Effervescent ||Tsu'tey||

A trapped princess

She wore a brand new dress the next morning in the cafeteria, a headache already pounding behind her eyes, but that was the price to pay for the life she led. It wasn't healthy to spend most of the hours of both day and night in the link, as was evident by how limp her hair hung now compared to when she first came to Pandora, though her curls were limp by no means it was still a disturbing change.

Alva rubbed her eyes with a yawn before she walked over to the row of tables. She sat down next to Norm and one of Grace's science lackeys. He glowered at her with a thin face and beady bat-like eyes hanging low under bushy eyebrows.

"Morning, Norm," she chirped. "Sleep well?"

"Sure." He muttered. "Some of us weren't out all night, you know."

One of the scientists to Alva's left passed her a bowl of porridge and a glass of milk. The blob of gray and white was as thick as glue and she wasted all of her milk trying to soften it. The porridge had no smell or taste but the texture was thick, soggy and sticky, not all that different from eating actual glue. Only the glue was easier to swallow and tasted better.

Alva thanked them for the breakfast but didn't eat more of it bar that first spoonful. She still had some of the chocolate left in her pocket that she could nibble on before it was time to go back in her Avatar body.

"You didn't actually think I'd come running back, did you? Why would I leave Eywa for my cage?" Alva chuckled. "It's like leaving paradise for a closet under the stairs. Besides, I didn't want to miss out on Jake getting beat up by the Omaticayan princess."

Jake had earned his spot among Grace's acolytes and sat proudly at the end of the long table, grandma's teylu long forgotten as they showered him with compliments and laughed together like one big family.

"The fence is there to protect us," Norm reminded. "They didn't spend millions of dollars building all that to keep you in here."

"Exactly." Alva smiled. "They spent millions of dollars so that I can be out there. I'm glad you see my point."

"That's not- Ugh."

Alva laughed before shoveling another spoonful of porridge into her mouth. If her mouth was full those words waiting on the tip of her tongue wouldn't be able to escape. The second taste wasn't any better than the first and she instantly regretted it. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to speak her mind if it saved her from such torture?

A tentative silence fell over the duo, sustained only by Norm's persistent chewing on stale bread topped with cheese that had dry edges. His eyes were locked firm on her, though, narrowed under bushy, furrowed brows.

"-And what were you thinking, huh?" Grace asked from the end of the table. The people sitting around the golden boy turned to Alva and Norm with all the attentiveness of a sports fan watching a mind-boggling game of tennis. "At least Jake is a marine. I mean, Alva, you barely passed the early stages of Avatar training and you thought it was a good idea to run after a hunting thanator with nothing but that necklace around your neck."

"I was never in any danger." Alva denied. "Eywa protected me, and now my Avatar is sleeping in the hometree with the people who shunned you, Grace."

"The Avatar that you endangered for some cheap thrills," Grace snapped, " you always talk about this base being your cage but goddamn are you doing everything in your power to make it so that you can never leave. If something happened to your Avatar then you would never leave the base ever again unless it was to walk your ass to the shuttle taking you back to Earth."

"I'd have regretted it for the rest of my life if I went back with you like the obedient little child my brother wants me to be." She shook her head. "It is a cage, Grace, and one day you will see this place for what it truly is. Then you'll wish you also took the opportunity to leave."