Like Water || Neteyam

Chapter 3: Iknimaya

"Hey mom." You whispered softly as you placed the flowers you picked by the tombstone.

Of  all the ones who were buried here, Trudy was the only human, and the  only one with a tombstone, since the Omaticaya never had the customs of putting up gravestones for their passed ones. She was allowed to be buried  here with other fallen ones from the Omaticaya clan for the sacrifices she made for them. A photo of her smiling brightly  in her pilot uniform was etched upon her gravestone, this makes you emotional every time you lay eyes upon it.

After years of recovering, the Omaticaya  with Jake as their olo'eyktan are happy, content, and  prospering, they are finally learning to leave the sadness from the  past behind them. They were growing in number, replacing the ones who were lost, not to mention there were Na'vis and humans living together right outside of Hell's Gate, which was truly a sight to see.

Feeling an arm, one that  is much longer than yours take a hold of your shoulder (he would have preferred to hold your hand, but being nearly twice your height makes this difficult), you try to hide  the sadness in your eyes as you faked a smile. "I really wish I had a  chance to know her."

"Me too." Neteyam  didn't know what else to say. It was the truth, he really wish he had known Trudy. He has heard of your  mom's story from his dad, how she single-handedly rescued Jake, Norm, and  Grace out from capture, and fearlessly combated Quaritch in air. She sounded like quite the extraordinary woman, one whom Neteyam  was sure that he could have learned a lot of things from.

"i always thought if she lived to raise me, I might not be so useless." You scoffed at yourself.

"Useless? Ira, with all honesty, you are one of the most useful people that I know." The sincerity in his eyes brought a smile to your face.

In Neteyam's eyes, you are anything but  useless; you are a great cook, you play this thing called  the violin extremely well, you hand-make very fine jewelry, and you are also a good hunter, given the fact that you are no Na'vi. You and Spider are both decently skilled at the art of archery. Your anatomies make it that both of you cannot run as speedily as a Na'vi, but your smaller size makes it easier to conceal yourself from your preys. More than once have the two of you joined the hunting party and given your share of help, which the Omaticaya at first questioned, but later always praised.

"It's a joke, of course I know I am not useless. The correct word is more like cowardly...what  else would you call someone for being afraid of heights in Pandora? I would say  that is either pretty useless, cowardly, or at least very unfortunate. My mom was a pilot, I would assume growing up  with someone like that, I probably wouldn't have been scared of heights. But of  course, I grew up with my dad whom after all these years, still doesn't  have his own ikran, just because he doesn't have the guts to climb up the  Hallelujah Mountains."

Avatars can bond with ikrans, Jake proved that when he was first learning the Na'vi ways with  Neytiri, so did several scientist from the avatar program who later  completed iknimaya (the path to heaven) where they bonded with  their own ikrans. Norm was one of the few that never attempted to  complete this quest, for like father like daughter, he has quite the  phobia of heights, and decided that Samsons are the better way to  travel for him.

"Norm never even got up to  the Hallelujah mountains, you did." Neteyam tried to reassure you,  squeezing your shoulder for which he held this whole time.

"I wouldn't have gone if it weren't because it was you that time." You looked up at Neteyam, the two of you exchanging smiles.

Neteyam  has received vigorous military training from his  father since he was old enough to go hunting with him, Jake even made a suit for him to train to fight in zero-gravity in preparation for the sky people's return in the future. Neteyam is after all, Toruk  Makto's eldest son, he will one day become olo'eyktan, with these titles comes great  responsibilities.