Titania Blake

Chapter 11

Jake and Neytiri were gone well into the morning, and I had assumed they'd gone flying early. At least, I had until during the announcement of what was done to the Tree of Voices, they came walking in hand in hand. "Tsu'tey, don't do this!" Jake called out to Tsu'tey.

"You!"

"Listen, brother-" Tsu'tey shoved Jake to the ground, and Neytiri stood between them. I joined her, trying to keep them out of a fight.

"You mated with this woman?" Tsu'tey demanded. 'Oh, Jake. What have you done?'

"We are mated before Eywa. It is done." Neytiri defended against Mo'at's anger.

"Brother, please. Do not attack the Sky People. Many Omaticaya will die if you do." Jake pleaded with Tsu'tey.

"You are not my brother!" Tsu'tey jumped at jake with blade drawn, and Jake pushed Neytiri and I out of the way.

"And I am not your enemy! The enemy is out there, and they are very powerful! I can talk to them."

"No more talk!" Tsu'tey attacked again. I couldn't keep up with their movements, but Tsu'tey ended up on the ground.

"I am Omaticaya. I am one of you. And I have the right to speak. I have something to say... to all of you. The words are like stones in my heart," Jake addressed Neytiri, and Grace's Avatar fell when he paused, "Look, I was sent here to-" Before Jake could continue, he fell as well.

Tsu'tey took his chance, holding Jake up by his queue and saying, "You see? It is a demon in a false body." Neytiri knocked him away before he could slit Jake's throat and hissed at him while she protected Jake.

"I'm sorry. We'll try to come back and fix this. They're going to take me, as well." I turned a glare on Tsu'tey and added a quick, "I hate you," before I felt the link disconnect and I was pulled back to my human body. "What the fuck?!" I shouted when I pushed out of the link bed.

"Time to come back to base." Then I felt pain in my neck.

"You let me down, son. So what, you find yourself some local tail and you just completely forget what team you're playing for? Blake, did you forget your mission?"

"I never agreed to do jack shit for you, Quaritch. I came here as Grace's security. I only report to Grace."

"Parker, there is time to salvage the situation. Parker-"

"Shut your pie hole." Quaritch interrupted Grace.

"Or what, Ranger Rick? You gonna shoot me?" Grace sassed.

"I could do that."

"I'd break your neck if you did."

"You need to muzzle your dog."

"Yeah, can we just take this down a couple of notches, please?" Selfridge interjected.

"You say you want to keep your people alive? You start by listening to her." Jake put in.

"Those trees were sacred to the Omaticaya in a way you can't imagine."

"You know what? You throw a stick in the air around here, it's gonna land on some sacred fern, for Christ's sake!" Selfridge mockingly replied.

"I'm not talking some kind of pagan voodoo here. I'm talking about something in the biology of the forest."

"Which is what exactly?"

"Grace, Selfridge, listen. The entire planet is interconnected. What Grace can measure in the plants, Avatar, Na'vi, and the animals can understand by linking their neural queue to it. It's energy. The law of conservation tells us energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. When the Na'vi die, they transfer all the energy they were given back to Pandora. Those trees allowed the Omaticaya to transfer their memories and save them like a computer. You basically destroyed the hard drive that let them access all of that. Let us talk to them. Get them to move peacefully."

"What the hell have you people been smoking out there? They're just goddamn trees." Then Quaritch pulled up Jake's logs, and the fate of the Omaticaya was sealed.

I was trying to meditate during the pack up of the lab when Trudy ran in, telling us that Quaritch was rolling in gunships to attack Hometree. We rushed to Selfridge and begged him to let us try one last time to talk to them so that we could try to keep him from killing families and kids.

When I woke back pu in my Avatar, Neytiri, Jake, Grace, and I all rushed down to speak to Mo'at and Eytukan. "Mother! Father!" Neytiri called their attention to us.

"Eytukan, I have something to say." Jake addressed them.

"Listen!" Grace begged.

"Speak, JakeSully." Eytukan insisted.

"A great evil is upon us. The Sky People are coming... to destroy Hometree." Jake told them.

"They'll be here soon. You have to leave, or you're gonna die." I translated for Jake.

"Are you certain of this?" Mo'at asked.

"Look, they sent me here to learn your ways so one day I could bring this message and that you would believe it."

"What are you saying, Jake? You knew this would happen?" Neytiri asked her mate directly.

"Yes. Look, at first it was just orders, and then everything changed. Okay? I fell in love. I fell in love with the forest and with the Omaticaya people. And with you. With you. With you."

"I trusted you. I trusted y

ou!"t

"Trust me now, please."

"ou will never be one -+of The People!" Neytiri shouted at him tearfully.

"We tried to stop them!" Grace added in. 'Stop shouting over each other!'

"Bind them." Eytukan ordered Tsu'tey. 'What?'

"No. No! Get off me! I will not be tied down again! No! Don't do this! If you fight them everyone here will die! Get your hands off me!" I punched the person grabbing at me, which turned out to be Tsu'tey. "Please. Please. I can't be bound again. Please don't do this. I don't want to feel unsafe again." I begged him.

"It's too late for that now, Titania." Tsu'tey almost seemed sad, and then he tied my hands together and pushed me to my knees like Jake and Grace.

"you lied to me. I hate you, Tsu'tey. I hate you." I cried, tearing my eyes away from him and curling in on myself as best as I could. 'We're all going to die. Quaritch will kill our human bodies when he gets back to base.' After we were tied up as prisoners of war, I went totally silent, keeping my teary eyes trained on the ground. I heard the blades of the ships rather quickly and begged Eywa to save the Omaticaya from Quaritch. Gas rounds were fired into Hometree and the Omaticaya fired arrows in return. Then the bombs were shot at the base roots and I let out a defeated wail. Eytukan finally called a retreat into the forest. Mo'at came to us crying and holding a knife, and I accepted my death as an Avatar.

"If you are one of us, help us." She said to Jake before she cut our bonds. I followed numbly as Jake led The People to safety. Missiles fired behind us at Hometree and knocked us all down. I watched as the firing finally stopped, and we ran as Hometree fell. 'It's gone.' One moment I was watching the last of Hometree burn, the next, I was in my human body, being dragged out of the  link bed to who knows where.