The avatar Neytiri X fem reader

chapter 8

In sight 26 Grace pulled me aside to talk.

Grace: I can see you are getting close to Neytriri.You're getting in way too deep. (she turns away) Trust me, I learned the hard way.

I scan scans the pictures tacked up around Grace's workstation.

Y/N: What did happen at the school?

Grace looks up from making coffee. Her eyes track across the pictures of the laughing children.

Grace: Neytiri's sister -- Sylwanin -- stopped coming to school. She was angry about the clear-cutting.

Grace sips her coffee, grimaces at the taste.

Grace: One day, she and a couple of other young hunters came running in, all painted up they'd set a bulldozer on fire I guess they thought I could protect them.

Grace voice stays oddly calm as he tells this terrible story, while getting MILK out of the refrigerator.

Grace: The troopers pursued them to the schoolhouse.

Grace: They killed Sylwanin in the doorway. Right in front of Neytiri. Then shot the others.(mildly)I got most of the kids out, before they shot me.

Y/N: Jesus.

Grace: Yeah.

I realize that Grace is on the verge of tears and desperately trying to hide it.

Grace:A scientist stays objective -- we can not be ruled by emotion. But I poured ten years of my life into that school. They called me sa'atenuk. Mother. (turning to me)That kind of pain reaches back through the link.

Grace sits down at the table, looks intently at me.

Grace: It's a job. Learn what you can but don't get attached.

Grace looks at me with real pain in her eyes.

Grace: It's not our world, Y/N. And we can't stop what's coming.

Y/N: I can still try.

Grace: Ok but what happens if we when and Neytiri wants you to stay. Y/N you are not one of them.

I head to bed hurt by her words. The next day in the avatar. Tsu'tey leads three direhorse riders up the trail two hunters and me who's riding well enough to keep up. The horses' hooves clop right next to a sheer drop into a misty canyon.

Y/N (V.O.):Iknimaya translates roughly as stairway to heaven. It's the test every young hunter has to pass.

Tsu'tey signals a stop. Up slope ahead is an astounding formation. Thick vine-like trees have trapped large floating boulders of unobtanium in their gnarled grip. A hundred meters above them more boulders are woven into the twisted vine-trunks. This is some sort of freak natural occurrence like the mythical beanstalk, going up into the clouds. 

There is a thunder roar, like an artillery barrage, and the ground shakes. I look around at One of the floating mountains grinding against the flank of a nearby mesa. A huge rockfall is set loose. The mountain is drifting toward them, filling half the sky. 

The Hunters dismount. I look up at the beanstalk going into the clouds. I turn to Tsu'tey, who is checking the young hunters' gear.

Y/N: We doin' this?

I leap to catch up as Tsu'tey and the hunters swarm up the base of the beanstalk. 200 meters up the beanstalk, the hunters nimbly climb along the vine-trunks. They clamber over one of the unobtanium boulders which is lifting this incredible tree.