"Your staff is very beautiful," signed Na'dia.
Txep'ean's neck and face coloured, a rush of blood darkening the tone of the skin. It seemed that he was very subject to double entrendres, and remembered yesterday's conversation very well, but she was right. His fighting staff was a beautiful piece of Na'vi craftwork. The shaft was aged ironwood – light yet incredibly strong, while each end was tipped with savagely curving teeth that her palulukan memories told her were from the body of an enormous sea creature. In comparison an Earth great white shark looked like a goldfish. The teeth, the blade of each being slightly more than a foot long, were socketed into each end, the roots fastened to the shaft by elaborate knotwork.
A gesture asked for permission to take the weapon. Txep'ean grinned, and passed her the fighting staff. To tease him, she ran her hands sensuously up and down the silky smooth ironwood while she maintained eye contact, and swayed slightly towards him. He groaned slightly and shifted uncomfortably, trying to surreptitiously adjust his loincloth.
"It is very large," she added, leaning it against his shoulder so she could sign, and rubbing her cheek against the flat of the tooth. "Much larger than I would have expected. Do you mind if I try it? I am almost overcome with the need to employ it in contest with you."
He burst out laughing, and gestured weakly to go ahead.
Na'dia took up the fighting staff again, hefting it to feel its weight and balance. She was right – it was a beautiful weapon, and perfectly balanced as well. Her father had loved the quarterstaff as a weapon, holding that it was one of the most effective hand weapons ever used by man. She made a few moves, simple thrusts and counters, before she started spinning it.
The blades whistled through the air as she spun the staff, dancing with it as it spun ever faster. She had forgotten how much fun it was, weaving a deadly shield around herself, until she screamed, "Haaaa!" as she viciously thrust the staff towards Txep'ean. The very tip of one blade touched the skin above his heart, but he did not flinch away, and a bright drop of blood slowly welled where she had broken his skin.
After she returned the staff to him, she signed, "You did not seek to counter my blow."
"I trust you," he replied. The simple words reflected the truth in his face.
She did not know how to reply.
Txep'ean frowned deeply. He added, "You cried out. I have never heard you give voice before, not since you were..." He hesitated. He did not want to say the words – saying them would make him remember his heart being ripped from his chest, when she was expelled from the clan.
Na'dia smiled wistfully. Her fingers twitching rapidly, she signed, "The words I wish to say are in my heart, but I no longer know how to shape my mouth to fit the words, although I can cry out when in the grip of strong emotion. When I bonded with the palulukan, she changed me so that I can See the life of Eywa. Since then..."
"There is a price for everything," stated Txep'ean. Na'dia smiled. He understood – few humans would, as they ever sought to avoid paying the price, although this did not seem to be a characteristic of the Na'vi.
The pair stood quietly, gazing into each other's eyes, when Txep'ean spoke again. "Can you sing?"
She honestly did not know. Na'dia drew in her breath, and to her surprise began to sing a simple lullaby that her father used to sing to her when she could not sleep.
"I do not recognise the words," said Txep'ean, after she stopped singing. "They were not Na'vi, or Ìnglìsì."
"No," she signed, and sighed. Her mouth still would not shape words. "The song was in my birth-tongue, Ukrainian." She spelt out the syllables of the unfamiliar word for him.
"U'krane'in," he repeated. "The words sound beautiful, almost as beautiful as the singer. What do they mean?"
"The song tells of children playing in the spring sunshine, amongst the new flowers, waiting for their grandparents to come," she answered. Her heart leapt into her mouth, and her eyes moistened. He had called her beautiful.
There were songs that Na'vi parents sang to their children that were much the same. He smiled, thinking of his own childhood, and made a statement that he had been thinking about for some time. "You are close to my sister Ninat, in the same tsumuke'awsiteng, although you are not Omaticaya."
Na'dia signed assent.
"She has been acting like one who has been Chosen, although there is no male that has claimed her."
There were several seconds of stillness, as she still did not know how to respond to his statement, even though Na'dia had been both hoping for and fearing this conversation for many months.
"I have known for many years that no male would ever find favour in my sister's heart," he said.
Hesitatingly, she signed, "We are mated before Eywa."
He smiled sadly. Txep'ean had suspected that Na'dia and Ninat were lifemates. It was against all custom of the Omaticaya, but he loved his sister, and would have her be happy.
Na'dia saw his disappointment, and felt compelled to tell him the truth. "Before my life was burnt away, when I was tawtute, my life was very unlike that of the Na'vi. I was attracted to both male and female – not in play, like among the sisters of the tsumuke'awsiteng, but for life."
Now he looked confused.
She continued her story, "After I was burnt with the fires of the sun, I allowed no-one to touch my heart, until I came to this world as a dreamwalker, and I fell in love with the forest. But my heart was still empty as it was when I was born as tawtute, until I met you, and I met your sister."
Txep'ean still looked confused.
"When Ninat joined with me in tsahaylu, she filled half the hole in my heart. I would have you fill the other half. That is why I wished to train you, so that you would come to know me as more than an alien dreamwalker possessed with the spirit of a palulukan."
Unbelievingly, he asked, "You wish to mate with me?"
"Yes," she signed. "Now and for all ways, as long as you share me with Ninat."
Slowly, he nodded his head. "I must think upon this, and talk to my sister. It is...different."
Na'dia added one other thing. "I can never be Omaticaya, Txep'ean. The Tsahik saw it before I did. I follow a different path."
"I think I understand," he replied cautiously, before flashing a brief smile. "But before I speak to Ninat, you promised me a lesson."
Although she was tempted to let him best her, Txep'ean would have known that she was doing so, and it would have shamed him. So she did as she always did – fought with all her skill and tenacity against him. That made the three kisses he won from her this day her even more precious.