I can't believe I'm finally updating this again. This installment is a suggestion from Linnup's review awhile back.
Enjoy!
Jake's Destiny:
"Link's running." Norm said, adjusting the phase-integration one final time. I wheeled over to him, trying not to make too much noise so that Grace wouldn't wake up. The medicine would keep her alive for awhile but it wouldn't heal her. Only two things could do that now. And both were out of reach.
"What's the plan here Jake?" Norm asked as the link hummed to life.
I backed up to the link. "There's no plan." I said. Despite the circumstances, I couldn't resist smiling. You'd think Norm would be used to this by now. I don't plan things, they just happen. Look where that got us…
"Tsu'tey is olo' eyktan now," Norm reminded me in a frustrated whisper as I hauled myself up onto the link bed. "He's not gonna let you near that place."
Like I didn't know that. But I couldn't let the doc die. It was because of me that she was hurt. I had to make it better. I smoothly swung my legs inside the link. Had it really only been three months since the first time I'd done this? It seems like I've done this all my life. In a way, I guess I have. The Na'vi are my life now. And Grace and Trudy and Norm. I had betrayed them all.
"I gotta try." I told Norm, knowing it was all I could do now. I laid back and pulled the sensors down over my body.
Norm said nothing else. He knew that this was our only chance too. Or maybe he figured there was no logical argument he could use to talk me out of this.
Norm turned back to the controls.
"Launching." He told me sounding more than a little worried. Probably thinking he would never see me again.
I exhaled softly as the link closed around me. I had barely closed my eyes when I felt the link take hold.
My eyes flew open to a world of gray. I coughed as I sat up, feeling like my lungs were coated with sand. I blinked the ashes from my eyes. My vision cleared only slightly. Everything was gray. There were no distinctions. Pandora had lost all color. Or perhaps my avatar had inexplicably gone color-blind, there was no way to know for sure. I suppose it didn't matter either way. The scene around me was depressing either way.
A layer of fine, grainy ashes cascaded off my body as I stood. A few ashes still fell from the sky above like dirty snow. I set off for nowhere, wandering aimlessly. The lone spark of life in this dead world. Outcast. The ground was a thick carpet of the same ashes that covered my body. Every tree in the forest was drooping with their weight, shouldering their grief at the loss of Home Tree and the Na'vi. The sun should have been shining brightly but it was hidden by the cloud of ash in the air above. Leaves, flowers and fruits alike had shed their colors and assumed robes of mourning. Smoke rose from the ground in thin clouds like ghosts returning to haunt me. The suffering had passed by this place, leaving only the scar of sorrow in its wake. I passed a familiar tree; one of the first Neytiri had ever shown me. The mighty plant was collapsed in the ashes below, its spine snapped, its corpse covered in all that remained of Home Tree. Ashes. Smoke.
My heart broke. All this was my fault. I had destroyed Neytiri's forest. Betrayer.
I didn't belong here. Every step I took disturbed some body. Every vine I brushed aside fell back deader than before. It was like desecrating a graveyard. Only every tombstone was made of broken trees. Instead of flowers, ashes were all that was offered to the dead. Names of people I'd killed. Alien.
Something familiar jumped out at me from the landscape of death. A hill. Three rocks. The place where we used to first see Home Tree when we returned from hunting. Softly, I climbed on top of a rock, gazing out where Home Tree had been. All that greeted me was more gray. And silence.
I was in the place the eye does not see.
I kept walking, as if in a dream. I didn't know what way I was going. All the landmarks I had once known were destroyed, altered. Time lost meaning as I padded through the ashes of the past, atoning for my sins. Even the steady pounding of my feet upon the ground was muffled by the landscape. Was I destined to wander this endless landscape of death forever? Locked in a world beyond help?
I clung to one thought: I had to reach the People. For Grace. She would die without Aywa. Only the Na'vi could get me to her, if she existed. I needed their help. And they needed mine. I had destroyed their home. But maybe, maybe, I could help them get it back.
But to ever face them again, I was going to have to take it to a whole new level.
A familiar cry ripped through the heavy silence. I turned to see Ripper appear above in the ashy fog. My ikran landed in front of me, stirring up a thick rush of ashes as his wings flapped. His screech was like a welcome burst of music in my solitude. I smiled. At least something was still on my side.
I scratched his face in welcome. He purred at my touch, his eyes rolling in happiness. So he had missed me. As I stroked him, an idea came to me. Granted, it was stupid and had little chance of success but it was better than staying here, wallowing in my guilt.
Sometimes your whole life boils down to one insane move. This was that move.
"There's something we gotta do…" I told Ripper as he regarded me with his big yellow eyes. "You're not gonna like it…" I said grimly.
He knelt down and eagerly offered me tsaheylu. I joined with him, feeling our minds come together with a rush that momentarily made my head spin. I sprung onto his back, feeling our wings quiver in anticipation, the legs ready to leap into flight.
"Yah!" I cried to him. Echoing my cry, Ripper rose into flight.
We quickly left the graveyard of Home Tree behind. I noted, with some relief, that once we crossed the river, the color returned to the landscape. But I was too busy focusing on my new plan to look back.
Ripper and I flew to the cliffs, searching. I tried not to imagine what we were looking for exactly. I knew that would only freak him out prematurely. We stayed high, scanning the landscape below until… there.
My heart quickened and I immediately pulled back a little. Ripper shied slightly. Circling the cliffs below, stalking out his next meal, was Toruk.
Now, the way I had it figured, Toruk is the baddest cat in the sky. Nothing attacks him. So why would he ever look up?We leveled out directly above him careful to make sure our shadow fell behind him. Ripper gave a quiet whine of protest. His fear flooded me.
"Easy boy…" I said, patting his neck, trying to calm us down. But Ripper now knew what I intended to do and that meant both our hearts were pounding uncontrollably fast.
I jumped up into a crouch, telling Ripper: down, dive…
Despite his fear, he obeyed me and we rocketed downward, aiming straight for the great dragon's back. The wind whipped by blocking out all sounds. I focused on staying steady. Staying strong.
I knew he wouldn't see us coming. He wouldn't look up. There was no need too.
But that was just a theory…
Twenty feet above Toruk, I released Ripper and threw myself off his back. Ponytail in hand, I plummeted towards Toruk, praying this would work… it had to work…
I crashed into his back, feeling my knees buckle. He let out a roar as I fumbled to make tsaheylu. I could feel him beginning to roll over, trying to shake off this annoying little thing that had dared to attack him.
I felt the fibers in my hair mold with his. Tsaheylu was made. His mind flooded my own. I gasped. His consciousness was unlike anything else I had bonded with. My head rolled. Compared to this, ikrans were a walk in the park. He was ancient and strong. Potent and hard. My vision went black. Our nerves crashed and fought, each trying to assert its dominance. He would not be taken down. Please… please for all of us… was actually pleading with him.
But I was losing; he was still rolling over, shaking me off…
I somehow managed to get my legs wrapped around his neck, my grip on his tether was iron-clad. I was not going to give up. This was our only chance.
Toruk rolled once, his body giving a great shudder. I clung tighter, a parasite on the back of a giant, my mind trying vainly to probe his, to make a single connection. He let out a roar and his superior mind thrust me away again and again. But I kept trying.
A second roll and mighty buck and I was unseated. My legs slipped from his great neck but by some miracle, tsaheylu remained even as my hands scrabbled to hold onto his tether. I didn't look down as my legs kicked at the empty air below me. I dove back into the battle within, my fear of falling to my death giving me a strength I didn't even know existed. Please… anything…
Somewhere in the mess of nerves between us, something clicked. Abruptly, we both froze. I opened my eyes, blinking to clear my vision. Toruk was ridged. One of his eyes was twisted around to regard me as I hung from his tether, dangling a hundred feet above the highest cliff. One good shake and I could plummet to my death. But he remained still. I stared deep into his eyes as he watched me, regarding me. He had already tried to kill me once. But I had eluded him. Would he kill me now?
As if coming back to life, he suddenly flung his head back, sending me flying upward in a great arc. I landed securely on his back, still bonded to him, gasping for air as feeling returned to my extremities. He let out something between a roar and a purr but through that single nerve connecting our minds I swear it sounded like: fine.
All the pieces fell together. Every nerve snapped together in an instant. Our minds became one. He was mine and I was his.
I was now Toruk Makto.
Usually I avoid doing Jake because he narrates the movie. But this was fun. Please review!
