any sermon. |"Yes. A mother does not forget her children,"| she murmured. |"We will hear Her again."|

|"We will,"| Jake seconded, but he was thinking of someone else.

⊕

Jake flew for the Tree of Souls on his wife's insistence. Its glow was visible on the horizon, but Jake dove through the emergent layer and perched on a tree limb farther off. He dismounted and patted his ikran on the head. The loyal beast appreciated the prolonged chin rub, as Jake was hesitant to climb down the tree.