Long ago, the human kingdom of Numenor ruled the seas of Earth.
Its people were powerful and wise, blessed with great strength and long life. They made their home on a great island in the middle of the ocean. From here their fleets sailed to every corner of the world, peacefully trading and sharing their knowledge with many peoples. They were natural-born mariners, each of them feeling the call of the sea and an affinity for its ways. Their ships were marvels of engineering. In every field of endeavor, their crafts and sciences were unequalled in the ancient world.
Their island home was a paradise, full of bountiful fields and orchards, spectacular gardens, and well-tended forests from which they took wood to build their ships. Their seas teemed with fish, and the winds and currents were almost always favorable for sailing. The Numenorians respected their land, and their investments in its well-being paid off. They revered the Creator, Eru Illuvatar, and worshipped Him at the summit of their highest mountain. Their society continued this way in peace and prosperity for many centuries.
But Numenor would not remain an utopia. Despite being blessed with long life - several times the lifespan of other Men - the Numenorians grew jealous of the immortal Elves, their neighbors. Instead of accepting death in peace when their time came, as they had done for centuries, they began to fear it. They became obsessed with attaining immortality. At the same time, their ships became more heavily armed and armored. No longer did they sail to trade goods and knowledge for the betterment of mankind; now they sailed in pursuit of empire. Their trading partners became subjects. Their students became slaves. They began to colonize the coasts nearest their home, building fortresses and settlements for their own people and forcing the locals to pay tribute, whether in treasure or bodies.
The kingdom went on this way for centuries. Once a beacon of enlightenment, the pride of humankind, now it had become a terror to the world. A few Numenorians resisted their kinsmen's corruption and opposed their aggressive ways. But their influence could not outweigh the greed and fear that had overtaken their people. The kingdom and the very island it was built on eventually collapsed; and the few survivors were scattered.
The remaining Numenorians went on to live in Middle Earth. Through generations of intermarriage with other peoples, their strength and longevity waned. But their sea-longing and fierce resentment of mortality would forever remain a part of the human heritage.
Mick Scoresby was living his best life.
I was born to do this, he thought contentedly, looking out at the sea of Pandora. A born mariner, from a family of mariners, the sea was in his blood. It was all he knew. It didn't matter what planet the sea was on. Well… actually it did now. There wasn't much left for a sailor to do on Earth. His father and grandfather had been fishermen. But that industry was as dead as Earth's oceans. There were still fish out there, but not nearly as many as in the past. Not enough to make a profit. Those left weren't what people wanted to eat - the unpalatable and undesirable species, the sick, the poisoned, the mutated.
In his youth Scoresby had spent a few years as a fisherman. It wasn't like in his grandfather's time. Instead of dragging nets, they spent weeks using sonar and drones to find a single healthy tuna, salmon, or lobster. It was like finding a nugget of unobtanium - the obscene sum certain people would pay for the catch made the time and effort worthwhile. But even that stopped being feasible years ago. After five months without a catch, the operation went out of business, and Scoresby was out of a job.
The tourism industry was just as dead - no one wanted to dive on a dead reef, and whale watching was a thing of the past. The few species that weren't extinct were extremely rare. Scoresby had no interest in the Navy - he hated the thought of such a regimented lifestyle, and he would rather struggle with nature than with other humans. Nature didn't shoot back.
He worked his way up to captain in the environmental cleanup industry. His last employment on Earth had been captaining an ocean cleanup vessel, removing the vast masses of plastic and other pollution from the waters. He hated it - it was tedious, dull, dirty, and in his opinion, a futile effort. But at least he got paid, and he got to stay at sea.
Along the way, he discovered the dwindling black market for sharks and the last remaining whales. He had thought they were extinct, but there were a few left - and certain unscrupulous people would pay plenty for them. So he outfitted his ship as a clandestine whaler, possibly the last one on Earth.
It was a lucrative side gig - until he got caught. His crew was arrested, his ship seized, and he was put in prison. After about a month in a cell, the RDA offered him a job on Pandora. He didn't think twice. Here was a chance to sail uncharted waters like his ancestors had - seas where no human had ever sailed or swam, full of new dangers and opportunities! How could he possibly turn that down?
Scoresby was told he would be captaining a research vessel. Sailing uncharted waters, hunting for new forms of life and new resources. It sounded interesting enough. But when he arrived on Pandora, he was informed of his real mission - hunting Tulkun and harvesting amrita, a miraculous substance that stopped human aging. He accepted the change with enthusiasm his bosses could never have imagined.
The Scoresbys had an old family legend - that one of their ancestors had sailed in search of the Fountain of Youth, following the tale of Ponce deLeon. He never found it, but he did well enough for himself in the burgeoning trans-Atlantic trade to start a sugar plantation. Unfortunately, he died of unknown causes when he was only 45. Since then, many members of the family had died young. Few lived past 70. Many of the Scoresbys felt they were cursed for their ancestor's quest, because he had dared to seek a cure for death.
This awoke a deep-seated resentment for mortality among the Scoresbys. Many members of the family who didn't go to sea dedicated themselves to extending human life. Over the centuries they had studied alchemy, magick, the occult, chemistry, nutrition, eugenics, genetics, cybernetics, cloning, consciousness transfer - anything that might hold a path to longer life.
None of them found much success. But now, here was Mick Scoresby, siphoning the waters of life from an alien world. The fact that this deed required the sacrifice of another life didn't concern him. They said the Tulkun were sapient beings, with thoughts, feelings, and language like humans - but he couldn't see it. Even if that was true, one alien life sacrificed would extend dozens of human lives. A worthwhile trade, in his opinion. Some of his ancestors had dabbled in worse.
It helped that part of his compensation was access to the anti-aging treatment himself. He also got his only surviving relative, his brother, a job with the RDA back on Earth. His brother was a leading biochemist, and now he searched for a way to synthesize amrita. He was also guaranteed the treatment for himself and his family. After so many centuries, the Scoresbys had finally finished their ancestor's quest and beaten their curse. And their work would continue to chip away at the curse of mortality for all humankind.
Mick Scoresby was fulfilling his family's destiny, following their ancient calling. Yes, he could not have been happier with his life.
Yavanna watched the slaughter of the Tulkun with sadness and anger. Where was Ulmo, she wondered, and how would he react to this? How would he react to the murder of his children? Although he loved humans, he had always possessed a temper and was quick to remind them of the power of his domain.
Mick Scoresby was not sleeping well.
The day before, those "recoms" and their strange human companion (prisoner? native liaison?) had commandeered his ship for their manhunt. Ever since that moment, when the banshees had landed on the roof of his bridge, he had been on edge. Tonight, his dreams were unsettled. Old nightmares returned to haunt him.
He stood on a balcony overlooking the sea. Around him was a coastal city, all marble pillars and shiny roofs, like a fantastical vision of ancient Greece or Rome. Behind him in the near distance, a mountain peak rose into the sky. It was nighttime. A full moon illuminated fearsome storm clouds on the western horizon, but everywhere else, the sky was clear.
He frowned. The stars were wrong. He was one of the few mariners who still studied the stars. He knew the constellations of Earth like the back of his hand, and the constellations of Pandora were almost identical. But this sky was different from either. All the right stars were there, but some were in the wrong place. Sirius was far from where it should be.
Scoresby's astronomical observations were interrupted by growing storm clouds, which now spanned half the sky. They were racing over the island from west to east. Lightning flashed among them, and thunder rumbled in the distance. A cold, salty wind whipped at his face. Scoresby flinched when a bolt of lightning struck just a few blocks away, on a building with a towering golden dome. The thunderclap was instant and deafening. In the wake of its echoes, he could hear malevolent laughter. Otherworldly and inhuman, it chilled Scoresby to the bone.
The clouds covered the sky now, from horizon to horizon. Lightning flashed again and again, and the thunder became an almost constant roar. Then came a noise that made the thunder seem like a gentle whisper.
There was a boom so loud, it stole the breath from Scoresby's lungs. An almighty roar began and did not relent; the sound itself like a solid object slamming into him. The earth heaved under his feet. He fell to his knees. There was an enormous pressure on his ears; his stomach was squeezed; and he could not catch his breath. The air had become like deep water - smothering and crushing the breath from his lungs. All the lights in the city had gone out.
Continuous lightning illuminated the end of the world. Buildings crumbled and slid down into the churning sea. Cliffs splintered and collapsed, fields rolled like shaken bedsheets, and the great mountain seemed to shudder like a tent in a storm. Its whole western face slipped away and crumbled, like a sandcastle caught in the rising tide.
The land tilted toward the ocean. Scoresby tried desperately to stand, to run; but his sea legs failed him. He looked out at the raging sea. It was rising to consume the city. The floor broke apart beneath his knees, and fountains of water burst up through the cracks. A colossal wave broke over the land. The water crushed him, pouring down his throat, up his nose, into his ears, behind his eyes; freezing and burning. The last thing he saw was a huge marble pillar, uprooted by the current, as it came down upon his head.
Scoresby woke up screaming.
Another restless night. The same nightmare again. No matter how many times he had it, it was always just as real and terrifying as the first.
But last night had been different. A voice had whispered to him over the din of the thunder, the quakes, and the roaring sea. As soft and distant as the breeze, yet as powerful as the crashing waves. "Hear me, son of Numenor. This is not a dream, but an ancient memory. Your ancestors once lived in wisdom and peace, before they started down the path you are on. Their own deeds condemned them. Do not repeat their mistakes."
The next morning, Scoresby struggled to shake the unsettled thoughts from his mind. He frowned as he chugged his fourth cup of coffee, immediately regretting it as he felt his pulse hammer in his throat. He chased it down with a swig of moonshine from the flask under his mattress.
For centuries, for as long as he knew, his ancestors had plied the seas; had hunted for a way to break the curse of mortality. What else could they do? Lie down and let death take them without a fight? No. He looked out the window at the rising sun. Today was a hunt. He grinned. The thrill of the chase would banish this uneasiness. He started running through checklists in his mind. He grabbed a data pad and read status updates from his ship and crew. All green.
He rose and stepped out of his quarters, once again the very image of a man who was comfortable in his element, who knew his purpose in life. He would not repeat the mistakes of his ancestors. He was carrying their legacy on a new world, succeeding where they had failed, fulfilling their destiny! The world, the sea, eternal life, were his for the taking. He would never stop. Not until the sea took him or time finally caught up to him. But for now, he thought, he was well ahead of both. He had nothing to fear.
AN: I had to figure out a way for the Tulkun, being sapient creatures like humans or Na'vi, to fit into the Tolkien cosmology. Since Illuvatar had already granted Aule and Yavanna children of their own in the past (the Dwarves and the Ents,) it seemed fitting for the Tulkun to be children of Ulmo. He had always loved the Children of Illuvatar, and played a large part in the creation of Pandora. Perhaps the Tulkun were Illuvatar's reward for his love and loyalty. They can perhaps be thought of as "adopted" children of Illuvatar, in the same vein as the Dwarves. As of now, I don't have any plans to further explore their origin, nature, or fate.