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 rolled over, burying her face into the pillow as she blindly shoved away whoever was shaking her shoulder. "Fuck off."
"Come on doll, we've got things to do today." Grace moved her arm away from her girlfriend and got off the bed.
Ivory raised her head from the pillow reluctantly, squinting through the gloom at the alarm clock that Grace had put on the beside table. "Jesus Grace it's four in the morning, what's so important?"
"I'm going to teach you how to use a bow and arrow, when you're in your Avatar body you're going to have to be able to hunt with the rest of the Na'vi. I don't want you getting left behind."
"Let them leave me behind. I only went to bed two hours ago, I want to sleep." Ivory grumbled.
"If you get up now I'll make you a coffee-" Grace paused, assessing her girlfriend's face. "I'll make you a coffee whenever you want for two weeks."
"Fine, fine." The dark haired woman kicked off the duvet and dragged herself out of bed. She picked up the clothes that she had put out the night before and dressed quickly, tossing her pyjamas into the laundry basket so that she could deal with them later.
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Grace reached out and caught her girlfriend's arm as she stumbled over a thick tree root. She still wasn't quite used to her enormous blue avatar and it showed.
"Thanks."
"No problem. Let's just practice here before you break your face or worse." Grace swung the quiver of arrows down off of her shoulders and handed it to Ivory. "These ones aren't dipped in poison like they usually are, I'd like to be alive by the end of this."
Ivory rolled her eyes. "Grace I've been handling lethal weapons for the majority of my life and I've not accidentally killed someone yet."
"Let's keep it that way." Grace removed the bow from her other shoulder and handed it to her girlfriend. "Do you know how to get the arrow on the bow?"
"Give me some credit Grace." Ivory notched her arrow with care, keeping her fingers as far from the sharp tip as she could.
"This is where it gets complicated. The Na'vi use their bow and arrow backwards so you need to make sure that your drawing arm is upturned."
"Like this?"
Grace rolled her eyes and deftly corrected her girlfriend's arm. "Like this. Now put your hand backwards."
"Backwards? Are you sure-?"
"We'd be done with this a lot quicker if you'd stop asking me so many questions."
Ivory stuck her tongue out but moved her hand.
"There you go. Now stand up straight." Grace gently pushed the other woman into position.
"Are you sure you're not just using this as an excuse to feel me up?" Ivory grinned.
"Just shoot the goddamn arrow."
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Bindi looked up from her pile of notes as Ivory climbed out of her link unit, rubbing her eyes. "Hi."
"What are you working on?" Ivory asked, scooting past Max to come and look at what the woman was doing.
"Nothing interesting really. What were you doing today?"
"Archery," Ivory smiled at her girlfriend as she appeared at her elbow. "Grace thinks it's a necessary skill but I disagree."
"Are you any good at it?"
Ivory shook her head. "I almost killed Grace twice."
"I used to do archery so I can teach you if you want me to?" Bindi offered, her green eyes bright.
"That sounds like it would involve a lot less yelling than my lessons with Grace."
"I don't yell," Grace said grumpily. "I just express my feelings loudly." She grabbed the notebook that she had left abandoned on a desk that morning. "Seeing as you two are busy I'm going to go and get some work done."
"Grace can-" Ivory began.
"Don't let me interrupt you." Grace swept out of the lab.
"Anyway," Bindi began, seemingly oblivious to Grace's rapid change in mood. "If you let me know when you've got some free time we can go out into one of the old training areas and get some practice in."
"I've got to do it backwards." Ivory forced her gaze away from the door of the lab and focused on Bindi.
"Facing the wrong way?"
"No, I've got to have my arm backwards."
Bindi shrugged her shoulders. "I can work with that, it's not going to be too different from shooting normally. Do you know how to notch an arrow?"
"That bit I can do."
"Then it'll be easy for me to teach you how to do it. It might take me a minute to practice shooting with my drawing arm backwards but after that I'll have you doing it in no time." There was a broad smile on the woman's face.
