Chapter 7: What Does it Mean?

A/N: UWAH, has it been a long time! Most of you wanted me to continue this, and I agree with you that it needs a more wrapping-up scene, so now I'm *finally* getting round to it. I have become an A level student since we last spoke, guys; you have no idea.

Anywayz, this chapter will contain: me realising what an a) uncanonical and
b) stupid decision it was to make Tsu'tey and Neytiri brother and sister (blame IMDB, it told us so!), and trying to work round it, and also some shameless fast-forwarding. Because, while I'm sure that seeing the next few distressing scenes from the film (we're just on the eve of the mowing down of the Tree of Voices and the destruction of Hometree, for those of you who are lost, and while Grace and Tsu'tey were chastely kissing, Jake and Neytiri were getting it on) from Grace's POV would be interesting...well, it wouldn't be interesting at all, would it? It would just be a re-telling of what we've all already seen far more vividly on the big screen, and it would take forever and I can't be bothered to hack through it. So we will steam through the point where AU touches canon without pausing and get back to the original story, yes? Good.

True

'I see you, mother,' Tsu'tey said, touching his brow in the formal gesture of greeting.

'Tsu'tey.' Mo'at looked up from the animal hide she was scraping clean of fat. 'Are you not with your hunters?'

'We killed early today,' Tsu'tey answered shortly, squatting down next to her. '...may I speak with you?'

Mo'at's response was to wrench a length of fleece from the hide, twist it round the spindle on her knee and hand it to him.

'Get to work on this yarn,' she said, 'and tell me what it is that is troubling you.'

Tsu'tey took the spindle somewhat dourly and began to roll it against his thigh, drawing the wool steadily out of the fleece and twisting it into a cord. The Omatakaya made no formal distinctions, but he had always felt this to be more of a woman's job; besides which, he had come to ask for council, not to be put to work. But of course that was Mo'at – 'idle hands make troubled minds,' she had always told him sternly, and for her there was no conversation so weighty or mystical that it could not be accompanied by useful work. He rolled the spindle in silence for a few minutes, building up a decent length of yarn, and then Mo'at asked,

'Well? What is troubling you, Tsu'tey?'

'Ey'wa has forsaken me.'

If ever there was a statement sure to provoke an eruption, this was it, but Mo'at didn't explode. She seemed to consider his statement for a few moments, scraping briskly away at the hide all the while, and then she repeated,

'Forsaken you?'

'Yes.'

'What makes you say this?'

'I...Neytiri...the Sky People...' Tsu'tey made a hopeless gesture, as though snatching for his thoughts. 'I thought everything would be so simple for us. It would be my task to lead the People, and Neytiri's to speak to Ey'wa, and I knew I could do this. But she –' He gave a particularly hard jerk on the yarn, and Mo'at said, 'careful.'

'Is it nothing to her?' he burst out. 'I whittled her first bow; when she first brought down prey with it. I was there! We were there. And now she ignores everything we say to her and cares only for that dreamwalker –'

'I thought,' Mo'at interrupted coolly, 'that Ey'wa had forsaken you. Not your sister.'

Tsu'tey flinched, pinned between anger and admiration. She had caught him, of course; cut through all his bluster to the one question he was avoiding. Who was he to cast a stone at Neytiri, when he himself...

'She has forsaken us all,' he muttered.

'We all clasp hands in the circle of life, Tsu'tey.' For the first time, Mo'at stopped her work, and took his right hand in hers. She did not take his left, however, but stretched her free hand out, as though reaching for a third person, invisible to him. 'Life flows through all, from her to us, from us to her. What she takes with one hand she gives back with the other; surely you know this?'

'Not this time. The Sky People –'

'My child, where is your trust? After the bad year will come the good, as before, as always.'

'But how can Ey'wa fight these people?'

'Fight? She does not take sides. Listen, Tsu'tey. Maybe the time of the Omatakaya is coming to an end, but the circle of life will go on. Surely you are not afraid to cast yourself into it when the time comes?'

'So that is why the All-mother has put Neytiri under the spell of this dreamwalker?' Tsu'tey couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. 'Is it a sign to us, that we are to accept our death and love our murderers?'

'Perhaps, perhaps.' Mo'at had taken up her scraping-flint again. 'But then again, maybe it is not Death she sees in his eyes. Maybe it is something stronger.'

'You knew, didn't you?' His hands were still; the spindle lay forgotten on his knee. 'You knew what would happen when you ordered her to teach him.'

'I suspected it.' Mo'at's tone was unrepentant – maybe even a little amused. 'Something spoke to Neytiri from the first instant she saw Jakesully. Such a sign hardly needs a Tsahik to interpret it.'

'And what is to become of me?' Tsu'tey demanded. 'How shall olo'eyktan's destiny match tsahik's? Or is mine not important?'

'All destinies are important,' Mo'at said sternly. She paused for thought. 'Ey'wa has not told me what your fate shall be, but she comforts me in my dreams. She tells me that your future will be good.'

'So is my path already chosen, then?'

Mo'at looked up again, and this time her expression was softer. 'Ey'wa's will is not set in stone, Tsu'tey,' she said. 'You are Ey'wa; a part of her; you must find out what the whole body wants from this part of it.' She laid a hand on his shoulder.

'Mother, I am lost,' Tsu'tey said softly.

Mo'at smiled. 'Are you?' she asked. 'Do you remember one of the very first times we took you into the forest, when you were only knee-high? We walked until we came to a deep ravine, and you said, "mother, there is no way across." Then your father stepped out onto a narrow log which spanned the whole chasm, and your eyes were so wide!' She chuckled. 'Of course there was a way across. You just didn't like it. Tell me, Tsu'tey, are you lost, or do you dislike the path you see before you?'

Tsu'tey sighed. Caught again. 'I fear that this is one of the false trails one thinks one sees when one loses one's way. Leading no-where.' One analogy deserved another, at any rate.

'Then there is only one way to find out. Try it and see.' Mo'at turned back to scraping her hide, as though the matter was completely decided.

'Mother,' Tsu'tey said, 'do you know what this path is that I am following?'

'Son.' Mo'at chuckled. 'I am a woman. Of course I know.'

Pain.

She had never felt it like this before. Ripping, burning, aching, blurred by morphine but not erased, eating away at her courage and her strength…she hadn't realised, or had always forgotten, how exhausting pain was. It wasn't the bleeding that nudging her towards oblivion. It was the hurt that came with it.

Even when she thought that she had found that balancing-point where the pain itself was bearable, the knowledge of what had caused it and what it meant made her sick to her stomach. Grace almost wished she were an animal, so that she didn't have to know what was coming, all the dreadful scientific ins and outs of it. Nor to remember what had come before…

It seemed that when Jake had jabbed the needle into her arm, he had freed her mind of physical pain just enough to allow it to dwell on every terrible thing that had happened…and the morphine haze made it impossible to grab onto anything, but kept every part of the nightmare floating just beyond her reach. Her mind spun, trying to make bargains, just to pretend to itself that there was some way out of this pain.

God, I could take the physical shit if I was just lucid enough to tell exactly how bad it is instead of this stumbling around…

Alright, alright, I'll go back to the RDA and help them knock down the forest like a good girl if it'll just stop the pain…

I wouldn't care if I died straight afterwards as long as I could have one good crack at Quaritch first, the motherfucking son of a bitch…

Some kind of a mask was pressed to her face, there was a hiss and she inhaled what she realised must have been a shot of oxygen. The haze cleared a little, and she found herself looking up into Jake's face.

'Your breathing got a little faint there, Grace.'

'H-hey, Jake,' she groaned, closing her eyes for a moment and opening them again. For a moment it was such a relief to be able to see the whole cabin clearly, without her brain chasing itself around in drugged-up circles, that she felt almost peaceful. 'Where…where are we?'

'In the cabin we were using during my training,' he explained. 'Trudy's flying it somewhere so the RDA won't find us.

'Oh,' she said. 'That explains the swaying. Y'know, all this noise and movement's been giving me some really weird dreams.'

Jake grimaced. 'Sorry about that.'

'S'okay. Where's Norm? Norm's with us, right?'

'Yup,' Jake grinned. 'He got locked up with us after he took a swing at a soldier twice his size, remember? Anyway, right now he's…on the roof.'

'Reckless,' Grace muttered.

'Hey, someone's got to make sure the cabin stays attached to the helicopter.'

'Guess so.' Grace closed her eyes, trying to snuggle down further – she registered that she was in an open link-bed; the gel was presumably the softest surface they could find in the cabin. 'Hey, Jake?'

'Yeah?'

'All that stuff…Hometree…'

'I know.' His face twisted a bit – pain, confusion over the pain, anger at himself for feeling the pain…you boys make it so hard for yourselves, she wanted to say.

'Oh,' she mumbled. 'I was kind of hoping some of it would be the morphine-dreams.'

He chuckled a little and blinked hard, shaking his head. Grace stared at the ceiling. Now that she was awake again, she could feel the pain in her belly stalking closer, and she was sure that she would soon be wishing for the haze again. There was just no way out. Of suffering, for her, or of their current problem.

'Where are we going?' she whispered.

'Back to the clan. We're going to get you some help, Grace. They'll be able to do something.'

'Why would they help us?' she asked softly.

'Because I'm going to help them,' he answered at once.

'Jake…' Grace whispered. Stubborn, gutsy, pig-headed Jake…of course he wasn't going to stop trying. She wondered what it would be like to be like him, to have the kind of soldier-mind that could see horrors and impossible situations and the most tragically farcical screw-ups and still say, 'alright, never mind, get up, move on to the next plan.' The sort of mind she'd thought she had, until she came here.

Maybe, she thought, this bullet is for the best. I don't have his guts to carry on fighting in a hopeless situation, but this is something I just can't let go…I'm glad it's not going to be my problem…

'We've got some fight in us,' Jake was pep-talking, patting her arm – she supposed that was the closest he got to hair-stroking, which would have been less painful in all honesty. 'The way Norm blew up…'

Grace allowed herself one smile. Jake here with her – coming down on the right side at last – Norm and Trudy up in the helicopter, she throwing of all her army brainwashing as lightly as a spruce throws off snow, he blossoming by the second, Max on their side back home…everyone she cared about had come through for her. As for the Na'vi…well, there was no danger of their being on the opposite side to her. Did it really matter so much if they would never speak to her again?

'Tsu'tey is olo'eyktan now. You know he's not going to let us within twenty miles of the clan.' She tried to voice it as an objective problem. How had it all gone so wrong so suddenly? One moment they were dancing beneath the frosty strands of the Tree of Voices, kissing like teenagers beneath the stars, the next everything was gone in flames and avarice.

'Grace, I…' Jake sighed. 'I'm sorry, for, you know…'

'Shagging Neytiri?' Grace suggested dryly.

He ducked his head. 'Yeah. I screwed up.'

Grace laughed – rather breathlessly. The pain was really kicking in now.

'Don't worry about it, kid. I screwed up too.'

He looked up, blinking. 'You did?'

She laughed again, harder this time. All that teasing in the cabin when he and Norm were accusing her of being in love, and yet it seemed he'd still missed it.

'Yeah.' Her breath caught. 'Ow.'

'You alright?' he asked, worry flickering up in his eyes.

'Mm-hm.' She didn't trust herself to make any more vocal noises. 'Hurts a little.'

'Yeah, I…' She watched him struggle for something to say, to ease either the pain of the bullet wounds or of what was happening outside. 'Morphine?' he asked lamely, reaching for the trauma kit.

Make it two shots and end this, she thought. But she was either too brave or too much of a coward to say it. Don't want to see this through. Don't wanna die. Knowing that she would regret it once she was back in the dreams, she nodded.

'Please.'

'Neytiri.'

Neytiri looked up from the poultice she was grinding to smear on a burn on her leg – it seemed you had to pretend these little things mattered, even if the whole forest was about to be burnt with you in it anyway. She saw Tsu'tey standing over her.

'Tsu'tey,' she said coldly, turning back to her work.

He squatted down.

'I want to talk to you.'

'I do not wish to speak!' she hissed fiercely. Tsu'tey said nothing, but an arm wrapped round her shoulders and next moment she found herself pulled into a tight embrace.

Then she started crying.

Where had her big brother gone? Ever since the Sky People had come and built their school, he had been uncompromisingly angry and she had been frustrated by his anger. She had been taller than him all through their teenage years – boys grew so slowly; as she came closer to Ey'wa, he remained small and stubborn – and even when he outstripped her in height again, he had seemed like a little child. But now she was the small one again. She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed.

'Sister, forgive me,' he said. That was a new one, but then she supposed that a chief had to learn more diplomacy…a chief – that thought hurt so much that she let out a wail. Tsu'tey hugged her tighter.

'For what?' she whispered. 'You should forgive me…all the time I refused to listen to you, my older brother, you were right…'

'Forgive me,' Tsu'tey repeated, 'for turning my anger on you, when in truth I was angry at myself.'

He had thought he was calm. For a moment, talking to Mo'at, it had seemed to make sense – him and Doctorgrace, Neytiri and Jakesully – a sign that somehow Ey'wa would bring them to terms with the Skypeople. Of course, when Jakesully and Neytiri came crashing into Hometree with the news that they were now mated for life and oh, by the way, the Tree of Voices is gone forever, torn down and destroyed by Sky People who cared nothing, the fact that he had almost, almost fallen for them had only served to make him twice as furious.

'I was foolish,' Neytiri was mumbling into his shoulder.

'I doubly so.'

'I really believed…hoped that he had changed…he seemed to begin to hear what I told him…'

'Shh.' Tsu'tey soothed her. 'It's nothing to what I believed.'

She pulled away, blinking. 'What?'

He shook his head. 'Nothing.' Grace.

Neytiri couldn't have guessed his thoughts, but now she asked, 'the Sky body…DoctorGrace…'

'Yes,' Tsu'tey agreed, 'she was still trying to help us.' He spoke as if to comfort her, though really he was clutching at the fact himself.

'We will have to kill it,' Neytiri said, 'if she cannot come back.'

'Don't think of it now. Ey'wa may decide all things soon enough,' Tsu'tey said. He took the bowl of poultice from her hand and began to smear it on her burn. Neytiri leaned on his shoulder and allowed him to fuss over her, feeling like a little girl with her big brother bandaging up her grazes.

'Come,' he said once he was done, squeezing her hand. 'We will sing a hymn to Ey'wa.'

Neytiri nodded and allowed him to pull her to her feet, trying to sink into the old faithful motions, even though it felt so empty when her mate – because, no matter how often she insisted it was foolish, ridiculous, a mistaken whim, she knew that he had been the one she was meant to choose, and without him it already felt as though something had been scooped out of her heart – wasn't by her side.

They sung the words together, she, and her brother, and her people. Praying for the succour that they had never needed so much. All she could hear were her worries, and her breathing, and the steady chorus of thousands of Na'vi voices.

But then, from somewhere high above, she heard a sound that propelled her to her feet, and filled her mind with instinctual panic.

The fierce, shrieking cry of a Toruk.

A/N: UWAH, has it been a long time since I wrote that AN. But finally, finally, I got round to it, thanks to exams being over and to moviewriter sending me a pleading PM this morning to help me get my butt in gear. Many thanks to her and to .smexy, DangoDaikazaku and anyone else I've forgotten who poked me. We authors love our craft (deep down), but sometimes we need a little forceful nudge to get us going.

Thanks, Essence of Gold, for handling the last couple of paragraphs of this chapter.

True xxx