This option actually shut the little group up for a moment, Anna even paling under her freckles a little bit. Nobody in their right mind would want to put up a fight with Tangek when he defended a patient. To be honest, the thought of Putin surviving the next few hours had never crossed their minds so far.

Putin, on the other hand, noticed a tiny straw in the middle of the stormy sea he found himself drowning in. That bulky, scary looking alien newcomer had mentioned the word "survive". Was there actually a chance he could survive the whole ordeal? On the other hand, maybe this also could be a ruse, meant to give him hope for a short moment to just crush it shortly after. Having gotten his training in the KGB he knew a few things about psychological warfare and torture and this was a tactic he had used himself a few times already. Why should he have reason to trust a stranger all of a sudden? Heck, he even didn't trust his own people. Power wasn't grabbed by trusting people.
But this was not about power, this was about survival and the last minutes had shown the dictator that his uninvited guests actually did mean business. So he reached for the straw, weak as it might seem.

"Survive?", he asked, voice croaking. "Nurse?"

"Informed consent."  The Na'vi healer nodded.  "I like it.  And you're probably counting on whichever he chooses to be fatal.  But have you thought about what will happen if this man survives either experience?  What will you do then?  A Dreamhunt is as much a prophecy as a revelation of what's already in you; it speaks to your nature, but also points to your future.  As for the Change, it takes days for a Sky Person if Rick's any clue.  Will you be here for the whole thing?  Shall I make ready to nurse him through it?  And if I do so...well, that's going to make him my patient, isn't it?  Which means, odious as he is, I will have to defend him against you."  He leaned backwards against a pillar, kicked up one leg behind him and crossed his arms over his chest, looking somewhat amused at the predicament the others had gotten themselves into.

"Tangek." Ni'ka bowed her head in greeting. "Yes, thank you, we are alright so far - can't say the same about him." She pointed at the deflated autocrat she was sitting on.

Txa'ren, also greeting 'Iheyu's mate, shrugged. "It's not as if we actually have taken him through a Dreamhunt yet", he explained. "We're just telling him his options. He can always choose to be pricked by Ni'ka."

"And we want to make sure he has all the information we declare necessary for an educated choice", Rick added with a feral grin. He had gotten up right now and started to work with the coffee-pot Brenda had pointed out before.

Not helping a bit was the arrival of Tangek, who combined a Na'vi's height with a wrestler's bulk.  "Everyone all right in here?" he asked with a faint smile, not missing Putin as his eyes scanned everyone's faces, but noticing the absence of his wife and children.

Then he pointed out something about the Dreamhunt ritual that his extended family and friends seemed to have forgotten:  "Now, now, we don't go talking about anyone's tirea'ioang before they've got one; we don't want to affect the outcome by speculating or by stating a preference.  Although you could explain to me why this fellow's getting a Dreamhunt in the first place; Rick's accident aside, we really don't do those for tawtute who haven't learned our ways yet..."

"Mine, for example, is a Palulukan", Ni'ka explained. Usually she didn't tell everyone and their little sister about her spirit animal, but she knew that this information-leak would be short-lived. As short-lived as the slowly panicking dictator.

"Think black panther on steroids", Rick added helpfully. "Six legs, tall enough that a Na'vi could ride it, fangs the size of a table leg. Beautiful creatures."

"For you, I think", Anna mused, "I expect something like a cockroach. Or maybe some kind of worm."

"I'm not sure even a worm would connect with him", Txa'ren offered. "Worms are important and useful in the circle of life, giving back our body to the Great Mother. I don't think this skxawng has ever done something useful in his life."

Putin - despite feeling cold fear creep up his spine - sputtered indignantly while his brain raced. So what were his options? Get stung by something that would change him on a genetic level or get stung by something else that might drive him into visions and insanity (he didn't believe much in spiritual stuff, after all). At least the second option sounded as if there'd be booze, still the whole thing sounded like the choice between the rock and the hard place.
So far his conscious brain refused to make any decisions while his reptile brain sent 'fight or flight'-orders he couldn't follow.

"Well, there you have it," Brenda told Putin with evident satisfaction.  "You get to literally choose your poison.  Ni'ka's already told you what'll happen if she pricks you.  Or you can let yourself be stung by a killer bee, then drink the concoction Rick's gonna brew here shortly."

"What does that do," asked Putin nervously.

Brenda curled her tail around herself, picked the end up and began gesturing with the tuft as she explained.  "If this works like on Pandora, the kava will interact with the bee-sting and put you in a fever-dream, during which you will have strong hallucinations.  One of those hallucinations will be of some kind of animal - something of deep spiritual significance to you.  You've heard of a Native American Visionquest? --This is a Na'vi version called the Dreamhunt.  You have to wait for your beast to appear; after that, if it doesn't come right to you, you might have to battle and subdue it to form a bond with it.  It will then become your Spirit-animal, your totem, and guide you throughout life, assuming you survive the experience; some Na'vi don't.  Also assuming you still have a soul that a totem can access...  This is gonna be in-teresting."  She smirked.

"Oh, not so confident anymore?" Despite his growth spurt a while ago Rick still was far from Na'vi sized, meaning he was a lot closer to Putin's face, noticing his reaction. The Changed soldier grinned ferally. "Seems there's some situational awareness left in you." He turned to Brenda and patted a small pouch on his belt. "Yepp, all ready to go for our friend here. I'm sure he'll love our special mix." He looked back at Putin. "I think I might call it 'Pandoran Nightmare'."

Anna suppressed a chuckle. She had deeply enjoyed Brenda's speech, the part about herself running with wolves in Siberia reminding her of how beautiful and pure Russia actually could be and how perverted Putin's actions were. "You might be used to bad vodka", she said, remembering some of the stuff they served in the more remote parts of the huge country with a slight shudder, "but this will gonna be a completely new experience." Now her smile might as well belong to one of the wolves she had studied all those years ago. "It's taking a number on a grown, healthy Na'vi, so it's gonna be interesting - strictly scientifically - to see what it will do to a has-been autocrat like you."

Putin, feeling that shit was about to hit the fan for real, tried to wiggle out of his position, but Ni'ka just readjusted her weight to make any try for escape impossible. "You should feel honoured", she said sternly. "It's a sacred ceremony with my people."

Now Brenda crouched down to be as close to eye-to-eye with the dictator as she could under the circumstances.  The circumstances were these: She was easily twice his height, which meant that she was as tall sitting down as he would have been standing up.  So her attempt to get in his actual face fell a little...short.  No matter; she had Ni'ka sit on Putin and beckoned Rick to join her in sitting cross-legged in front of him.

"First of all," she began chattily, "you need to realise exactly how screwed you are.  See, we're from a long way from here.  About five-point-something light-years, actually.  Some of us were born on Earth, true; others have never lived anywhere except Pandora.  And even from a moon of a planet another star-system away, we were aware of your bullshit and we didn't like it.  I already told you we wrecked the RDA for what they did to Armenia, and for what they tried to do to Pandora.  I think that one actually got in the news--even here, unless your minions censored it for you.  Everywhere else we were the wrong kind of famous."  She grinned, meaning her fangs were showing, then went on.

"So here we are: Rick, an American soldier who, shall we say, adapted; Anna, who got in your face about fairy-tales, used to run with the wolves in Siberia, and drives an Avatar; and Txa'ren - he's the late arrival who stuck up for Anna; before we came to Moscow he was taking his turn at being that legendary fighter pilot, the Ghost of Kyiv.  You've met Tali, the Na'vi youth who (a) took over your comm network, (b) cancelled your Internet service, and (c) just rendered you incapable of breeding; the two ladies who just left with him are his mom and his sister.  Still waiting for his daddy to show up.  Tangek's one hell of a healer, but he also knows how to break people like your palace guards and anybody else who tries to stop him.  He doesn't have a problem in the world with the idea of patching you up just so's we can torture you some more.  Yeah, yeah, not what you'd expect from a Na'vi, right?  'Cause they're all just a bunch of Goddess-worshippin', skinny-dippin', tree-huggin' hippies, right? ...Oh, Vladimir, Pandora's just full of surprises.  Like me.  I used to drive an Avatar too, didja know that?  Yeah, well, eventually we merged, which happens after a while, so here I am.  All of us can breathe things that would kill you.  Which we might end up having to do--'breathe things', that is; 'kill you' should go without saying.

"And why are all us aliens picking on you? ...Because, for me, what you're doing now in Ukraine smells way too much like what you did in Armenia back then.  For my Na'vi companions, it smells too much like what you did--Yes, you!--in Pandora.  We made the RDA pay for that.  All of that.  But I've been saving you for dessert.  So it's your turn...and you can't escape on a starship at just below the speed of light.  Sound screwed enough for you?"

She smirked, then turned to Rick and asked "Did you bring the kava powder?  Coffee pot's right over there if you need some hot water to mix it in...  I'm providing the killer bee."

Vladimir Putin's eyes got very, very wide.

"Of course!" Ni'ka smiled at Brenda, then turned back to Putin dangling in her grip, narrowing her eyes, pressing her clawlike nails into his neck one more time for good measure, swung him back and forth a few times to make things more interesting and then opened her grip. Being the size she was the autocrat fell down from almost six feet, landing right - and probably rather painfully - on his rear.
"Oops".

The air left Putin rather quickly and from the look on his face he had hurt his tailbone, but he did try to get back up on his feet as fast as possible.

"Not so fast", Rick chimed in, his boot landing in right the spot Putin had hurt already with his not very graceful landing, putting the man flat on his face now. "Bren said you need to get down and that's where you'll stay for now."

"You keep saying that," said the Russian leader a little crossly.  "So far you haven't hurt anything but my eyes from the weirdness of you, and a wonderful migraine that I'm sure will get worse once this black, two-legged giraffe-woman puts me down again."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Brenda snorted.  "Get your feet under you so you could make a break for it if we get to be a little too much for your delicate tastes? --Hate to say it, but I agree with you.  This will be a lot more fun if we at least pretend to give you a sporting chance.  Make no mistake, though, Mr Putin: You are not leaving this room.  So I hope you've been to the bathroom, 'cause otherwise we'll have to beat the shit out of you...  Ni'ka, sweetie?  Could you let go of Fearless Leader's neck?  I'm sure now he's wishing he'd worn a shirt..."