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AVATAR:
LIFE GOES ON
(Part Six)

Ronal was furious. After the outing her daughter and the Sully children had gone on the day before, Tsireya had told her how helpful Lo'ak had been with a situation Ao'nung was dealing with. When prompted further, Tsireya had explained what had happened. How could kiri choose an alien over her son? It was insulting. She had voiced this opinion to Tonowari that night, and was shocked at his response.

"I advised Ao'nung to tread that water carefully." he had said. "She is not a blood-daughter of Jakesully, so she cannot be compelled by custom with family obligation. And I have no mind to try to force her into a union with our son, even if it would fulfill duty to clan and village."

"But this boy she has chosen. He is a demon. He has clearly corrupted her mind." She shook her head. "How Jakesully and Neytiri can stomach him is a mystery."

Tonowari sighed. "We both know that Jakesully's heart is true. He and his family have proven themselves. He has every right to bring the son of a defeated enemy into his family. Our own ancestors did the same." He met Ronal's gaze, solemnly. "My own grandfather was such. The sins of the father are not the sins of the son. Jakesully would not have brought this boy into his family if he did not believe he was worthy."

Ronall looked away. He was right. There was no cause to judge Spider by any other standard than his deeds and words, and so far, to her knowledge, he had neither done nor said anything disrespectful or harmful. She couldn't even fault him for his involvement in the poor treatment of those other villages, as the reports from them all indicated that he was there under duress. Fighting would have gotten him nowhere.

"I hear your words, Tonowari," she said. "And I see you."

"I see you, my love," he said tenderly. "Life is as ever-changing as the sea. We cannot know what the future will give us. All we can do is try our best to learn from what is behind us, understand what is before us, and hope Eywa will make us wise for what lies ahead of us."

Ronal sighed. She was a Tsahik of the Metkayina People. It was her job to understand, or at least be open-minded enough to understand. There was no denying that Eywa's had was on the Sully family. She now held its oldest son in her heart. Jakesully and Neytiri were courageous and strong parents, seeking to protect their family at all costs. After what she had seen the Sky People do to her Spirit Sister, and hearing Jakesully's words about protecting family, when he advised telling the tulkun to go far away, She understood that he made the decision to go far away from his own forest home, as both an Olo'eyktan and a father. To draw the ire of the demon who hunted him away from his people while disappearing from its sight. For the first time since the Sullys had come to them, she had truly seen them. "I need to understand this Spider," she said. "To know his mind and heart for myself."

Tonowari nodded. "I will have him brought to you tomorrow, then."

"No," Ronal said quickly. "I do not understand human ways well enough to ask him the right questions. If I say the wrong things, it could spark a flame of resentment in his heart, and by doing so, may start the very fire I would seek to avoid." She looked back at Tonowari with a mischievous smile. "Besides. You can learn a great deal more about a person from his friends than you can from them directly."

It was Tonowari's turn to smile. "Your mother's words. I'm glad you heeded them back then. Otherwise, we never would have begun our courtship."

"We might have," she responded. "Only Eywa knows. But I would have continued to think of you as a stubborn skxawng, and resisted a lot longer. But you had friends who I thought were too sensible to be your friends, so I decided to become their friend to learn what they truly thought of you, and why."

Tonowari laughed. "And you never have told me what your conclusions were."

Ronal scowled, but there was still humor in her eyes. "And I'm not going to, my love. It is enough to say that my conclusions led me to actually look at you, and to see you."

Tonowari nodded. "It is enough."

"So," Ronal said, getting back to the point. "Have Kiri brought to me tomorrow. Understanding why she would give her heart to this human boy will help me understand him." her eyes seemed to now be looking at something far away. "And there are things I need to understand about her as well. Things I can only ask her about. because I get the feeling that she has not been open about them to even the boy she thinks she loves."

O O O

It was late in the morning when Kiri was brought to Ronal, who was reclining against a cushion on the floor of her and Tonowari's hut. "You wanted to see me, Tsahik," the girl asked respectfully.

"Yes, child," Ronal responded. "Please join me."

Kiri came fully into the hut and knelt down, facing Ronal.

"I heard about the things you said to Ao'nung yesterday," Ronal stated, and drew some satisfaction from seeing fear momentarily show in Kiri's expression, though she held her tongue. "At first I took offense on his behalf that you would reject him in favor of someone not of the People." Kiri's fear changed to defiance, and she looked like she was about to speak. Ronal held up her hand. "But then my husband told me that he urged our son to be careful towards you. That you are your own woman, and you alone will decide who you are willing to give your heart to, and that obligation to family, clan or village will not be mandated. Ao'nung unwisely acted without thinking."

Kiri had relaxed a little. "He seemed to have thought a lot about the things he said."

Ronal chuckled. "He is like his father. Always so sure that what he thinks is right, acting on impulse before weighing the cost. But like his father, he listens to his friends and learns when he sees wisdom. Tsireya tells me that Lo'ak spoke wisdom to him yesterday, and that he listened."

"Well, good," Kiri said, perhaps a little too sarcastically.

Ronal chose to ignore the girl's tone. "What I want to understand, child," she said, "Is why the human boy holds your heart."

While very personal, it was a valid question "We grew up together," Kiri began. "When the Sky People were first driven away, he was too young to go back with them. Their planet is so far away that they must sleep through their journey, but this kind of sleep is one a small child may not wake from."

This was new information to Ronal. The boy's very presence here was not by choice, but necessity.

"He was raised by a man and woman who remained because they were trusted by the Omatikaya." Kiri continued. "They were here to learn and understand, not to take and destroy."

Ronal could sense something being held back. "They were not his actual parents?"

Again, there was a flicker of fear in Kiri's expression. "His parents fought against the Omatikaya and died in the battle of the Tree of Souls,"

So, his parents were takers and destroyers, Ronal thought. But the sins of the father are not the sins of the son.

"All he knew was friendship with the Na'vi, and lessons of respect and unconditional love from his adoptive parents," said Kiri. "We all played together. and learned together."

Ronal nodded. The boy had no evil influence from the Sky People who were driven away. If all he knew was a spirit of kindness towards the Omatikaya, then he himself would have no evil in his heart towards them.

"When he learned who his real parents were and what they had done, he hated them and himself." Kiri said sadly. "He refused to even be called by his human name after that, and took the name Spider.

This told Ronal a lot about the boy's character. If he would refuse his own given name, and even hate himself for the sins of his parents, then he perhaps was free of the insanity that plagued so many of his kind. "What does his name mean?"

Kiri laughed. "A spider is an eight-legged earth insect. It is very good at climbing and getting into tight spaces. He could climb and hide better than most of the other humans. Even better than some Na'vi at the same age." Then she frowned. "But spiders are often reviled by humans, even feared. Some are deadly if they bite a human, but most just peacefully survive. So the name has a double meaning for him. It reminds him of what he comes from, which he hates, so that he will always do his best to avoid becoming part of it."

That was a Na'vi custom. On a few occasions, individual Na'vi would turn their back on Eywa and their fellow people, and act solely for themselves. In those cases, family would put off a name that would associate them with that behavior, and take a new name in its place. One that would serve the same sort of double meaning Kiri referred to. So that while others would not associate them with their former family member's evil, but not let them forget it had happened. She found herself beginning to respect the boy.

"He's always been there for the rest of us. Helping us with our chores, even when he had his own to do, and helping to ease tensions when there were disagreements among us."

So though he was not their family, he acted like a brother should act. It sounded like the boy's heart was Na'vi in every way that really mattered. Ronal was beginning to understand. "It sounds like he thinks himself to be one of us."

Kiri nodded. "And my brothers, my sister and I have always thought of him as one of us. We knew he was smaller and would never be as strong or as fast as we can, but he has always done all he can to overcome his limitations and make up for them in other ways. Mom, because of her personal experiences with the Sky People who took so much from her, refused to see past the color of his skin. She was careful to not say it in front of us, but we overheard her telling Dad. Spider overheard it. After that, he started painting his skin blue. We thought he was being ridiculous, but he insisted that it made him more accepted by nature, and that he was more in tune with the Balance when he was blue. I could see that it was all just so he could feel like one of us, in hopes that he would somehow gain acceptance by our mom. Dad didn't encourage him to stay around us, but he made it clear to mom that he wasn't going to discourage him, either. When he said it, he spoke with the authority of an Olo'eyktan, and while she wasn't particularly happy about it, she said no more about it, other than occasionally mentioning that he would be better off with his own kind."

Ronal closed her eyes as she took a deep breath. She understood things so much more clearly, now. It was time to turn her attention to another matter. She opened her eyes again and fixed Kiri with a serious gaze. "Let us now speak of you, child."

The look in Ronal's eyes made Kiri feel naked. as if there could be no secret thought to be had, and her very soul was being studied. Her adoptive Grandmother, Mo'at, had given her that look many times , and it made her feel the exact same way. She supposed that it just came with being Tsahik. "What about me," she asked with nervous respect.

"I saw you," Ronal said. "Under the water, moving your hands as a school of squid danced in response. How do you do this?"

Kiri's eyes widened. She hadn't realized that anyone had witnessed her communion with the creatures around her. "The truth is, I don't fully understand the things I can do. Most of the time, they just happen."

Ronal pursed her lips. "Are there times when you've intentionally done things like that?"

She hadn't yet told Spider what she did with the anemone during the battle. It had been her intention, but his feeling for her filled her with such joy that everything else had sort of taken a back seat. She knew Ronal expected an answer, but she wasn't going to open with that one. "I bonded with my ikran without challenging her," she said.

Ronal's breath caught. Ikran were very fierce, and they always tried to kill the Na'vi they bonded with. "How?"

Kiri shrugged. "I just asked her to be my friend."

Ronal looked closely at Kiri's expression, to see if there was any sign that the girl was joking. She med her eyes, and for a moment, there was a sense that something awesome and terrible was lookin back at her. It was so intense tht she had to fight the urge to flinch. This child was not normal.

"I know, I'm not normal," Kiri said. "I tried to get answers from Eywa at the Spirit Tree. That's when I..." she trailed off, squeezing here eyes shut against the memory.

Ronal understood. That was when she had her seizure, just before Jakesully's dreamwalker friend and his human companion showed up. Before the trouble with the demon started. "Have you ever done anything aggressive with your abilities?"

Kiri was not going to hold back. Ronal was the Tsahik of her new village. Matters of the spirit were her area of expertise. She needed answers, and getting them began with answering questions. "I bonded with an anemone and commanded it to destroy one of the water machines the Sky People were using to chase us. I commanded it to kill its driver when he tried to escape. But it wasn't me," she said. "I felt everything. Saw everything, but it was like I just knew that I needed to make the bond. After that, it was like someone else was thinking for me, willing the anemone to attack. It was like I was a passenger on an Ikran, but a master rider was in control."

Ronal's mouth was suddenly dry. She had known Kiri would be comi8ng to the Metkayina for a long time. Her first communion with Eywa as Tsahik had gifted her a vision. A girl arriving on the back of an Ikran, accfompanied by others. Her face ws obscured, as were the faces of the others she was with. And there was a thought that had come into her mind which had terrified her and had given her joy at the same time "The Seedberer comes."

As she looked at Kiri, she suddenly understood that the girl and the people who came on the backs of Ikran, were Kiri and her family. Why the connection didn't occur to her when they arrived, she did not know. But Eywa had shown her something great and terrible back then. To make her ready for what was before her now. So that the People may face what lay ahead with hope. "Child," she said, looking gravely into Kiri's eyes. "You are the Seedbearer"

OKAY... I know this one is a bit short, but I've been wanting to get to this point for a little while. We know that Kiri's got some next-level stuff going on with her. We also know that her name is in reference to the seeds of the Sacred Tree. We know that the working title for the next movie is "The Seedbearer," so I had this thought. What if there was a prophecy among some Na'vi about a chosen one who will change the fate of many. How, they do not know. Who they would be, they do not know, and where they come from they do not know. But that the Seedbearer would come from afar, at a time of great need. So I want to explore those possibilities. I don't know what James Cameron has in mind for Kiri. I'm not going to try to write about her destiny. But what if she were to learn that she does have a greater purpose to serve, even though she has no idea what it is or how it will be achieved. How does that sort of knowledge impact someone? THAT is what I want to explore.

Thank you for reading. Until next time, be blessed...