𝙊𝙋𝙋𝙊𝙎𝙄𝙏𝙀𝙎 𝘼𝙏𝙏𝙍𝘼𝘾𝙏. 𝙎𝙋𝙄𝘿𝙀𝙍 𝙎𝙊𝘾𝙊𝙍𝙍𝙊 [on hold]

𝙯𝙚𝙧𝙤. 𝙬𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙬𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙣

Perhaps it was my fatal flaw that lead me down the path of life. Still, on a moon orbiting Polyphemus in the Alpha Centauri System with the constant threat of colonization, we found love and hope in a place empty of it. 

I was smart and pristine; he was reckless and stupid. In a way, we worked out. After all, opposites attract.

My name is Venus Oberon, one of two human teenagers on Pandora, and this is where we began.

---

Babies couldn't be put in cryo. It meant the two babies born on Pandora couldn't be sent back to the dying mother Earth with the rest of their species. Not that it mattered, anyway, Venus still would have been motherless, Pandora or Earth.

That was where Spider met Venus.

He was just a baby boy, crying in his hospital-like crib, when he first laid eyes on her. It was like she was from another planet, like a glowing entity. In his eyes, she was one of the stars in the sky.

She had tan skin and a head of dark brown hair. Her head turned the other way to face the little boy. She had brown eyes, like the fertile soil of the ground. He fell in love before he knew what it was.

They grew up side by side. Even on the same tree, their heights were measured and compared. Even if they spent all their life around each other, they couldn't have been more different.

Spider liked to roll around in the mud with the other Na'vi children. Venus liked to stay in the lab and read the textbooks left behind for the growing kids. 

The first memory she had of joining Spider outside was when she was seven. He had begged her to come for a week constantly. When she finally gave in, he hugged her so tight, she thought she burst a blood vessel.

"Bring your extra exopack, okay?" Norm handed her the mask. 

She nodded. "Can you put it in my bag for me?" She turned around. He unzipped her small backpack and stuffed it in there. "Thanks, Norm."

Spider was practically jumping on the walls. He could if he really wanted to, Venus would think. "Can we go now?" He whined, ready to run out.

Venus grimaced at his lack of clothing. She wondered if he ever felt too revealed sometimes. "We need to be safe, Spider. You wouldn't know anything about that." She didn't mean to be witty, but it came with her brains.

Once Norm finally opened the door outside, Spider leaped away and ran straight for the forest. "Wait for Vee!" He shouted at the boy.

The girl stepped apprehensively stepped through the bushes. She was worried about splinters and bugs. Spider looked behind to see her stepping through slowly. Her brows were drawn together in focus.

"What are you so worried about?" He called out to her.

Venus looked up and scowled. "I don't like this,"

The boy sighed and walked back to her. He grabbed her arm and pulled her with him. She gasped and tried to break his grip. "Spider!"

"You're fine," he told her. "Nothing here is gonna harm you. Not when you aren't doing anything."

Venus went home that day with a sprained ankle. The boy apologized with a hug. He seemed to like giving them to her.

When they were 10, it was the first time he held her hand knowing about his stupid boy feelings. Venus was crying over the death of an elder Na'vi she had grown fond of.

She was sobbing and sniffling as they buried the woman. Spider looked over at her, then to her empty left hand. With his moronic mind, he grabbed it and squeezed it in his own. Venus looked over at him suddenly and ceased her crying.

She glanced down at their interlinked hands, then at the comforting smile on his face. For a moment, she felt the world stop at the graze of his thumb over hers. 

It would all be over when he pulled his hand away to go back with the Sully kids.

When they were 12, Spider walked in on Venus getting measured around her chest by one of the adult women. She blushed profusely when the woman told him what had been happening. Her eyes were trained on the ground as her cheeks grew red.

Sometimes, in the future, Spider liked to bring up the memory. He loved to recall the way she was so embarrassed. Venus would always slap him on the shoulder and roll her eyes, hiding a smile.

When they were 14, Vee's body started to take shape. For Spider, it was like one morning, she walked by him with more developed features. He didn't say anything in fear of what she might do if he brought it up.

These were the more awkward moments that had happened as the pair grew older.

At 15, Spider hugged her for the first time. It was a little late to do so, but he thought it was better late than never. She had learned how they needed to move up to the Hallelujah Mountains and create camp there, away from the Sky People and their ship.

They had just returned, blowing everything to ash around it.

She stared out the window from her bedroom, tears rushing down her cheeks. She feared of what was yet to come. When he walked in, she hid her face. She was embarrassed by how sad she had felt.

He only sat next to her and put his arms around her. Something changed that day in Venus, like she saw Spider in a similar, but different way. 

It was also weird for Spider. With his lack of coverage and her growing body, it left his face hot.

Teenage hormones were the worst.

In the mountains, at 16, they were polar opposites.

Venus checked her bacteria sample, brows furrowed. "Hey, Max, this is getting really weird." She turned the petri dish to his way.

He frowned with her. "Yeah... that's odd. Write it down."

Most days she spent like this, confined in a lab and running tests every single moment. Her mind was built on observations and hypotheses. Other days, she would run monthly tests on the avatars to check their stability. It was like troubleshooting a machine.

Spider walked through the door as it hissed. He peeled off the mask of his exopack and set it down on a table next to the doorway. He made his way over to the two.

"Hey Max," he nodded to the man. "Hey Vee," he peered over her shoulder at the entry she was writing on the hologram screen. "Whatcha writing?"

She glanced to the side to meet his eyes. "The bacteria isn't responding to the antibiotic Max made. I'm writing my revisions so he can change it."

He bit the inside of his cheek. "Cool," he had no idea what she said.

"Dinner's in an hour," Venus looked back to him. Her gaze was electrifying, but Spider suppressed it. He gave up on his silly crush some time ago. "Go shower, your odor can affect the samples."

They were borderline friends at most. Venus would have never thought they would ever become more than that.