Effervescent ||Tsu'tey||

A new face

A streak of burnt orange and soft pink cut through the blanket of darkness falling over the moon. Faint outlines of stars promised a cold night, already Alva felt the beginnings of shivers as her skin pebbled from the chilled breeze.

"Alva?"

Her legs stopped their swinging attacks against the frigid steel. "Up here, Grace," Alva said.

"I know you have another hour," Grace Augustine was the head-scientist in her department on Hell's Base and she knew that Alva was going to protest the early night. "But today is welcome the recruits night and I am not doing that shit alone. Max is showing them around the lab as we speak."

Alva hummed and inclined her head. Over the edge of the building she had perched herself upon that night she could just barely see Grace's sleek black hair. "I do have another hour. That was the deal we made, big brother and I."

Her eyes fluttered away from the Avatar driver and back to the forest she had been marveling at. The majestic, tall trees towered over the large electric fence and had just started to come alive again after a day of rest. Vibrant blue, pink, purple and even neon green lit up the outlines of them. Like the old seasonal lighting festivals back in the 21st century, or a canvas being brought to life by blotches and imperfect curves of clashing colors, the entire forest cast away the earthy tones in favor for the more dramatic palette. Every bush and budding tree, and the well-traveled paths beneath the heavy crowns of towering helutral. Not a single living thing was exempt from the gifted bioluminescence, each little element – be it a leaf or the translucent dome-shaped flora with shivering tentacles – were as loved by Eywa as the other. As if answering the calling of their mother, the bundles and clusters of bright dots lining her Avatar body lit up like little stars on a dark evening sky.

"It's just started," she mourned, wiggling her fingers to watch the dots dance over her knuckles. "I can't leave now."

A heavy sigh.

"If you do this one thing for me, Alva, I'll make sure you get to stay up an extra hour tomorrow. I'm sure your little friends will forgive you."

"Maybe."

The dull concrete paths of the Avatar enclosure faded away as darkness won the battle, each and every little piece of man-made disasters forgotten under their heavy cloak of success. For as long as the night endured the relentless attacks of the sun, the inhabitants of the moon could forget the invading forces and their blasphemous gray buildings and deep-rooted mines, though they did not stop their pursuit for unobtanium during the nights. But the wooden shack on the far right corner of the enclosure stood out like a sore-thumb with its artificial yellow lights dangling from the beams, a contrast from the harsh white strobe-lights placed around the perimeter of the base on the high walls.

Alva heard Grace grip the old, corroded metal pipe. "I have chocolate in my office. The expensive kind with berries and nuts in them."

"If you're trying to bribe me, Grace," she chuckled, "then it's working."

Grace chuckled as well, though this body's chuckle held none of the huskiness or hoarseness that came with the decades long habit of chain-smoking cigarettes.

Alva stood from her precarious position on the edge of the sloped roof, bare feet navigating the rusty panels and stray debris with an expertise that spoke of years of practice. When she had skipped to the end with the group of pipes, she grabbed the sturdiest of them, ignored the protesting groan it let out when she shook it, and scaled down the side of the building with cat-like grace. Damp grass greeted her at the end of the descent, in which she dug her toes.

"It's going to storm tonight, did you know?"

A flash of a red cropped shirt foretold Grace's rounding the corner of the building. The taller Avatar leaned against the wall and shook her head. "Our scans would have shown us but there's not going to be one for at least a week."