Blurring lines
Cursive text is in Navi
Lo'ak walked the base, helping the others search for their dead and wounded, giving orders to collect enemy equipment and otherwise dealing with the aftermath of their att. He entered one of the warehouses, in search for useful things to take with them and looking for a way to inflict greater damage to the base as their parting gift.
Inside he took note of a number of dead humans. The soldiers had all been on the outside during the attack, where the danger was. Here conversely the enemy dead looked to be in worker uniforms. And most did not appear to be armed either. His eyes lingered on those dead for several seconds before he continued on, his mood even heavier than it already was.
He had certainly come to learn the melancholy of the aftermath of battles. And the ugliness that inevitably came to the surface once the rush of adrenaline faded. He also noted a few of their fallen as well. Seeing them made him sigh heavily. They had won the battle, but by no means had it been clean.
He had to agree with Kiri. He hated this war as well.
These were his thoughts when Tsireya found him, walking in through the doors of the warehouse. "Lo'ak. There you are."
He gave her a faint smile. "I'm glad you're here."
His serious expression returned. He pointed. "You see that fenced in area here? I'm thinking that's where they could have stored their explosives. Weapons and ammo for sure. We might need need some tools to break in there though. Will you help me look?"
She opened her mouth to say something else. She had seen his somber mood and had thought to offer some words. And perhaps to receive some in turn. But she supposed this wasn't the time. The battle might be won, but it would be only a matter of time before the Sky People would return in greater force. They needed to be long gone by then. So for the time being things needed to keep moving forward. There would be time to reflect back in camp.
She nodded. "Okay. Let's see what we can find."
The two of them were poking around the crates, shelves and containers when they froze in their tracks. They had heard a noise. A quiet kind, of someone trying not to be heard. They exchanged glances, and Lo'ak nodded to where he had seen something slip into a space between a stack of crates and the wall. Tsireya nodded her understanding. Then both had their weapons in their hands and they moved forward again, as silent as ghosts.
Lo'ak arrived near the crates. As Tsireya took position close by, he took a deep breath, then rounded the corner, pointing his gun into the opening, earning a frightened scream from the one hiding here:
"Wait, no, please! I'm unarmed, I'm harmless! Please don't kill me! Please…"
He stared in confusion at what he had found. A Na'vi woman, looking to be one of the Sea Peoples. But she was dressed in the same manner as the human workers and had addressed him in English. Also of note was that she had a dead body of one of the workers in her arms.
"Who are you? An Avatar driver?" He demanded, likewise in English.
"What? No, no, nothing like that! I'm just and intern, helping stock the shelves, load the trains… please, I don't want to die…"
"I won't hurt you. Just answer all of my questions." He told her, lowering his weapon. "Show me your hand." He ordered.
"Huh?" She asked, not understanding.
"Show me your hand. Your fingers." He repeated firmly.
With some confusion she complied, and he counted her fingers. Four. But that only left him more perplexed.
"Tsireya… you better come take a look at this." He said to his partner in Na'vi.
"Do you speak Na'vi? My partner doesn't know English." He continued to ask as Tsireya walked over.
"Y-yes. I can speak it. I'm a bit out of practice, but I know it." The Na'vi replied.
Now seeing the same sight as Lo'ak, Tsireya's eyes widened in surprise. "What in Eywa's… who are you? Where did you come from?"
"My name is Ilsa. I work here." Na'vi woman answered. "I work here." She repeated to Tsireya's baffled expression, thinking she had not been understood.
"And who is that?" Lo'ak asked.
"Jeremy. When the attack stated he told me to hide. And… and then…" Ilsa explained.
"Oh, Jeremy. You shouldn't have tried to fight them. We could have hid together." She said, sobbing quietly.
"But… I don't understand. Why is one of the People working amongst the Sky People? Are you a prisoner? What clan are you from?" Lo'ak asked.
Ilsa seemed a little stumped by the question. "Uh, I… I'm sorry, I don't really know that for sure. Bridgehead is where I live when I'm not here. Or close by. There is this camp…"
"You don't know what your clan is?" Tsireya asked in the meantime, frowning in quiet disbelief.
"I mean, I've lived in Bridgehead for a long time now. Most of my life, about as long as I can remember." Ilsa replied.
"Before that-" She began, before her expression turned distressed, and she shook her head. "No. I'm sorry. I don't remember anything. Please don't ask me about that."
Lo'ak and Tsireya exchanged disquieted glances.
"So… what you're saying is that they took you as a child?" Tsireya asked, horrified.
"I don't know! I don't want to talk about it! Stop asking!" Ilsa replied tersely, a note of anger entering her voice.
"Alright, alright, I won't. Sorry." Tsireya apologized.
"I'm sorry for what they did to you. But it's over now. Come with us, sister, and we can-" She began to say offering her hand to the other woman.
"What? No! I'm not going anywhere with you people!" Ilsa said in alarm, retreating further into her hidey hole.
Tsireya blinked, confused. "Huh? Why would…?"
"There is no need to be worried. You will be welcome with us and the Sky People won't be able to hurt you anymore. Come on now, it will be alright." She coaxed. She then went on to try and take hold of Ilsa.
"NO! Get your hands off me! Get off you bitch!" Ilsa shouted, fighting off Tsireya's reaching hand. Though she could not understand words shouted in English, she had heard the anger. Surprised by the outburst, she took several steps back, an astonished expression on her face.
"Jeremy was my friend. And you killed him. You killed them all! Why did you do that!? We were happy and safe. Just another normal work day. Why did you have to ruin that? Why couldn't you leave us be?" Ilsa said, looking down at the dead human, teary eyed.
By now Tsireya could hardly believe her ears: "Wha… you… what have they done to you?"
Ilsa raised her head, eyes full of anger. "What they have done?" She repeated. "How about what you've done? Everything was fine until today! And you destroyed it all. All of this is your fault!"
"Tsireya, maybe this isn't the time to-" Lo'ak tried.
"You're not one of them! You never will be! You can't! Don't you see that?" Tsireya shouted.
"Well I'm not one of you! These are my people more than you will ever be, butcher. I'll never be one you! Never!" Ilsa shouted back.
"Go! Get away! Get away from here! Never come back!" She declared.
"Tsireya, Tsireya… leave it be." Lo'ak said, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. Tsireya gave an exasperated huff, shaking her head at Ilsa in disapproval, then stormed off. Lo'ak turned his eyes to Ilsa, who was now glaring at him.
He sighed heavily. "Look, I won't force you to go anywhere against your will. But I wish you'd change your mind. It won't be safe for you to stay. The Sky People might not believe you had nothing to do with this attack."
"You'd better get out of this building at least. I'm going to have the others start setting off explosions here and I wouldn't want you to get hurt. I'll tell the others to leave you be… but if you get second thoughts you're still welcome to come with us." He instructed.
Ilsa did not respond, merely continuing to give him a hostile glare. He sighed again, more heavily, and left in search of Tsireya.
Locating her took some searching and asking for directions, along the way mentioning Ilsa to those he stopped to question. Eventually Lo'ak found Tsireya right outside the gates, sitting on the dried trunk of an uprooted tree in the kill zone. She was looking into the forest, looking to be deep in thought. He took a seat next to her.
"What…what was that back there? What did we just stumble across?" She asked, looking at him. "She is like us. Yet she acts as if she was one of the Sky People. How can that be?"
"Well, there have been humans who are willing to ally with us. Even those like Spider who wanted to be more like us. So maybe it was only inevitable that one of us would make a choice to go in the opposite direction." He suggested.
"Surely that can't be it? I can accept that some humans can see the light and join us. But I cannot believe even the most foolish of us would be so short sighed as to side with our enemy. That just doesn't make sense." She replied.
"No. I can't accept that. There has to be more to this." She declared.
"I do wonder where she came from. How did she end up here of all places?" Lo'ak pondered.
"She is one of the Sea Peoples. So that gives us some idea of her origins. Perhaps when the Sky People waged war on our islands they did not kill everyone they caught after all? That is when they were closest to us." She suggested.
Lo'ak nodded to himself. "Could be. With so many people dead or missing such disappearances would have gone unnoticed. And if she was very young when she was taken it could explain why she seems to have very little memory from before Bridgehead."
"Do you think we should bring her with us, so that we could learn more?" She suggested.
"I'm not sure what that would do. Doesn't look like she will come willingly. And if we take her prisoner I don't know how we could make her cooperate." He said.
"But there might be a chance to-" Tsireya began. Then she seemed to reconsider her words, bowing her head. "No… you're probably right. If we truly killed her friends she won't be in a hurry to forgive us for that. In making this attack she may have been lost to us for good." She admitted quietly.
"What… what if this wasn't a single occurrence? What if there are more like her out there?" She asked.
Lo'ak sighed. "If there are, knowledge of them could set our cause on fire. We'd need to manage things very carefully."
"No kidding." Tsireya agreed. "It's one thing to fight these aliens. But if we start finding more and more of our own among them… and realize there are now humans and Na'vi on both sides of the fight…. I'm not sure I like what such blurring lines might mean for us."
She shook her head to herself. "And I thought the worst they could do to us was kill us. Now I find they could do worse. Instead they would twist us… into that. It truly is amazing, how there always seems to be a new layer of depravity to the Sky People."
"What it would mean if we lose… for us… for our world… I can't even bear to think about it." She confessed.
"And that is why we can't let them win." He said, placing a hand on her shoulder. She nodded grimly.
"Well, at least we won today's battle. The first one we were in charge of. That is something to be proud of." She said, mustering a smile.
Lo'ak smiled as well. "That's true. We've managed to deal the Sky people a setback today. Hopefully it's just the first of many victories." -
They moved closer to each other, their lips almost touching. But then Tsireya stopped, having noticed a red dot of light dancing on Lo'ak's chest. Her eyes went wide.
"WATCH OUT!" She shouted in warning, giving him a sharp shove. Just as his back hit the ground behind the tree he heard a gunshot, a bullet whizzing past where he had just been.
"Damn! It think we missed one." Tsireya cursed as she scrambled into cover.
"Looks that way." Lo'ak said, both of them now huddled behind the tree trunk.
"See anything?" He asked as they cautiously peered over their shelter.
"No. I don't-" She said before she suddenly fell back with a scream, clutching her arm.
"Shit! Tsireya!" Lo'ak, cursed, going to her aid.
"We need some help here! Tsireya and I are pinned down close to the gate. There's a sniper somewhere close by! Does anyone have eyes?" He said into the radio.
On hearing the first gunshot Kiri was snapped back to awareness from her sad musings over the dead Angtsik, turning to look where the sound had come from. Then she heard more gunfire and Lo'ak's voice on the radio, and a wave of fear washed over her. In an instant she was on her feet, running towards the gate. In the corner of her eye she could see Aonung sprinting in the same direction.
Listening to the sound of rifle reports, Tuk crept from branch to branch, as quiet as possible. Her eyes were scanning the ground, looking for the shooter. All the while she tried to keep her heart from racing as she listened to talk of her fellow Na'vi over the radio. Her family…
She stopped abruptly. Right beneath her there was what she had first mistaken as a pile of leaves. But now as her eyes made out the shape of a gun she realized she had found the sniper, lying down on the ground, wearing some kind of suit. Even as she was doing her double take, trying to make out the outlines of the soldier, the gun fired again, confirming what she was seeing. For some reason she didn't see a muzzle flash like she would have come to expect from human weapons, but the noise was unmistakable.
She took a moment to evaluate the distance between them. Then she silently unsheathed her knife.
Maybe she made some noise she didn't realize. Maybe some other reason. But by some instinct just as she was about to make her move the soldier turned around on the ground, their eyes meeting as he spotted her. Thinking quickly, Tuk jumped down at once. As she was falling through the air she saw the soldier taking aim at her. Her feet hit the ground as she loomed over the soldier.
A shot rang out in the jungle…
Tuk and the soldier were struggling, both of them grunting and snarling at each other. He was still on his back on the ground, with Tuk standing over her. He was holding onto Tuk's wrists, hanging on for dear life, as she was trying to push the knife home to his neck. Beads of sweat were gathering on her brow, falling down on the faceplate of the soldier's mask. Na'vi were physically stronger than the Sky People overall. But at just shy of fourteen years she did not yet have the strength she would as a full adult. And the thing about humans? They were still a lot stronger than their size would suggest, thanks to the world they came from.
Tuk switched tactics, driving her knee into the soldier's stomach, producing a pained gasp from him. Her blade fell downwards a dozen centimeters before being stopped again. The tip of her dagger was pressing into the skin of his neck now drawing a little blood. Increasingly frantic the soldier continued to struggle, twisting his head from side to side, trying to push her hands aside so her delayed thrust would miss. But she would not budge.
The look of desperation in his eyes did give her pause though. She realized what she was about to do, and just for a moment hesitated in her intent. But she saw the soldier glance down at his sidearm in a holster at his hip, and understood. The only reason he hadn't reached for it was because he needed both hands to stop her. And if she let him go he would shoot her without a second thought. There was only one way this would end.
With a final yell of effort the knife was driven home. Tuk felt it sink into the flesh and gave it a twist. The soldier's head jerked to the side, and suddenly his grip on her wrists slackened. He now lay limp beneath her, mouth half open, eyes staring at nothing.
Tuk yanked her knife free, then sat down on a tree root nearby. She was panting, wiping sweat from her brow. Then she grimaced, her hand moving to rub the red streak on her right cheek, where the gun's barrel had burned her when it fired. Her right ear flicked, and she gave it several firm taps with the palm of her hand.
She spent a short time gathering herself, trying to shake off the strange sense of dizziness she was feeling. Then her hand went to her radio.
"I got him. He's down. It should be safe now." She reported.
"What? Who is… Tuk? Is that you?" Lo'ak responded
"Yeah. It's me. I uh, decided to double back." She said.
Back in his hide spot Lo'ak was stunned at first, then bit back an angry growl. "You aren't supposed to… never mind. Where are you now?"
"Right at the edge of the tree line, a direct line of sight from the gate you destroyed." Tuk said.
"I can see you and Tsireya clear as day from where I'm at." She added. Lo'ak turned his head, eyes searching for her. Then he saw her in the distance, waving at them.
"Okay, I see you. Stay put. We'll come to you." Lo'ak said.
"Will do." Tuk replied. She sounded a bit nervous. No doubt she had heard the anger in his voice. Lo'ak meanwhile turned his attention to Tsireya.
"How bad is it?" He asked of her.
Tsireya groaned, holding a hand over her wound. "It stings like mad. But I think I'll live."
"You… you saved my life." Lo'ak noted.
"Nothing more than you would do for me." She replied, her voice strained from the pain.
From the direction of the destroyed gate Aonung and Kiri came running, keeping low despite the apparent end to danger. Lo'ak could see a number others of their war band hovering near the gate, looking uncertain.
"Tsireya! Lo'ak!" Aonung shouted as he ran over.
"Tsireya? You're hurt?" He noted with alarm.
"I'll be alright, I'll be alright. It's not that bad." She reiterated to her brother.
"Lo'ak! I heard everything on the radio. Tuk is here?" Kiri asked next as she arrived on the scene.
"She is. Despite what I told her." Lo'ak said, unable to keep the grumpiness out of his voice.
"We'd better go have a word with her. She's right over there." He said, motioning to where Tuk was.
He then turned to Tsireya and Aonung. "Stay with her, please. Get her patched up." He said to Aonung.
Aonug nodded. "Sure thing."
"Things are under control here, People. The danger is over for now. You can get back to getting us ready to leave." Lo'ak said into his radio as he and Kiri were walking to where Tuk was at, picking their way forward cautiously in case there were leftover mines somewhere.
They found Tuk still sitting in place, looking exhausted and numb, the dead soldier at her feet. She stood up on noticing them. On seeing she was injured his expression turned distressed and he ran the rest of the way to her, Kiri not far behind him.
Lo'ak quickly inspected Tuk for other injuries, then took firm hold of her shoulders.
"What was our deal, Tuk? Our deal?! What did you promise in return for being allowed to scout for us?" He asked.
"To stay out of trouble." They said in unison, with Tuk embarrassed and subdued, and Lo'ak scolding.
"Yeah. And to do as told." Lo'ak added.
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. Didn't mean for things to go that far…" Tuk apologized.
"I figured I could watch the battle unfold from a distance and get to camp after. Thought it might be small enough that you'd let it go. But when that sharpshooter got involved… I just had to do something." She explained.
"You got yourself hurt! You could have been killed!" Lo'ak continued to admonish.
"I know that! But he was trying to kill you and Tsireya! What was I supposed to do, just let it happen?" Tuk argued. As she did so her right ear flicked several times, catching Kiri's attention.
"We could have handled it. You had no business getting yourself involved like that!" Lo'ak countered.
"As if! I heard it all on radio. You were in the shit! Up to your eyeballs in it! I know I shouldn't have been near the fighting in the first place and I'm sorry for that much. But I'm not about to start apologizing for saving your life!" Tuk snarled back. As she spoke her ear continued flicking, and as she finished she gave several taps to her ear.
"Is something the matter with your ear, Tuk?" Kiri finally asked, a concerned frown her face.
"Huh?" Tuk blinked, then turned to look at. "I'm sorry, what did you say? I didn't catch that?"
"I said is there something wrong with your ear? You keep doing that." Kiri repeated, pointing at her own ear for emphasis.
"I, uh, I don't know. It just feels strange." Tuk replied, rubbing the ear in question.
"Strange in what way?" Kiri pressed.
In response Tuk's expression became spooked. "Woah… hold on!"
She covered her left ear, turning her right ear towards Kiri. "Try saying something to me again."
"Huh? Well, okay. I'm trying to say something to you right now?" Kiri told her.
"Uh-oh…" Tuk mumbled.
"What? What is it?" Lo'ak asked.
"I-I think I've lost hearing on the right." Tuk explained.
"What!?" He breathed. He snapped his fingers next to her ears, first one, then the other. Her left ear responded, obediently aligning itself towards the noise. But her right ear remained stubbornly immobile.
"Oh no. Tuk, Tuk…" Lo'ak said, shaking his head.
"I know, I know, I know. You don't need to say anything." Tuk said, looking down at the ground.
"Lo'ak, I get that this needs to be talked about. But is this this the right time? If nothing else it proves it's not safe here." Kiri interjected.
Lo'ak gave a disapproving sigh. "I'm going to check on Tsireya. And after that we need to finish up here and get going."
"And you. I'm not done with you. You can bet we will talk about this again when we're back in camp." He added, pointing at Tuk.
"I hear you. Got one good ear left for that at least." Tuk muttered to herself as Lo'ak walked away.
"Don't joke about it. You'll make it worse." Kiri chastised.
"Yeah, yeah…" Tuk grumbled.
Kiri decided to stay put and keep her younger sister company. Along the way she contemplated Tuk's actions, trying to decide how she felt about them. She wasn't happy either that her sister had gotten herself hurt. Or that she had disobeyed. But on the other hand she was more than grateful Lo'ak and Tsireya were safe. She could not say it now, lest it be misinterpreted as encouragement. But maybe once they had all had a chance to calm down that little detail ought to at least be acknowledged along with the rest.
After checking Tsireya's situation Lo'ak gathered his fighters to finish their tasks here. Ilsa was still lurking in her hiding place after he returned with his warriors. Once she had been forcibly escorted outside they broke into the armory. They looted what they could of the weapons and ammunition there. And like they had hoped they found significant amounts of explosives as well. With those in hand they set off detonations in the armory and other parts of the warehouses, doing as much damage as they could. The fuel tanks were also blown, sending a stream of fire and smoke rising into the sky. With their destruction inflicted the war band decided they had worn out their welcome. Some flying, some walking away they departed, vanishing into the jungle, taking their fallen and their loot with them. Only Ilsa stayed behind, left shell shocked amidst the ruins of the compound.