Heart & Soul - An Avatar Fanfiction

↞ Meeting her ↠

"Oel Ngäti Kameie, Dr Grace Augustine"

And there she was.

Rune's idol for as long as she could remember, was standing right in front of her, just a few steps away. She was so close and Rune was practically quivering with excitement. Being this close to her idol and being in the only lab on Pandora was like a kid being in a candy store for her. Dr. Grace was just within reach.

The women appeared to be in her late forties, but she was nonetheless fit and strong. She was tall, not as tall as Rune, but still tall, and she had short, curly burning copper hair that framed her face. She had angular eyebrows, smile wrinkles, dark brown eyes and pursed lips, and was holding a smoldering cigarette between her hands as she talked to some other lab workers. 

"Grace," Max called out to her, flagging her over as we walked further into the lab, "I've got the new recruit.

The woman turned around, hand on her hip, a grin on her face and a raised eyebrow. She snuffed out the butt of the cigarette on an ashtray, and excused herself from her current conversation before walking over to the two.

"Is that so?" she asked.

"Rune Chapman," the woman stuck out her hand to shake it, "It's a pleasure to meet you Doctor Augustine."

"Yeah, yeah, I know who you are kid. Don't forget, it was me who got you here." Grace smirked, a friendly one albeit, before taking the younger woman's hand and shaking it firmly.

"I've been a big fan of your work since as long as I can remember. Both your stuff on Earth and your big book on Pandora, they're truly great pieces of work."

"I could say the same for you kid. It was your thesis papers on the downfall of humanity and its evolution that got you here. There were things that not even the older and more experienced people in your department could come up with, yet you did. They were insightful."

Rune grinned proudly, "I spent a lot of time on those thesis papers. I'm proud of them too."

"Good job," she nodded, before moving on with the conversation, leading Rune through the Laboratory, "So as you are our current Xeno-Anthropologist, I should probably explain the job to you. In the fives years you are here, we're going to have you doing a crap ton of things. You'll get to work with and meet the Na'vi at my school, starting tomorrow, you'll also get to ask as many questions as you want with them, as long as you help me teach. You'll get to earn their trust too and maybe become friends with some of them overtime. You'll also get access to data we have collected on their biological build and you'll get to document other animals of Pandora. Then, you may even get to be the first person to produce a pre-evolutionary form of the Na'vi. It'll be certainly interesting for you."

"Wait, I'll be the first person to create an evolutionary model for the Na'vi?" Rune asked, surprised by this possibility.

"Well, you are our first Xeno-Anthropologist here, now that we've established a relationship with the Na'vi. Anyways, hows your Na'vi?"

"Oel Ngäti Kameie, Dr Grace Augustine," she greeted, moving her hand to her forehead, which was close to the Auslan sign for think, "Fikem ultxa si oe lefpom."

"Good, your Na'vi is really good. Just remember the difference between fikem and fi'u. Fikem would be for an action, like 'do this' and fi'u is for a thing or occurrence like this meeting. And try to improve the accent."

"I am trying hard, it is not easy when you speak with an accent all the time, regardless of how hard I try."

"You have one-sided deafness don't you? That's what it said on your profile."