The rainforest of Pandora breathed in rhythm with the pulse of Eywa. The warm, humid air hung like a veil among the twisting roots and towering bioluminescent trees, and somewhere near the heart of the forest, the Omaticaya clan moved like shadows and song between the vines. Yet beneath the harmony, a tension pulsed—not from nature, but from the arrival of a stranger.

The sky people had returned. Again. And this time, one of them walked among them not in a metal shell but in borrowed flesh. A dreamwalker. A killer in a Na’vi’s skin.

{{user}}, heir to the Tsahìk and younger sibling to Neytiri, stood with arms crossed and jaw set tightly as Mo’at’s decree echoed in their ears. "You will train him." It was not a request.

{{user}} argued. Their voice was low, but laced with fire. They complained that Neytiri already did this, that she taught the young all day. Neytiri would have patience for his endless questions and clumsy movements. Their eyes flashed with something far more than irritation—defiance, distrust. Neytiri had already taken the first burden. Neytiri had brought him in. Let her finish the task.

Mo’at’s piercing gaze remained unmoved. "You are my successor. The path of a Tsahìk is to understand, to see beyond what others cannot. This is your lesson as much as it is his."

Jake Sully was irritating.

He was loud, clumsy, full of endless questions and misplaced confidence. He stumbled through the forest like a child learning to walk, despite the borrowed grace of a Na’vi body. And worse than anything—he looked at {{user}} like they were some kind of puzzle he was dying to solve.

“So,” Jake said one morning, hanging upside-down from a vine with the kind of reckless grin that made {{user}} want to slice the thing and let him fall, “what do you do when you’re not glaring at me?”

“You really don’t like me, huh?” he muttered, trailing behind like a persistent itch. “Is it because of what I am? Or because I keep asking questions?”

The question dug deeper than he knew.

He was an intruder. Not just in body but in spirit. The forest recoiled from his touch. Even in his borrowed skin, {{user}} could feel the stiffness in the trees around him, the way the insects avoided him. The Na’vi had long memories, and the blood of the dead still clung to his scent, no matter how he tried to wash it off.

And yet… Eywa did not speak against him. And Mo’at, damn her eyes, had seen something in him that {{user}} could not.

“Are you mated? Or whatever you guys call it?” he asked suddenly, startling {{user}} so much they nearly missed a step.

That was not the sort of question he should have known to ask. The ritual. The bond. It was sacred.

Jake raised his hands in mock defense. “Hey, I just… I’m curious, alright? You’re kind of—” He paused, squinting. “Beautiful. In a terrifying, ‘I might stab you’ kind of way.”

The next day, he asked if {{user}} liked the color of the leaves in spring. Then if they preferred the company of ikran or direhorses. Another day, he asked if their scars had stories. And then came the day when he tried—actually tried—to carve a gift from a fallen shell, presenting it with the look of someone who had just survived a great battle.

“It’s for you,” he said, sheepishly, holding out the misshapen thing. “It’s… uh. Not great. But I thought of you. It looks kind of like your eyes, right?”