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A/N – This chapter contains suggestively sexual content. If this makes you uncomfortable, a summary is provided at the end.

Norm brought Tseyo his dinner and said, "This is the last of the food you brought, so I hope you enjoy it."

Tseyo replied with a grin, "It would be a shame if the last meal were a sour one."

He could not help but wince. "I wouldn't think of it as your last meal. We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow."

Tseyo took a breath and asked, "Are our enemies going to be any less cruel than T'ngyute was to the woman?"

"It's not likely," Norm replied with a shake of his head. Tseyo just nodded, allowing for a long, awkward silence to take hold. It was broken when Norm asked, "I know you've been preparing for your ritual before battle. Do you need any help?"

Tseyo shook his head. "That's very kind of you, friend, but I can perform it on my own." He took a breath and added, "And before then, I need time to balance my energy."

"I understand," Norm said with a nod. "But send for me if you need help."

"Thank you," he said. Before Norm turned to leave, however, Tseyo leaned forward and gave him a hug; which he very quickly returned. "Thank you for being a friend – to me and my people," Tseyo said quietly.

"I was happy to be," he replied. They held the embrace for a while, as he let Tseyo be the one to disengage first. They exchanged smiles and bows of courtesy, and then Norm headed upstairs to his designated room.

He entered just as Amy was stepping out of the bathroom, wiping her mouth. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she said. "I just had to throw up."

Norm raised an eyebrow and replied, "That doesn't sound like you're fine."

Amy chuckled and said, "I always do before a major mission. I have for my whole career. I don't feel all that nervous, but it happens anyway." She grinned and said, "Relax, Norm. The timing isn't right for me to have morning sickness."

"That's not—," he was unable to finish the thought without laughing – as much in relief as in cueing off her humor, not that they had had anything close to an active sex life since her imprisonment. "All right, fair enough. I'll stand down."

"So how's the star of the show doing?"

"He's as okay as you'd expect," Norm replied. "This is what he's been preparing for, so I think he's better now that the waiting is over."

"And how are you doing?" she asked more seriously.

He tried to hide his nervousness behind a laugh. "Honestly? I think I'm ready to pass out, which is really kind of stupid when you think about it."

"I don't think it's stupid," Amy replied. "This is – There are a lot of risks."

Norm sat on the edge of the bed, and she sat beside him. "I know, but I remember when Jake and I were planning the first fight against RDA. I mean, we had nothing to go on – not even close to the preparation that's gone into this plan – but I think I felt more confident about that than I do now." He sighed and added, "This feels right as a matter of principle, but I just can't shake this kind of uneasiness about the whole thing."

"Well," Amy began with a sigh, "much as I like him, Abe isn't the best at inspiring confidence. He just kind of commands, and then has presence enough to make you obey."

His laugh was short and harsh. "Yeah." He shook his head and said, "I guess that's what's got me worried the most. It's not knowing what he's going to do if things go wrong."

"Not to add to your worries," she said, "but I think if things go wrong, it's not going to matter too much what he does."

"Yeah, that's not the most pleasant thought."

Amy casually took his hand in hers and said, "Listen, the best thing you can do right now is stop trying to think about what could happen tomorrow, and just focus on what we want to have happen. You're going to go crazy if you try to play all the variables at this point."

"I know," he replied. "It just seemed a lot simpler the first time around."

"Things change," she said with a light shrug of her shoulders. "You just have to roll with it."

He grinned, looked at her, and asked, "Is that the great secret of the War College, 'Just roll with it?'"

Amy chuckled and replied, "You know, for all the theories and strategies we went through, at the end of the day, that's kind of what it felt like. They always emphasized flexibility in planning, keeping options open, and maintaining strategic awareness. I think if you boiled down every great general's strategy, from Sun Tzu on, you would get, 'Just roll with it.'"

"I think that may explain a lot, actually," he said with a laugh. "But even though I know you haven't wanted to talk about it, I'd still like to know how you see us rolling out of all of this."

She paused for a few moments and looked away from him. He was certain that he was going to hear the same refrain, but instead she said, "Whatever happens tomorrow, I would like it if the day after tomorrow we could find somewhere that we can start to put all this crazy shit behind us."

Norm dared to smile. "You mean it?"

"I mean it," she said, squeezing his hand. "You still manage to annoy me," she added with a grin, "but then you always have. So I guess that means we're back to normal."

He put his arm around her shoulders and started to lean towards her, but then he laughed and said, "I really want to kiss you, but you just threw up."

Amy smiled and replied, "You don't have to kiss me on the lips, if you don't want to."

"But that's the best place," he said, though he settled for her cheek and neck.

"I'm sure you could figure out some others if you put your mind to it," she said with a laugh as she put a hand on the back of his neck, encouraging him on.

It was not long before they settled into a familiar embrace, although for Norm it felt like it was a lifetime ago that they had last been so situated. Whether that did anything more to enhance the experience, Norm was not particularly concerned with knowing. By the time they were content to simply lay in each other's arms, and sleep overcame them, Norm was thinking much further out than tomorrow.

Tseyo sat on his knees and stared into the reflective wall mount. As when Natalie had captured his image, it took him a moment to become comfortable with the clarity of his reflection. Just on a whim, he reached out to see if the Sky People had devised a method by which he was actually looking at a replica of himself; but when his fingers made contact with the slick, cold surface – not the warm flesh of the fingers which had reached back towards him – he actually felt relief.

He withdrew his fingers, took a deep breath, and made the short crawl over to the large basin in which he'd bathed when they arrived. Tseyo had already placed the paint-containing seeds beside the basin, and next to them he laid two stones he had brought with him for this ritual. One was pumice stone, plentiful on the plains near his home, and the other was a sharp, thick flint that had been gifted to him before his departure.

He turned the stones to make the water flow, adjusting them until the water flowed warm, and waited until the basin was nearly filled. He stripped off his clothes, and then entered on his knees. He cupped his hands to gather water before releasing it over his head. He repeated this several times as he hummed songs of prayer for his ancestors to give him strength.

Tseyo took the pumice stone and began to scrub his skin, occasionally stirring the stone in the water to keep it from feeling too abrasive. When he learned this ritual from the elders, they said it was to be sure the jungle's predators would not catch his scent. In the back of his mind, he thought it was so his friends and loved ones would remember him more purely in the event he was carried home as tattered flesh.

When he felt confident that his skin was clean, he brought the flint to his scalp. He took a handful of hair, took a deep breath, and then began to cut it away. Tseyo kept at this until all that remained was the hair which naturally braided around his kuru; although when he ran his hand over the now-exposed scalp, he was disappointed to feel a few patches the flint had missed. At home, there would have been an elder warrior or member of the family to help ensure his scalp was clean.

Twice more he doused his body with water, and then he let the basin drain. He remembered what Norm had told him about the Sky People's obsession with preventing water from drying on its own; so he reached for one of the large, thickly woven cloths that were beside the basin, and then he stood and began to dry himself off. As he did this, he turned and was startled to see Natalie leaning against the wooden frame which separated the washing nook from her sleeping area.

"Natalie?" he prompted when her eyes did not meet his. In fact, he wondered if she was entirely aware that he was looking at her.

She came out of her long stare and, looking him in the eyes, weakly smiled and said, "Sorry. I, um, I wasn't watching for long."

He gave her a knowing grin, and something less-than discretely discarded the drying cloth for his loincloth. "Did my singing bother you again?" he asked.

"Your singing never bothers me," Natalie replied with a smile. "You just left the door open," she said casually as she tapped her knuckles on the wooden panel.

"Ah," he said with a smile. "As I told you the first night we spoke, we do not have ayfoor in Kelutral. I did not know I was supposed to close it then."

"Only if you wanted privacy."

"Also as I told you, that is not something I know." He took a breath and continued, "And even if it were something I knew, it does not sound like something I would do for a ritual."

Natalie's smile faded. "What is the ritual?"

Tseyo's response was solemn. "To be clean before going into battle."

She sighed and looked down at her feet. "Fun," she said in her language, and then she looked up at him and asked, "Why do you have to cut your hair off before a battle?"

"They say that it is so a warrior won't grab your hair in the middle of a fight," he replied. "But I think it is really just to make painting easier."

She stepped into the room. "Let me see." Tseyo sat cross-legged in front of her – making him a little shorter than her, which remained a somewhat unsettling feeling – and leaned his head forward. He was surprised by how delicate her fingers felt against his skin, as though her hands had never been worked. "You missed some places," she said lightly, as though to joke rather than criticize.

He scoffed and replied, "The stone loses sharpness after the first few cuts, but I didn't bring another."

"Come over here," she said as she walked to the small basin beneath the reflective mount. "I can help with that."

"You don't have to—," he said half-heartedly, even though he did not hesitate to scoot forward.

Natalie gave the reflective mount a gentle push, and to his surprise, it popped open to reveal small compartments behind it. From them, she withdrew a canister and small, stick-like instrument. Tseyo reached for it, and immediately he thought it was going to snap in his fingers.

His puzzlement must have been apparent to her, because she insisted, "It'll work." She ran a hand over her own, bald head and said with a grin, "See? I have practice."

Tseyo smiled and handed her the instrument, and then he lowered his head for her once again. He heard a noise like someone breathing harshly into a hollow chamber, and then she began to rub his head with a cold, soft substance. Natalie then carefully drew the instrument over his scalp.

His only hesitation throughout the process was when she got close to his queue. His body tensed up in his nervousness, but Natalie put a hand on his shoulder and said reassuringly, "I know. I'll be careful."

"I trust you will be," he replied, even though he remained wary as she worked around it.

When she finished, he ran his hand over his scalp and nodded his approval. She smiled and said, "I told you it would work."

He smiled back at her. "Thank you," he said. "While you're here, could you help me with something else?"

"What is it?"

Tseyo reached behind him and brought forward the paint. "I was just going to use that," he said nodding towards the reflective surface, "but I would like it very much if you did this part for me."

Natalie appeared to hesitate, and then she replied, "I don't know if I can."

"Why not?"

"I wouldn't want to ruin your ritual," she replied. "Or make you look silly."

He grinned and chuckled. "I'm sure you won't make me look silly," he replied as he shifted to sit on his knees, bringing his height closer to hers. "This part has no set ritual. You just paint what you see and feel."

Natalie took a breath, and then nodded. She lifted off her shirt and tossed it onto her bed, leaving on a very thin, bandeau more intricately patterned than any he'd seen on the women in his tribe.

At first he thought it was black, but as she approached him, he made out that it was a dark blue. "That's one of my favorites," she said. "I don't want to get it messy." He smiled in response. "Are you sure you're comfortable with having me do this?" she asked.

He nodded. "It's just what you see and feel. I trust your sight and heart."

Natalie hesitated, but then leaned forward to brush her hands over his cheeks. "It's going to be a shame to cover your freckles," she said with a smile. "They're one of my favorite things about you."

"I have many," he said with a grin. "Besides," he said, lifting his tail so its tuft was visible over his shoulder, "it's not your favorite thing about me." She laughed and shook her head, but she did not engage him further.

Natalie filled the small basin with water, and then started with the orange-yellow paint. She carefully painted circles around his eyes, then extended lines from them to highlight the edges of his nose, and then followed his cheek bone back to his ears.

Washing her hands between colors, Natalie then liberally applied red paint to his scalp and head above the orange paint, and then used the black to cover his jaw and lower cheeks.

Natalie dipped her hand in the purple paint and then pressed it against his chest. She held it there for a moment, and then said with a soft smile, "You have a very strong heart."

He returned her smile and laid a hand over hers, letting her press against his chest more firmly. He held her for a moment before letting her go to continue her painting.

From the center of his chest, Natalie drew thick, diagonal lines to his shoulders, and then continued them along his arms down to his elbows. She filled the triangle which this created over his sternum with red, and then outlined the bottom of the v-shape with the yellow-orange.

As she painted him, he could not help but focus on the delicate touch of her hands, and the gentle rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed. Their eyes met several times during the process, and each time she would stop to give him a slight smile; each time, he did not hesitate to return it.

She added black bands over the purple on his upper arms; and at that, she stepped back from him and looked towards the reflective surface. "Take a look."

The instant before he turned to look, his mind recalled the reflection he had seen just a short while earlier. What he saw was so dramatically different that he needed a moment to reconcile the two images. He took a deep breath and carefully ran his fingers over Natalie's work.

"Is it okay?" she asked, her tone somewhat reticent. "Do you like it?"

"I do," he replied. Tseyo moved his hand over the chevron she had made on his chest and said, "This is a very important symbol for my people. It represents ikran."

Setting aside his reservations about succumbing to vanity, he spent a while longer examining his new visage. Tseyo was so absorbed, in fact, that he was genuinely surprised when he felt Natalie grab his tail and run her hand along its length. He quickly turned and saw that she had painted it red.

Natalie grinned deviously at him and said, "That's for making fun of me for liking your tail."

When the surprise of her act wore off, Tseyo could not help but laugh, almost to the point of tears.

"I didn't think it was that funny," she said.

He gathered himself together and replied, "No, but it's another symbol of my people that, I think, goes against the joke you intended."

Natalie looked worried. "Oh?"

"In our dances, if a man's tail is painted red, it means his character possesses txurina' – virility."

She paused for a moment, and then buried her face in her hand and muttered something in her native tongue, causing Tseyo to laugh further. "I didn't know!" she said when she let her hand drop to her side, her face flush.

He grinned and asked, "If you did, would you have done it anyway?"

"Don't tease me," she replied, gently pushing his shoulder.

Tseyo caught her hand as she withdrew it and said, "Maybe I'm not teasing you."

He waited for her to turn her wrist in his hand as she had done the other night, but she made no such protest. Instead, she looked him in the eyes and said quietly, "I thought we were supposed to stop."

"We should," he said. "But it's been difficult for you, hasn't it?" She nodded. "Why? It can't just be the dance we shared."

"It's not," she said. Natalie paused to take a breath. "The way you've treated me is a way I haven't been treated in a long time. It's affected me very much. And then there's what you said last night."

He cocked his head. "What did I say last night?"

"That if I were Na'vi, you would be happy to be my suitor. Did you mean it, or were you just trying to convince me to leave you – these feelings – alone?"

Tseyo was reluctant to answer, but he looked her in the eyes and said, "I meant it. You would be a very beautiful woman in my tribe. A strong one."

Natalie smiled. "Thank you."

He gave her hand a squeeze and said. "I will show you." He motioned for her to stand in front of him, which she did with a half-curious, half-bemused expression.

Tseyo dipped his fingers in the orange-yellow paint, and before she could protest, drew circles around her eyes. "You people have such small eyes," he said with a grin, "it is a wonder you see anything at all."

She laughed. "You are making me one of your people?"

His grin broadened. "How else am I to show you how I see you?" As she did, he cleaned his fingers before moving to the next color in their limited palette. He dipped his fingers in black and said a little more solemnly, "Bow your head," which she did.

Tseyo took a breath and then approximated where a queue should begin to draw a line down towards her neck. "Turn around, please."

She did, but before he continued, she said, "Wait." She reached back and undid the delicate clasp of her heyresrä and lifted it away from her.

Natalie went for her shorts, and it was Tseyo's turn to protest. "That can stay if you..."

"It's okay," she interrupted, and dropped the clothing to her feet, revealing that she had yet more clothes on. As with the heyresrä, it was similarly thin and blue like a night sky, intricately designed around the band. She left both the heyresrä and shorts at her feet.

He chuckled. "You people wear so many clothes."

He heard her laugh as she stood upright before pushing the clothes aside with her feet, "Okay, I'm ready again."

Tseyo paused before resuming to explore the musculature of her back. Natalie's hands might have been delicate and suggested a life of ease, but her shoulders showed definition and strength. He remembered that she was a swimmer, and he thought of people from clans by the shore. She would have fit in well with them.

He carried the painted queue down along her spine – eliciting from her a sharp inhale – to the banding of the indigo tewng, where he recreated a sheath. "A fine kuru," he said, "for strong bonds." She didn't say anything in response, but he could hear and see the change in the pace of her breathing.

Tseyo went to purple. "And of course," he said, "all people must have tails," before painting an undulating tail up her back, finishing with the tuft at her shoulders. Natalie laughed for the duration.

"You didn't make it red, did you?" she asked.

He laughed. "Very tempted," he said, "but not appropriate for a woman. You may turn around."

As she did, she looked at the reflection of her back. "Ha!" she said excitedly, beaming. "I love it. Is that all?"

"Of course not," he replied. "There is another thing all people have."

"What's that?"

He dipped all his fingers into the blue paint and grinned. "Stripes."

Natalie laughed and made a weak protest as he drew purple bands around her arms, but she held her arms out willingly. He was more careful when painting her torso – which caused her again to suck in a breath – painting as much to highlight the muscles he could feel as simply decorate her body.

Tseyo hadn't paid mind to her breasts until he worked his way up her chest. He paused and made eye contact with her, and she answered his silent question with a faint smile and a nod.

Finally, he drew stripes across her face, mimicking the shape of ikran in his pattern. Satisfied, he washed his fingers and sat his hands in his lap. "What do you think?"

Natalie admired his work in her reflection. "I love it," she said. "All of it."

When she turned back towards him, he took her hands in his. "Then consider yourself reborn, Atanapay, daughter of our people, to carry our light on this world."

She squeezed his hands as she bowed her head. She sniffled, and he could feel her body begin to shake. When she looked back up at him, tears fell from her eyes. "Thank you, Tseyo. I will. I promise."

He nodded and, letting go of one of her hands, made a loose fist and tapped it to his brow. "I see you, Atanapay."

She returned the gesture. "I see you, Tseyo."

He smiled and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand, which she held as she took a step towards him. Tseyo felt his tail swishing on the floor, and so he raised it to stop the distraction. Doing so gave him an idea.

Tseyo took to the red paint and drew two crescents on the sides of her stomach, bracketing it. He said quietly, "And when you've found a suitable mate, teach him and your children to carry our light, too. Use our light to help your world."

Atanapay threw her arms around his torso and embraced him – a gesture he found impossible not to reciprocate – resting her head on his shoulder. "I promise that, too," she said quietly.

He closed his eyes and gently brushed his knuckles between her shoulders, and he felt her breathing quicken. Moments later, her fingers danced along the braids that twined around his kuru. It was a pleasant feeling, but all the same it caused him to suck in a breath and his tail to flinch – and for his heart to send blood to his loins.

He felt her smile. "So, men get a bright red tail, and women get a fat belly?"

Tseyo smiled. "There is a symbol of a woman's fertility," he said, "but–." He was compelled to hesitate.

He felt Atanapay shift and look up at him, causing him to open his eyes and look into hers. "But?" she pressed, one side of her lips curled up in a devious grin.

"But it is intimate."

Atanapay stepped back from him, her hands brushing over his chest as she went. "I trust you."

Tseyo returned to his hesitation. He had already gathered enough to figure that intimacy meant something very different to Sky People than to his, and he was loathe to do anything to make himself impure to a future mate. But his knowledge was gripped in battle with warring thoughts.

One, very primal urge was adamant that if tomorrow's battle meant that this was his last night, he would be a fool to refuse a willing woman. Another insisted that, as with the previous night, he would know when it would be appropriate to restrain himself, and there was little harm in indulging her curiosity – carnal though it may be. And screaming above them both was a thought for him to open his eyes and see her for the repulsive, alien creature that she was – that her whole blind, indecent race represented – rather than the woman he desired, and to preserve his dignity.

Tseyo let the battle rage for a moment before he sighed and, surrendering to instinct, smiled and gave Atanapay a slight nod.

He dipped a finger into the red paint. He put his other hand on her hip to bring her close. As he brought his painted finger towards the band of her tewng, she slid it down just enough to show her body's ramtsyìpe – nothing like on the bodies of his people's women, but plainly familiar all the same.

He looked into her eyes, and she managed a soft smile. Her breathing was as quick as a moment before. Tseyo smiled in return, then went back to his art.

Working from just above her crotch, he drew two lines towards her midline, stopping before they intersected. He connected the points with a wide arc. With each touch, Atanapay sighed; and with each sigh, he stiffened.

"When you are with child," he said when he finished, looking back into her eyes, "you may fill this with the colors you see for them."

Atanapay nodded. "And my mate?"

Tseyo indicated the red paint, and as Atanapay dipped her fingers into it, Tseyo leaned back and, as she had done for him, lowered the band of his loincloth. Atanapay sat next to him, and he took her hand to guide her.

He started with a downward arc, and then from its midpoint a line up his abdomen. "And for each child he sires," he said, "their colors along the side."

Atanapay nodded again, then reached across him to dip her finger in the orange-yellow paint. Before he could say anything, she painted line along the shaft's edge. She looked up and, likely noting his confusion, said with a smile, "You raised me into your people. That should count."

Tseyo smiled back at her, and then leaned forward to rest his brow against hers, closing his eyes again. He took a deep breath and reached behind her head, brushing his fingers down her neck.

On cue, Atanapay slowly, but deliberately moved her hand back to the base of his kuru. Tseyo reached behind himself to take hold of that unique, significant part of his being, and brought it forward. He held the end of it between them, and in that instant the sheath parted to reveal the bonding tendrils.

Unlike the dullness when he had shown his open sheath to Natalie, the tendrils glowed brilliantly for Atanapay. Whatever reservations he had held about her advances in his mind, the energy in his body was in plain opposition.

Atanapay appeared to notice the difference as well. She very delicately put her hands over his, and brought the tendrils to her chest. He expected his sheathe to close again; but instead the tendrils' undulations simply ceased, and they both sucked in a breath when they seemed to latch to her skin.

They each left a hand on her chest to hold the bond while Atanapay moved to straddle him and settle herself onto his lap – causing them both to sigh. He placed his free hand on her waist, and she on his shoulder.

He leaned forward to whisper into her ear, "Tell me what you're feeling, now."

"Desire," she whispered back. "And fear."

"Fear of what?"

Her voice began to crack. "Of what's going to happen to you tomorrow." She moved so that their brows rested together, so that their eyes had no choice but to meet. Hers were beginning to well with tears. "I don't want you to get hurt, Tseyo."

"I won't," he replied. "But tomorrow has to happen."

"Will you promise that we'll see each other again?"

"I promise."

"Norm said it would be impossible for you to love me."

"Norm is a great teacher," he responded, "and he has also been a good student of my people." Then he grinned and added, "But he doesn't know everything about how we feel desire."

Atanapay grinned as her fingers moved across his cheek and then up the back of his head to the stem of his queue. "He doesn't have to."

Tseyo let his fingers play with the band of her tewng and brought his tail around to enclose as much of her body as was possible before asking, "Is this a moment when your people would close the toor for pry-fa-see?"

She smiled and whispered back, "Yes. This is when we should close the door."

Summary: Norm and Amy reconcile, Tseyo and Natalie/Atanapay become intimate.