Ivory Hill had spent the majority of her adult life running. Throughout her twenties and the first part of her thirties it was from bombs and bullets. Now, at thirty six years old Ivory was running from something that she could never truly escape fr...
Ivory groaned and raised her head from the pillow, squinting in the sudden bright light. "What time is it?"
"Late," Grace's voice was rough with sleep.
"Oh." Ivory pressed her face back into her pillow, barely noticing as her cat butted his head into the side of her neck.
"You getting up?"
"Give me a minute," Ivory mumbled, rolling onto her back and shielding her eyes with her arm.
Grace bent down and pressed a kiss against her girlfriend's cheek. "Do you want a coffee?"
"No thanks."
"Are you sure? Linking to your avatar for the first time is going to be tiring."
"I'll be fine." Ivory forced herself out of bed and dressed quickly, brushing sleep out of her eyes.
"Your shirt is on inside out," Grace pointed out, unable to keep the amusement out of her voice.
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The lab was full of scientists that Ivory did not recognise examining screens and scribbling notes.
"I've not seen you around here before." A red haired scientist commented as Ivory passed.
"I've been away a while."
"Are you one of the people who've come back from earth?" The woman's green eyes lit up with interest.
"Yeah we-" Ivory broke off as Grace appeared at her side.
"Come on, Max can't wait for you all day." Grace said tersely.
"Sorry," Ivory gave the woman a small smile and jogged after her girlfriend who had begun to stride away without a backward glance.
"Are you ready to go?" Max asked as Ivory came to a stop beside him, biting her lip as she looked at the open link unit.
"Ready as I'll ever be."
"So once you're in the link unit the lid is going to close and it's going to be dark. You need to empty your mind and then you'll be able to create the psionic link between the consciousness from your human body to your avatar," Max tapped on the side of the machine.
Ivory nodded and climbed up onto the link bed, laying flat on her back. "I pull this down right?" The woman gestured to the metal webbing.
"Yep," Max said distractedly, tapping buttons on the screen above the link bay in quick succession. "And Grace? I need to talk to you about your avatar, things happened whilst you were away. The avatar is fine but..." the man shook his head. "I'd better let Jake explain."
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"Holy fuck." Ivory spun around on the spot like a dog chasing it's tail as she tried to catch sight of the blue tail that was now poking out of the back of her shorts. "My tattoos are still there?" She said in surprise, lifting up the back of her tank top and squinting at her lower back with difficulty in the artificial lighting of the avatar compound. "And I'm breathing Pandoran air without an exopack."
Grace rolled her eyes. "Your avatar is a copy of you Ivy, it's made with an exact copy of your DNA."
Norm grinned at Ivy. "The tattoos make your avatar look badass. I should've gotten a tattoo when we were on earth, I wanted to get the bat signal."
"Right," Grace cut in before Norm or Ivory could say any more. "Now we're all done stating the obvious let's go and see Jake," she smoothed the front of her red Stamford top and led the way out of the avatar compound, navigating the dense forest with ease.
Ivory followed Grace and Norm in silence, her eyes flickering over the enormous forest. The plants seemed to have recovered from the horrific fires and the bombs that had fallen just a few years ago but Ivory still couldn't shake the feeling of unease that had settled in her chest.
"Where are we meant to be meeting him?" Norm asked.
"Here," Grace stopped in the middle of a clearing and checked her watch. "Jake should be here in about two-" she broke off as a flash of blue streaked through the trees and launched itself at Ivory.
"Get it off me!" Ivory yelped in shock, attempting to detangle herself from the child that was hugging her waist and giggling nosily.
"Tuk! Personal space!" A man's voice called.
Ivory raised her head immediately. "Jake?"
"You came back." Jake gave the group a broad smile. "This is Tuk, my youngest daughter."
The woman's eyebrows shot into her hairline. "You actually found someone who was stupid enough to-? Ow!" Ivory broke off as Grace elbowed her in the ribs.
"You bet I did. The others are back with Neytiri. I've got two sons Neteyam and Lo'ak. Then there's my daughter Kiri, she's the one I want to talk to you about Grace."
A/N: Would any of you be interested if I uploaded a fic on here that was just social media posts from the characters of this fanfiction?
