REUNION OF THE AGES (Part 1)
Summary: Jake and Ezi question Vaax's presence in their lands while Victoria, Sky, and Tanner find something mysterious in the woods.
"No, you have been kind enough. I cannot stay another day," Ezi laughed lightly to Neytiri, who had asked for Ezi and Fwap to remain with the Omatikayans until they held the exciting rite-of-passage for their girls.
Ezi, Fwap, Jake, Neytiri, and Mo'at perched together in Jake and Neytiri's tree alcove, the warm light of the forest tinting the yellows of the skin-coverings over the space and lighting everyone's face with a jovial glow.
"I think everyone likes the new tree. Good eye, Mo'at." Jake said.
"For some things they are still good," Mo'at replied to him with a gentle smirk.
"I can't thank you guys enough for everything," Jake said, focusing on his two Olangi visitors. "We would've been screwed if you hadn't shown us how to get rid of those bugs inside of that tree."
Ezi nodded regently at what he understood as Jake's gratitude, even though Jake's English idioms-"screwed" was an entirely new one-could leave him bewildered. "The pests must have migrated," Ezi spoke in Na'vi. "We have plenty of them in the plains."
"You will need our help again, Jaykesewly." Fwap said to Jake. "Many times, I am sure. Being olo'eyktan is not so simple when you have not been trained since birth, as Ezi was. Ezi is still quite young, but you will be helped by his wisdom, and his experience that you lack."
Jake had a strange feeling he was being scolded under Fwap's intense stare which was accented by the creased, white-painted skin in the middle of Fwap's brows. Jake bowed his head slightly to show he understood Fwap, but not enough to show Fwap's words had affected him.
Neytiri caught Jake's offense at Fwap's tone when Jake made an imperceptible nod of his chin. Her father, Eytukan, had used to do the same when speaking with Ezi's father, Akwey, but Eytukan had always done so with a dry grunt of affirmation. Neytiri smiled to herself at the memory. Mo'at supernaturally knew who Neytiri had just been reminded of, and placed her withered hand on Neytiri's thigh in support.
Neytiri heard a band of footsteps coming towards her alcove. She assumed it was Piral and the rest of the talented, ceremonial voice performers in the clan. "You will have to excuse us. Jake will have his singing lessons, now."
Just before Ezi and Fwap politely excused themselves for the time being, Tsu'tey entered the alcove, lugging Zulu at his side, who squirmed as Tsu'tey clenched his bicep. Piral appeared immediately behind Tsu'tey holding Zuuli, who was panting with rage.
Ree'ahn entered the alcove, holding on placidly to Vaax, who had caught a small thicket in his long dreads during the trek to the Omatikayan mainlands. Itoyo came last in the entourage, blocking the captures' exit from Jake.
Beside Jake's protective stance, Neytiri placed a hand at the bone-knife at her hip. Mo'at stood at a secure distance from the newcomers in the alcove.
Ezi blanched as stood slowly with Fwap and faced his old and estranged mentor Vaax, whom he hadn't seen in nearly a decade.
"Who's this?" Jake asked Tsu'tey unceremoniously, squaring a look at the oldest Na'vi ruffian in the bunch whom Tsu'tey and his top warriors had just presented him.
"Oeru syaw Vaax," Vaax uttered gravely. Vaax managed to move his eyes around the alcove, and glared at the unfamiliar face of Jake and the too-familiar glare of Moa't. "This cannot be right! Tsu'tey is olo'eyktan!" He found Ezi, now wearing a nose-bone of his chiefhood, and Vaax's anger faltered into a look of endearment. "Ezi?"
Ezi fixated on the hopeful look in Vaax's eyes, which had become slightly more withered than he remembered.
"Look at you," Vaax breathed, reminiscent. "How many summers are you now?"
Ezi saw Vaax smile with recognition and sadness at how much time had passed since Ezi had been his youngest student of all of the future clan leaders he was entrusted to teach.
Ezi glowered. "That does not matter," Ezi enunciated with a sharp lick of his tongue. His eyes darted over Vaax's form and then over Vaax's supposed son, Zulu, who held a stare of ice at Ezi under his disheveled and damp locks of silver hair. "Why have you returned?"
Zuuli adjusted herself clumsily in Piral's grip on her arms, and she began to categorize the Omatikayans Vaax had described to them. The old Na'vi with the headdress and shawl of a priestess to Eywa was Mo'at, Zuuli reasoned, and the slender, steely-eyed woman must be Neytiri, Tsu'tey's mate. However, the Na'vi with the wear of an Omatikayan olo'eyktan, as Vaax had described to her, looked to be Neytiri's mate instead by the way his form protected her from she, Zulu, and her father.
"I have come to repay my debt," Vaax said.
"Anyone who challenged Eytukan or any other olo'eyktan would be sent away just the same. Our laws were spoken centuries ago, and we will not stray from them now," Mo'at said. "Go back to where you came."
"I cannot let my children continue to struggle to survive because of a mistake I made when I was young. They had nothing to do with it."
"Why must you struggle to survive? The land is plentiful where you were sent."
"It is not that way anymore. Something has changed. There are strange tracks all over the ground, and many of us cannot find anything to eat or water to drink."
Neytiri looked at Mo'at with concern. She knew of peculiar ground markings caused by the RDA's bulldozers after they had uprooted part of the Tree of Souls to plot more of their supposed mining grounds for Unobtanium underneath her territory. Ezi and Fwap didn't miss Neytiri's look, and both had a suspicion that the culprit could be the Skypeople.
"And, it is not my true home. I waited for years to find the strength to face you again, ma Tshaik. Please, I beg you, reconsider," Vaax asked.
"Jakesully will decide when to be merciful," Mo'at said, turning to Jake.
Vaax, Zuuli, and Zulu looked to Jake, who seemed perplexed at what he should believe. The captures' scrawny figures testified much about what hunger they must have endured.
Jake relented with a firm statement in Na'vi, "you may stay here, for now. Tell me more about what you have seen at tonight's meal, and about yourselves, and we will see what the future holds for you."
Words:1203
Will continue soon. Sorry about the short update, but I wanted to put out something for the long wait. Hope it was an enjoyable read so far. I have gone through so much lately it's unreal.