Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar or FernGully; the Last Rainforest.
The small, dark haired boy of no more than six years hugged the hand bound leafs of paper to his chest. The small book was obviously old and well loved; the leather cover was so scuffed that only a few letters of the title could still be read and many of the yellowed pages could be seen peeking through the bindings where they had come loose over the years. The boy's favorite pages had been marked by various treasures; a brightly colored pressed leaf which had been a gift from his grandfather, a picture from his parents wedding, a feather from a duck that he had found last year on his birthday. He clutched the book tighter and shuffled up to the winged chair upholstered in well worn gold fabric.
The elderly woman sitting in the chair delicately raised her eyes over the edge of the newspaper she was reading to glance at the boy before returning to the article. A small smile tugged at her lips as boy crept slowly closer to her and came to a stop just in front of her chair. Her smile widened as the boy began to lose his patience with waiting quietly. After a particularly loud sigh from the child, the woman gently folded the newspaper and pulled her reading glasses down from her face and let them rest on her chest, hanging on the delicate gold chain around her neck.
"Grandma?" The boy asked, seeing that he had her attention. His left hand was fiddling with one of the loose pages from the book, gently twisting the corner of the page between his fingers.
"Hmm?" The newspaper was completely folded now and she set it on the small end-table with the reading lamp. She patted the small space beside her on the gold chair and the little boy clambered up next to her and squeezed into the small space between her and the arm of the chair. He spread open the hand bound book across his lap and that of his grandmother.
"Can you tell me the story again? The one about great, great, great Grandpa Zak?" The boy looked up at his grandmother with hopeful eyes.
"Again? Didn't I just tell it to you last week?"
"Well, yeah, but I really, really, really like it. It's really cool. It's got magic, and trees! We don't have many trees anymore, Grandma. Do you think Texas got them all?"
The woman chuckled softly and slid the old book over inter her lap. The boy leaned after it so he could still see the hand drawn pictures on the pages. "That's Hexxus, and no. He can never come back; you don't ever have to worry about him. Now, where would you like me to start?"
"With the bat!"
"The bat? When I was little, I always wanted my grandmother to start with the fairies."
"That's 'cause you're a girl."
"She's the one that made this book you know; my grandmother. It says so right here." She tapped the inside face of the front cover with a manicured nail where a firm hand had written in black ink 'Maggie Young.' "Now it was her father, Zak, to whom all these adventures occurred."
The boy listened raptly as the woman spun a magical tale of fairies, talking animals, and of dashing heroes that saved the rainforest even though they were only three inches tall.
"I'm going to have adventures too, Grandma." He claimed as his grandmother finished the tale and carefully tucked in the loose pages and closed the book. "I'm going to save the forest just like him!"
"I hope so, child, I truly hope so."
"Grandma?" The boy's eyes had a slightly puzzled look to them. "If all the forests are gone, where do the fairies live now?"
The woman clasped her hands tightly in her lap and was silent for a moment before seemingly coming to a decision. "I think you are old enough to know now. I was just a bit older than you when my father told me." She stood up slowly from the chair, gripping the armrest tightly so as not to lose her balance.
"When he told you what?" the boy asked, hopping down off the chair after her.
"Come with me and I'll show you." She smiled down at the boy and reached out to take his hand in one of hers. With her other hand she pulled out a chain that had been hidden in her blouse. On the end of the chain was a small silver key. She held the key out and showed it to the boy before tugging gently on his hand and leading him out of the room and into the back part of the house where she started to pull boxes out of a closet. The boy had taken a seat against the wall and pulled his legs up against his chest, resting his head on his knees, watching his grandmother dig through the dusty closet as she started a new story that he hadn't heard before.
"After Zak returned to the humans, FernGully remained safe for many, many years. Unfortunately, humans can be quite greedy creatures and once all the other great forests had been cut down for their precious wood and land, humanities eyes turned once again to FernGully. My grandmother, Zak's daughter, did what she could to protect the forest; she organized groups of activists, tried to get laws passed by the government to keep the land off limits, but none of it worked. The forest was opened back up to the logging companies and the forest was destroyed. The leader of the fairies,"
"Crysta!" the boy chimed in.
"Yes, Crysta," the woman laughed, pulling a locked rosewood box the size of a shoebox from the back of the closet. She set the box between herself and the boy and slowly eased herself to the ground to sit next to him. "Now Crysta knew the fairies were in trouble; they needed the forest to live. So she did the only thing she could think of to save herself and the rest of the remaining fairies. They left the forest and sought out the only human they knew would help them since Zak had passed away; his daughter. Crysta asked my grandmother to watch over all the fairies until the forests could return. And that's what she did. All the fairies went into a deep sleep and she locked them all up in this very box until it was safe for them to come back. She gave the box to my father to keep safe; my father gave it to me, and when it is my turn to leave this world I will give it to you."
The boy stared at the box disbelievingly. "The fairies are in there?"
"Would you like to see them?" At her grandson's eager nod, she took the small silver key that had been hanging around her neck at unlocked the box. The boy leaned in as she pulled back the lid.
The box was filled with seeds each the size of a small walnut. They were dull brown in color; hardly the magical wonder the boy had hoped to see. He looked at his grandmother in confusion. "They don't look like fairies."
His grandmother smiled and looked at him with a slight twinkle in her eye. "Go turn off the light."
Wondering what turning the lights off had to do with anything, the boy moved to obey his grandmother. Once the lights were off, he made his way back to the box carefully so as not to trip over anything that had been pulled from the closet. He sat back down and his grandmother motioned for him to look back in the open box. To his delight, the small seeds had begun to glow.
Faintly at first, and then with more power, the contents of the box emitted a cheery green glow that danced across the walls of the darkened room. "Wow!"
"I believe I said the exact same thing when I first laid eyes on them. Here, let me show you my favorite." The woman reached softly into the box and gently moved the glowing seeds around until she found what she sought. She pulled her hand from the box, and palm up, displayed a single seed to her grandson. Unlike the others, this one had a blue hue to it.
"Is that one Crysta?" The boy asked.
"I like to think so." She said, while placing the seed back in amongst its friends. She left the box open a while longer before locking it back up. The box was placed carefully back into the depths of the closet and everything else that had been pulled out from the closet in search of the box was replaced. She moved to put the key on its chain back around her neck when she suddenly paused. Instead, she reached down and looped the chain around the boy's neck. "There, that's yours now. I will keep the box for a while longer, but I need someone young and strong to guard that key for me. Do you think you can do that?"
The boy grasped the small key in his hand "Oh yes Grandma, I promise! I will keep it safe and when I bring back the forests I will use it to let the fairies free again! Thank you!"
She patted him fondly on the head. "No my boy, thank you."
******* Twenty-some-odd years later *******
The few humans remaining on Pandora were currently sifting through some of the crates that the last departing ship from Hells Gate had dropped from the cargo hold in a hurry to make room for all the unplanned for passengers. The current crate, however, was providing more amusement than potentially lifesaving supplies for the years to come. Having already committed multiple federal crimes assisting the Na'vi, the remaining men and women figured that going through their previous co-workers mail would just be a small blip on their list of faults if the other humans ever returned and took them into custody for their deeds. Personal letters were left untouched; however any and all care-packages were fair game.
An overwhelming number of them contained containers of homemade goodies from loving family members, all placed in cryo-preservation boxes to lock in the freshness even after the six years it took for the package to be delivered. Some of these were opened immediately; chocolate chip cookies were disappearing left and right. Even some of the more adventurous Na'vi warriors were sampling the wares, though only after they had seen Jake Sully consume one of the small confections. The majority were saved to be opened at a later date as a special treat; so long as the perishables remained sealed in the cryo-preservers they would remain fresh for years to come.
Towards the bottom of one of the crates the group of people sorting through the contents came across an intricately carved wooden box with a silver lock latching it shut. The mailing label affixed to the box indicated that this particular package was for one of their colleagues who had remained. Tucking the box under her arm, one of the women carried it across the hall and set it down next to its addressee.
"This one's yours man." At the sound of her voice, the dark haired man glanced up from what he was working on. When his eyes settled on the box they widened slightly. He thanked the woman and she returned back to the shipping crates to finish categorizing the contents.
The man reverently brushed his fingers across the lid of the box. Glancing around to see if anyone was watching, his left hand dipped under the collar of his shirt and pulled a small silver key on a leather cord out from where it had been resting against his chest since he was six years old. He eyed the key for several moments before grabbing an oxygen mask off the wall behind him and walking out of the airlock into the toxic Pandoran air.
At the edge of the fields used to grow local cultivars of fruits and vegetables, he knelt down onto the damp earth and slid the silver key into the lock on the box. Slowly, he turned the key and felt the mechanism click as the lock on the box sprang open. The small brown objects resting in the box were just as he remembered them as a boy. He glanced off into the distance at the vast forest beyond the walls of the compound. Using his hands, he burrowed out two rows in the soft soil and gently placed each of the brown orbs into them before brushing a layer of dirt back over the top of them.
He wasn't quite sure exactly what he had expected. But he had expected . . . something. He shook his head and quietly laughed at himself. It was silly; a grown man believing in fairies living in boxes. Glancing back at the rows of disturbed soil, he contemplated gathering the seeds back up into the box, but after a moment, he decided that it just felt . . .right . . . leaving them there in the earth. He brushed off his knees and grabbed the box of the ground. The key was slipped back around his neck and he walked back into the complex and away from fairytales and myths.
Had he turned back even once, he may have caught a glimpse of a delicate vine sprouting from the disturbed soil. Lurid purple and orange buds formed on the vine. When the buds opened, had anyone been watching, many sparkling green lights and one blue light could be seen skipping through the air away from the flowers and into the forest.
I really don't know why I wrote this, save that someone, somewhere, had to write a FernGully/Avatar crossover. I just never thought it would be me.