Wayfaring Stranger No.5
A boy,barely a few sleep times old studied the face of his sleeping sibling,as he recalled the Dark Place from which he and the sleeping one came from. The infant shifted closer,needing to touch the sleeper in order to fight Lonely again. For he recalled the lacked of space with in the Dark that had cause him and his sleeping other to always be touching or near touching .
Until leave taking, the boy remember the shock and pain of his sibling's leaving taking. First his other was there,then he was gone! So suddenly that Painful began torment in sudden twists and aching bites. But what was worse then painful,was his new found enemies afraid and lonely. The infant had never known what afraid and lonely was until leave taking, but he did now.
Thankfully,the memory of his own leave taking was hazy, and in that leave taking his place,along with his other,became bright and big. Which he did not care for nor did he care for the fact that afraid and lonely remained with him. For they seem to attacked only when his other was a sleep or some how taken from his side,keening,by the odd bigger others that constantly hassled and harassed them both.
His other awoke from sleep, blinking, then begin to study him as he had studied his other. Lonely was pushed away when his other gently bumped his forehead against his head, wiggling in the attempt to get closer,as if to say; miss me? The boy touched his others moving leg with his foot in answer; yes!
As the more sleep times passed, the more he and Tommy learned like how to talk, how to eat with an fork,how to sing and play the Panpipes Poppy that showed him how to make . In this time as Jake grew he went to school, pick small fights with his other, Tommy,play with his Lego's. They hid an small green snake in an shoe box that Mommy found from cleaning out from under their bunk bed and Daddy made them let it go in the garden. They both got the Daddy's belt for bringing it in the house. Poppy,Nana,Mommy and Maggie ran the best small town pub and eatery in the county. But Daddy said he couldn't work under his Father,so he made his pay from the Government and left home a lot. Jake and Tommy under the watchful eyes of Poppy and Maggie helped built an tree house in the big old maple in Maggie's backyard. But Daddy said they would just break their necks climbing up there, so they weren't allowed to play there. Jake learn to play whatever tune he heard by ear on his pipes. Poppy said he had music in his soul and Daddy said it wasn't an skill that put food on the table. Despite Daddy's obvious disapproval,he was allowed move on to other instruments like Mommy's old guitar and Maggie's fiddle. Tommy had an angel's voice in song but he didn't like to play with the instruments very much. And Aunt Maggie taught him how to use the tools and cool gizmo's she was always fiddling in her workshop,instead of settling down with an decent man and making an proper family said Daddy. It was embarrassing how she paraded her female lovers in front of Nana and Poppy,trying to out man him. Especially since it was Maggie that fixed Mommy's busted washer and not Daddy because Daddy couldn't tell the difference between pliers and an pair of scissors. Daddy promised to over look Maggie's poor behavior as long as she didn't try to infect his boys with 'her ways', but Maggie snap at Daddy saying that to be gay was not like having an cold you idiot.
Jake and Tommy were only 11 years old when one of the programs on t.v unveiled their first glismp of Pandora to the entire Planet. 'Pandora, is apporiate name, said Nana to their Mom and Maggie in the bright yellow kitchen while they perharp dinner. She spoke again as she copped some celery at the kitchen counter,'for she is and will be the keeper of our hope.' Everyone worried about the energy shortage when it was rumored that the last of the fossil fuels reserves had dried up,but their country Politicians and world leaders were quick to deny any such rumor. Tommy seemed lost an lot in day dreaming in the aftermath of the The Great Discovery. Jake didn't see what the big deal was, considering that while the county's solar cells towers and wind mills weren't popular they were better then nothing and said as much to his Mom that night as he was tuck into bed. His Mother only stroked his head, telling him that the solar cells and mills couldn't fix all their issues. 'Why not?' Because we can't use them in deep space exploration and well Earth is getting a bit crowded due to population surge over the last 60 years or so. ''So if some people live on Pandora we won't have to ration energy any more?'' Yes,Baby now kiss me good night and go to sleep. 'Her lips felt soft on his cheek as her long dark strains of hair tickled his nose with their perfume length's and watch his mother bundled in her ratty red Cotton robe wander away to Tommy's side of the room, repeating the caress. Jake snuggled into pillow when his Mother flick off the over head light, closing the door behind her and securing the latch that Daddy had installed on the other side of the door a few weeks ago. Jake, in that time period, often took advantage of his twins shorten attention span in forms of small pranks, in which his older brother would retaliate with out mercy. But both of their lives changed drastically when their Mom and Nana died in an car accident an month later. It seem that apart of their Father's heart died with the boy's Mother,for then on Mike Sully heavily depended on his bottle and his fists in order to keep order in his household.
Jake was good at making and fixing things like his Aunt Maggie and Poppy, next to wasting his time with music. Dad often said that was all he that was good for. Since he wasn't as smart as his older brother who would actual make something of himself, instead of being on the fast track to become an small Town dishwasher music playing Mr fix-it Faggot like his Aunt Maggie. Tommy told him after Dad's drunken rants to ignore their father's mouth,because the whiskey he tosses back kills most of his brain cells. So it was one of the reasons why he signed up for 's wood shop during his sophomore year of high school, hoping for an easy A that would please his father and keep his fate from ending in the way Dad said it was going to. This would also be where Jake would fall in love with an other boy his age and realized that he wasn't as straight as he thought. Shy and scared as hell as to what his father would do if he found out, he kept quite about his self discovery as he learn more about his first love. The boy was named Dean,who look like one of those classical Greek marble statues brought to life and carried the scent of leather,pine aftershave and sexual musk on his skin as an trade mark. This boy was an decent kick boxer with mean left hook, but couldn't make an simple wooden box without it being deformed into an shape no where near box like. Dean, seem to like him back, even though they shared an work table which made the kick boxer's attempts look even worse when Mr Webster compared their projects in front of the entire class. Despite those odds, he became good friends with Dean,getting into kick boxing at first just to be close to his new love until he found that he was actually good at it,then continue to stay with it long after his love or more likely his lust for Dean faded into easy friendship and pleasant attraction.
He did still chase after girls, wanting to keep peace with his father. But he didn't have much time for them as he was busy earning pocket money with his older Brother doing chores, dishwasher duty and homework on the weekends at the Pub and at home. Grades permiting that they get to keep whatever they earn an wage, an law put down by their Father after Jake return home one friday with an less then perfect report card and couldn't leave the house due the colored eye he recieved as punishment. But Tommy, as always, was the one who saw through the pretense of his flirtations for what it was. During the late fall of that year, both brother's were walking alone to the Pub from school together when the subject came up. "I guess this means less competion for me with the ladies then, right Jake?" Tensing up, the younger twin fell silent staring down at the autum covered pavements then unable to lie half mumbled out. "Are you mad?" Tommy simply slung his arm around his shoulder's and asked. " About what?"
When Jake and his brother both turn sixteen, he was put in the hospital by his father for being caught making out with Dean in an parked car,down the street from his house. After his visit to the county hospital, his Father dragged him away into an Christan boot camp, hoping the environment would cure his 'defect'. Maggie and his Grand father bitterly fought to gain custody, and were denied by Micheal Sully accusation of Maggie involvement into Jake's 'illness' and Poppy's rapidly deteriorating health. So Jake spent two lonely bitter years counting down he days until he could make his escape.
He was enlisted into the Marines after leaving the camp, an small part of him still that bitter, angry sixteen year old that got kick out of his home by his Father. But the physical and mental demands of basic training, the repition of years of duty and regaining regular contact with his family be gain to remold that boy into something like an man, but Jake wasn't quite there yet. And That not quite man, had the means and the ambition to rise quickly in the ranks, earning the rank of Corporal at the mere age of 21 before he was shipped off to Venezuela. There was an brief flash of an image of an lone toddler playing with an oddly colored rock in an abandon village common as Jake roared and beg screaming over the manic laughter of his guards, at her with terror as he tried to fight to ropes cutting into his wrists. Eywa pulled away from this image when Jake actively begin fight both the memory and her, ceasing his struggles only when she simply moved on .Something very Evil in that memory had occured Eywa mused,promising herself to investigate it fully at an later time as the she reviewed the next.
Eywa sank back into his memorises feeling his skin blister in the sun as he was left outside of that village bound to an wooden post and sickening crack of his legs beginning broken by one of his laughing guards. She had to pull away from this one as well given the amount of distress her captive body went under just by reliving it. Eywa held her Na'vi like Male's quaking body in her glowing branches as she gently rocked him back into stillness as she summoned up another memory. Jake was deep under the haze of painkillers when his family first rushed in from the states,harassing the military nurses and Doctor's for his status of his condition. Tommy and two orderlies had to hold him down and sedate him when he was inform that he lost the use age of his legs. Due to the lack of funds from his benefits and family savings, with the cost of Poppy's needed care in an nursing home, he could not afford the surgery that would help him walk again. So Jake was discharge from the Marines with honors shortly after his released from the returning to the States, Tommy enrolled in the RDA Center's Avatar program hoping with an rotation or two on Pandora would cure the family's money problems. And was mugged and killed, two blocks away from his dorm as he was returning from the city's library.
It didn't rain the day Tommy's casket was sealed into the family crypt,nor did the sober winter sky shed an tear when friends,townsfolk and family later gathered at the Pub for the wake. Jake hid himself in an dark corner,unseen from the rest of the mourners as they ate and gossiped about the dead. His Father sitting at the bar downing shot after shot of whiskey,aloof to rest of the people he once called friends and neighbors. The old man latter spotted Jake as he rolled out from the Diner's kitchen door into the small lush courtyard Poppy made for Nana as an gift, for becoming pregnant with their children. It was now tended in the spare time by Jake, the town sheriff Sammy Crow and her 8 year son Bobby, who both lived in the apartment next door to him above the Pub. Mike went after his son with one of the old wooden lawn chairs arranged below the rose arbor where he said vows to his dead wife. Despite losing his legs,the former Marine easily fended Mike off with an rake, sending his howling father crashing into the small moss covered fountain at the Courtyard's center and toss it on one of the narrow worn brick pathways as he wheeled out through the gate's back portal. Sheriff Crow and an few of Mike's remaining friends hauled his father, who nursed an bloody nose and an few cracked ribs down to the town's clinic . The mourners simply shook their heads over the brawl in the back garden.'It was an shame, they said, that Tommy's killer was released out on bail and charge only with manslaughter.'And Mike seem more willing to love his dead wife and son,more his living one. An day or two later, They came again to mourn Poppy who died of heartbreak in the night. As for Mike Sully, he didn't bother to show his face during the wake,nor his father's service. Jake was packing away some of Poppy's old things with Maggie,when they came across Poppy's old foot locker where Poppy kept his great-great grandfather's old hunting rifles,knives and loose boxes of ammo.
The former Marine hated taking the sleeping pills and calmers that his doctor prescribed to him when something trigger an flashback,making sleep impossible. So to fight them off, Jake tried to keep his mind occupied with tasks he never had time for during the day. It was how Jake found one of Poppy's used rifles behind some boxes of canned goods in the Pub's pantry when he stay up late one night doing inventory and busy work. The former Marine never found it worth commenting upon,simply replacing the gun back into it's hiding place. Nor Jake felt the need to ask what Maggie did with it later when he found it missing the next day. So naturally when the police came looking for leads due to fact that Tommy's killer was found dead a week after Poppy's service. They searched and question, but to their frustration, found no evidence of Jake's and Maggie's involvement and and left. The case went dead, then was shuffled away to be forgotten among their cold case files. One evening afterwards, as Jake wheeled into the Pub's pantry he caught Maggie and the sheriff kissing and back out quickly before he was seen. Weeks later, two RDA agents showed up with the offering of the proposal of him taking his old brothers job. He accepted on the terms that RDA paid half of Poppy old medical bills outright to the fury of his Aunt who argued bitterly against his decision. He simply shook his head at her ranting as he begin packing away the few items he decide that he would need to keep him sane during his stay on Pandora and didn't stop when Maggie began to cry instead of scream. "I can't lose you as well Jake, we are the only family that we have left." "What about Sammy, Maggie, aren't you going to start an new family with her?" She paled slightly and clear her throat as she stumbled across his bedroom to sit on his bed beside the piles of clothing the former marine was currently folding away into his suit case. She grasp his hands,stopping his movement and said quietly. "I'm,um,Sammy and I are together and we do love each other Jake-" "Enough to get married?" "Yes." "Then go do so Maggie, and stop using me or my father as excuse not to." "It's not that simple Jake." "Seems simple enough to me, love her,marry her and make another baby with her if you want." "Jake"- "I'm not coming back Maggie." "I figure as much." Maggie let go of his hands and rose to walk out of the room. "Goodbye Jake."
He travled to Pandora and was greeted by Norm Spellman the nervous boy who awarkwardly appologize for missing his brother's wake. He ignored the man's stuttering chatter,met Augustine's not so subtle mocking of his intellgence at his unwelcomed arrival and dodged Colonel Quaritch's sale of letting him in on the know about what goes on with in the Avatar compound. He was an Marine,not an rat and just because he lost his legs didn't mean he lost his common sense to buy the pretty fairy story of him getting his legs fixed if he simply slip an extra reports to the Colonel. Yeah. It sure did sound nice. Bloody braying jackass.
When Jake later escaped the lab with in his Avatar body, he relearn the sweet rush of freedom when the soles of his naked feet slap first down on cool tiles,then on the rough pavements of the exit then soil as he propel his slender blue body forward into the Avatar's compound Garden's. He only stop to savor the ability to stand again,his toes wiggling in the up turned dirt within the crop beds. He was soon met by Grace's Avatar, clearly impress and not an little amused by his motor skills in his newly adapted body.
Eywa shifted through the last couple of days of Jake's memorises leading up to his capture,then ease back from that part of his mind. The Goddess then made study of the link that the former Marine still possessed to his human body, discovering to her dismay that this was the source of the bruising with in his queue. To compound her problems she found that the link was lodged deeply into the hybrid's soul and if she cut the damn thing prematurely she could very well kill him or drive his soul back into his human body. Neither option was to Eywa's liking,so as she consider what to do, she began to heal the small injuries that her Jake received from his flight from Palulukan. Considering some of Jake's memorises, if violence and abuse was normal behavoir among his people, then there was no way that she would willingly ever give him back to his human brethen.
An idea started to form in her mind when she started sowing seeds of the Na'vi language and an little woodcraft. But not so much for her Na'vi would complete Jake's training where his human instructors left off. Eywa let the idea stew in the back of her mind as she planted an few suggestions that would cause Jake to wander into the Omaticaya Clan's hunting grounds,deciding best to let nature take it's course there. Viewing the link from all angles, she merge herself more deeply into Jake's consciousness, easing her way into the link itself.
She loosen her grip on the Na'vi like Male's soul, allowing him to travel back into his human body as she tagged along for the ride. Eywa through Jake's human eyes caught an quick glismp of the frighten human Grace leaning over him, shining an small flashlight into his eyes. Unhappy with what she was about to do, Eywa gently as she could, pulled the former Marines soul away, cutting and sealing the pathway off from behind them as she fused Jake's soul fully into his Na'vi like shell. Then set to work on repairing any damage she might have cause in the severance of the link,thankfully there wasn't much more then Jake's confused terror. Eywa soothed that away with an image of an water fall filling an small private mossy spring hidden by faintly glowing blue reed grasses surrounding it's edges, that had flowering Uma vines that draped themselves from the boughs of an tree crouching over the pool with it tips caressing the pool's surface, viewed through the eyes of an fluttering night bird, she as it sipped nectar from the bluish white rose like blossoms of the hanging stems. The image took it's effect and put her newly adopted son into what ,Eywa hope to be an peaceful sleep, as she pulled herself out of the former humans mind to keep watch as she waited for sunrise.
This chapter is an little longer then what you have been getting,an reward for good behavior. As for my text, I'm not going to use bold again for the rest of the story or ever. But do not fear, the previous chapters will remain for now as they are, so you would to live with that text an little while longer. Sorry my babies, Mommy is an little mean and she has homework for you too! :o( I have an few questions for you my readers and here they are: What do you think of Eywa personalty over all? What did you think of Nan-kith fox? -You know my little grey furry beast that lives in the meadow where Jake was kidnapped by Eywa?- What do you think of Jake's family? I want your impression of his twin,his father and his aunt Maggie. Oh and please note: all my stranger names for things like Atokirina are from the actual Na'vi language. You can check it out at the Avatar Movie's wiki and I will be sort of making up words like Nan-kith. So indulge me if something has an whack out name.:o) so after reading my babies,for you become all mine as soon as you read and like my story, review and I will hand out yummyslashercandy as an reward. love,wolfmother8719. And no I'm not giving it out as an bribe! Really! Stop raising your eyebrows and smirking at me, I-um-uh-I'm.........shit,don't think I'm fooling anyone.