Print

[Random the Navigator]

::: [ One Small Life ] :::

Brenda couldn't figure out why she'd been so nervous about getting on a Pa'li.  Granted, Kilvanä was the right size for an Avatar who was almost twice her height; but mere height had never bothered "Mountain Girl".  Nor had instability, really; her homeland was mostly sitting on volcanic rock on the seam that had created the Caucasus Range, while on the personal level her feet had seldom known level ground during her fugitive years.  So if it wasn't the way-up-there and it wasn't the rhythmic rocking, what was it?

It's that I'm hanging onto "Baby-girl" right where I know she's been hurt, she concluded.  And that I don't give a rat's-ass if I fall as long as I don't take her with me.

She was not out-of-line to worry about this.  After all, she couldn't feel the corrections; couldn't know how Kilvanä instructed Enya's body as easily as her own; couldn't know that, for all intents and purposes, the stranded Avatar could be considered "linked in".

She caught the name "Atreyu" and urged Enya to catch up with Kenten.  "Speaking of who...guess who Ni'ka and I ran into this morning?  Atreyu sends his affectionate regards; he's with a big group on their way to a village a day's ride upstream from here.  And, personally...?  I think that'd be a better place for you guys..."

Tali's eyebrows shot up.  "Funny you should mention that; Sa'nok was just talking about moving us somewhere..."

Kenten just bit his lip and looked away.

"Seriously?" Brenda asked; she'd been with Tsanten when 'Iheyu and the others had discussed it.  "Damn, didn't know I was touching a nerve...  I seem to do that a lot," she added ruefully.  "See why I took a job that keeps me out in the boonies all by myself?"

"Seriously," said Tali.  "It's mostly Tangek who wants to go, but we figured if we try to make this place a little more like home, it'll be good for him and everybody else...  Sa'nok's not going anywhere until we see if that's working."

Kenten filled in.  "'Iheyu's in no hurry.  And Enya thinks giving Tangek the sorts of things he likes best about Hometree--mainly greenery, a perch, and lots of excuses to fly--might help everyone.  That's why we're foraging today, is to find camouflage for our camp--but you knew that; this is just an extra reason."

Enya furnished another detail.  "Is a lot 'cause Ash get mad at people all-sudden about little things...  I not understand, though.  She been real nice since she come back from Hometree!  She talk, she listen, she share with Sprout a lot--all like in short wood place before Mother-god came...  She even say sorry for fussing at me, and she try real hard not to, and not to be nosy...  Do know she used-to fuss a lot and say 'It gotta be this way or is not gonna work!!'  Ahh, nobody really like her when she get like that.  But is used-to.  She not has been like that in days!  Why everybody picking on Ash?  We almost Close-friends again; is like picking on me!"

"And Sa'nok already talked him into waiting for Ash to come back; maybe she'll be better, so he won't have that excuse," said Tali.

Brenda took all this in.  "So you guys are not in favor of going just yet?  And Tangek's pushing for it anyway and getting everybody upset?  Sounds like I'd better have a talk with him," she said, her mouth tight.  "I might just show him where to put his anger..."

"Dum, dee-dum-dum," Enya and Tali chimed together.

Talk then turned to perches, with Brenda admitting that she hadn't been able to get Tall Brenda into a proper tree last night, and opining that an observation tower like the ones in the Avatar compound might be a little less problematic.  After all, they'd never been attacked by Changed ones in a tower.  "Guess we're just gonna try to give everyone a little slice of the familiar," she concluded.

[Kiyevanie]

Rick had been listening quietly to the whole conversation.  "And an observation tower would have the charm that us clumsy humans can use it too," he now chimed in.  "You know, you don't have to do all the standing  guard."

Silently he had already decided to be somewhere else when Brenda cornered Tangek, almost feeling sorry for the guy, even though he definitely shared Brenda's opinion on the matter.

[Random the Navigator]

"Don't bet on the tower," said Brenda matter-of-factly.  "I have a feeling the spacing of the rungs is going to be better-suited to an Avatar's limbs than a human's.  But then...we are pretty athletic humans!"

Kenten grinned at Rick.  "We've been wondering when you were going to earn your keep!" he quipped.

[Kiyevanie]

"Ah, crap...  And there I was, hoping nobody noticed me just hanging around doin' nothing."  Rick grinned back up at the Na'vi hunter.  "At least you guys will all have fun watching me trying to climb a Na'vi-sized tower."  He wriggled his brow.  "Of course, we humans could also use an additional rope or something."

[Random the Navigator]

"Or one of those chains you've got in the Samson," Brenda suggested.  "I mean, it's not like you're gonna be hauling any more shacks anytime soon."  She bit her lip.  "That's gotta stink, not being able to haul a real load or cover that kind of territory...  Crap.  Our supply situation just keeps looking worse and worse.  And it takes time to make our own stuff out of whatever's handy."

They rode on rather glumly, coming to the stream and crossing it; they'd already seen most of what their own territory had to offer.

But it wasn't all bad news; far from it, they realised as they explored the lands on the other side of the water.  The Fwampop were still hanging around, as were the fish.  Animals that depended on decaying wood and leaf-litter were thriving, as was the nourishing humus soil they made; the glow-worms for Enya's lanterns would stay fat and well-fed.  Moss and algae, which didn't seem to mind the cold, were everywhere on rocks and tree-trunks, as were loose bark and the occasional patch of congealed tree-sap.  All had their uses.

Brenda asked Enya to stop and Kenten to help her down so she could scoop up enough of the humus to grow Enya's "houseplants" in.  They did so, and applied more of the same to the few food plants and struggling herbs Kenten spotted in the forest's more sheltered places.  Between them, they also accounted for a considerable haul of nuts, plus fruit-seeds whose coverings had rotted away.

Enya herself, still mounted, kept her eyes high for the kinds of plants that grew in the crooks of branches, as well as for nests that might hold eggs and suitable branches for the camouflage effort.  The plants she could harvest herself, shinnying up the trees and taking just a few leaves from each; true to her promise, 'Iheyu had freed her from her sling and authorised climbing...as long as she didn't try to come down head-first!

Tali, meanwhile, kept his eyes open for threats.

[Kiyevanie]

While the others were foraging for things that could be edible, Rick checked out the forest for anything they could use to mask the shacks.  He cut dead vines, rolling them up and stowing them away in one of the makeshift gathering bags they had, as he did for the ferns and other big leaves he found.  He was very careful to choose just dead parts of plants, not wanting to do more harm to the forest than he had to, but even then he soon had a big pile of camouflage material ready.

He looked at it and scratched his neck.  "Ya know - that looks like a lot of stuff here, but if we want to mask all three shacks like that we'll have to do a lot of these expeditions."

[Random the Navigator]

Kenten looked at everyone's saddlebags with an appraising eye, nodding his approval.  "I think we have enough to at least cover the roofs," he said.  "That'll keep us from being spotted from the air."

Brenda smiled.  "Well, we have to start somewhere," she said.  "First we make sure we don't get carpet-bombed.  The ruffles and flourishes can wait."

By now most of the party was on foot except Enya, who stayed mounted for easy access to the trees.

The terrain had been sloping gently ever since they'd left the stream, but now it began to climb in earnest.  The trees thinned out a little as they ascended, becoming close woodland instead of dense forest.  Eventually they began spotting rock outcroppings here and there, more of them as the land rose.  Enya became a little excited at this; while the rocks closer to the stream had been formed by its sediments, these looked like good old-fashioned basalt.

"Heia, Brenda," she said softly.  "Be fire-mountain kinda rocks here; maybe mica growing in cracks and holes?"

"Mica definitely growing in cracks and holes," Brenda said with considerable satisfaction.  This was her kind of country; she knew what to expect from it; it resembled the area around her old outpost, which resembled the landscapes of Armenia.  "Thanks, babe."  She disappeared into the nearest grotto to do a little mining.

Tali and Kenten, keeping their eyes ahead and all around, came to a sudden halt as they spotted something on one of the higher outcroppings.  "Brenda..." muttered Kenten.  "When you come out of there...try not to look too much like a fwampop..."

The reason became amply clear when the occupant of the perch noticed their movement, and though they were still a considerable distance away, it warned them off with a dragon's roar.

But Enya, on her Pa'li and with the advantage of height, knew exactly who that amber-gold Ikran was.  "Ni'tingal!!!" she squeaked.  Then, despite everyone's cautions that a nesting bird could be aggressive even to those it knew, she nudged Kilvanä into their first-ever canter.  "Is okay--I baby-Ikran to Ni'tingal!" she laughed.

[Kiyevanie]

"FUCK!!!"  Rick almost jumped behind Enya.  "'Iheyu will have our heads if something happens to Enya here!"  He stared up to the perch and the Ikran nesting on it.  "I mean - yeah, I know that Ni'tingal kinda mothered her, but this here's a nesting mother..."  He swallowed, then looked at his friends, running through the options in his head.  "Kenten, how fast can you get back to the camp?  I think we need 'Iheyu here - as a healer, Enya's mother and Ni'tingal's rider."

[Random the Navigator]

Brenda heard the shout and dashed out of the grotto, managing to avoid looking like a Tapirus.  "ENYA!!!" she bellowed in a way that would have stopped the Avatar cold at Hell's Gate.  But Enya was no longer the awkward child she'd been at the longhouse.  In her temperament, no less than in her clothing, there was now a strong hint of the wild.  It'd always been there, making itself known in her romps, in her escapes; and her choices of sleeping-spots had owed less to fear than to the need to be outdoors under an open sky, able to move in all three dimensions by whatever means suited her best.

And now this liberty was her way of life.  She was free.  Unfortunately, this included being free to get her head bitten off by a nesting Ikran.  She was as subject to the dictates of natural selection as any other creature born on this world, and it had many ways to keep her from reaching breeding age.  She had yet to understand what a dangerous place it could be, or that impulsiveness might have consequences...

In the amount of time it took Rick to swear, Tali mounted and took off after her.

Wordlessly, Kenten also swung onto his mount and made the Bond...but he gave Rick a 'stay' gesture with one hand and made no further move to get between Enya and her sitution.  "Ni'tingal's not going to harm her, unless she's still too sensitive for a good chewing-out," he said.  "That's pretty reckless, charging a sitting hen like that, hmm?  But it's not just a matter of Enya wanting to go.  Not with Tsaheylu, it isn't; and least of all for that particular girl on that particular Pa'li.  If Kilvanä thought there was real danger, she would not have agreed to take her.  Tali's got it in hand; let's just see what happens now, shall we?"

[Kiyevanie]

Rick swallowed hard, but nodded.  After all, Kenten was the expert on Ikran here, not he...  Still, it took him a lot of self-restraint to not race off after the Avatar girl.

"Let's just hope that Ni'tingal recognizes those two," he breathed, eyes still fixed on the scene.

[Random the Navigator]

Ni'tingal had cocked her head at Enya's happy cry of recognition; her next screech almost seemed like a reply, though she rose up and mantled protectively over her sitting-spot.

"Ni'tingal!!" Enya called again breathlessly as Kilvanä pulled up at the foot of the outcropping.  Enya spotted a good place to start climbing; Kilvanä, made aware of it through the Bond, sidled up to as favorable a relative position as she could.  The Pa'li leaned in; the Avatar dismounted in her odd but effective over-the-neck way.  "Heia, Ni'!!  Is Enya!  So this where you been, silly girl!"

The Ikran still stood over a depression in the rock, huffing a bit as she took in Enya's scent through her chest-intakes, and her distinctive look and heat-signature with her four eyes.  Her next vocalisation was a questioning cluck as she cocked her head to the other side.  Satisfied, she braced herself, reached down with her neck and chirped at the Avatar encouragingly.

Enya scrambled up the rest of the way, the last several feet of the climb not helped much by Ni'tingal's persistent nuzzling.  Finally the big bird picked her up gingerly by the seat of her pants ("HEI!!  Ooo, you gonna regret that!") and deposited her at the edge of her nest like a wayward chick who'd tried to fly too soon.

"Well, I'll be..." Brenda breathed, and even Kenten looked thunderstruck.

But Tali, who'd seen the trick before, just parked himself on the rock a respectful distance away.  "Hei, Kenten--you thought I was making that up!" he said triumphantly, beaming at the startled people down below.

[Kiyevanie]

"Uh huh.  Me too," Rick agreed full-heartedly, mouth widely agape.  "If someone had told me this..."  He shook himself like a dog coming out of the water.  "Ni'tingal really sees her as a chick, huh?"

[Random the Navigator]

"With her, it's easy to do," Kenten allowed.  "Ni'ka calls Enya her 'baby sister'; she's 'Evi to her mother, 'not-so-little sister' to Tali..."

"...And 'Little One' to everybody at the longhouse, and 'Baby-girl' to me," Brenda finished for him.  "Because she's so obviously a child, right down to the things she likes and the mistakes she makes and the way she warms our hearts--underworld guardians and flying dragons apparently included!"

The Ikran and the Avatar, meanwhile, seemed to be having a discussion, their body-language and tones of voice anxious at first, then subdued.

Kenten cocked his head.  "That's right; Ni's a first-time mother...  You know, she actually seems relieved  that her family showed up!"

[Kiyevanie]

"It's heartwarming," Rick agreed.  "When Enya ran up there I thought she'd at least be shooed away, but that..."  He smiled.  "And Enya seems to be a natural with communications - she was the first one to understand Tsanten; now she obviously speaks 'Ikran' too."

[Random the Navigator]

Brenda regarded the scene, then turned to the two men.  "I think we can blame that on her nature and upbringing," she said.  "Her empathy factor is through the roof.  As well it might be; she's an Avatar, and there's always room in an Avatar's head for at least one other mind, and they get to know that mind in the most intimate way possible.  Granted, nobody here is Solanda; there'll never be a perfect fit again--but the capability is there.

"And then there's her life-experience.  If you think about it, she had to have been one lonely kid.  Nobody really understood her, what it was like to be her, and she didn't have the words or mental development to say.  So dealing with people who are cut off from their kind, who don't have a 'kind', or who can't speak for themselves?  I guess she would be a natural."

Her voice dropped; her eyes were getting moist again.  "Damn, I'm becoming a mushpot...but...I'm glad something good came out of her suffering," she ended quietly.

[Kiyevanie]

"Yeah...me too," Rick agreed.  "So - I think we should give those two some time for their family reunion."  He watched Ni'tingal cooing over Enya.  "Ain't Ikran beautiful creatures?  I know a wild one would see a human as nothing but dinner, but I could watch them for hours."

[Random the Navigator]

Kenten grinned.  "Be seen with Enya and I think you'll be able to watch this one all you like! --Errm, from way over here," he clarified.

Enya was still sitting on the edge of the nest, and to everyone's puzzlement she was looking sadder and sadder.  Kenten even caught her faint "Awww..."  Then she stroked Ni'tingal's chin-crest, followed by the bridge of her muzzle.  She stood and somehow got the Ikran to do the same.  She cocked her head at something in the depression while Ni'tingal hovered anxiously.

And then she did something that made even Tali blanch: She crawled right into the nest, and after a few moments she sat up cradling an egg.

"Aww..." she said again, gently replacing the egg and gazing at Ni'tingal with a look of unspeakable tragedy.

[Kiyevanie]

That was clear enough even for Rick to read, and it made his heart sink.  "Something's wrong with that egg," he said quietly.  "So all the stress she's been through didn't keep her from laying it, but..."  He couldn't help but feel deep sympathy for the Ikran.  "Is there anything we could do?" he asked.  "I mean, she fought so hard for finding a nest..."

[Random the Navigator]

"It might be all right," said Kenten.  "Enya doesn't know what she's looking at; it's not like she has much experience with Ikran nests..."  He rode up right to the foot of the outcrop.  "Heia, Enya!!" he called up.  "What's the matter, then?"

Enya leaned out, bracing herself against the rim of the depression.  "Egg is wee-small...and only one...and broken!"  At least she knew there should be more than one; she'd raided enough birds' nests.

"Broken?  How so?" Kenten asked.

"Got big crack, and little hole on one end--"

Kenten paled a bit.  "That's not broken--it's about to HATCH!!" he shouted over his shoulder as he wheeled his Pa'li around and took off for the camp.

"H-hatch?" Rick stuttered.  "As in...the chick coming out?"

Brenda smirked.  "That's what 'hatch' meant the last time I checked," she said drily.

[Kiyevanie]

Rick stared at the nest and the obviously worried Ikran and Avatar sitting in there nervously.  The rational part of his mind kept telling him that Ikran had hatched for millennia on Pandora without any outside help, and that if this hatchling was too weak to make it it would only be part of how nature worked.  Still, the thought of something going wrong here disturbed him deeply.  "And it's too small?  M-maybe we should help somehow?"

[Random the Navigator]

"You and me?  And she doesn't know either of us from Adam?  Or Enya, who hasn't a clue?" Brenda asked.  "Off the top, I'd say Tali's in a better position to help than anybody else--thank goodness he's here!"


Tali was patting the rock, urging Enya to come out of the nest and join him for a briefing.

"It is pretty small," he told her.  "And it's not moving; the chick is either resting or it's too weak to peck anymore."

"What we gonna DO?" asked Enya a little desperately.

"Get Sa'nok--Kenten's doing that; and meanwhile, since Ni' lets you in there, try to help her keep it warm!"

Enya dutifully re-entered the hollow and explained to the anxious Ikran what was going on and what she intended to do.  Then she sat cross-legged right in the middle of the nest and put the egg in her lap.  Next came as much moss as she'd managed to stuff into the pockets of her shorts; then she donated her poncho; and finally Ni'tingal settled, mantling them both, keeping the weather away from them with her broad wings.

[Kiyevanie]

Viewed objectively, Ni'tingal hovering over Enya, who was hovering over the egg, could have been a funny sight.  But Rick didn't grin at all.  He was way too worried.  He couldn't even tell why, but something in the whole situation got to him.  Somehow the thought of that tiny Ikran inside its shell was a complete sum-up of the whole dire situation this world was in.  There were probably millions of other animals right now in a similar situation, giving birth to weak young, or even worse.  But Ni'tingal's egg was right here; they all had to watch the drama unfold.

So Rick didn't grin but nervously raked his hands through his hair.  "Yeah...and it seems Tali knows what to do."  He looked at his shirt.  "Hey, do you need more warm clothing up there?" he called up to Enya.

[Random the Navigator]

The Avatar, sitting right under the running jet-engine of an Ikran's metabolism, shook her head, smiling.  But Tali, after conferring with her, called down to the human pair: "No, but we could use some water; Enya thinks the shell's too hard!"

Enya's brow creased.  "What you gonna do with that, make baby-Ikran swim?"

"No," the boy explained to her and the humans alike.  "We're gonna sprinkle the egg with it.  Between that and our body-heat, it'll soften the shell!"

Enya turned back to the fragile object, the fragile life, in her lap.  "Gonna be okay," she said, stroking it.  "'Iheyu coming, and Tali know what to do, and I keep you from cold and sharp, and Ni'tingal gonna keep you from white."

[Kiyevanie]

"Water...  Alright, water."  Rick reached for his belt flask, shaking it slightly to see if there was still enough in it, then cautiously climbed up to Tali, handing the boy the water.  "Here - I don't think Ni'tingal will let me close."

[Random the Navigator]

Tali climbed down far enough to meet Rick halfway.  "Thanks!" he said, taking the canteen; then he made the trip back up and summoned his tsmuke out of the nest again.  After a little tutoring, in which he demonstrated the wetting technique on the back of her hand, she crawled back in, settled, and put the canteen under herself to warm the water before flicking droplets of it under her poncho and onto the egg.

 -:-

The foraging party had ridden a good two hours out from the shack, not counting the time they'd spent actually harvesting food and supplies.  Now Kenten had to make it back--at a gallop, to be sure, but on a Pa'li with fully-laden saddlebags.  The terrain helped; it was downhill all the way to the stream.  In a way the burden helped too, lending more mass to the pair's interaction with gravity.  But it was still the better part of an hour before the little hunter burst into the camp.

He found Tangek awake and in an intense discussion with a tired 'Iheyu, about which he did not have to guess the subject-matter.  Of course they froze when he arrived; but there was nothing frozen at all about their response to his news.  Almost before he'd unloaded his Pa'li, the two healers took off on Atan's back, carrying a patient pod full of supplies...and a pair of anxious hearts.