First Flight

Chapter 4 The stars

Y/n and Jake didn't spend too much time relaxing by the bank of the river. Their near-death experience, only ushered them to keep moving and more quickly now. Once they were out of the water Y/n finally noticed that she had dislocated her shoulder in the plunge and had Jake help her put it back into place. It was painful for sure, but they had to keep moving, she could take better care of it back at base.

Stalking through the forest there was only one thing on the girl's mind, the two of them were unfamiliar with the terrain, Jake more so than Y/n but even then the girl didn't know that much. She had only read mainly about the Na'vi and Pandora's important plants for medical sake since she was a medic. Not a scientist, not a biologist, none of that just a medic. She was here for medical field emergencies, so she thought that she didn't have to know the forest as much as the scientists would. She could just learn from them along the way. However now that she and Jake were trekking through said forest without a clue in the world on how to get back to base or even signal for help, she was feeling extremely guilty. 'If only I had done what Graced asked of me, we wouldn't be in this situation, I knew better and had more tools than this guy did and I still...I still failed.' Trudging along behind Jake bashing herself for being so careless, in all reality it was her fault. She tried to roll and rub out the pain and tension aching in her shoulder as they moved, she was told that these avatar bodies were a lot stronger than human ones, but her arm still hurt like her human arm would. Dislocating her shoulder and having to relocate it herself with an untrained helper no matter the body was still a painful experience.

"Hey, you alive back there?" Jake spoke up finally, his voice calm and light, he was probably trying to lighten up the mood or check in after the chase since they had been dead silent for the past hour.

"Yeah, I'm good, what about you?" Y/n replied softly, she wanted to check in too. Yes, this man was probably used to running from the enemy and being in peril, but running from an alien monster? Not to mention in a completely unknown and new terrain? It was a different story completely and no one, not even the strongest person with the strongest set of nerves could get over that in just an hour.

Jake shrugged his shoulders, still on alert while they walked through the thick brush, "You live and you learn right?" his voice was still light and friendly, though his body showed nothing but tense anxiety.

"I suppose if you want to put it that way...guess we learned not to fuck with any animal in this forest right?" Y/n gripped her makeshift spear that Jake had fashioned for her earlier, he had one as well. He said it was better to walk around with a sharp stick than nothing at all, and Y/n couldn't agree more. They didn't know what was out here and they were way outta bounds for what the RDA deemed an acceptable working field area. Hearing Jake chuckle weakly Y/n knew the man was as nervous as she was, conversation was helping that. "So, you know how Grace mentioned that they might be watching us right now?" Y/n asked doing a quick 360 of the area and paused to listen for anything suspicious. "Do you think they watched that whole thing and laughed at how dumb we looked?"

There was another chuckle from the marine as he continued through the thick brush, "Yeah, I'm sure they are laughing their asses off, or maybe they scattered as soon as that thing showed up since it didn't seem to be scared of anything, even us." Another good point, if that beast had been at all afraid of the Na'vi in any way it wouldn't have chased two exact-looking creatures through the forest for miles. So no, the Na'vi were most likely not laughing their asses off at that whole chase, they probably ran off the moment they saw the animal. Which was good to know for the next time they ran into one of those panther things, though hopefully they wouldn't. "Come on keep moving, it'll be night soon...and god knows what shows up at night," Jake ordered and Y/n quickened her steps to catch up to the man, if there were any nocturnal animals similar to the one they just got away from, there would be no chance in hell they'd make it out alive then. Not if they couldn't see where they were going.