Author Note: Short, but a nice break from some longer stuff I'm working on. I tried to format this to make
it more easy on the eyes.
It was dusk, and they were sitting high in the leaves of Hometree. Here at the apex, the smallest branches
approached something of the size Jake was used to seeing on Earth. Directly below their feet was a dark
sea of leaves and branches. All around them the forest was spread out like a blue-green galaxy. Where the
forest had gathered it's most shining flora, motes and spots of light glowed like bright stars
Jake wasn't ready to sleep yet. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt again his first flight. He could relieve
all the ducks and swoops and turns, and he could remember how his heart beat in time with his ikran's.
He didn't have any trouble explaining to Neytiri what he felt – she had experienced the same after her own
first flight. She seemed happy to stay up, the two of them sitting in the tree like two kids at the end of a dock.
"You know, I had these dreams before I came here," Jake said. "Where I was flying, out over the forest."
"Flying?" Neytiri looked over at him. She had a slightly quizzical smile on her face, but then she seemed to be
smiling a lot more lately.
"Yeah, flying. And I'd start to go down and get closer to the trees, like I was gonna crash, and then I'd pull back
up and keep going. But those were nothing compared to the real thing."
"It is wonderful," she agreed. "Do you think you dreamed of flying because you were coming to Pandora?" she
asked after a beat of silence.
"No," Jake said, shaking his head. "This was way back before I knew I was coming, right after I – " he hesitated.
A complex mix of emotions held his tongue in check. Should he explain about the marines, the wars for water
and oil? Some faintly felt sense of loyalty said he shouldn't show her how ugly things on Earth had gotten.
And did he want her to know he was crippled?
"I got hurt," he finally said. "And I couldn't walk anymore. So I guess my brain gave me a way out."
"You could not walk," Neytiri repeated, automatically touching his leg. "But when you are here with me,
you can. And when night comes, you get sad." She paused. "If one of my bodies could not walk, I
would not want to go back to it."
Jake laughed a little, if only to cover how he really felt. "Yeah, no kidding. " He wondered if she could understand
how he dreaded going to his hammock at night, dreaded waking up in his broken body in
its metal box like a coffin.
Perhaps sensing something of what Jake was thinking, Neytiri changed the subject. "You are a good flier. Few
take to their ikran so quickly."
"Thanks. It sure beats riding a horse."
"Yes. You are very bad at that."
His continuing failure to master the dire horse was a common laugh among the hunters. It was good-natured
teasing, though – Jake had found the Na'vi were rarely mean or petty. He'd learned to take it with good
grace, he thought.
They listened to the night for a while. The exotic jungle sounds were familiar to Jake's ears now, even though
he probably couldn't name half of what he heard. He had a copy of Grace's book Na'viin his cot in the lab, but
he'd only cracked it a few times. Lately if he wasn't eating or sleeping, he was in his Avatar.
"It is getting late," Neytiri said. "If we will fly in the morning, we should sleep now." She tucked her legs under
herself and stood.
"I think I'll stay up a little while," Jake said. In his other body – he was having more and more trouble thinking
of it as his body, now – he wouldn't be able to feel the flight. His clumsy human brain would think of planes,
parachutes. Neytiri was right – he didn't want to go back to his other body. Grace and Norm and Trudy would
be there to talk and laugh with him, but what did that matter? They were human – he didn't belong with them.
He told himself that he was kidding, when he thought that.
Neytiri was hesitating beside him, but then she sat down again, close enough that he could feel her warmth.
"I will stay up with you," she said.
The two of them watched the night glow. Neytiri helped him think of names for his ikran.