Viraj led the way through the maze of joined-up trailers, some connected end-to-end the way they were designed, others with flexible tubes where things needed to turn corners or climb slopes in order to fit in the caverns of High Camp. This twisting path led them to a bigger room that was set up as a cafeteria, although not nearly on the scale of the one at Site Nine. There were long tables for people to sit at, and dishes of food placed in the middle so the diners could help themselves. Viraj joined his mother and sister at one of these, and somebody else moved over to make room for Neteyam.
"Good morning," said Reet, handing him a plate. "You look much more alert today. Don't force yourself to eat too much," she added. "If you'd rather just have another shake, you can."
"No, thanks," said Neteyam. He hadn't liked the texture of the nutrient shake. Real food sounded much more appealing.
"You like pancakes?" asked the woman on his right. She was muscular in build, with very dark skin and thick hair that she wore in many small braids, much like Neteyam's own, only she liked to tie them up into complicated topknots or buns. He tried to remember her name... he'd used to know all the avatar drivers.
"Yes, I do," he said. "Dr. Oladele?"
Margo Oladele nodded and put a couple of pancakes on a plate for him, and as he reached to take it, Neteyam realized that the room was eerily quiet. The cafeteria at Site Nine had been full of the sounds of clinking cutlery and conversation. Here, nobody seemed to be talking or eating. Neteyam looked around, and saw people quickly look back at their plates or at their dining companions, as if they hadn't been staring.
Of course, just as he'd used to know all the avatars, they'd all known him. They all knew that he represented something unnatural and out of place. At least at Site Nine there'd been so many humans that he'd been relatively anonymous.
Prisha was next to her mother on the other side of the table. She was not staring at Neteyam. Instead, she was looking at her plate, not taking her eyes off it even when she reached for a piece of fruit out of a bowl to her right.
"Peanut butter?" Margo asked, offering Neteyam a jar of thick brown nut paste.
"Thanks." He took some and imitated her in spreading it on his pancakes. Nobody had offered it to him at Site Nine, but he liked nuts, and this turned out to have a rich, salty flavour that went well with the sweet pancakes.
"Pa'ay came and asked about you last night," Margo added conversationally – a little too casual, as she tried to fill the silence left by others who suddenly had nothing to talk about. "I had to tell her you weren't awake yet. She's very impressed that you made it up here all by yourself."
"Did you tell her who I am?" Neteyam asked.
"I haven't spoken to her since then, so no," said Margo. "Do you want me to tell her, or would you rather do that yourself?"
"I'll do it," he decided. He did need to thank Pa'ay, and it would be good practice for telling his family later. Her reaction would tell him a lot, and the more times he told people, the easier it would probably get. "Has anyone heard from my father?"
"No. We won't know he's coming until he gets here," said Reet.
Prisha still had her head down, but as Neteyam looked at her again, her eyes flickered up and for a moment her gaze met his. Her cheeks turned fiercely pink again, and she quickly hunched her shoulders and focused on cutting up her piece of fruit. Neteyam recognized the type: it was a Pandoran stonefruit the humans had also eaten back at Site Nine. As much because he was curious what she'd do as because he wanted to eat, he pointed to the bowl.
"May I have a tskxmauti?" he asked.
Prisha closed her eyes and pushed the bowl towards him.
"Thank you," he said. So she was still frightened or disgusted by him. Would that ever change? He hadn't known Prisha very well, but he had liked her, and her reactions hurt.
Viraj, however, seemed amused. "When's the wedding?" he asked Neteyam.
Neteyam stopped short in the act of biting into the fruit, and stared at him. "What?"
Prisha's shoulders hunched even further, and her head hung lower. "Shut up, Viraj," she said.
"Viraj," Reed added, in a warning voice.
Viraj was not discouraged. "Are you gonna have a ceremony?" he asked. "Or are you just gonna bone under a tree like the Omatikaya do?"
Prisha got to her feet and banged both hand son the table. "Shut up, Viraj!" she repeated. "I will seriously murder you!" She snatched up her plate, and ran out of the room.
The silence, which had only just begun to melt back into quiet conversation, fell once again. People looked awkwardly at each other, nobody sure what to say or do. Then Reet sighed heavily.
"Viraj," she said. "If you can't be civil to your sister, you can at least stop making our guest uncomfortable. Next time you'll be eating in your room. Understand?"
Viraj shrugged one shoulder and smiled at Neteyam.
Neteyam was not amused. What in the world had given Viraj the idea that he and Prisha were going to mate? Especially when she kept running away from him. "Among my people," he said, "we're taught to be respectful of our siblings." Not that it was a lesson always taken to heart, he thought as he bit into his piece of fruit. Lo'ak and Kiri had fought constantly as children, and Neteyam himself never lost an opportunity to tease his little brother.
The statement did seem to make Viraj feel at least a little bad about it, though. He looked down at his plate.
"You need to apologize to her," Neteyam added.
"Sure. Later," Viraj decided. "Hey, you wanna learn how to play Revenant Rumble? It's a video game."
Neteyam hadn't played a video game since he was younger than Viraj. Spider had used to like them, but had lost interest once he was eight or nine, preferring to be out in the forest. Tuk enjoyed the little matching or sorting games the humans played on their holopads, but she was only a child. "I'm too old for that," he said, and turned back to Reet across the table. "What I'd like to do is talk to Pa'ay. I want to ask her what happened to Pawk. The banshee."
"She won't have hurt it," said Margo. "Not unless she thought she absolutely had to. I'll go find her after breakfast."
"Thank you," said Neteyam, taking another bite of fruit. The skin was thicker than he remembered, but the taste and texture of the flesh were comfortingly familiar.
When the meal was over, everybody scraped their leftover food into the organics recycling system, and put their dishes into the washing machines. Nobody had ever done this at Site Nine. They'd just left their used things in the designated places, and Neteyam realized there must be other people there who were responsible for the cleanup. He hadn't thought of that before, and now that he did, he wished he'd been a bit tidier with his leftovers.
Margo said she would meet him outside the airlock. Neteyam put on a new breathing mask, and found that the skin on his forehead was very tender after he'd worn the previous one for two days straight as he made his way back here. He had to move it around a bit to find a place that wasn't painful to wear, and even then it wasn't exactly comfortable. He took a few breaths of the artificial air, getting used to it again, and then pressed the button to open the exterior door.
He was shaking a little as the pressure seals hissed. What if Pa'ay were as repulsed as Prisha had been? What if she got up and paced, on the verge of panic, as Reet had done, or just sat there in horrified silence, like the other humans at breakfast? What if she were sorry she'd helped him?
Margo, in her avatar, was right outside, talking to Pa'ay and somebody Neteyam didn't initially recognize – a man in the regalia of the Omatikaya Olo'eyktan. Neteyam had never seen anybody wear that except for Dad, and Grandfather Eytukan in old photographs. To see it on a stranger felt like a kick in his sore ribs. The idea that Dad had abandoned the People had been only a concept until now, but here was the truth of it, staring down at him from far too high up.
It was only a few moments later that Neteyam looked at the face in the middle of the feathers and realized he did recognize it. That was Pa'ay's mate, Va'ru. He was young, but a wise warrior with a voice people listened to. Objectively, Neteyam knew he was a good choice, but seeing him there still hurt. Had he taken a new name like Grandfather had, or kept his own like Dad?
Neteyam himself would never wear that regalia now. His whole life it had always seemed obvious that, as the eldest son, he would someday inherit his father's leadership role, just as Mother would would inherit Grandmother Mo'at's position as Tsahik. Dad had never formally named him as successor, but people had talked as if it were already settled, and it had always been in the back of Neteyam's mind. It was something he would have to think about when he chose a mate, for example – he would have to find a girl who had the kind of connection with Eywa that Mother, Grandmother, or Kiri did.
None of that mattered anymore, though. When the family had left the Omatikaya, they'd relinquished those positions of authority, and it would be difficult to rise to a similar level in a new clan. But even if that hadn't happened, this version of Neteyam could never be a leader among the People. He couldn't ride into battle with the warriors of the clan. He couldn't make his voice heard above the din of battle. And he'd never even considered the idea of doing anything else with his life... so where did that leave him?
That was a lot to take in, and Neteyam would have liked to sit down and process it properly, but he didn't have the opportunity. Margo was leading Pa'ay towards him.
Pa'ay was tall and wiry, and kept her head shaved except for the hair needed to braid into her queue. She wore greaves and vambraces of multicoloured basketwork, lovingly repaired where it had been pierced in battle, and stacks of braided chokers around her neck, bright with beads. She was one of the tallest females in the clan, and had always been intimidating. Now Neteyam's new viewpoint made her seem a dozen times more so.
"Here he is," said Margo cheerfully in Na'vi. "He specifically asked to talk to you."
Pa'ay crouched, as it was polite to speak to humans on their own eye level, and touched her forehead. "I see you, little warrior," she said.
Neteyam winced. He knew she meant it as a compliment. She was telling him how impressed she was that a lone human had survived climbing the mountains and being stepped on by a banshee, but when she was so much bigger than him, and didn't know who he was, it sounded like something she might say to a child. Neteyam had used to be capable of so much more.
"I see you, Pa'ay of the Omatikaya," he replied formally. Whereas she didn't see him at all, did she? "Thank you for bringing me here. I owe you my life, and I hope to repay it someday." This was just a formulaic phrase, but it was one Neteyam, as a warrior, would have normally felt bound by. Now he would probably never have the opportunity.
"You speak very well," said Pa'ay.
Va'ru crouched next to her. "I am called Tarsem. Your father's brother chose me to succeed him as Olo'eyktan."
The first thought Neteyam had about that was that Va'ru had chosen a new name, and Neteyam should remember to call him by it so as not to seem overly familiar. The second was the realization that while Margo hadn't told Tarsem and Pa'ay who Neteyam was, she also hadn't told them who he wasn't.
"I'm sorry," Margo put in. "I was getting to that. Our DNA results weren't quite right. This young man is not Jake Sully's nephew."
"A shame," said Tarsem. "He would be proud to have him in his family."
Margo grimaced. "Ah... I think I'd better let him explain." She looked down at Neteyam.
Neteyam opened his mouth, and then closed it again without saying anything. The words seemed to get stuck in the back of his throat, and didn't want to come out. The idea of telling these two powerful leaders who he really was made him want to hide, or at least to lower his head like Prisha had at breakfast, so they couldn't look him in the eyes. It wasn't just that they looked like giants, although they did – he felt ashamed. In front of the People he was so small, so clumsy, so ugly, and had gotten beaten to a pulp doing things they did every day. He found he'd balled his fists, as if to hide that useless extra finger, and wished he'd remembered to check his chin for whiskers.
He couldn't run and hide, though – especially not from such important people as Olo'eyktan and his mate. They were still crouched there, waiting for him to explain himself. He had to say something.
"What happened to Pawk?" he blurted out.
The question startled everybody. "To Pawk?" asked Pa'ay. Perhaps she thought he was talking about the musical instrument.
Neteyam knew he should have waited to ask that, but now that he'd asked the question he might as well get an answer to it. "The banshee. Her name is Pawk. Did you hurt her?"
"I did not," said Pa'ay. "Hoetsyal, my partner, chased her away. I didn't realize she was one with a name. Pawk was..." she looked at Tarsem.
"Pawk was Neteyam's partner," Tarsem said, inclining his head in a brief nod. "Have you met Neteyam?" he asked the boy in front of him.
There was only one answer to be made to that, no matter how tempting it might be to lie. "I am Neteyam. The... the Sky People brought me back in this body."
His prediction at breakfast had been incorrect. It was not any easier to say the second time.
Pa'ay covered her mouth with a hand and almost stood, then dropped to one knee to pretend she'd been merely rearranging her weight, rather than trying to back away in shock. Tarsem, too, straightened his back as if to avoid a threatening snake. Then he put one palm on the ground, and leaned closer to scrutinize Neteyam's face as Reet Singh had done, looking for something familiar. Neteyam wanted to shrink away. He imagined he could feel his cheeks and chin prickling as the horrible whiskers grew, but he forced himself to keep his head up and tried to stand tall... but standing tall was impossible in this body, and he felt very, very tiny.
"Why would they do such a thing?" asked Tarsem.
"They wanted my help. I didn't help them," Neteyam added quickly. "I escaped as soon as I could, and came directly here." They didn't need to know about his foolish detour... another thing his old self would never have done.
"He's brought some valuable information with him," Margo put in. "He's told us they're making more resurrected warriors, some from as recently as a few months ago."
"Then that is something we will have to prepare for," Tarsem said.
"What about... this?" Pa'ay gestured to Neteyam, but she was looking at Margo. "Have they do this to others? Should we fear that any who die at the hands of the Sky People might come back in this form, rather than being allowed to return to Eywa?"
"I don't know," Margo admitted, nervously lacing and unlacing her fingers. "Based on what Reet told me, it sounds like this was an experiment of sorts. Right, Neteyam?" she looked down at him.
"They said I was the first," Neteyam agreed. That was what Nguyen had told him, something about the first time we've tried imprinting a non-human scan on a human brain. "They didn't say there wouldn't be more."
"We will need to know more about this," said Tarsem. He rearranged his feet to sit more comfortable as he spoke to Neteyam face-to-face. "What else can you tell us?"
Neteyam knew precious little, but he told them what he could – that when the Sky People's warriors died in combat, they were being brought back as recoms, and that this seemed to be something they could do more than once, as Bohan had complained they would make another one of her if she died. He explained that everything to do with this project had been moved to Site Nine so that the bulk of the human population at Bridgehead wouldn't have to be around the recoms, who made them uncomfortable. And he described the things they'd asked of him, the sideways questions about his family that Nguyen kept trying to sneak into their conversations, the tests of his physical and mental capacities, and how Bush had wanted him to help map the caves.
"And you said they were able to capture your soul from a distance?" Pa'ay said.
"Yes," Neteyam replied. "That's... Nguyen said that's why there are gaps in my memory. I think they can get some from the dead, too, because they had to take O'Donnell's body back to Site Nine in order to get the last of his memories out before they recreated him."
"We must take extra care to recover the dead, then," said Tarsem grimly.
"I will go to the camp in the Kilvanoro Caverns," Pa'ay decided, "and check on the warriors there. Eywa willing, the Sky People have not found them." She glanced at Neteyam again, and couldn't hide the look of horror at the idea that the people guarding the stolen explosive might have been brought back like he had.
"They will have enough sense to retreat if the invaders get too close," said Tarsem.
"We saw no trace of them there," Neteyam said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. His abused feet were getting tired and sore, but he couldn't just sit down in the middle of a conversation without permission, and he wasn't about to ask for it. He didn't want to seem like a child, falling asleep in the middle of an important discussion. Neither Tarsem nor Pa'ay seemed to have noticed yet, but then, he didn't have a tail to droop in exhaustion, or tall ears that would fold back when he swallowed the urge to yawn.
"No wonder he was able to climb the mountains alone," Pa'ay remarked. "He knew the way."
"Indeed," Tarsem agreed, "but why would his own banshee attack him?"
"I think she was confused," Neteyam said. "She could hear my voice, but she couldn't find me."
"But surely he would just make tsa..." Pa'ay cut herself off in mid-sentence, horrified anew as she realized what Neteyam had been grappling with this entire time. "The poor creature!" she exclaimed, looking at him with a mixture of pity and utter revulsion. "To have to live with that!"
Neteyam bristled. No, he could not make tsaheylu, and he'd been dealing with it by not thinking about it. Hearing it spoken aloud, even interrupted, was salt in that wound. Maybe he was just tired, but it made him too angry to let it go.
"I am not deaf," he said loudly, as he had to the humans at Site Nine. They had looked at him the same way, as if he were some thing instead of a person. "I'm right here and I can hear you."
Pa'ay's ears drooped in shame. "I'm sorry," she said.
"Who is right here?" another voice called out. "Who is that?"
Neteyam's heart leaped for a moment – that was Grandmother! - but then it sank again, so hard it felt as if it hit the ground like a dropped egg. He was going to have to tell her what had happened to him, or worse, Tarsem and Pa'ay would do it for him, and he hadn't even thought yet about how she might react. What if she...
A piece of hanging textile was pushed aside, and Mo'at herself stepped into the courtyard space around the science shacks. She looked from Tarsem to Pa'ay to Margo, as if expecting one of them to speak to her. None did. They knew, as did Neteyam, what she'd heard, and what she was hoping it meant. Pa'ay and Tarsem both stood up, having come to a silent agreement.
"Tsahik," said Tarsem, stepping towards her, "we are speaking to the boy Pa'ay found in the mountains. The one the humans believed was Jake Sully's nephew."
Mo'at put up a hand to stop him coming closer, and looked at Neteyam. "Is he not?"
"He is not," said Pa'ay, "but he is a brave and intelligent young man all the same." She fixed her eyes on Neteyam and the message was clear: he was absolutely not to tell Grandmother who he was.
He glanced at Tarsem and found the same warning. For a moment Neteyam wondered what would happen if he told her anyway, but he also knew exactly why he shouldn't. Grandmother had lost her parents very young, her eldest daughter had been murdered by the Sky People, and her husband had been killed the same day the clan lost Hometree. Then, after Neteyam's memories ended, the rest of her family had abandoned the Omatikaya entirely... and then she must have heard about Neteyam dying. Finding him like this might be one shock too many.
So he said, "I am not. Pa'ay flatters me."
Mo'at was in good control of her emotions and how she showed them, but Neteyam knew his grandmother well enough to notice the signs. There was a slight slump of her shoulders under her beaded smock, and a brief twitch at the end of her tail before the entire appendage fell completely still. She was not shocked, but she was disappointed.
"Your voice is very like one of my grandsons'," she said. "It is a shame you will never meet him. He died a few months ago." With that she touched her forehead and then turned and left.
Neyetam felt rather sick. Would she just forget the incident as unimportant? Or did she feel like she'd lost him all over again?
Tarsem came and crouched again to speak to Neteyam, placing one large hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said, "but your grandmother's life has been full of tragedies..."
"I know," said Neteyam. He wanted to shrug the hand off as he had General Bush's over-familiar arm, but didn't dare be so rude.
"Perhaps if we have time to prepare her," Tarsem said.
"No," said Pa'ay. "She is no longer young. It might kill her, and we have no successor as yet."
"She is not frail," said Tarsem. "If we let her know that such a thing is possible, maybe she can get used to the idea."
Neteyam said nothing, because he had nothing to say. He wanted to run away and keep on running until he went off the edge of the mountain and fell to earth. He wanted to crawl under Prisha's bed and hide. He wanted to go someplace where there was nobody else for miles and miles, get off his aching feet, and cry like a child.
It was Margo who came to his rescue. "Excuse me," she said, "but I think it's time Neteyam got some rest. He's come a long way, remember, and we had to patch up some pretty nasty injuries. If you've got more questions for him, you can ask them later."
Tarsem looked like a child who'd been caught being naughty. "Oh, of course. How thoughtless of me not to realize." He stood up, finally taking his hand off Neteyam's back. "Go and sleep."
"Thank you, Olo'eyktan," said Neteyam formally, not sure whether to be relieved that he could now escape, or insulted that he was being told to go take a nap as if he were four years old.
"Reet's probably going to have my hide for letting them keep you out here this long," Margo said. "In you go."
Neteyam climbed the steps and closed the airlock. Once the green light came on to tell him atmosphere exchange was complete, he ripped his breathing mask off – he was really, really starting to hate that thing – and sat down on the floor.
Reet and Prisha had been shaken by finding out what had happened to him, but they'd at least been honest about it. Pa'ay and Tarsem, for all they'd tried to be polite, were clearly repelled. He had to wonder, if Pa'ay had known who he was when she'd first found him, would she have let Pawk kill him, in the belief that was a kinder fate?
Would Mother look at him that way, disgusted by the entire idea of him?
The inner airlock door opened, and Reet poked her head in. "Are you all right?" she asked.
Neteyam was not, but that wasn't what she meant and he knew it, so he grabbed a handle on the wall to stand up. His body felt bulky and heavy in a way it hadn't since he'd first awakened in that room in Site Nine, and it was another slap in the face to realize that being human had started to feel almost normal until now.
"May I have some water?" he asked Reet.
"Of course," she said, ushering him inside. "You need to stay hydrated. Is everything okay?"
Margo was just inside, back in her human body with her link bed still sitting open. "They didn't want to tell Mo'at," she said, filling a tumbler in the sink. "They thought it would be too much of a shock."
"Oh," said Reet. She took the container of water from Margo and handed it to Neteyam. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Neteyam lied. "They're probably right. Grandmother has been through a lot." He took a big sip of water, letting the cool liquid linger in his throat as if it could leech the tension out of his body. Then he reached up and brushed his chin. "I need to shave."
"You don't look that fuzzy yet," Reet assured him.
"No, I need to," Neteyam said. He had to do something to make himself look less... less human. There were many humans without beards, but this was the only thing he could do right now.
Reet probably didn't understand that, but must have heard something in his voice that made her take pity. "You can borrow Max' shaver," she decided.
Neteyam disliked shaving both because it was a human thing and because it always made him think of Bush' attempt to ingratiate himself, but rather than the soap and razor Bush had used, Max Patel used a little buzzing machine that required far less care and concentration. With the whiskers removed, Neteyam then sat in the washroom while Reet smeared green gel over his shoulders, neck, and cheeks to soothe his sunburn. Then she wiped her hands and pointed towards the door.
"Do you know the way back to our cubicle?" she asked.
"I can find it," he replied. The connected habitat modules snaked around and turned corners, but there weren't a lot of forks in the route. The maze-like arrangement was only necessary to make the trailers fit in the uneven spaces of the caverns.
"Then you can head back there and put your feet up," Reet told him.
"I'm not sleepy," Neteyam protested.
"You don't have to sleep, but you do have to rest," she said. "You can read a book or... can you read?" she asked.
"Some," said Neteyam. Humans considered it an essential skill, and all seemed to be able to read and write as fluently as they spoke. Neteyam could read but he had to focus on it, and the longer words were sometimes a problem. This had never bothered him before, but now he found himself suddenly embarrassed by it, almost as much as he'd been by his smallness in front of the tall, graceful Pa'ay and Tarsem.
"But it's not something you'd do just to pass the time," Reet said.
Neteyam shook his head.
"Maybe Prisha can suggest something for you to do," she decided.
As far as Neteyam knew, Prisha didn't want anything to do with him. "Maybe I could help you with your work," he suggested. "Or help Dr. Oladele." Margo had just returned to the room, carrying a microscope and a stack of notebooks. Her seven-year-old daughter 'Dora was behind her, very carefully balancing trays of fossil specimens.
"I don't think you'll be much help to either of us if you can't read," said Reet, "and we can't ask you to do any physical work while you're injured. I know you don't like it, Neteyam, but you're just going to have to sit and entertain yourself as best you can."
Having nothing to do was always the worst part of being sick or injured, and it was going to be so much worse right now, because there were so many painful things Neteyam didn't want to think about. But without any real choice, he limped his way back to the trailer where the Patel family lived. He didn't remember how far down the row it was, but the doors turned out to have family names taped to them, and while he couldn't read enough to help Reet or Margo, he could certainly identify the name Patel. He opened the door.
The first thing he saw was Prisha, sitting on the bed and working on some complicated computer code using both a holopad and a wall terminal. She looked up at him and her eyes widened in shock.
He stared back for a moment, not sure what to say or do.
"Don't you knock?" she asked.
"I didn't expect you to be in here," said Neteyam.
"It's my room!" Prisha told him indignantly.
"I'm sorry," Neteyam said, and shut the door again. He turned around, thinking that he would have to go back to the mess hall and ask Reet where else he could go. Instead, he found Viraj standing right behind him.
"Hi," the boy said. "You wanna play games now?"
Although he'd said earlier that he was too old for that, Neteyam was now tempted by the offer simply because it would be something to do. But if he were going to spend friendly time with Viraj, he needed the boy to do something first.
"Are you here to apologize to your sister?" Neteyam asked.
"If I do, will you play?"
Neteyam nodded. "Fine."
"Yes!" Viraj pumped his arms in victory. "I never have anyone to play with anymore."
"Maybe if you were nicer to Prisha, she'd play with you," Neteyam suggested.
"Oh, she'll play," Viraj said, "but she beats me every single time and it's no fun anymore." He knocked on the door.
"What is it?" asked Prisha from inside.
"Sorry I teased you at breakfast!" Viraj called out. He did not sound sorry. He was merely saying the words.
"Did Mom tell you to apologize?" Prisha asked.
"No, Neteyam did!" said Viraj. He looked up at Neteyam and wagged his eyebrows. Neteyam had never seen anyone do this before, not even Dad. He wasn't sure what it meant, but it looked very strange.
"Go jump off the mountain!" snapped Prisha.
Viraj turned away from the door and shrugged. "I tried," he said.
"I don't think you tried very hard," Neteyam pointed out. He'd always found that getting Kiri and Lo'ak to apologize to each other after a fight was like pulling teeth, but he'd rather have had that than Viraj's compliance without effort.
"She's gonna stay mad no matter what. Girls are like that," said Viraj, with the sort of confidence only a nine-year-old could muster. "Come on, I'll teach you to play."