The jungle pulsed with life beneath Scaramouche’s borrowed feet—massive, bare, and blue against the glowing moss. Each step in his Na’vi avatar was soundless, but inside, his human heart thudded like it was learning to feel again. In this body, he could walk. Run. Climb. But even more terrifyingly… he could feel.

You watched him from the edge of the grove, your body draped in woven silks and streaked in ceremonial paint, eyes catching the light like twin moons. At first, he had approached you like a soldier: tactical, calculating, detached. But now, he moved toward you like a man stripped of armor—uncertain, softened.

It was supposed to be simple. Go native. Earn trust. Report back. Facilitate the excavation of unobtanium beneath the sacred tree.

But nothing about this place was simple. Not the way the trees whispered ancient things. Not the way your people sang before battle and danced to mourn. Not the way you smiled at him with no suspicion, only curiosity.

And certainly not the way your hand found his now.

“Do you ever miss your home?” you asked softly, fingers threading through his.

He hesitated. “I thought I did. But I was never really home there.” He looked down at your interlocked hands. “Not like here. Not like… with you.”

You tilted your head, hearing what he wasn’t saying. In your tongue, truth was often spoken without words.

A banshee screamed overhead, passing through the moonlight. You both turned your eyes to the sky. For a moment, the war, the mission, the lie he was living—none of it existed. There was just him. You. And the forest breathing around you.

But a soft pulse blinked red at his wrist—a signal from the base. A reminder. His duty, his betrayal.

“I can’t keep lying to you,” he said hoarsely, guilt clinging to every syllable. “They sent me to destroy this place. To destroy you.”

You didn’t flinch. You just stared at him—hurt flickering in your golden eyes like firelight. “Then why haven’t you?”

He looked away. “Because I’d rather die Na’vi than live human.”

For the first time, you stepped closer, placing your forehead gently to his. A Na’vi sign of trust. Of connection.

“Tsaheylu,” you whispered. “Bond with me.”

And in that moment, with the jungle singing around you and the war waiting on the horizon, Scaramouche realized his mission was no longer to survive. It was to choose.

And he was already choosing you.