FAN FIC – AVATAR: The Skxawng and his Gaia are soon parted.
By Christopher Paul "Txur`itan" Nelson
Chapter 4 – The little ones. -cont
"Oeyä sa'nok sì Norman awngal tswayon Aymokriyä Utralti leswotu, ulte pizayuru pirvlltxe." ~ My mother, Norman and I fly to the sacred trees of voices, where we go to commune with our ancestors.
There have been a few nights of the evil howling, but nothing more has come of it, so we have continued with our way of doing what we need to do to live our lives.
The journey is long, but it is valuable to us. My mother is more trusting of Norman than of other sky people, and has brought him to the Trees of Voices many times before. I have been too young before now, so this is my first time. Norman has sometimes spent hours here listening to songs, and prayers, chanting and rituals, mixtures and poems, he always has a new thing he wants to experience he says to me, but he has picked out a special tree, one that will be very important as the years pass.
Norman lives for learning, for teaching, and for knowing new things. He studied our ways as much as he could, and became wise like so many of our people's elders. I spent time trying to understand him as a friend, but I found myself becoming a student. He knew the plants, he knew the animals, he impressed Mo'at with his knowledge of her mixtures. He studied the stories, and the songs of our people, and became a word giver, using his way of understanding our language, to help us make new words for things we did not know or understand. The word giver, Lì'utingyu, became his little name, for all of the new words he spoke, that no one knew except for him.
When at the Tree he chose for me, he took my queue and brought it to the tree, then said "Here, at this place is someone you should know."
I could hear a voice, he spoke quietly, and deliberately, a very wise thinker once told me that the older the words, the more they mean, or the more they don't make since. I was lucky that I only wanted to hear the voice, and listen to what it spoke.
"Kaltxì Ma Neytiri'ite. Oel ngengati kuyameie. Luyu Oeru tstxo Eytukan sì Neytiriyä sempu. Ngengaru luyu fpom srak?" ~ Hello O daughter of Neytiri. I See you. I am Eytukan, Neytiri's father. Are you well?
I was surprised at how well he knew me, and to recognize me so easily, this was a good omen. The tree was smaller than the others; I knew that it was young, what this meant was that the tree was planted not long before, or only a short while after I was born. I had not known the fate of my grandfather, and I had hoped that I would be able to speak with him. For a long while we spoke of things I did not completely understand.
When we were done, I thanked Norman, and said a Prayer to Eywa for our brothers and sisters and ancestors here. After a short meal of fruits from the forest, we made our way back to Ngämekelutral.
I was playing with my Palulukan Cub, and found a way to make it laugh, as much as a creature like this can understand laughing, it seemed to find enjoyment from having its belly played with. When it came near to me, when I was sitting on the ground, it would lay down in front of me with its belly exposed, as if trying to change my focus to its needs for attention. I forget sometimes this creature will hunt, kill, and eat my people, so I worried how well the friendship will end when it needs to live in the wood again.
Norman in his, Uniltìrantokx lewan ~ young Avatar body, was leaving for the Cabin at Hell's Gate and heading towards a group of People who are part of the Iroquois man's band of sawtute ~ sky people who have come to fly him there. Before he went to speak with them, I wanted to show him, what was happening with the Cub.
"Ma Lì'utìngyu, ngati nari si fitseng." ~ "Word Giver", look here.
"Ma Tomitxe, Kempe si nga?" ~ Tomitxe, what are you doing?
"Oeyä Palulukanä 'ewan poru nari sivi." ~ Watch my Palulukan's cub.
"Ngal poru 'atsampi ko?" ~ You touched it, right?
"Oel fìkem si, poru hangham! Kempe lì'u tstxo fìkem'uru?" ~ I do this action, it laughs! Do you have a word for this?
"LeNa'vi lì'u ko?" ~ Na'vi words?
"Kehe! Le'ìnglìsì lì'u." ~ No! In English.
"Uh… Tickling."
"Tewti!"
"But, I thought you knew that word already in either language?"
"No, I did not know it in English."
"What did you want to do, today?" Norman was not interested in caring for the Cub, and he spent as little time around it as he could make possible. But, the cub was much friendlier to him, and followed him around when I was not near. This bothered Norman, and I was aware of it, it showed when Norm would try to change our focus away from the Cub. But, I also knew there was a need to go farther with getting the cub to hunt, and to stalk, and to learn how to track its food. We knew it ate Yerik meat; it was good meat, so we had to think of a way to teach it about this.
"I want to teach the Cub hunting, we cannot feed it, and it is nearly grown. It has been two months, it needs us too much."
"That's your area, not mine. I need to speak with Onatah. You and I can speak more later. You want to come to Hell's Gate with me?" He walked away without giving me time to disagree with him. Before my father's anger hurt Norman, before the Ikran came upon us, before the nantang pack attacked us, he wanted to be like the people. He wanted to learn our ways, but with each passing week, he started becoming more distant, from me, from my father, from my mother, and from Mo'at his best teacher. It started to feel like Norman and I were not going to be friends anymore, and this made me sad, but I understood it, and for now chose to let it be.
We have not gone hunting without oeyä sa'nok ~ my mother in some time, but she decided that she is a better teacher, because oeyä sempu ~ my father nearly allowed an ikran, a Palulukan, and a pack of nantang to eat Norman and I.
I walked with Norman over to where he was going to speak with the Iroquois man, and Norman began asking him some questions. Before the Iroquois man would answer, he looked at me and asked me some questions.
"Kempe Ngengal luyu tstxo?" He speaks Na'vi very formally like the way olo'eyktan ~ clan leaders do during ceremonies. "What is your name" He was asking me.
"Oel luyu tstxo Tomitxe te Tskaha Neytiri'ite, ngengal ke nivuyume fì'u ko?" Speaking in a similar formal way, I answer him, "I am Tomitxe of the Tskaha lineage, daughter of Neytiri, you did not learn this?"
The Iroquois man laughed very heavily, and smiled at me, said I have a good name, "Luyu sìltsana tstxo ma Tomitxe.", then began talking to Norman in English.
I do not understand this Iroquois man, he had been here for months, and did not know me. I wondered if my father ever remembered to tell this man my name. My father spoke to him so much; I do not know how he could not know who I am. My mother did not like talking to him, and probably would not have told him who I was, but certainly he must have learned my name from my father.
Norman, the Iroquois man two other sawtute and I climb into the gunship, and fly back to Hell's gate. As we are flying away, I can see my mother watching us from below as Ngämekelutral fades behind the near cliffs, and the range of forested hills. I wonder what she thinks of us spending so much time with my father at Hell's Gate, I wonder if she is sad from this, I wonder if she is happy from this, I wonder if Norman is going to get his Ikran, I wonder if oeyä palulukanä 'ewan will survive long enough to become a father.
On the base, I go to the base door to the training grounds, and talk to one of the humans about speaking with my father, they tell me he is busy with something inside and cannot come outside yet. My Palulukan Cub keeps following me everywhere; it does not seem to know how to stay in one place, and likes to see what I am doing. It is almost big enough for me to ride it, but I don't think it would like that very much. So I continue walking around the outside of the base, and I come to a part where the machines of war are being worked on. I see them, tall like the biggest Na'vi, wide like a hammerhead, ketuwong lefngap ~ metal aliens. The sawtute word is AMP, the "ämpx", as we call them, are big, and they are dangerous, and the elders frighten us about stories where these things were used by the sawtute to cut off our queues, or to kill our strongest warriors. I often thought these stories must have been made up to scare children, so they will obey their parents.
The way that the humans here live their lives now, we never see these machines move, but they have been here for a long time, and the stories I have been told about them are scary to me. I do not know why the humans would make these machines, but I do not like them, and am glad they are not moving. Glad as I am, I am always curious, and always wanting to know about sawtute things, and I decide to climb into it, and look at it from the inside.
I don't remember the words for all of these things, bristling like thorns, strange skins, it was not made from any animals that I know, it had a strange texture to it, like so many sawtute things did. I wanted to know how it all worked, and then I saw a word I remembered from the videogames, "START". The controls on this machine are like a videogame, so I put them on.
"STXARRTX!" I shouted. And flipped the thorn with a smile, at last I was riding the monster.
A wiring noise and lights like the night time forest, and sawtute words flowing on a flat rock made of water, the machine was alive. My Palulukan cub ran from the machine, it did not like the noises it made, and started and hopped yowling at it as it moved. I worked the arms very easily, but I could not understand the legs, and then I managed to get it working with the legs. I kept falling forward, and backward, but I was able to eventually stand in the machine. I closed the canopy and started walking around the base, I started to see sawtute looking at me trying to get my attention, but I thought they were just trying to keep me from smashing something fragile. What I did not know, what I did not understand, is that this machine was dangerous to me, I found out how dangerous, I was starting to have trouble breathing, the air was not Eywa'eveng air, and I was not feeling well. I needed to open the canopy, but pushing on it did not work, pressing on buttons did not work, and I finally moved the START thorn again and hoped it meant stop. I was lucky, the canopy opened, and the humans were able to help me out of the metal alien. I coughed for a while, and Norman helped me with water, and patting my back to get the wrong air out of me chest. I am my father's daughter, "Oe sumpuyä 'ite läpu." A big moron, "apxa skxawng".
"sran." Norman said very lightly.
When my father became aware of what happened he decided to have a very, very, very, very long talk with me, and thought that it was time for me to stop doing things that could cause me, and others harm. He decided it would be best to take me to the uniltìrontokx hut to have the talk.
"O Tomitxe, pivlltxe oehu." ~ Tomitxe, speak with me.
"Srane! Ma sempu, oel ngengati tuyìng mikyun." ~ Yes. Father, I'll listen.
In Na'vi only, my father I spoke.
"You are getting older now. You have much that you must learn. Someday you will be Tsahìk. Sky people things are dangerous, and cause much pain for the Omatikaya clan. Why do you play with them so much? Why can you not focus on being Na'vi?"
"O Father I am not just Na'vi, just as you are not just Na'vi. I want to know about these things because they are a part of your past. I want to know about my father, and what made him into who he is. I want to be like him, as much as I want to be like my mother."
"We have books, we have videos. Is that not enough, or is it not enough to ask me or Norm questions about these things?"
"Yes father, it would be, if you were not better friends with the Iroquois man, than you were at being a father to me, or than you were at being a friend to Norman, or you were at being responsible with my mother's feelings."
Oeyä sempul lowers his continues speaking in Na'vi "Please forgive me, I had no idea you were thinking like this."
"You started to think Eywa tricked you, made you help the Na'vi, and you acted like you hated being Na'vi. I could not ask you to teach me, and you did not act like you wanted to teach me. I want to understand, I don't want you to hate me."
"No, no, no... O young Tomitxe. I love you, your mother, and the Na'vi people with all of my heart, and I could not hate you more than I could hate my own arm. I work with the Iroquois man so much because he is trying to help save us, save us from the Sky people, he has shown us that they will be here so very soon, Sky people that are like daemons in their hearts. I know that the Iroquois man believes Eywa called me here, but I have decided that I will not believe that, I do not want my past to taint and damage what I have here now, especially after hearing this. I should learn to talk to you more. I wish I was just able to focus on the life here again because it was much less complicated before the Iroquois man came. I am so very sorry for all of this, I will make amends to you, I promise you this. We will have our peaceful life again."
"I do not want a promise, I want actions; I want you to be here now for us."
"I have to keep working with the Iroquois man, and the other Na'vi warriors. We are building weapons that will help us fight."
"More fighting? More war? What about peace, what about talking to the sky people, and making them go home?"
"The coming Sky people are not like the ones here, they are of stone hearts, and cold blood, they worship the cloth and make a long journey for this world thinking that they will have much cloth when they return home. But when the wake from the frozen sleeping, we think they will be coming for revenge against us all."
"Cloth? What cloth, they can weave what they need! Why do they need ours?"
"The Sky people word for what I mean is –money- I used the cloth word from Norman, that is what he called it. For the Na'vi people, he thought it is as valuable as cloth, and as useless in the size it was made."
"Show me?"
"Later, I do not know if there is any on the base. We might have burned it all or used it for taking notes."
"The Iroquois man and his people, they are –Gaia'eveng-(children of Gaia), this is an ancient name for the Mother of earth, and many of us did not know she existed. He brought her here to be healed by Eywa, and to help protect Eywa he brought people who followed Gaia and the Iroquois man. There is a machine coming that will destroy us, if the Sky people start it, we will all die, and it will be the end of us all."
"Gaia, can Sky People bond with Gaia?"
"Not exactly, we have to drink –Peyote- to speak with Gaia, and we had not done it in so long, we were unable to figure out how to do it. Also, -peyote- does strange things to our mind, it is like a mix of the dream hunt, and the bond, and for humans is often much more confusing."
"So what do I do to commune with Gaia?"
"Why would you want to do that?"
"If I can speak with Gaia, maybe I can convince her to stop the Sky People from killing us. Maybe she can teach them a new way to live on Earth?"
"That is a very noble idea my daughter, but it is also very naive. The Sky people have not spoken to Gaia in a very long time, the intervening years between my birth, and when we chased the RDA sky people off of Pandora, not even the Iroquois man was speaking to her. Now, Gaia and Onatah are living in his body, together, as one being. They are not the same anymore, he has changed into something completely new using materials and DNA he gathered here. He calls himself the seed, one to be planted. It is odd, but he continues to say this over and over again. He is changing himself, to better be like the being that Eywa is, and when he returns to rebuild Earth, he plans to plant himself in the soil and sprout new life again. What he is going to do to achieve this is outside of my area of understanding, and the strength of my mind to contain, but the scientists on the base are always asking him questions about it. They say they may have to help him and go to Earth."
"Do you want him to do this thing?"
"Yes."
"What about the fighting?"
"Gaia has learned a lesson from Eywa, anything worth saving, is worth fighting for. The Sky people will be returning to a much harsher world than they remember, they are likely to be given a violent lesson in respect for life."
"Do you think you will be able to send the coming Sky People back to earth, or will this war kill us all?"
"I do not know for certain, they have better weapons, and killing machines than the RDA left here. We are trying to build machines that will help us to fight the Sky People, machines the Na'vi can use. Also, your adventure in the AMP suit gave everyone an idea; you may have saved us a great deal of trouble. We don't have much time left, and it will not be easy, but we think it would be necessary to have the -AMP technology- modified to allow for Na'vi better armor in the coming battles. This is going to take some thought, but we think it will be much faster than building new ones. We are also making armor, blades, and special cross bows. All of these things are why the factory is beginning production again, why the mining has resumed. We need things Eywa does not provide."
"What about the sea? Why was the sea so important? Why would they put this machine into the sea?"
"The machine uses the sea water, and the materials on the sea bed to make it work better, make it work faster. Also, because we have no sea machines of our own, we cannot fight them there with the Ikran or Pa'li. We are out of ideas, we do not have the equipment to build a submarine, and it would take us too long to build the equipment we need. We are probably going to have to build one eventually, but it won't be in time to deal with the threat of the coming Sky People."
"Have you spoken to the –Apxapayä maktoyu ikranit kaya- The Ikran Riders of the eastern sea?"
"No. They did not want to talk to us, after the war, they stayed away."
"Why?"
"The other battles were hard fought, they lost many of their brothers and sisters, it was very sad for them. It was very hard talk to them after. Their leader was very strong, a good warrior, but she was very young, and impulsive, like me. She did not enjoy being around the sky people, and chose to keep her distance after the fighting. She also did not like the sound of my Sky people accent when I spoke Na'vi, she would complain about it to Neytiri for every word I spoke. She would complain about my bad grammar, and my weak vocabulary. I do not think she ever had a kind thing to say about me when I would try to speak in Na'vi around her, no encouragement, only criticism. I think she disliked me more for my speaking than for any other reasons."
"I love you father, you will always be able to speak to me, I do not always get my words right either, I do not think I am a –perfectionist- like you say in English."
"I don't think I am a –perfectionist- either, but that might be a bad problem later."
"What about the sea people?"
"What?"
"The Sea people? Have you talked to the Sea People?"
"Who are the sea people?"
"Na'vi who know the creatures of the sea."
"No one ever told me about them, where did you hear about them?"
"From Eytukan."
"Is he speaking to you now?"
"Not now, when we go to his –Utral Aymokriyä- Tree of Voices."
"Right, I haven't been going."
" –tsaheylu- the bond allows us to speak to him in the dreaming. I asked him if he knew why Eywa would be strong in the sea, he said to talk to the sea people. But he did not know that I could not go. You should go and commune with him."
"I did not know this, I am such a fool. The solutions to our problems are laid at our feet, and I have been completely blind to them. My daughter, you will make the best Tsahìk when the time comes, don't ever lose your curiosity, no matter what anyone says about it, even me!"
This was the first time I ever thought of my father as wise.