Avatar: Go to Sleep
Two: Zia


Three meters was the normal height for a fully grown Na'vi male. Certainly there were shorter Na'vi, and taller Na'vi, too, but the standard deviation of Na'vi size was such that anyone 3.2 meters in height was considered extremely tall.

And at a full 3.5 meters in height, Zia was so far from the bell curve that he might have left it behind entirely.

He was a man, at least as far as his people were concerned. He had completed the rite-of-passage of the Omaticaya clan, the Iknimaya, although his ikran had been killed in the final battle between the Na'vi and the humans. How he had survived was a mystery in itself, one that he had never shared with anyone.

It wasn't that he was unwilling to explain how he had managed to survive a thousand meter bailout and a severe gunshot wound to his shoulder. It was just that no one had seen fit to ask him. Because although he was head and shoulders taller than his peers and although he had done everything in his life that his culture required him to, he was hated, and despised no matter what.

He had been allowed to stay with his people, of course. But he knew better than to try to make his own personal shelter near anyone. Hunters might tolerate him, but their constant jibes and jokes and unfunny physical pranks made him unable to tolerate them. Elders believed he was unlucky, and his appearance made children cry, so there really wasn't anyone he could stay with for very long at all before they, too, grew to hate him.

When the Omaticaya clan had lived at Home Tree, he had had a friend. Haq was her name, and although she wasn't the prettiest girl or the smartest one, the two of them had been close from a young age.

And that was because they were both Karami. They were both Karami, and this unfortunate bond was what made them stick together since when they were old enough to understand what the term meant.

In many ways, Karami wasn't just a status—it was a state of being. Those who were born Karami remained Karami for the rest of their lives no matter what—no matter how brave they were, or how smart, or wise, or how many of their people's enemies they massacred, they simply could not remove the stain of Karami from their souls until the day that they were dead.

And then, perhaps, Eywa would accept them as she did the rest of her children. Perhaps the children of those who were doomed to live their lives as Karami would go on to make better lives for themselves and their posterity, but no matter what, those who lived as Karami—even if they died as normal Omaticaya—would never be remembered as anything but pestly pieces of Na'vi filth.

What other extremely negative emotions could be expected for the Na'vi to hold towards those who marked their entry into the world with murder?

Because that was what Karami meant. It was a term that was used to describe, and to curse those among the Na'vi who killed their mothers in childbirth.

It was true that everyone knew that childbirth was a dangerous thing. That was why the Tsahik of the clan was present for the creation of every new life, and Mo'at was one of the greatest interpreters of the will of Eywa that anyone could have asked for.

And she had been present of Zia's birth, for every minute of the excruciating ten hour ordeal his mother endured to bring him into the world. She had been there to hold his mother's hand, and to calm her, and to fruitlessly offer her herbal medicines and anesthetics when her screams became too agonized.

So, in the end, no one believed that it was Mo'at who had failed. It was Zia who had succeeded in putting his mother through such pain and trauma that life slipped from her before his body was removed from hers. And when at last he was removed from his mother's womb, he had been so small and pathetic and weak and motionless that Mo'at herself had believed that it was just as well that such a miserable being was born dead, for what sort of bleak existence could such a terrible creature look forward to but one of pain and struggle?

She had prepared to cast him out of Home Tree and into the jungle, as custom dictated she do to all stillborn infants. But just as she held Zia's seemingly lifeless body out and prepared to drop it into the dark, carnivorous depths below, he had fidgeted, he had moved, he had breathed.

She didn't believe that he would live through the night. But he did. She didn't believe he would live through the week, but he did, and a month later, he was still alive and so he was considered a person, not just a tiny body that Eywa might see fit to put a soul into.

And so he had been given to his father. He had been raised by his father, and no one could pretend that the treatment he had suffered at the hands of that rough man had been anything but extreme.

In his childhood, Zia was rarely seen without bruises. Sometimes, he was seen limping, and on several occasions he had been beaten so severely that it was only thanks to Haq that he had managed to survive injuries that would otherwise have led to permanent physical disabilities.

One summer, he had a growth spurt. Shortly after that, he had somehow upset his father again, and, again, he had been cowering under a flurry of fists and feet.

And then his father had taken out his knife. He had grabbed Zia's face and he had sworn that he would mutilate his thrice-cursed countenance as Zia had mutilated his precious mate's body so many years ago.

And then, for the first time ever, Zia had fought back.

At first, it had been passive resistance. He had thrown out a forearm, parrying his father's attempted slash. Then, he had held up his hands and parried again, and again, and again, and with each successive blow his father had gotten angrier and angrier and with each successive blow, Zia had seen more and more clearly that this was not a beating he could accept and then get up and walk away from. These were not blows he could parry and then escape from.

By this time, several of his father's peers had come to watch with grim expressions of understanding on their faces. Some of their sons and daughters had accompanied them as well, but the young ones were not Zia's peers. Zia had no peers, no friends, no group he could rely on to protect him or pick him up when he was down. He only had himself.

When he realized that, he waited for his father to come at him again. And then he had lashed out with a kick that could have broken the leg of a direhorse.

Several of his father's ribs were broken. Others were cracked or otherwise damaged, and his organs suffered contusion. The injury was severe enough to have killed him—in fact, it would have if he had been allowed to fall out of Home Tree, as he would have, had his son not grabbed his wounded body and personally carried it to Mo'at until it was cared for and rehabilitated until it was better.

Father and son had not spoken to one another since then. And for a time, the teasing, the cruel taunts and the jokes and the pranks directed at Zia had stopped.

Eventually, though, people forgot what he had done, forgot what violence his powerful body was capable of. How could they take him as a serious threat, after all, when he only ever spoke to dumb, ugly Haq, and when his appearance in itself was enough to mark him as a demon?


That was another thing about him that made him distinctive, Zia reflected, as he used his knife to carefully etch the symbol of his name into his bow. He looked different from the rest of the Na'vi, too.

From his birth, he had worn odd, pale patches on his skin that Haq had said made him look like a somewhat cloudy sky on a spring day. They were on his face and his chest, mostly, but there were those strange, off-white patches on his limbs as well. One particular pale blotch on his countenance made it look as if someone had grabbed part of his skin and violently ripped it off, or that he was wearing some sort of mask.

These strange markings burned in sunlight. But apart from that, Zia had observed that they broke up his form, made him harder to see in a way that his people sometimes used earth-colored paints to emulate. True, it was natural for Na'vi to have striped markings all over their bodies, and Zia had those too—it was just that his strange pale markings overlay those jagged lines.

Maybe they were a good thing. Certainly, there were other aspects of him that were both different and better—take his knife, for example.

As Zia lifted it up and turned it over in his hand, he noted, with pride, that it bore none of the signs of wear and tear that other hunters' knives came to bear. That was because it was a custom piece, conceived of, designed, and fabricated from the ground up by his own mind and hands.

First, he had taken the toughest piece of volcanic rock he could find and smoothed and sharpened it until it could cut through the side of a leaf. Then, he had broken it in half and then he had sharpened the stub that remained until he was left with a broad, short blade that was not of particular use for the artistic slicing maneuvers his people used in combat—but would not yield and would not break and could stab through the armored hide of a hammerhead.

It was a good weapon—it was a different weapon, and so it suited him. It suited his hands, too, because they, too, were different. He had five fingers, like humans, not four, like most other Na'vi. Five-fingered Na'vi weren't unheard of; in fact, in some clans they weren't even rare. And Zia had found that he could grip things better than other Na'vi, and that the precise motor abilities he was capable far outstripped those of anyone but Jake.

Years ago, Zia had dreamed that he was a human. He had been among those who saw the ships come down, and he had been one of those assigned to look over the situation from the shadows with an arrow prepared when the leaders of the Omaticaya people went to greet their extraterrestrial guests. He had also been among those who watched the humans commit formerly unthinkable violations of the environment, crimes against Eywa, and he had participated in several patrols to counter increasingly bold human advances until things really did come to open combat.

And, of course, he had been in Home Tree when the humans had brought it to the ground. He had tried to save Haq—his lovely, beautiful, wonderful Haq—but he had failed. In the end, she was just another soul lost to the blasphemous humans, and he was just another one of those who had survived.

He had avenged Haq in the final battle. He had brought down five Scorpions before he had been shot down. And then he had…

He shook his head. He had promised himself not to think of what he had done next until someone either asked him or he felt that he was mature enough and calm enough—he wouldn't think about the ramifications of what he had done next until he had gotten over the fact that the humans had killed Haq.

Until then, he would continue to be as he was—just another lone, lean figure sitting in the wet and the cold, endlessly perfecting his weapons until they were deadlier than he was.

Maybe he would die before he found himself ready to truly think about what had happened after his ikran had been killed, he thought dully. It was certainly possible; no matter where Jake took the clan there was no safety.

Oh, well. At least if he died, then things wouldn't become complicated.

"Hey. Zia."

Immediately, he looked up. Reflexively, he half-raised his hands so that whatever blows rained down on him would have to break through them first—but then he relaxed and told himself that the habits he'd learned living with his father would have to die out sooner rather than later.

It was Tork.

He was another young hunter, like Zia, and one for whom Zia had always held a certain amount of respect. Although Tork was popular and had at least five women that Zia knew lusting after him, he didn't let it get to his head. He was wise, particularly so for someone so young, and the sort of person who had the rare gift of being able to dispassionately judge capabilities and weaknesses, even in himself. Zia had been on many hunting trips with Tork, and although it was rare that Tork ever said a word to stop his peers from bullying Zia, it meant a lot that he had never personally done anything to harass or intimidate the taller Na'vi.

At least, not really. At least, not recently. Sure, Tork had thrown twigs and stones when they had both been younger, but that was just how kids were. Ever since Tork had become a man, he had never aimed a harsh word or gesture in Zia's direction.

For that reason, Zia immediately rose to his feet and stopped what he was doing.

"Calm down, calm down," Tork said in a friendly sort of way. "I just wanted to tell you that Jake has called for all of us to gather at the center of Big Grove after the evening meal. More or less everyone knows already, but I thought I might tell you…"

At first, Zia didn't respond. Not verbally, anyway, for it was not his custom to be a man of many words. He simply nodded—favored Tork with a smile—and then sat back down and got back to his knife.

"I'll be there," Zia said after a moment. "Thank you, Tork."

"Don't worry about it, Zia," the shorter Na'vi said. He moved as it to place a friendly hand on Zia's shoulder, but seemed to think better of it.

"Say… Me, Kyr, Dhani, and a few ladies are going to eat together this evening; do you think you'd like to join us?"

Zia stopped what he was doing. He looked up and into Tork's eyes and he did not understand, because no one had ever extended such an invitation to him.

His eyes must have made clear the question that he did not ask, because Tork smiled and answered it.

"We've lost so much of the Omaticaya clan recently. Those of us who are still alive… we should learn to treat one another better. Don't worry—I've already spoken to Kyr about this, and Dhani's not the kind of guy to give you a hard time for being Karami. And there are going to be a few girls over—I'm sure one of them, or maybe two, might want to talk to you."

For a moment, Zia was tempted to accept Tork's invitation, he really was. But then he thought of what it would be like to sit among them like he was one of them… with Kyr, Tork's younger brother, and with Dhani, one of the most proficient archers in their generation. And then he thought of the females… the smaller, leaner beings who giggled when those who held their affections came up with a particularly clever insult to hurl at Zia, who laughed out loud and applauded when they managed to trip him or shove him down into the mud, who reacted with terror as if he was the one in the wrong when he tolerated the shoves and the slaps no more and fought back.

And then he thought of Haq.

He looked away.

The part of Big Grove that he'd made his home in was at the very edge of the clan's encampment, at the coldest and least defended part, where rain and predators alike would reach before the heart of the clan was threatened. It was a dangerous, miserable, lonely place, but Zia liked it. Anywhere else in Big Grove, he would be unable to look around and see anything besides his people.

Here, if he looked to the side, he could see the valley and the mountains, and the atmospheric phenomenon that always occurred when clouds struck the snow-capped peaks. He could hear the distant cries of banshees or other, less definable animals, and he could even look down and see the chilling fog that collected above the forest depths.

Already clouds were rolling in. Already, the massive collective bodies of water droplets were churning over the mountain peaks, and Zia knew that when rain came that night, it would strike with all the force of a lightning bolt.

In fact, there probably would be lightning. And anyone who made their homes in the very tallest trees in Big Grove would be in danger of electrocution and fire.

Zia looked up. The tree whose branches he used to make his own shelter was short.

Zia looked at Tork.

"Maybe you and your friends should join me here, instead."

Tork's smile faded. He shook his head and he walked away.

"You can't say that I didn't ask, Zia. I was just trying to be nice."

Zia looked after Tork and he did not understand. After all, he had not been socialized to the degree that was needed to have understood what had just happened. Neither his father's curses, nor his blows, nor Haq's caresses or sweet words were enough to let him understand how normal people functioned.

Zia placed his knife back at its sheath. Now, it was ready to be drawn from his thigh, not the traditional holster behind his back that most in the Omaticaya clan favored. He looked after Tork for a moment and then he took out his personal stores of meat and edible vegetation and bit into some article of food without the slightest trace of satisfaction.

"You can't say that I didn't ask, Tork. I was just trying to be nice."


(I will probably start the next chapter in a couple of days… I hope everyone likes things so far.)