My feet moved through the flora that made up the floor of the jungle, passing all sorts of fungi, trees, and other plants along the way. I was followed by a girl, only a few years older than me, who happily strode behind my taller frame, without a care in the world as it seemed for me. We were getting closer to reaching the goal of our short travel, her home, the human settlement.
"We're nearly there." I said into the jungle in front of us, not looking at Louise. She only sighed and took a quick few steps to walk next to me, rather than behind me. I glanced at the teenager, who smiled from ear to ear, for whatever reason. I didn't give it much thought, also not after she grabbed my hand and swung it in sync with her steps lightly.
"I know." She replied after a few moments, which were only filled by the rather quiet ambiance before she had started talking. "I really wish we could still spend time together today." I audibly breathed out through my nose and smiled lightly, before coming up with a sentence to continue our small conversation.
"We can always hang out tomorrow, or the day afterward." She tugged at my hand, which she was still holding, which in consequence turned me toward her. She mirrored me, turning to me and we both stopped walking.
"But what if that is not enough for me?" She said, closing the distance between the two of us. I was a head taller than her, which had me looking down at her and her up at me.
"Well," I let my vision swerve around us shortly before letting it rest on her beautiful face again. "That just means that you are a needy little friend." Louise pouted as a reaction.
"GIRL-friend." She added, still making the same face, which made her just so cute in my opinion. "I thought we had established that already." I laughed and put my arms around her waist.
"Well, of course, babe." I said the last part trying to impersonate her when she called me by the same nickname whilst flying earlier. She just took off both of our visors that covered our faces, which allowed us to breathe the air on pandora, but restricted an activity I personally quite enjoyed. Louise started standing on her toes to shorten the distance between our faces, which hadn't that much of an effect, so I declined my head down, letting our lips meet. Only a second later she declined to stand on her entire foot again and put her exopack back on.
"Dick." She let out after taking the first breath again. I giggled.
"Only for you." I winked, making us both chuckle, before I grabbed her hand again, pulling her along for the rest of the way, toward Bridgehead City.
This didn't take long and soon Louise and I stood near the kill zone, we gave each other a short kiss whilst hugging to say goodbye and I asked one last question after we both separated from one another.
"I think we should find a way to communicate with each other over distance." Louise gave me a confused look.
"And how do you want to achieve that?" I raised my eyebrows to show the cluelessness I shared with the teenage girl in front of me. I put my hands on my waist and looked around to help me come up with ideas, which didn't really help. Louise cleared her throat after a short while.
"What about that?" She pointed at the transmitter I had around my throat. I forgot I had that, I just put it on to look cool, to be honest with myself. I nodded and we both exchanged IDs to enable us to speak through them.
With this, we finally did say our goodbyes and went our separate ways for the day. But the day still wasn't over, as I started making my way back to my ikran, better known as Lu'un, calling out to him after trekking back for a few minutes. I saw his outline through the trees before the greenish ikran landed in front of me and gave off one of his noises.
"(Stop complaining.)" I said before climbing on his back whilst forming the Tsaheylu, which was followed by a fast take-off to fly back home. Which took little time compared to my first venture out to the human settlement, but still left me with enough time to contemplate my actions and come up with responses on why I flew out when I was prohibited from flying or going outside of the cave that made up our base.
The wind whipped around my steady frame, not distracting me from staring into the nothingness and the occasional glance forward to check the route Lu'un and I were taking. Being so deep in my thoughts I didn't realize I had arrived at the destination, High Camp. I quickly gave a mental command to the creature I was currently bonded to, telling him to take a sharp turn downward and aim to land on one of the edges of our base.
"(Thanks for the ride.)" I said to Lu'un, jumping off and letting him fly away to wherever, my eyes following him for a few moments before taking a deep breath and walking back to the Marui, which my family used as living space. When it arrived in my vision cone a voice made its way toward my ears.
"(What are you going to do this time?)" It sounded like Kiri was talking to someone, who I couldn't see, as they were on the inside. Mere moments before I could walk in and announce my presence, another voice answered.
"(Put him on a leash. Maybe that will keep him here.)" I don't like that idea, Neytiri. I had now been presented with the perfect opportunity to interrupt the talk between mother and daughter.
"(Let Jake do that to you in private but keep me out of it.)" I said, crossing the entrance and standing there with my arms across my chest. The heads of both my stepmother and stepsister snapped toward me, with one scowling and the other's ears raising slightly. I think it is obvious who held which expression.
"(So, the trouble maker decided to show up again?)" Asked Neytiri, not really wanting an answer, with me just shrugging and sitting next to the two, the size difference immediately obvious. I mean, with Louise I was taller, but here I was dwarfed by everyone who was older than 12. "(What is your excuse this time?)" My mother continued, still frowning. I shrugged again.
"(No excuse.)" This seemed to surprise the two females sitting next to me. Kiri took the turn to say something, but only after hitting my shoulder playfully.
"(What happened to you? Do you want to be punished or something?)" I only raised an eyebrow.
"(Why would I want that?) Kiri shrugged. "(I only did what I wanted to do, that being leaving this shithole.)" My mother scoffed and moved in closer and speaking with an intimidating tone.
"(This shithole is keeping you save.)" I weakly shook my head before getting ready to stand up and retort to the next Tsahìk.
"Sure thing, mom." I stated and walked out of the Marui, not wanting to see Neytiri's face further, before I could even get a foot out of the housing a hand pulled me back by my arm. Turning toward the person who had done so I saw my younger sister.
"(Sit back down, moron.)" Which I reluctantly did only to be whispered into my ear by the same girl. "(Stop being grumpy.)" I scoffed and looked away.
"(Maybe you should stick to your sister if you listen to her.)" Neytiri said from the side. I sighed and put my visor-covered face in my hands. Not that I had anything against Kiri, I just wanted to enjoy my evening without being constantly teased. But arguing was out of the question now, I was in enough trouble as is and didn't need any addition to my punishments.
"(Whatever floats your boat.)" I said putting up my hands and leaving my comments to myself. Kiri pulled me with her for the rest of the day, until I went back to the lab to sleep and eat. I normally ate with the scientists to end the day, but now I just put a few food items in my arms and went to the cabins to sleep. This was only interrupted by Max yelling after me.
"Is everything okay, Firin?" I stopped in my tracks taking a deep breath to not snap at the older scientist, who had nothing to do with my situation.
"Yeah," I sighed. "I just have a lot on my plate right now, figuratively speaking." Not wanting to further speak with anyone I hurried to my cabin, dropping my meal onto the small table that every room is fitted with, and sat on my bed, again taking my face in my hands. I sighed before putting my hands and underarms on my thighs away from my face and activating my communication device, checking for anything I might have missed.
Why was Louise trying to reach me? I raised an eyebrow and tried speaking to her through the transmitter.
"Louise? Can you hear me?" Nothing. What did I even expect, it's late and she is probably sleeping already. I shook my head in disappointment, thinning my lips, and took the first item from my table before I almost jumped at a sudden voice in my ear.
"Firin?" So, she did hear me. I scrambled to put my food back and answer.
"Did you call me earlier? Sorry for not answering, my comms were off." A short silence.
"Oh, it's fine." The human girl said in a happy tone. "I only wanted to check if it worked." I laughed before answering.
"It does as you can see." I put my hand next to the other one which again laid idle on my thigh, as I sat on the edge of my bed leaning backward, on the wall my bed was fastened. Louise didn't say anything, so I took it upon myself to continue our conversation. "I wish you were here right now."
"Why? What happened?" She shot out in a concerned voice. I sighed at her protective ways.
"My mom thinks it's a good idea to let my sister pull me around all day, so I won't go and fly off." She laughed over the connection we had set up.
"Aww, isn't that cute, my little boyfriend needs a babysitter."
"Shut up!" She laughed again. "I am taller and stronger than you!"
"Prove it the next time we see us." I wanted to say something, but she was faster. "Anyways I need to sleep, see you soon." This was followed by a kiss sound and a crack, showing she had turned off her communication device.
"Bitch." I said into my otherwise empty room, as the person it was directed at had hung up. Letting my view wander over the barren walls for a second. That didn't help with an eerie silence setting in, so I ended the day by eating the food I took from dinner, which needed to suffice for having no one to talk to, not that I wasn't used to that. Soon after laying on my sheets did sleep overtake me and I let it take me away for the night.
"Firin!" followed by a knock on my door woke me up from my slumber. I stirred and looked in the direction of the door. "Wake up, skxawng!" I shakily stood up and stumbled toward the door and somehow getting it to open in my half-asleep state. My blurry vision picked up on an energetic Na'vi girl, who immediately took my hand and pulled me with her. I grudgingly asked a question, whilst trying to avoid stumbling over my own feet.
"Why are you here, Kiri?" She let go of my hand and tilted her head at me.
"(Were you sleeping until now?)" My eyes unfocused again.
"(Yes, and I would have liked to have continued to do so.)" I grumbled out in response. Kiri only giggled whilst again picking up her pace in order to leave the area designated for the bedrooms of the laboratory.
"(You can sleep this evening.)" I was falling behind. After a few painstaking minutes, we did finally make our way out into open, where I was met by Lo'ak, Tuk, and Spider.
"(Firin!)" Now I was tackled by my other younger sister, who almost knocked me off my feet. I was only able to catch myself at the last second.
"(Good morning to you too, Tuk.)" I ruffled her hair and she giggled. I heard a burst of stifled laughter from the other two boys.
"(Morning?)" It was Lo'ak who spoke. "(It's almost noon, bro, we thought you wanted to actually use the day today.)" My eyes went wide.
"(Noon?! How long did I sleep...)"
"(Well, you're up now.)" Kiri said to me. I turned to her.
"(Because you woke me up.)" She just smiled sweetly. I rolled my eyes which earned me another round of laughter from the bunch. We didn't linger around the entrance to the lab much longer, as they dragged me along to wherever. One thing was clear, we left the cave system that made up our base.
"(I think we shouldn't go out there.)" Everyone turned to me in surprise.
"(What?)" Spider took the word. "(Since when did you have a problem with that?)" He and Lo'ak looked at each other like I was some sort of idiot.
"(Since mom and dad found it funny to keep me locked away from anything related to my ikran.)" They again laughed.
"(You flew him yesterday.)" I sighed and shook my head, seeing that I couldn't win against them, and just followed them away from the safety that the high camp supposedly provided and into the sunny outside. We soon ran and jumped along one of the large liana types of flora which connected two mountains with Spider running ahead, him being followed by Lo'ak, him by Kiri and me. The taillight was made up by a complaining Tuk.
"(Guys! Wait for a me!)" She exclaimed, not being as fast as the rest of us, which didn't matter that much in the end, as she time for time again stopped to play with some kind of plant, which made her fall behind, not being slow.
"(Tuk, hurry!)" Said Lo'ak to the youngest, who had again put her hand in some sort of flower that had tendrils similar to the one at the end of a Na'vis Kuru. I grabbed a hold of Tuk and started dragging her along. Mom and dad would kill us if something happened to her. Lo'ak seemed to have gotten annoyed at her constant stopping. "(Why do we even take her with us? She is such a pain in the ass.)" He turned around to look at us, making a stop. "(She will say something like: 'You are not allowed to go to the battlefield. I'm telling mom if you don't take me with you.')" I rolled my eyes at the teenager and I wasn't the only one who thought he was overreacting as Tuk herself just stuck out her tongue in a taunting matter and Kiri told him to stop annoying her. The boy in question just scoffed and continued his way as if nothing happened.
I put of correcting this chapter for way to long. I hope that that is ok.
Until next time.