A New Mission: Ash to Fire

Planning

Miles awoke spooning and cradling Zu tightly in his arms, his left arm over her body. With the drone door open for the night the room got a little bit chilly. Miles due to his incredibly muscular form gave off a lot of heat and Zu just nestled close into him for warmth, completely comfortable. The bright sunlight that shone through the door reflected off the water of the marina is what caused him to wake, his eyes squinting and blinking in the morning light.

Without disturbing his sleeping mate he carefully twisted his arm to look at his watch. 0611. So he had a decent few more hours to solidify his mission. Miles, based on his readings had a plan that was beginning to take form. He was going to pitch a stealth operation that would definitively draw Sully out to where he wanted him. However, the question still was what Zu's role was going to be in all of this...

Zu stirred from the sunlight that was now in her eyes and she squinted and flipped over to face Miles' shirtless chest then slowly opened her ember eyes. Miles left his mission-planning thoughts and the couple just intimately stared at one another, only the subtlest raising of the corners of their mouths. This was the third morning they'd awoken together. If you could count the ride from Dragon's Tail to Bridgehead, which, well, Zu woke up to him awake in the Kestrel.

Miles was stroking Zu's body with his muscular left arm. Slowly tracing the outline of her body's fit form with his hand. She pressed into him, fully content, despite the discomfort of the cot and sleeping pad. Miles was truly so happy at this moment. He was still battling weird feelings about it all though. A small, but ever-present area of his mind relegated to shock and shame. Pure utter shock that he was here in this room right now cuddling with a Na'vi girl, a part of his brain occupied by the yellings of the angry, specist, middle-aged, human man that he once was, or rather whose memories and personality shaped him.

That man was screaming at him. Calling him a disgrace. Disgusting. Not to mention the shame he felt over the looming cloud of being a hypocrite. He wasn't Jake Sully, he told the General. He told himself. But Miles wasn't a fool. He could see his own hypocrisy, just sitting there like a titanothere in the room that he continued to ignore. Miles tensed his body and squeezed Zu tightly.

Zu could feel his shift in emotions and softly pushed away from him and wiggled her way up to be at eye level with him. She looked at him with gentle concern and asked, "What is it, My-ulls?"

His eyes averted her gaze and he pulled back the corners of his lips in a mildly frustrated expression.

She then said to him, "My-ulls, your mind is like a storm."

That was a kind way of putting it, he thought.

Miles wanted to distract Zu from her concern for him. While laying down, their faces just inches apart, he looked into her eyes and asked, "Why don't your people do the, 'I see you' thing?"

Zu expressed surprise and quickly leaned up, looking down at him over her left with a focused face. Miles leaned up slightly, resting on his right side with his head braced on the hand of his bent arm staring up at her.

She looked forward, let out a slightly frustrated huff of air through her pink nostrils which flared slightly, and began to speak. "Other Na'vi did not see us, My-ulls. We were in the place where the eye does not see. In the darkness. But our islands saved my people from the dark. The nurturing rivers of fire lighting up our way. Fire, My-ulls. That is how you see people. My people learned to see in our own way."

As Zu spoke she was gently detangling her hair with her hands, engaging in exposition and self-maintenance at the same time.

Miles was looking at her beautiful left side profile intensely, his mouth slightly ajar, focused on her words as well as the elegant and effortless way in which she groomed herself. What Zu was saying was providing even more cultural insight into the Ash People which a month in the village was not enough to fully glean, especially given the language barrier, and the last two weeks being mostly dedicated to weapons training. Though the warriors' enthrallment with the flamethrowers made even more sense now. This was a much clearer explanation of her people's relationship with fire and their material use of it. It was also interesting to hear her reflect on how the other Na'vi felt about her people.