Hearing, Mo'at says I need to hear, I am missing hearing. I frowned and decided to try another method.
I stood and walked to the closest of the four trees, placing my hand and them my ear against it, closing my eyes and letting everything fade away....
Boom, Boom. Boom, Boom, Boom. Boom. Boom, Boom.
I blinked my eyes open curiously. There was a sound, like a beat, resonating through the tree, but it was never the same in pitch or loudness of the sound, or the spaces between each set of beats.
Three, one, five, four, one, seven, two...
Wait... this isn't just any beat. I remember Grace saying the trees communicate with each other much like the animals, sending information out along tons of lines... These sounds were different pulses, out along those lines from this tree to the next, to the small plant over there, to the mushroom growing out of the wood of the fallen tree over there and the each blade of grass and moss under my feet.
Oh, by The Great Mother Eagle... this isn't just a network between trees. It is a network between everything! I was suddenly aware that it was even a subtle network to me. The lights, how I could tell where some creatures were in the vicinity if I tried...
It all makes so much more sense now. I share some sort of... connection with the plantlife and, thus, the wildlife. I listened more, pulling my ear away from the tree, straining my hearing.
There's the tree over there, sending off a different set of beats, yet some were in sync with the tree right here, like some were in sync with the bushes and the different plants. The communication was so in sync with eachother, jumping around through every plant and tree in consecutive ways, many beats hovering around my hand on the tree and my feet on the ground with a stronger beat. Communicating amongst each other like...
I gasped and stumbled away, eyes wide. I nearly feel in my shock as I realised the beats were following me, like a presence.
Like a living being.
Oh, I think I just found the biggest and most separating difference between Pandora and Earth. The trees here communicated so well... they became the brain, the neurons of a living being who could see and feel everything through each tree, each blade of grass and each bush and plant on Pandora.
That is the difference between Earth and Pandora. Earth only holds a spirit of the past of nature, The Great Mother Eagle, who doesn't need the plantlife to be it's entire mind, merely she is a presence that can guide and help plant life on Earth, to an extent.
But this... what did Mo'at call Pandora's higher being? Eywa, All Mother. I see why they call her All Mother now, she is literally the mother of every plant and animal on this planet.
"Oh my days." I breathed, sitting down heavily, the beats I was still able to pick up with my ears, beating like they were trying to tell me something I could not understand. I ran my hand along the grass, able top pick of the faint, minute shivers of the grass responding to the beats.
I need to speak to Mo'at. I think I finally found what she wanted me to hear.
<><><><><><><>
I stood awkwardly against a pillar under the roots, struggling not to jump or twitch my head to the side as the errant beat of the large tree came down and through the roots with a quiet but deep and long boom, definitely louder than those from the trees of the clearing. More it was just creepy to me right now because the beats in this tree reminded me of a heartbeat...
"You ask other to find me, wish to speak with me on matter?" I heard Mo'at say and turned to look at her, sighing in relief.
"I think I heard what you wanted me to hear, now I hear it everywhere." I said, my ear twitching to the nearest root as along beat passed through it with another long deep boom.
She smiled.
"You hear Eywa's words, now I teach you to read them." She said, grabbing my arm and dragging me back towards the clearing with fast and precise steps. I struggled to keep up with her as she dragged me along, pulling me through the trees and back to the clearing, making me sit on a rock spaced just across from another, which she sat on.
"Eywa calls to you, you hear it, yes?" She said.
I thought about the beats that followed me, seemingly repeating the same set of beats, which I do not understand.
"If you mean that there is a set of repeated beats following through every plant I touch, then yes." I said, feeling those exact beats under my feet on the grass right now.
She smiled brilliantly.
"Eywa must already wish for you to know, that you must read. The 'beats' are not sounds, but words. Read, listen, hear." She said, making me frown.
I looked down and then up, "But how?"
"Like I said when I start teaching you, I cannot help, only guide. You must learn to See, to Hear, and you can't be taught them." She said, still confusing me. She stood and placed a hand on my shoulder, the same hopeful look as she and the others had when I arrived at Hometree visible once more.
"You learned to Hear, now you must learn to Listen. Once you learned, return to me and I will explain all you do not know." She said, patting my arm and walking off to the Hometree as I watched her go, trying to figure out what she wasn't telling me yet.
I turned to hearing once more and listened to the beats, trying to think of what they could mean.
<><><><><><>
I opened my eyes to the darkness of my Link Chamber. Everything felt so off now, I felt so blind in this body. Something in the link between me and my avatar has changed, the tunnel between seemed brighter going into my avatar and darker going away to my human body. I felt soo... not right in my human body now, without my sense of the land around me, without being able to feel the heartbeat of the world itself. I felt to hopeless and blind.
And I worried about that. I worry that I am growing more attached to my avatar life, than my human life. That avatar isn't a life, it is a temporary learning experience, more like a five year one, and I need to learn to push myself away from it.
Only... when I am in my avatar, learning from Tsu'tey and sitting in that clearing, sitting around other Na'vi and experiencing the land around me... I seem to forget that there is a world I must return to, one in desperate need of my help.
I opened the Link Chamber and sat up, rubbing my eyes and yawning. I looked across the darkened trailer to see that even Jake Sully's Link chamber was open. I guessed it was two in the morning, maybe.
I put my bare feet onto the cold stone floor, quickly slipping on my combat boots. I stood and breathed deep as I struggled to push away my avatar memories for the moment. I gasped, bowing backwards and gripping my stomach. Oh, ow, ow...
I breathed heavily, staring out the glass window as I struggled to control my want to cough. I blinked a few times as the pain slowly faded, then vanished.
How odd...
I sat in one of the chair's Dr. Augustine placed in this trailer, checking everything on myself as I was taught to do as a Field Medic, counting and checking to make sure everything acted alright. I frowned lightly as even my pulse seemed to be at normal levels, no hard or lumpy feeling's on my stomach...
I am so confused, if it isn't a stomach ache or anything else, then what is it?
I sighed and shook my head, looking to the backpack Dr. Augustine moved into this trailer because the other one is too packed...
Should I? I could feel my stomach rolling slowly, the same cold feeling as yesterday only a touch more uncomfortable...
I guess I shouldn't worry anyone too much. I opened the backpack and took out a bottle of the pain pills, stashing them behind my link and taking one. The science of humanity has grown a lot, so I sighed and slumped slightly as the pain pill made the cold feeling and the rolling fade.
I'm sure it's just the food, maybe a stomach flu a bit too since I wanted to cough. My stomach is more built to eating fish, these extremely disgusting foods are probably not wanting to be processed in my body, might have triggered these problems.
I zipped up the backpack and made my way to the other side of the trailer, hearing Norm's whistling snores and Jake's all out train horn snores. I walked to the fridge, grabbing my water bottle and taking a long drink before placing it back in the fridge, looking towards the bunks.
I smirked a mile wide at what I saw. Norm, with a certain well hidden buddy. Trudy was curled up into a ball against his chest and you nearly couldn't see her. In fact, I would have known she was there if it wasn't for a combat boots stick off of the bunk. I smirked as I carefully pushed the combat boot back onto the bed, hiding Trudy from sight.
My smile dropped and an ache filled my chest. Would Tom and I have ever been like this? Just cuddling? I looked away to the floor and sighed quietly.
No, because Tom is dead and death is not something one can get around. My TULTE beliefs told me that death is set in place and there is no getting around it when it is your time. I pulled my arm tight around my chest, my heart aching as the memory of Tom's goofy but bright smile came to mind, laughing at some stupid joke I told as we walked down the hall to an empty classroom so he could teach me Na'vi...
I shook my head, wiping away the tear that fell as I walked slowly, tiredly to my bunk, falling on it and curling up like a ball.
Two blue eyes of a certain train horn snoring male watched me like a hawk, but I was too depressed to notice.
:D Ya, I know I am not leaving much of a comment here but I don't know what to say. At this point in the story I am literally just rolling with it and going along as I see fit. There will be a lot of chapters in between here and the point in the story that we catch up with Jake Sully saying the days are starting to blur together. They will skip around and, after this chapter, I am going to stop counting the time that has passed. You will understand, just wait. Enjoy!