It was at this point that Ash's newfound resolve to try to see things from the People's perspective was put to a very difficult test. On the one hand, she was, of course, happy for Ni'ka, happy for the struggling Clan. But she hadn't been raised in a Na'vi Clan; she couldn't fathom the unity its members felt with each other, their ancestors, their history and prehistory. Their traditions ran back, some said, almost eighty thousand years; mankind had only been living in large communities for a little over ten thousand. Already the society of Man was coming undone, breaking up more every decade. To her, the breakup of the Tompa'tanhi was a sad but natural outgrowth of the crisis that threatened to engulf them.
But here was their former Olo'eyktan not only accepting their departure from their home of a thousand years but endorsing it; indeed, saying things that sounded an awful lot like "This is the Future." Wasn't that supposed to be a human sentiment? Didn't he care?
And here was Ni'ka, the Changed one who she still saw as almost a daughter, ready on the instant to leave the station; to leave Ash, her guidance, support and protection, and take Enya's family and the hunters with her. Were things that bad for them at the station? Brenda seemed to think so, and she had made a good point about the unnaturalness of their situation. And several of the others had stated that if Ni'ka were to really find herself again, and if Enya were to fully transition into her new life as a Na'vi, they needed to live with other Na'vi, with the Clan.
On the face of it, both notions made sense. But inside herself, Ash rebelled. Na'vi lived in Hometrees, in any terrain that had them...didn't they? Their attachment to their age-old homes was legendary; was this something that could be dissolved so easily? The Clan was fragmenting, for pity's sake, dispersing to who-knows-where; how could anyone think this was a good thing, a thing that would make them stronger?
The narrative she'd composed for them in her head had to end in either victory or tragedy, their culture's preservation exactly as-is or its destruction. There was no chapter in it for societal revolution, for large-scale change.
So Ni'ka was going; there'd been no hesitation in her response at all. Enya's family wouldn't be far behind, especially if Tangek had anything to do with it. Kenten's heart had never left the pongu; of course he would rejoin them as well. All her charges, all the people she'd been fighting for and trying to protect, were just going to...abandon her? After all she'd done?
She fought hard to suppress her gut reaction, which was that the situation wasn't fair. If her friends relocated to the settlement--and she couldn't think of a single reason why they wouldn't--there'd be no one left at the compound but her and Rick and maybe human Brenda, who didn't really count in her mind because surely she would almost always be linked in to be with Enya...right?
She sighed. Ni'ka was an adult and could come and go as she pleased. Brenda had wanted to be gone before she'd even *come*. 'Iheyu's foremost obligation was to her family, which had been hurt several times by things Ash had said or done. Scratch all of them... But what about Tsanten, what about the healers who attended him? Was Tangek going to pack him in a patient pod and clear him out too?
Suddenly it seemed that it wasn't just Hometree being evacuated. Sooner or later--probably sooner--the same thing would happen to the shack complex.
And then Ashleigh Davis, anthropologist, Avatar driver, would have no one to talk to except her own kind.
- -
Ra'nah had not failed to note the awkward silence that had fallen over the Dreamwalker woman or the sigh that finally escaped her. "Does something trouble you, child...?" he asked gently.
Ash gave him a puzzled look. "It does, but...I'm not sure what it is, and I need some time to sort it out."
"What do you know about it already?" he prompted. "Perhaps if you cast a net of words over it, you might snare a few fish."
Ash blushed, then averted her gaze. "It's nothing I'm proud of... I'm happy for you, 'k? For all of you, for Ni'ka, for Enya's family... But all I can think of right this moment is that it's gonna be lonely at the station." She uttered a nervous little laugh. "I feel left out... Isn't that selfish of me? It's gonna be like Hometree, everybody going away..."
"...And you have no Clan to carry in your heart," Ra'nah guessed.
Ash nodded, biting her lip and trying not to think of the mists that were gathering in her eyes. "And I've been a bit of a nuisance; I don't think any of them is going to particularly want to carry me in theirs," she finished unhappily.