Chapter 3: the encounter
Except for the wind blowing in her face and the quiet flapping of the banshee's wings, the twilight was silent and peaceful. The mountains were already beginning to show their otherworldly green glow that came from the plants and moss that clung to their massive faces. Emma banked gently right, her sharp golden eyes looking out for any sign of danger. But the world seemed to be at peace.
A feeling of calm and contentment settled over her, unlike anything she could remember feeling before. For a moment, she realized that she could not remember how she had gotten to this place, and the thought disturbed the peace that had settled over her.
"Where am I, anyway?" she wondered out loud. Her ikran sensed her unease through the link, and it half-turned it's head towards her and let out a concerned noise.
She patted it on the snout to reassure it, and when she looked at her arm she realized for the first time that it was glowing. Iridescent patterns of luminous dots traced up and down her arms, and she took in her breath sharply at the sight. Something was definitely going on here, but she didn't know what yet. Emma looked around at the floating rocks and the strangeness of it all overwhelmed her until it struck her. She nervously looked at her hands, as she remembered from the website she had visited, and saw that they were blue and glowing. But my hands aren't blue, she thought. "This is all a dream!" she said excitedly. The banshee sensed her excitement and let out a roar, giving it's wings an extra hard flap. Emma stared around in wonder, absoloutly dumbfounded at the vivid and clear world her mind had created. But this is just as realistic as real life, she thought, and it worried her slightly. There was something just a bit scary behind the thought, a hidden truth that she had yet to discover. But at the moment, it was little matter.
Emma clutched tightly at her ikran's harness. The fact that the dream was so realistic made her slightly afraid that she might fall, and goodness knows what would happen if she died in a dream.
Suddenly, a dark regal shadow appeared from out of the darkness. It plunged down towards her at a terrifying speed. Emma felt a rush of raw, primal fear overtake both her and the banshee. Something deep within them knew that shape well, and even it hadn't, she had seen Avatar enough to know what it was.
Her banshee, acting almost independently of her, folded it's wings and dove towards the dark jungle below. Emma held on as tightly as she could as they dropped like a stone, feeling in her stomach that weightless sickening feeling that one gets when plummeting down a hill on a roller coaster. The wind of speed chilled and exhilarated her very bones.
She looked back, now, and saw the mighty Toruk diving towards her like a vision of beautiful terror. It was like an eagle in movement, a lion in pride, a butterfly in color, and like nothing else in it's alien ferocity. It opened it's gigantic jaws and blasted out a roar of triumph that tore through the night. The girl on the fleeing, falling banshee below felt fear take control of her body. As the Toruk reached out with it's snatching claws, she felt herself leave her body. A sudden splash of bloody sunlight blinded her. Emma felt the sky through the body of a terrified young ikran, she flapped her wings frantically but to no avail. She heard and saw the ancient struggle of predator and prey, deep within her ikran instincts. And it drew to a violent close as the jaws of the Toruk shut out the daylight, the razor teeth pierced her wings, and the last shadow of fear fell upon her. Then she was the girl again, dropping towards the ground in the dark twilight. The jaws of her fear closed on air, an inch from the tail of her banshee. The dream roiled and shook in a twist of reality, and she snapped out of her body again. Now she was on the ground, scarred and torn at the edge of the forest. But she was still a defiant Thanator, or as the Na'vi call it, dry mouth bringer of fear. She felt the liquid strength in her clawed, panther-like limbs as she turned to snarl at the shape above. She was the undisputed ruler of the forest, and her only challenge lay in bringing down this monarch of the skies. As the shadow drew nearer she tensed as she had so often done before on the hunt. Just before it hit, she jumped and a thousand long-dead thanators seemed to leap with her. She hit, there was a confusing blur of shadow and claw, and the mighty thanator collapsed.
Now she was herself again, if there really was a her, still feeling the dead pride of the once-mighty beast. "You're just a dream!" she shouted over the wind. "If it's my dream then why can't I control you?" The Toruk made a grab for her and missed by a hair, the fear overflowed her very self, and suddenly there was silence.
Dead silence.
Emma felt herself hurriedly, wondering whether she was alive. Her banshee finally pulled out of the dive, the momentum rocketing them forward at a speed that shook Emma's bones. As they zoomed around the side of a small floating rock structure, she thought to look back and saw the Toruk, unable to reach her because they had flown through a space too small for it to fit through. It eyed her slyly and turned away. Not today, then, those eyes said.
Emma blew a huge sigh of relief, the released fear causing her to shake uncontrollably on her ikran's back.
Now they were only a little distance off of the ground. Emma looked down to see a huge clearing, and though she knew it was only a dream, she was thoroughly sick of flying. So she flew down to the faintly glowing moss, and hopped off her Ikran.
She again looked around at the lush beauty of her subconscious, the luminescent forest of delicate transcendence. That same feeling of unearthly peace settled over her.
Although she had previously been quite the failure at controlling her dream, Emma decided to risk trying to find something. She cleared her throat, shuffled awkwardly, and announced to the general night, "Um, hey dream, could you please give me somewhere safe to go?" Nothing seemed to hear her and she had turned away and given up when she heard a noise. It was like a faint tingling music, the sound of little bells in the wind. At the same time, the glade lit up, the moss glowing brighter and a strange purple light bathing everything in it's beauty.
Emma slowly turned around, and when she saw the majesty of what had risen, she almost fainted.
A huge tree, if that was the right word, had grown from the bare ground in the clearing. It was like a willow tree risen to huge proportions and beauty. It's tendrils gently stirred in the slight breeze, indescribable colors of pink and purple playing across their surface. It's roots reached out, covered in glowing moss, connecting everything on the planet.
Emma felt the joy of the place envelope her in warmth. She slowly walked forward, as if in a trance, feeling nothing else but the tree and it's call.
Now she was standing in it's soft light. Her hand tentatively reached out to brush a tendril. Then she reached behind her to hold a braid she didn't know she had. As she pulled it into view, she saw that it had writhing tendrils growing out of the end.
With the feeling that she was completing a ritual, Emma reached out and allowed the tendrils of her braid to wrap around a strand of the tree.
For a moment, her world went silent as it took a second for the bond to travel to her brain.
Then, it exploded into life. She felt her brain deluged with an overwhelming surge of... What was it? She couldn't tell yet. It was memories, thoughts, wisdom from somewhere she didn't know. Voices swirled around her, giving her messages she couldn't make sense of. Please! she thought in desperation. I can't understand it!
Somewhere, somebody said, "She cannot truly see yet. Shine the light on her."
And Emma was again overwhelmed, not with fear but with joy. A light of pure love seemed to be traveling down the tree, up through her braid, into her brain and spreading through her whole body. The invisible intangible light swirled around her feet, then wrapped around her whole body, filling her up with an unearthly joy that healed her. She felt her body become more refreshed than it had ever been on Earth, her mind sharper and wide open. Now she was kneeling, her eyes closed, feeling reborn. The bond filled her, more powerful than it had been with her ikran. But what was she bonded to? She tried to feel around but was almost lost in an ocean of joyful consciousness. She was connected with... everything? The whole planet? Her own subconscious?
"It's all connected," she realized, and something heard her. Her awareness rushed out, through the roots of the great tree, to other trees, to the whole planet and all of it's creatures. She saw and heard and felt and knew without knowing how she knew. And the whole planet, from the roots of the great tree to everywhere, lit up brighter.
The awareness was almost too much for Emma's mind to hold. She gasped quietly and struggled to maintain her sense of self as the flood of knowledge and raw emotion surged over her. Now her world was pulsing, purple light. She cried out silently as the dream collapsed, "Who are you?" And something watched her, and she was watching herself, and the whole thing collapsed inward.
Emma opened her eyes on the cracked white paint of her bedroom ceiling.