Sully Twins

Sylwanin Sully looked a lot like her mother except rather than have her hair braided she had it flowing straight with a few beads and flowers in her strands pulling part of it back. She often wore a woven shawl over her shoulders with a matching loin cloth and beaded bands around her wrists and ankles. Out of all her siblings, she was the closest to her twin Lo'ak; they didn't look alike but both had five fingers like their dad so looked more like Navi / Avatar hybrids. It was a trait they both wished to carry together. They cared for each other greatly and always had each other's backs; they were known as the Sully Twins.

The young teen was sitting in a tree above the big family hut, sketching in a large sketchbook. Though any items associated with the sky people were forbidden in the tribe, she was a huge lover of anything she found craft. Though she despised sky people judging from the stories their parents told them when they were kids, she knew in her heart that not all of them were bad. Like her father. And his scientist friends who had chosen to stay on Earth when they supported the Navi in their fight against the human invaders. Sometimes she would visit the human lab where Spider lived and when he would show her around, Norm her father's friend would give her some paper and pencils to do sketching in, seeing as how she loved that hobby.

She sketched a picture of herself riding her Ikran whom she had named Skeera. She next sketched a beautiful blue and purple flower dangling down from the tree. She loved to draw the nature of the beautiful forest of Pandora; it was full of wonder and beauty. Every day felt like an adventure exploring its mountains, cliffs and rivers and encountering incredible creatures such as Ikran and viper wolves. Flicking through the pages, she looked over her landmark, creatures, and plant she had drawn. She still had so many blank pages left. She felt like she was losing inspiration.

"Boo!" boomed two annoying voices.

Sylwa screamed and fell off the branch with her book. She grabbed a vine and swung herself onto a branch with her book. Hearing loud giggles, she saw Lo'ak and Neteyam from up above, laughing. She growled. "That's the third time this week!" she scolded. That earned another chorus of chuckling. "There will be repercussions for this!"

The boys high-fived each other only to hear a loud cough of the throat. They turned their head to see their mum standing arms crossed. "What have I told you two about pranking your sister?"

"Sorry," they apologised. She cocked her head downwards. They looked down at their sister. "Sorry,"

"There you are Sylwa," Jake spoke below with Kiri and Tuk beside him. Sylwa giggled seeing them below. She stacked her sketchbook in her knapsack, slung it across her chest, swung on a vine, and landed gracefully on the ground in front of them.

"You know me, dad,"

"And then once again you're falling out of trees," Kiri added, amusingly.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh ha,"

The mother and the sons joined them below and sat together to have dinner.

"Were you sketching again?" Neytiri asked.

"You know me, mum," Sylwa could sense her mother wasn't exactly okay with it. "Mum, I know it's a Sky people habit but I quite enjoy doing art,"

"Try looking at her artwork," Lo'ak encouraged. "It's amazing," he gave Sylwa a convincing look and she took out her sketchbook and opened it, revealing the amazing sketches to her family.

"They're beautiful," admired Tuk.

"Amazing," Kiri breathed.

"I even did sketches of all of you," Sylwa went over to the section of the sketchbook where she had done face portraits for each of them. Neytiri admired the nice picture of herself and Jake. "Couldn't resist doing one of you two,"

The kids giggled and made kissy noises making their parents roll their eyes in embarrassment. "Here's you dad," she flicked to a page. When Jake saw his page, his heart quivered a bit seeing his human face.

"That's a human," said Neteyam unamused.

"No, it's definitely dad. Just in his human form,"

"How did you find out what I looked like as a human?" asked their dad.

"Norm showed me a picture," she simply said. "Also, it wasn't your picture I looked at it. It was your twin brother's,"

"Sylwa," Neytiri criticised gently, seeing how agitated dad was becoming.

"Why don't you ever talk about your twin brother?" Lo'ak asked curiously. Out of all the siblings, it was always him that Sylwa would tell her secrets to whenever she discovered something. The other three children became surprised too.

Jake was a bit conflicted. "It's not that easy to talk about him. And besides, he and I were very different. It's not something I like to talk about but…since you all know now…I can tell you a bit about him,"

The kids gathered around in a circle and sat, their father sitting in front of them with their mother beside him.

"Tom was very different from me. He was more into science and maths and I was more of a Marine guy. Don't get me wrong we loved each other…greatly. But our careers sort of...put a distance between us,"

"How come we've never met him?" asked Tuk.

Jake sighed. "He died a long time ago. See this…" he gestured to his body. "This…this was supposed to him inside this body,"

"What happened to him?" asked Neteyam.

"He was killed on Earth. So, I took his place,"

"So, if he hadn't died…and you wouldn't have taken his place…does that mean we wouldn't have existed?" Sylwa breathed hoarsely.

"It's best not to dwell on the past," Jake said. "As much as it hurt to lose a brother, I'm glad I still got to be in this body…because I love everything that I have with me now," he smiled affectionately at his wife and kids. "And there's nothing in this world…which I wouldn't trade for,"

They ate dinner as the sky turned dark above them and the stars shone brightly above them. Sylwa gazed up above the trees at the stars from a branch with her brothers beside her. "Aren't they beautiful guys?"

"They sure are. Think we could find the star where dad comes from?" Lo'ak wondered.

Neteyam narrowed his eyes and peered closer up. "There it is," he pointed to a bright one just left of a series of stars clustered together.

"What do you think it's like there?" Sylwa wondered.

"Definitely no green. That's the reason the sky people came there in the first place," Lo'ak stated.

"I know but…what is their life like there? What do people do there?" her questions made her brother send weird looks at her. "I know they invaded our home but surely they can't all be bad. I mean dad was one of them once and Kiri's mum was once. But they were good people. And we have friends here too. Spider, Norm…"

"Best you don't talk about this around mum," advised Neteyam. "You know what she's been through,"

Sylwa nodded in agreement. She knew she had been named after their beloved aunt who had been killed in front of their mother's eyes when they were teens. And the bow she wielded bellowed to their late grandfather who died the day the Great Home tree, the original home of their tribe, fell killing him and hundreds of others. She and Lo'ak looked at their five-fingered hands. Their biological siblings had four fingers like their mother and Kiri had five fingers as well; they felt like black sheep in the family.

"You know there's no shame in carrying an extra finger," comforted Neteyam. "You shouldn't let it get to you,"

"Kids!" called their father. They looked down and they saw him, their mother and their sisters waving up to them. Their grandmother Mo'at was with them. They climbed down and joined them. "Your mother and I are going on a fun night together. We want you all to be on your best behaviour with your grandmother whilst we're gone,"

"It's about time she spent some time with all of you," said Neytiri, as she held her mother's hand. "And we…" she took her mate's hand. "Need some time to ourselves," as much as they loved their five kids, handling them with the account of looking after Spider whenever he visited them to play with his surrogate siblings, on most occasions was quite a challenge. They needed a break from parenthood.

"Don't you worry. I'll keep a good eye on them," said Neteyam.

Kiri elbowed him. "What?"

"See you all soon," waved Neytiri. She and Jake called their ikrans and they appeared from the trees and mounted them.

"Remember, be on your best behaviour," their dad reminded. The Ikrans took off into the sky and they went off to have some lovely private time. The kids and their grandmother chilled around the family hut admiring the beautiful skies stretching down to them from the trees.

Once again Sylwa got up to another process of sketching. This time she was sketching her grandmother. "Still sketching again, I see," the Navi priestess came to sit beside her.

"Sure, am granny," she said, coming to sit beside her. "I know it's a sky people thing…"

"Your father was sky people once. You are all descended from Earth as you are from Pandora. It is all a part of who you are," she comforted. Sylwa looked at her five fingers. "You and your twin are like your father. There is no doubt you will both feel out of place amongst our people,"

"It's not as easy as you think,"

"Come here," Mo'at hugged her tightly. She understood how it felt for her twin grandkids to resemble more an Avatar than a full-blooded Navi.

"Thanks, granny," she said, appreciating her words. "I really appreciate the hug," They joined the others and the girls played with some toys together whilst Neteyam and Lo'ak played some arm wrestling. The older brother always won but the younger brother won one because he let him. Once dinner was over and Neteyam decided to go and relax whilst Kiri put Tuk to bed, the twins asked their grandmother if they could go and explore the forest again for a bit.

"No," she refused.

"Come on," Sylwa complained. "We've explored once before,"

"And last time you two stumbled into a viperwolf nest,"

"By accident," they said together.

Mo'at still wouldn't let them.

"Please granny you know we'll be more careful this time," Lo'ak begged.

Sylwa laced her fingers together. "Did we mention you're the 'bestest'?"

The twins gave goo-goo eyes to their grandmother who sighed. "You both did," she held up one finger. "One hour,"

"Thank you!" they both hugged her.

"But you're to stay away from the viperwolf nests," she warned. "Or your dad will be more than mad,"

"We will," Lo'ak promised. "We'll just be in the trees admiring the views near the mountains,"

"See you soon," Sylwa bid.

The twins climbed up into the trees and swung on the vines away from the hut, their grandmother watching them.

"You sure it was okay to let them go this time?" Neteyam asked.

"Why do they even want to have some time to themselves anywhere?" wondered Tuk.

"It's a twin thing," said Kiri.

"Just let them have their time," their grandmother said.

Lo'ak and Sylwa, best twins forever, swung through the vines and explored the trees of their beloved jungle home. They loved to have separate time together to be themselves. As they did, they saw the rivers below glowing in different colours, little insects rotating around and little seeds floating around the air. They stopped to look at the pure spirits that were seeds of the great tree of Eywa, their people's deity.

Sylwa remembered sketching them when she was younger. They were very beautiful. She reached to touch one and it touched her fingertip. Lo'ak tried as well but they floated away making his twin chuckle much to his irritation.

"Wanna race?" she dared. "First one to the remains of the Hometree,"

"You don't obey the rules," he said.

"Doesn't mean I don't know them," she couched down on a branch, looking ahead at all the trees in front of them with the vines. "I'll count us down,"

"Better not cheat this time," Lo'ak warned.

"You'd better not cheat," she dared, earning a chortle. They got into position. "Three. Two…"

Lo'ak leapt off the branch and swung on a vine.

"Oi! Cheater!"

They raced through the trees. Climbing on vines. Jumping over logs. Leaping from branch to branch through the glowing jungle. Lo'ak was still getting ahead of them much to his amusement.

Sylwa would not stand it. She leapt up into the trees whilst he remained leaping over logs and giant roots on the ground. He looked up and behind him. He didn't see her. "Mmm...giving up already I see?" he kept on sprinting. He raced along the river and climbed up a tree and across the grasslands, he could see the tall fallen tree that was home to their people. He thought he was gonna win. To his outrage, his twin was waiting forever, leaning triumphantly against some old wood.

"I win," she gloated. "And this time I followed the rules,"

"No! You didn't!"

"Stop being a sore loser Lo'ak," she sniggered.

He just sniggered back in response. He suddenly picked up a ball of mud and threw it at her. "Mudball fight!"

They giggled and got into a fight, pretending their balls of mud were snowballs. Their dad often told them and their sibling's stories about Earth, what life was like there before and after it was exploited of its resources. After cleaning themselves in a nearby stream, they sat on the giant remains of a root, staring up at the stars, staring up at the floating mountains. The forests of Pandora were so much more beautiful at night. Lo'ak allowed his twin to lean against his shoulder and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

"Do you ever wonder…" he asked. "If maybe there's a chance the sky people might come back to Earth?"

"There's no way that's going to happen," Sylwa shook her head. "Dad drove them out. He's Toruk Makto. They know better than to come here again. I always wondered what became of the Toruk," the magnificent creature hadn't been seen for years; what had happened to it? "We should probably head back. Our granny will kill us,"

Lo'ak agreed. They were the ones known for breaking rules sometimes but this time they didn't say they wouldn't. They stood up and he took one last look into the sky when he saw something.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"That star…" Lo'ak pointed upwards and she could see he was eying a strange source of light streaming across the sky.

Sylwa held a hand over her eyes. "That doesn't look like a star," A second later after she said that the light split up into several lights. They weren't streaming across the sky. They were shooting towards Earth. They sounded like distant rock engines.

"They're ships," Lo'ak breathed. "It's the Sky People!"

That's chapter 2 done. I hope you all loved reading it as much as I have loved writing it. I know I said in the first chapter I'd wait a few weeks but I couldn't resist writing this. What do you all think of Sylwa so far? And her relationship with her family. Please send reviews and let me know what you think so far. I'll see you all next month.