||The Legend of Taavi ||

|good morning|

            After a few long, mopey days, Taavi ceased her isolated behavior and started sneaking off to visit the humans again. Most of the apes knew where Taavi was when she wasn't with the group. But any confrontation would end up with Kerchak discovering her secret, and when Kerchak was angry, all would reap the consequences.

So, Taavi slinked off at random hours of the day to see James and continue her lessons.

A week and a half after Taavi's argument with her mother, Taavi awoke with an almost euphoric yearning for knowledge. The sun had yet to rise, but Taavi was more than awake when she set out for the human territory.

James was asleep when she entered the campsite, snoozing soundly in his tent. Clayton was polishing his artillery outside of his tent, and when he caught sight of Taavi, he snarled, but stayed silent; Porter was coking eggs and meat in a pan over their campfire. He smiled and waved at her.

"Good morning, Taavi!" he said cheerily.

"Hi!" Taavi exclaimed, feeling proud for using her new greeting words.

"James is sleeping right now, but feel free to wake the lazy-bone up." Porter pointed to James's tend and chuckled.

Taavi walked over the tent and pulled back the cloth flaps, wracking her brain on what "lazybone" meant.

His tent was moderately sized; enough to fit his suitcases full of clothes, a twin sized cot, and an ungodly amount of possessions strewn about in an ordered chaos. James lay in his bed, his eyes closed, his cheeks flushed, and his chest slowly rising and falling.

For some odd reason, Taavi felt her breath catch in her throat for a fleeting moment when she laid eyes on him. She bit her lip playfully and crawled on top of his bed without hesitation, sitting in the small space he did not occupy. Taking a deep breath, Taavi leaned forward and poked James in the face.

At first, he didn't react – he just twitched his eyes under their lids. So, Taavi poked him again, this time with a mischievous grin on her face. Lines began to form on James's forehead, but his eyes remained closed. By the fourth poke, his lids were slowly lifting. His hair was fluffy, and his clothes all crumpled, his body tangled in his blankets. For a split second, he looked surprised, but then his features softened, and the corners of his lips turned up in a sleepy smile.

Taavi gave a small squeal of delight and felt a new, bubbling feeling throughout her entire body.

"Good morning!"

The words flew out of her mouth before she even realized what she said. The words registered with James immediately, and he sat up quickly.

"Taavi!" he exclaimed excitedly, "You did it!"

Taavi threw her arms in the air and the bubbling feeling grew stronger. "Yes!" she cried joyfully.

At some point of their two-minute celebration, James took the back of Taavi's neck in his hands and pressed his lips to her forehead, pulling back with an animated mwah! The moment was fleeting, and the gesture left a tingling feeling on Taavi's face. She could tell it was a positive action, for when James pulled back right after it, he was grinning. She grinned right back, and put the moment in the back of her mind.

That day, James decided to work on emotions. He took the liberty of making Taavi her own flash cards. Each card had a face on it, drawn by James himself, illustrating the different feelings with facial expressions. They sat on his bed, facing each other, Taavi watching patiently and attentively as James went through the cards multiple times, pronouncing each word.

"Your turn," he told her, shuffling the cards.

He held one up of a smiling boy. Taavi thought hard, and then the word sprang into her head.

"Happy!"

James nodded. "Yes, good. Show me."

Taavi poked her cheeks and grinned, showing off her teeth. James chuckled and nodded again.

"Good." He held up another card that showed a little girl, whose mouth looked like she had previously sucked on a lemon.

"Mad," Taavi said confidently.

"Show me."

She scrunched up her face so tightly, her muscles ached. "Mad," she said again through strained lips.

"Fantastic. And this one?"

"Sad." She stuck out her bottom lip and widened her eyes.

"And this one?"

"Soo-prize!" Her eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open to demonstrate.

"What about this one?"

Taavi was stumped. The word was a bit longer than the others, and the picture looked like a mix between happy and soo-prize.

"It's okay," he reassured warmly. "Excited."

"Ah, excited!" Taavi threw her hands up to show him she understood, and was then reminded of something.

"Good morning?" she recalled curiously. Was that the feeling James had when she finally comprehended those words? Was that the fun, bubbling feeling she got in her stomach? The feeling of James putting his mouth on her head flickered through her memory, and she felt her face become very hot. She liked the feeling of being so close to James, but he had never done anything like that before...she didn't want to push her luck.

James glanced at his lap and smiled shyly, "Yes, good morning."

Something new gleamed in James's eyes for a moment. Something safe...and comforting. And it might have been a trick of the light, but Taavi could have sworn that James, had a bit of rose in his cheeks as well.