Chapter Thirty-Four: Hallelujah Finale
"You're not sticking around for the ceremony?"
Hayley stopped in the doorway of the avatar driving room. She took her attention for a moment off of the driver beds, glowing soft green and enticing. She looked back into the hallway and say Li's worried face.
"I..I can't." The words caught in her throat. "My avatar is going to need food and to move around soon. I don't want to damage it."
Li drew his lips into a hard line. "Are you sure you can't spare a few minutes? It's important for everyone to be together right now."
"Did Lucas ask you to do this?"
It was a lame response, and Hayley could see that Li reacted instantly to it.
"No," he said, his voice gaining a hard edge. "I think you should come."
He came closer. Hayley felt like she was rooted to the floor. He put his hands on her shoulders. Hayley could smell the coffee on his breath.
"Don't run away from this, if that's what you're doing."
Hayley stared right back at him.
"Li...did Jake run away from all of this?"
Li blinked. "I ran away from earth to be here, Hayley. I left some people behind that I really cared about. But I care about these people. I care about Max. I care about you." He squeezed her shoulders gently.
"What are you trying to say?" Hayley kept her tone soft.
"People are scared," Li shook his head. "They don't know what's going to happen to them. They don't have avatars, and they don't have Max to help them anymore."
"There are other people on staff that know how to grow avatars," Hayley replied. "There's also specialists on Earth that we can liaise with."
Li sighed. "Look, if you need to go, go. But I know you and Lucas are hiding something. Please, for my sake, tell me."
So, it was that obvious.
"Li...I don't think this is a good time to talk about it."
Li dropped his hands from her shoulders, as if unfrozen. "What is it? Just tell me."
Hayley shook her head.
"You can't tell the others. I'm telling you. It would make things worse."
Li nodded slightly.
"Please, Hayley."
Hayley rubbed her eyes.
"I had a meeting with Lucas while I was recovering from the emergency delink. He needs me to go back as soon as possible so ask the Eastern Ikran Clan for unobtanium."
Li frowned, then realization dawned on him, and his eyes widened.
"How long do we have without additional unobtanium?"
"...I reviewed Max's vlog. According to his calculation, two months."
"Christ," Li said. "Is that why..."
Hayley felt tears welling up behind her eyes, despite herself. "Yes, Li. I'm so sorry. That's why I need to go back."
"I'm never going to see them again."
"What?" Hayley asked him.
"I thought maybe I had a chance...get a shuttle back, or maybe the Venture Star in five more years..."
"You mean go back to earth," Hayley said.
"I...and that's why Max did it. He did it to give us more time."
"I don't know, Li...I've said too much."
Li stared at her, his mouth working. "No, I want to hear all of it."
Hayley looked to the left and right, to make sure no one was near.
"Yes and no. He realized that two months isn't enough time to grow avatars for everyone. Not enough time for the Venture Star to come back, if it even could. But he was also struggling with some stuff, Li. It's been really hard up here, but there's hope if we can ask the Na'vi for just a bit of unobtanium."
"And how long is that going to last?" Li said, voice choked.
"Long enough for us to figure out how to get out of this situation," Hayley said, voice firm. "Tell everyone I send my condolences. Tell them not to give up hope. Please."
She drew Li into a hug. He's so tense...but bit by bit, Hayley felt him easing into her embrace.
"My mom and dad could be dead," he whispered. "What am I hoping for?"
"That they're not," Hayley replied. "That they can come here, through the portal in the mountains."
After a moment or two more, Li and Hayley stepped away from each other.
"Don't run away," Li said one more time. "Come back and help us."
She opened her eyes to a sea of deep blue and glittering stars, obscured by a netlike canopy of woven reeds. Hayley blinked, then stretched and wiggled her fingers and toes. Everything seems to be still working...good. She slowly rolled her body over and rose to her feet.
To her surprise, there was no one in sight. They had placed her body on the carpeted floor of a woven canopy of some sort. It sat, nestled in the rock face. Hayley let her eyes wander over the woven tapestries under her legs, to see that someone had left her a handful of dried fruit, nuts, and jerky. She chewed on them slowly, feeling hunger quickly ignite inside of her.
Other than a dehydration headache, she seemed fine. Hayley scrambled to her feet, and made her way out of the canopy. There were a set of steps carved into the rock of the mountain, and she followed those. The canopy was an offshoot of the main passageway through the mountains that she had climbed earlier with Tseotoe. As she descended, she could hear voices swelling in laughter. She emerged into a clearing with more huts, where a group of mountain dwellers were sitting around a fire.
"You are up late," one of them called out to her.
"Have you seen any members of my clan?" Hayley addressed the circle.
"The one that was by your side, Onui'lk," the same na'vi replied. "She gave us a message. She has flown to the surface to visit one of the sacred sites below."
"Which sacred site?"
"The grove of ghosts," was the reply.
The grove of ghosts? Hayley had never heard of that place.
"How can I find it?" she asked.
"Look for the seeds from the tree of souls. They gather there."
"Thank you," Hayley said. She climbed up onto a nearby rock, and whistled for Dagger. After a few moments, he flew up from the side of the mountain like a bullet, snapping his wings open with a leathery fumph as he glided down to her.
Hayley swung on and linked, and the two of them plunged from the cliff. Dagger hugged the rock face, for no reason other than the pleasure and the thrill of being reunited with his rider.
You think friends will die, Dagger thought to her.
I don't know. Sorry for thinking about it.
Good to think of protecting friends. Friends protect you when one is not enough to defend. No friends, die.
Looking for the ghost grove. Many seeds from the tree.
There.
Hayley/Dagger saw the soft white glow between the trees. They plunged through the dark upper layers of the canopy. Their wings twisted, furled and unfurled, until they had cleared the foliage and were in the clearing.
Hayley/Dagger alighted on a nearby rock.
I want to hunt.
Hayley smiled.
Go on. I'll whistle when I need you.
Dagger launched into the air.
Hayley made her way down a protruding root. It was covered in soft blue bioluminescence that flared with each of her bare footsteps. Part of her was still getting used to the idea of going barefoot. The seeds of the tree of life oscillated like spidery jellyfish all around her. They swirled around in a circle around the clearing. A small waterfall churned and burbled, water cascading down wet rocks and winding into a river that snaked through a variety of colourful, glowing plants.
In the centre of the clearing, sitting cross-legged and plugged into the network of roots around her, was Onu. She was swaying gently, chanting to herself. Her skin was lit up in the colours of the plants around her - deep orange, neon purple, electric green. Deep within, the small stars of Onu's own glowing body shone through.
"Onu."
Onui'lk slowly opened her eyes. She smiled.
"Hailei."
Hayley sat down in front of her.
"What is this place? Why is it called the grove of ghosts?"
Onu chuckled softly. "I have not been here in a long time. It is a place one can go to speak with family and friends from the past."
"But I thought that was what the tree of souls was for."
Onu shook her head, beads clicking. "The tree of souls is for souls to pass through on their way to somewhere else. The only one you can speak to there was Eywa herself."
"I spoke to Grace there."
"You did not. Grace is a part of Eywa now."
Hayley struggled to piece it together. "So...there are those who become a part of Ewya, and some who live within her but are not a part of her?"
Onu closed her eyes. "There are many mysteries about our world that your people have not learned about yet." Onu's gave her queue a quick tug, and the tendrils released. She opened her eyes.
My people, Hayley thought.
"Who were you speaking to?"
"My mother. I was telling her about you, and our adventures. She is happy for me, and she is happy for the humans that have come here to our planet."
Hayley smiled. "I would like to meet her some day."
"You may speak with her now, if you like."
"Thank you, but...Onu...there is something I need to tell you. I am ready to pass through the eye of Eywa."
"Hailei...what has happened for you to make that choice now?"
Hayley felt herself beginning to quiver. "I have learned that sometimes...making a choice is making no choice, and that making no choice is making a choice."
At that, Onu's grin spread wide. "You are talking in riddles...I like that."
Hayley shook her head. "What I mean is that...if I wait much longer, time will choose for me. I have two clans right now. The human, and the Eastern Ikran. My human clan is asking me to do something that will hurt my other clan. They are asking me to come to you and get the silverstone."
"The humans want the silverstone because it keeps them alive," Onu said. "Are they dying?"
Hayley nodded. "They are not dying right now. But they will be soon, without it. But taking the silverstone will mean killing part of mother Eywa." She could feel her eyes stinging, but willed herself not to break down. Not again. "Humans are ghosts. They walk on the Earth and on Pandora, but they are dead. They are fighting for life, but there is no way to survive."
"The humans should dreamwalk with us."
"No...not every human has a dreamwalking body."
"So it is the choice between joining Eywa or burning the silverstone." Onu contemplated. "What is happening back on Earth."
"I don't know. I think that something similar is happening. Many humans, especially those that are old and sick, are joining Eywa through the sky portal. Gr...Eywa wanted to help before by sowing her seeds on earth, but I think she realized through talking to the humans on Earth that this would not be possible."
Onu put a hand over hers.
"I am sad for your people, Hayley."
"Me too," was all that Hayley could think to say.
"So you are ready, then, to leave your ghost life."
They were silent for a while after that, the cries and hoots of animals echoing around them as they sat together in the glade.
"There is something else I wanted to talk to you about," Hayley began. She ran her fingers through her hair, feeling the ridges of the thick braids Onu had put in a few weeks ago.
"I feel it too." Onu replied.
"Feel what?" Hayley replied reflexively.
Onu squeezed the hand she had in hers. With her other hand, she reached up and cupped Hayley's face, then ran her own fingers down through Hayley's dark braids until Onu had reached Hayley's other hand. She interlaced their fingers, four nestled within five, then brought both hands together.
"When I told you about Maru and his offer, you told me that you had not made up your mind yet. You took my hand then, just as I am taking yours now. You told me that you would clear your heart and mind when the time comes. I can see that your heart and mind are clear, now. You are ready."
"How long have you felt the same way?" Hayley asked.
"It started when I saw you fighting so strongly for what you felt was right. You were willing to turn on your own bad blood, to throw away the chance of ever going back to your home, to save a people you had only just met." Onu held firm onto their clasped hands, squeezing for emphasis. "I saw you, then. And I saw how you became a part of us so easily, like you had slipped your hand into that of your mates'. But I also saw that you continued to struggle. And I felt a swell of pride in those moments, to know that no matter how difficult, you would always consider what the right path was."
"But you never..." Hayley trailed off.
"I did not want to sway your choice. I cared about you too much," Onu said. She turned her head and looked down for a moment. "And...this choice is not an easy one either. No one has made the choice with me yet for that reason."
"It doesn't feel difficult to me," Hayley said, warmth surging through her chest.
Onu looked up, eyes glistening around their edges. She smiled, then laughed a breathy laugh, deep in her throat.
"You are not the only one who has had to walk a path between two worlds," Onu said, voice thick.
Hayley felt the tickling sensation of floating seeds brush over her back and shoulders as she drew in towards Onu. She kissed Onu's eye, than the other. Onu released Hayley's hands, and Hayley floated them up to either side of Onu's face. For a moment, they only looked at each other, drinking each other in with each shallow breath.
In the next, they were entwined, in each other and in the soft tall grasses. The seeds around them, landing on their bodies and alighting as they moved with each other.
"Wait," Onu breathed, and Hayley paused, her lips pressing under the swell of Onu's breast. Hayley broke away from the soft blue expanse of her mate's skin to look up. Onu held up her queue between the two of them.
Oh, god...
Hayley held hers up, brushing their hair together. The two trembling queues met. Tendrils wove together, and the spark in both of their minds ignited into a flame.