Chapter Text
‘Uncle Norm, is he going to be alright?’ The sleeping quarter was but a small cubicle of four metallic walls, but it was empty and quiet and the small girl’s voice sounded thin and tiny, as if the green-blue lights shining on the ceiling swallowed it the moment it left her mouth.
‘Of course, River, of course.’ The man briefly put a hand on the back of her bony neck, scratching the baby hair at the nape in comforting circles. She was tense with worry. ‘He loves to run around naked and he caught a cold. He just needs to take his medicines for a couple more days and then you can get back at playing together, alright?’
The little child lying on the cot before them started to cough in his sleep, face red for the effort. For a moment, he seemed unable to stop and breathless, but soon the coughing fit subdued and he turned on his side, mumbling something in his sleep. He somehow looked a lot smaller in the blouse and trousers set the lab people put together for the two of them.
Swatting a hand before her face as if to push away the germs, Norm gently pulled her a couple of steps back, worrying there might soon be two little kids with the flu – which was the last thing they needed in that moment. ‘Come, River. Don’t stand so close or you’ll catch it too.’
‘Pinky promise he’ll be alright.’ She said all serious, a little pout on her lips. Spider had been in bed for nearly three days now, she was starting to get worried and bored.
‘Of course, of course. Pinky promise. Now shoo!’
‘Okay.’ River looked at the small boy with sooth always darkening his nails and freckles all over his button nose, before quickly jumping forward and giving him a forehead kiss. His skin was oily and hot, the medicines yet to work their magic and lower his temperature. ‘Bye, Spider! Be better soon, so we can play all the games you want.’
‘Good girl.’ Norm offered her a thumb up, before gently walking her to the sliding door, which opened with a light swish, letting in the cool air of the corridor and the distant noises of the laboratories. ‘By the way, did you finish your homework?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe?’ The older man raised an eyebrow, an amused smile tucking at a corner of his lips, but he tried his best to keep a straight face. If he didn’t want those two kids to become complete savages, he had to be strict when needed to be, no matter how candid and innocent they were at times.
‘I wanted to know how Spider was.’
‘Well, now you know, do you not? Go back to your vocabulary and work on the new words Aunt Bibi assigned you last time. Uncle Jake will be here soon, don’t you want to show him how good your Na’vi is now?’
‘But Uncle Jake speaks English too, we don’t have to use Na’vi.’
‘Still, if you don’t want to spend all your time in the lab with us boring science people, you need to learn the tongue of the Na’vi, alright?’ He crouched down and gently tapped the tip of her nose when he saw her pouting again. ‘How are you going to move about if you don’t, mh?’
‘Oh, but Uncle Norm!’ The little girl launched herself in his arms and pressed a loud kiss on his cheek, her worried look gone just like that. ‘You’re not boring!’
As always, she didn’t acknowledge the part she didn’t want to hear, but he let it slide for that one time. And he knew for a fact she was already mature enough to think about it later, when left to her own devices.
‘No? Am I fun as Uncle Jake?’ At that she laughed with gusto and it might have hurt him a bit, hadn’t he known himself how foolish that question was. To Spider and River, that thorn in the side (his side) of a Jake Sully was close to an idol – but rightly so, he had to grudgingly admit.
‘No-oh! Uncle Jake is the best. But you are not boring. You are my Uncle Norm!’ She hugged him with all the strength of a six-year-old.
The man couldn’t help but chuckle this time, before taking her in his arms and getting up. ‘C’mon, off to your room you go. Let’s not disturb Spider any more.’
‘Uncle Norm, Na’vi is so so difficult. Really really. Can I study it some other time?’ She hugged his neck, lightly kicking her bare feet in the air, following a rhythm only she could hear.
‘Do you really not like it?’ That worried him a bit, but tried not to show it. She was going to live out her whole life on Pandora, whether that was her wish or not, she had to understand its language and inhabitants.
‘But I do like it! But it’s hard. I can’t remember things. And I can’t make those sounds!’ She tried to mimic a couple of them in that moment, with the only result of showering his left cheek with spit.
Perhaps six years ago he would’ve found that disgusting, but he had changed many diapers and cleaned enough child vomit to now be left unphased. He merely used the back of his wrist to clean himself and adjusted his hold beneath her knees. She felt so scrawny even for her young age; kids weren’t supposed to live off of filtered air, MREs and dehydrated food that tasted like cardboard on a good day.
‘Mh… let me think of a solution, alright? I struggled too the first times, but it’s doable. And you are a smart girl, so keep trying.’
‘Keep trying, you’ll be lucky next time!’ She said so in a taunting manner, almost sarcastic. It nearly took him off guard and he had to stop on his tracks to give her a look. The look.
‘And who taught you that now?’
‘Uncle Jake!’
‘Of-course.’
*
Days on Pandora had a strange cadence, but it was a lot worse within the sterile walls of the lab compound.
It was hard to discern day from night with those bright, greenish neon lights on – very much like those of a fish tank –, with the constant chatting and humming of computers and machineries River did not know the name of. But Uncle Max always told her to try and think positive, to see the pretty even in an ugly, boring place such as their home, and so she did. She did try with all her might.
The air was clean, albeit a bit stale and with a faint tinge of sweat and too many people living in close quarters, and the grounds, nothing more than metallic grids, always pleasantly warm beneath her bare feet, no matter the season.
And Neytiri – she did not dare calling her aunt – once prepared her natural pigments she immediately used to paint on her notebooks and, yes, over her bedroom’s otherwise grey walls and floor as well.
The iridescent and neon-shaded flora of the planet, mostly, but infantile portraits of the people she loved and fantastic doodles, too. Beautiful, in a way, considering they came from a kid of such young age with no one to teach her the hows and don’ts.
Aunt Bibi had often told her she would’ve grown to become a talented artist, back on Earth, but she really did not know what that meant. She knew the meaning of the word “art”, of course, and she had seen pictures of paintings and painters – she loved particularly those of the age of New Impressionism, years 2074-2086, with their muted colours and swirling figures, never quite finished and yet full of dimension and space –, but it didn’t feel any more concrete than a dream.
Those were just pixels on a screen – and sometimes of a pretty bad quality; the real thing was long gone. And, even if it were still there, somewhere on planet Earth, well, she was far away from it. About six-years-of-interstellar-travel away from it, alone and unconscious.
Not that she had ever thought about leaving Pandora. Her mother had conceived and given birth to her there, it was technically her birth planet, albeit the lethal kind. She was merely six, but she knew already that the fact the air she was born in would have poisoned her in seconds was in a way tragic.
It sucked, to put it in Uncle Jake’s words. She liked the sound of it, the little hissing and harsh consonants. It described the feeling well.
She sighed and dropped on her knees, looking beneath her bunk to retrieve the wooden box of natural pigments – or what was left of them (the ones she liked less).
She had never visited the Sullys and she could never muster up the courage of asking Jake to bring more colours to the lab when he stopped by, because it felt like demanding Neytiri to make more and that terrified her.
River knew very well Neytiri hated humans and that she had made her those pigments only because Uncle Jake cared a lot about her, there was no reason pretending it’d been otherwise.
She pulled out the dark brown that was really a faded black and a shade she’d never been able to name nor match with the others and sat, legs crossed, before the only corner left untouched of the wall.
She skilfully mixed the pigmented powder with the right amount of purified water in a plastic bowl and soaked the tip of the brush until she was satisfied with its vibrancy and consistence.
She didn’t really feel like painting – she really didn’t like those two colours – but Spider was still confined to his room to fight off the remnants of his fever and she felt nauseous at the mere idea of opening her textbook for the third day in a row.
She hated studying on her own, especially now she had encountered words she couldn’t understand nor pronounce, but all the adults at the lab seemed so busy, lately, even Uncle Norm didn’t have much time for her. She could barely see him and Uncle Max at mealtimes, now.
Perhaps for the first time in her short life, River realised she was alone, that she and Spider were the only kids there, the only human kids, and if he was gone… she had nobody to play and joke and run around with. Nobody to share her secrets and bad dreams with.
The paint was starting to drip down her hand, staining the edge of her faded-green blouse, and she quickly put the brush down inside the bowl before it could get any worse, using the other sleeve to dry her blurry eyes.
Just as she was about to pick back the brush, she heard the faint sound of an alarm going off in the other wing of the compound, where the two main labs were located.
She immediately perked up, knowing well what that particular sound meant. Visitors.
Someone was coming in and all the Avatars were put to rest in their chambers, that day.
She jumped up with a huge smile. ‘Uncle Jake!’
*
‘Uncle Jake! Uncle Jake!’
She rushed to the entrance of the lab’s main area just as he was putting on a portable carbon dioxide tank. He expertly adjusted the straps and inhaler and shot her a smile, canines flashing in the neon lights.
They were so used to his visits, none of the adults came out of the lab to their right to greet him, but for a couple of waves and a “long time no see, big man!’ coming from somewhere towards the back of the room. The Na’vi shouted his hellos just as casually, before focusing solely on her.
‘Ah, where is my baby girl?’ He bent over towards her, ruffling her hair in a very dad-like manner. ‘Would you look at ya. You’ve gotten taller, I can’t believe it!’
‘Mh mh! As tall as your knees!’
He laughed at that and got back up, studying her tiny frame with his hands on his waist.
‘And is that a missing tooth I’m seeing?’
‘Yes!’ She smiled even bigger so that he could see the gap where one of the incisors once was. ‘I lost it last week! Look! See? See the big person tooth? It’s already growing!’
‘You’ll have a whole new smile in no time.’
‘But Uncle Norm said a person changes all their kid teeth between six and thirteen years of age, that is not no time, Uncle Jake.’
‘Nah, don’t listen to that boring uncle of yours.’
‘I can hear you, Jake!’ A faint, outraged yell only slightly covered by the hum of the lab.
‘Good!’ He replied, not missing a beat nor looking that way.
River covered her mouth with a giggle, before realizing the movement she was seeing at the back of the tall Na’vi wasn’t his slim tail. He seemed to notice her gaze, because he turned slightly, beckoning with a gentle yet strict voice to whoever was hiding there.
‘C’mon, boy. Don’t be shy. The one who bites is in bed with a cold, right now. Nothing to fear, okay?’
A low, childish mumble from behind his back, but then the stranger took a step to the side, eyes to the ground, arms tensed at his sides.
River had never seen a young Na’vi before. Actually, she had only ever seen Jake and some of the lab people’s Avatars. Uncle Norm and the others felt she and Spider were still too young to really leave the lab grounds and go among the Omatikaya Clan, roam the forest and waterways on their own. She had never even met Jake’s Mate, Neytiri, although she had heard loads about her from him, enough to have a clear picture of her in her mind.
She had never expected Na’vi children to be that… small. He was by no means short, but she didn’t have to crane her neck up to look at him. In fact, his face was almost at eye-level with hers, chubby and faintly purple on his cheeks. His limbs were still too gangly and skinny to be considered proportioned and she found that adorable. He reminded her of Spider and even herself.
She gave him a huge smile, to which he seemed to cower a bit, but that didn’t deter her. She was just too excited to have a new companion to play with. To play with someone at all after those long days without her little brother Spider.
‘Uncle Jake, who’s that?’
‘This is my first son, Neteyam. Remember? I told you about him a couple of times.’
‘Oh, I remember!’ In Jake’s tales, his firstborn seemed to be good at everything he did, and River often felt envious about it, but in that moment all was forgotten, he just looked too awkward. She’d also just remembered he was only five, just a couple of months older than Spider and a whole year younger than her. That felt like a lot. ‘Why is he here?’
‘He was curious about the Sky People and I gotta discuss adult matters with your uncles, so I let him tag along this one time. You look after him, okay? Maybe talk a bit, Spellman told me you’re having trouble with your Na’vi.’
‘Okay.’ She quite nonchalantly glossed over the last part and looked at the other child once again. This time, she found he was also looking at her, but quickly diverted his gaze. ‘And what games does he know?’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
As if that was all she needed to hear, she grabbed the Na’vi kid by the wrist, almost making him jump out of his skin, and she giggled when she saw him looking at his father with eyes as round as plates.
‘She’s older than you, so you listen to her, okay? Behave and remember to use that mask as soon as your throat gets itchy. Understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’ He managed to mumble just as River started to drag him towards the sleeping quarters.
*
‘So you’re Neteyam?’ She paused, sucking on her cheek as she tried to recall all she had learnt and studied of the Na’vi language. ‘Your name Morgan River.’
To that, he frowned a bit, before seeming to understand what she actually meant to say. He quickly put a hand on his mouth, before dropping it back at his side just as fast.
River wasn’t sure if he’d just attempted to hide a smile or stopped himself from vomiting.
‘It is my name is Morgan River, not your. You just called me with your name.’
She was so surprised he spoke she didn’t even feel embarrassed by his correction.
‘Do you speak English then?’
‘Yes. My father use it sometimes. But it is… uhm… it is not a lot good.’
‘I think it’s very good.’ She assured in all sincerity and a tiny bit of envy, weaving through the mess she had left on the floor to reach her sleeping cot. ‘You have a funny accent, I like it.’ She pushed her crumpled blanket to the ground and patted the now free spot next to her. ‘Sit. What games do you like to play? Oh, can you already fly a banshee? They are so so cool! I wish I could fly one too.’
‘Father said we have to speak the language of my people.’
‘I not good.’
‘I will teach you.’
‘But you are only five! You can’t teach someone who’s older than you!’
‘You speak my language like you’re three years old.’
‘What was that?’
‘Your Na’vi is bad. I teach you even if I am younger one.’
‘So you don’t want to play?’
‘We can play.’
‘Really? What game?’
‘Answers and questions.’
‘What’s that?’
‘In my language.’ He promptly reminded her.
‘What that?’
‘We each take turns with asking and answering questions.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He sighed, but this time she could see his little smile. He sat better on the thin mattress, more relaxed, fully turning towards her now.
‘I ask, you answer. Then you ask, I answer.’
‘Oh, fun! I start! I mean, me! Me one!’
‘First.’
‘First. Me first!’
*
‘You should come to the village sometimes.’
‘Slower, Teyam. I didn’t understand a word you just said.’
‘Ask in my language, first.’
She pouted, but that didn’t seem to work in buying his mercy. He was strict at seven just as he was at five, perhaps he had gotten a bit worse.
‘Fine. Repeat. Your voice, too fast.’
‘I said: you-should-come-to-the-village-sometimes. Spider too. I want you to meet my siblings.’
‘You think they would let us?’ English, again. She saw him rolling his eyes, but he seemed to give up on their lesson, too.
‘Do you not want to meet Lo’ak and Kiri?’ He asked so almost nervously, tracing one of the many flowers River had painted over the course of the years. That drawing in particular must have been one of the first: it was a bit of a mess, a bit all over the place, and the paint was so dry it was starting to peel beneath his fingers.
‘I do. They seem fun. But look!’ They were sitting on the floor facing each other because it was a lot more spacious than her narrow cot, so she raised her hands before them, almost pushing them in his face, right against his long, flat nose. ‘Pink!’
To which he simply put his hands near hers, a bit of mischief flickering behind his large pupils. ‘Look! Blue! Both pretty colours, no?’
She dropped on her back with a frustrated sound, but couldn’t help but giggle when he imitated her, swatting away a lock of his hair that had landed on her neck.
If she still had painting colours, she would have drawn them as they were in that exact moment, feet pointing in different directions, heads laying on the same spot. She loved when they rested like that, it made her forget how tall he was getting, leaving her and Spider behind month after month.
‘My siblings really want to meet you and Spider. But not much space in the lab for games.’
‘Did you ask Uncle Jake?’
‘He said yes.’
‘And… your mom?’
‘She will come around. You are nothing like those evil Sky People and she will see it too.’
‘Mh? Why do you keep speaking so fast today?’
He giggled. ‘I am not. You are still very slow with my language, that is all.’
‘Or maybe you are just a bad teacher. Heard your English? It’s so good now.’ She patted her chest and turned her head a bit to meet his gaze. ‘All thanks to me!’
He rolled his eyes, hitting slightly her forehead with his. ‘I am good teacher, you are just lazy.’
River stuck out her tongue at him and a moment later she was running around the sleeping quarters, screeching in a laughing fit for Spider to come help her, the Na’vi slowing down whenever he was actually about to catch her.
*
‘You can see the village from here.’
‘Really? Where?’
The young Na’vi immediately pointed North and River stretched in that direction, holding onto his bony shoulder and following the best she could his index finger, but could see nothing. Nothing but tree foliage, lush and impenetrable. Deep greens, rich blues and purples and pinks. Beautiful, strange, but no Omatikaya village in sight.
‘My vision is not as good as yours.’ She reminded him with a pout, sitting back in her spot, the sunlight hot on her bare shoulders. It was too warm and humid for her blouse, so she was wearing a light tank top beneath the straps of her oxygen mask, but she could already feel her skin tingling with heat, the hair damp and seemingly glued to her neck. Very uncomfortable.
In that moment she envied Na’vi people and their thick skin – or even Spider, who never seemed to get sunburnt, despite only ever wearing a simple Loincloth.
He uhm-ed in response and stretched out on the growing-scorching-by-the-minute dull metal of the compound roof. ‘From the distance, it is nothing special, anyway. You are not missing much.’ She could very well tell he was saying it so as not to hurt her feelings – he was a terrible liar, the worst –, but she appreciated it all the same. Precisely because he didn’t tell lies lightly.
‘Teyam, d’you think your mom will let us meet your little sister? Me and Spider, I mean.’
‘I do not think so. Tuktirey still has to go through her Tsaheylu, so she cannot really be seen by anyone but her blood family yet.’
‘But after that?’ She switched to Na’vi too after he gave her a pretty eloquent look, before facing the vertiginous, cloudless sky again.
‘Of course. She allows you to play with us, why would she not let you play with Tuk too?’
‘It’s just that-’ Look. She sighed. ‘She look us funny, sometimes. She doesn’t like to see us with her child.’
‘Children.’
‘Yes, whatever. Children.’
‘Fall back a bit.’ He suddenly said in English, tapping her wrist a couple of times to get her full attention. It sounded urgent. ‘I just heard Spider running outside. If he looks up now, he will see you.’
She slid a bit more towards the centre of the roof, but didn’t dare lying down like Neteyam was. The metal was getting too hot for her liking, but she didn’t want to give up on her victory either. For once in her ten years of life, she wanted to beat Spider at hide and seek. A little burn was worth it, she tried to convince herself.
One small victory to wash away the thousands defeats she had to endure against him.
And it wasn’t often she could spend some time alone like that with her closest friend, now that their little duo (well, trio, if she considered Spider always wanted to stick around) had grown to a group of five in the past two years.
Sometimes she dearly missed the days when he came by the lab compound – either with Uncle Jake or on his own – and helped her with her homework or just kept her company in her messy quarters, both giggling madly when she often resorted to blocking the sliding door of her room so as to keep a desperate, whiny Spider out.
Neteyam’s visits were never consistent, and they could go months without seeing each other, but their naïve intimacy and childish complicity was never lost in those long absences and they easily bounced back to where they had left on his next trip.
But going back to those days also meant renouncing to Kiri and Lo’ak and, as much as she missed those quiet moments with him, she was never going to trade her much more chaotic two friends for the past. Well, Lo’ak, perhaps… but only when he was being a little too annoying.
‘Is he gone?’ She whispered for good measure, not daring to peek towards the ground below, lest Spider was looking up at that very moment in search of them.
Her chest was starting to feel constricted, so she pressed the little button at the base of her mask and took in a deep breath of fresh oxygen.
‘Not yet. He is moving right below us.’ He didn’t even have to sit up nor pay close attention, his elongated, pointy ears flinching and shifting now and then, listening to sounds she wasn’t able to hear.
River propped her sweaty chin on her sweatier hands and looked at that strange creature that her friend was. He had grown a lot in the course of those four years and she now barely reached his shoulders, but the cheeks remained soft and chubby and darkened in a purple hue whenever she pointed it out – which was often, because she loved tormenting his bashful side like that.
He was training to become a Hunter and the next Olo’eyktan of the Omatikaya Tribe, but the shy five-year-old kid she had first met still lingered. She often prayed to whoever god or entity listened to a stranded human on an alien planet that he never lost that side of him.
‘Why the look?’ He was still talking in whispers, so Spider was probably still moving below them, although she couldn’t hear him nor his steps.
‘You’re growing. It’s scary.’
‘You are growing faster. You are a whole year ahead.’
‘Neteyam.’ They were at a point in their friendship where she hadn’t called his full name in years and hearing it all of a sudden seemed to startle him. He quietly sat up, sliding on the roof so that they were now shoulder to shoulder – or, more fairly, head to shoulder.
‘Mh?’
‘Will you still be my best friend after your Iknimaya?’ The words felt strangely gluey in her throat, and she activated the oxygen inhaler again, knowing well it wasn’t the lack of air playing those dirty tricks.
Looking at him, admitting he was growing and leaving her behind out loud, made her realize there could be a future where they would no longer be friends. That it was most likely they would one day grow distant, become strangers.
She felt suddenly cold and tiny and hugged her knees to her chest.
The young Na’vi remained quiet for a long time and she could see him frowning from the corner of her eyes, but didn’t dare look at him. What if he noticed her tears despite the full-face mask? She was already ten, she didn’t want to cry in front of others.
‘When I am older, I will make you my Mate.’ It sounded so silly and yet so matter-of-fact, like it was already set and they had no other choice but walk toward that one future, that she didn’t doubt him for a second.
‘Even if I’m pink?’
‘I do not care.’
‘But can we?’
‘We will anyway. That way, we will always stay together. It is a promise.’ The young Na’vi offered her one of his rare smiles where he squeezed his eyes and wrinkled his nose, ending up looking like one of those Earth animals she had once saw a picture of.
‘Here.’ She offered him her little finger. ‘Pinky promise.’
In silent response, the boy showed her his hand. It was covered in scratches and looked coarser than the last time she had taken a good look at it. The hand of a future warrior and not that of a small child. For a second, she felt sad all over again.
No pinky, he seemed to be saying.
‘Right. I forgot, sorry. Then…’ River hugged him by the shoulders, giggling gleefully when she saw his violent blush. There he was, her little Neteyam! ‘Hug promise.’
He lightly squeezed her back after a moment of hesitation, eyes downcast and sheepish. ‘Hug promise.’