~.* Bonded for Life *.~

.* 5 *.

Another morning, another lab day. I wake up, with my bag slung on my shoulder, and I proceeded to walk to meet my mother in the lab.

"Hey." I say, walking in to see Mom, the scientist, Max, Norm, and plenty other people, but only a select few were coming with us.

"Y/n, you beat marine here." She gives me a light ruffle on the top of my head, which I dismissively shove away. She chuckles while grabbing last minute things.

"Hey, so where are we going?" I turn to see Jake rolling up next to me, making Mom give me a glance, and Max give one to Jake. Hm.

"Gettin' out of dodge, I'm not about to let Parker and Quarich micromanage this thing, theres a mobile site at link 26 we can work out of... way up in the mountains." Mom says this like it is simple news, but the moment I heard 'mountains' was the moment I started jumping on my heels.

"The hallelujah mountains?" Norm asks, making me fuss with my fingers, making Jake tap my arm to ask if I'm okay.

"That's right." Mom looks at Norm and me, and at that moment, I do a mini jump out of happiness. "I know your excited."

Three faces are then turned to me when I then hide my smile quickly and look at Mom with an annoyed face. "You know how much I have wanted to see these mountains..."

Despite how long I had essentially lived on Pandora, it was hard to truly ever leave the premises, either Mom didn't think I was ready, or it would be a trip that barely reached into some basic forest ground I had seen clearly before. Flying to the hallelujah mountains seemed almost like a lie.

"I'm just teasing." She smirks

"Wait so are you serious?" Norm asks, almost as excited as me.

"Yeah."

"Yes!" Norm proceeds to do a little victory fist, making Jake smirk, but I was still picking st my fingers with excitement.

"Y/n, the hallelujah mountains...?" Jake tugs on my shirt, trying to get me to answer him subtly without sounding like someone who lived under a rock.

"Legendary floating mountains, very impressive." I whisper, leaning down to his eye level so I can keep Norm from hearing Jake's query.

And just like that, we took off with the group and Trudy, our pilot for the journey. Grace and Norm's bodies were being transported with us to reach the new link, while mine and Jake's bodies were very much safe and sound in the Home Tree.

I was zoned out until Mom snapped me out of it.

"... We're in the flux vortex..." I continued to stare out of the window, the fog swallowed us whole, making me feel a wave of anxiety, and it seemed that Jake was mindlessly looking for something to catch his eye. The the mountains appeared.

In sync, me and Jake leant over to peer over the shoulder of Mom and see the view, the floating cliffs were coated in wines, as if they were suspended on strings. The distance these mountains lasted was insane. I leant into Jake to try and get a good view, to which I could see from the corner of my eye the fluster he had from the sights.

Waterfalls were spilling like the smoke of a cigarette, but it was much more beautiful than toxic smoke could ever be. The clouds felt like a painting, and even though I knew that I couldn't touch them, the fluffy appearance looked like it would be the softest material to man.

"Oh. My. God." Norm finally blurted out, saying what the three of us wanted to say.

"You should see your faces." Trudy was chuckling at our reactions, as it had almost slipped my mind that she has obviously seen these in person before.