LOG-007.Eyes that could keep sight of a spear soaring through the air and through water carefully kept track of the small golf ball rolling across faux grass, measuring its progress.Inch by inch, centimeter by centimeter, the white sphere rolled along, until finally, it fulfilled its purpose, unerringly rolling up and into a cup left on the floor placed there just for it.A smile found its way onto my face, even as I turned to glance at Selfridge, his own features hidden behind a mug of coffee while I lifted the (relative to my own size, at least) comically small golf club and rested it on my shoulder."That's five-three, I believe."The man smacked his lips in response, lowering the mug and waving a hand at me in a dismissive manner, the muffled sound of conversation outside of the meeting room causing my ears to perk up slightly."Beginner's luck! Though you do have some solid technique, I'll give you that."Picking out two familiar voices seemingly arguing with each other, I chose to ignore the door behind me, instead setting my borrowed club on the large round table beside me and sauntering forward, hips swaying ever so slightly."One could say that I had a rather good teacher."There was a possibly feral urge to grin that I had to repress as Parker's eyes visibly lowered for a second, before the man seemingly shook himself, bringing up a hand to rub at the back of his neck with a small grin of his own."Well I-maybe you've got a point there. Good play regardless!"Men. Whether blue or otherwise, they still fell to the same things. And even if I had no intentions of dragging Selfridge off to bed, having what I knew to be the son of the RDA's chairman glancing at me a little more often couldn't hurt."Mm, thank you."The words were accompanied by my leaning forward, planting one hand against the table even as I tilted my head and stared down the visibly flustered head of operations with a smile.Unfortunately, any further fun was interrupted by the door abruptly slamming open, a familiar doctor power walking inside while a scarred man in fatigues strode in after her with spread arms."Aw come on Augustine! They could be useful!"Whatever Quaritch was talking about, the only response it was apparently worthy of was a singular finger rising to face him, even as the woman set down a sheaf of papers on the table before settling down in one of the chairs surrounding it.Turning to shoot Selfridge a bemused glance, I turned away and moved to take my own seat, holding back a wince at the sound of it creaking slightly beneath my weight.Thankfully, the thing held together, and so I politely steepled my fingers and waited as both Quaritch and Parker sat down as well, only breaking the gesture to take a quick breath from the mask hanging around my neck."Right, glad we're all finally together! Even if Opal and I managed to get in a few rounds before you slowpokes got your asses over here. And thank you for that, by the way. Been a good bit since I've actually managed to play against anyone since I got here."I made a slight shrugging motion at the glances the other two RDA figureheads shot towards me at that, closing my eyes and smiling placidly."Always a pleasure. The game was certainly good for passing the time, if nothing else."Further back and forth was cut off as Quaritch planted his hands flat against the table's surface, frowning."Well I'm glad you two were having plenty of fun golfing, but some of us have real jobs to get back to, so I'd like to stick to business, if that's alright."Grace her head from something she'd been writing, gesturing towards the papers she'd brought with her using the pen she'd pulled out."I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with him. There's a lot of info to get through, and we're all busy people so-"The doctor shut up and glared as Parker waggled a hand at her, rolling his eyes as he did so."Yeah yeah yeah, I hear you both. So-"The words punctuated his slow turn towards me, swivelling in his chair until the man was facing me from his section of the table."-let's get to why we're really here. Now Opal honey, we've upheld our end of the bargain. Your folks are all getting better, last I heard, Grace was even bringing some of the little ones out to run around near the avatar barracks!"Spreading his arms wide, Selfridge made a 'gimme' gesture, tilting his head slightly."You've made some enticing promises. I'd like to cash in, if you don't mind?"Regarding the head of operations for a long moment, I leaned back in my chair with a sigh, ignoring the slight creaking and turning my steepled fingers to point at him."I'm more than happy to talk, but there's quite a lot that I could go over. The clans and their numbers. Eywa. Possible deposits that might interest you-""Give us their capabilities." "Eywa!" "Deposits?"Blinking at the three separate answers and the stares being levelled between the three people in front of me, I headed off any brewing argument with a raised hand, smirking."Let's go over all three, shall we? I'll tell you about Eywa for free, but the other two things will have to be negotiated."While Quaritch and Parker didn't seem pleased at the sideline of their respective focuses, Grace was smiling, so whatever."Absolutely Opal, let's start there. Now from everything I've come to understand from the Omatikaya, Eywa is considered a god-"Besides, explaining our rather more active equivalent of mother nature would probably be important, in relation to things going forward. So I shook the doctor out of her impending recollection by tapping a finger against the table, nodding."Most of the Na'vi will tell you that, yes. My own clan will likely say the same. But something tells me that's not what you want to hear, hm?"The words prompted Quaritch's eyes to sharpen slightly, a curious gleam to them even as Selfridge let out a huff, leaning forward slightly and flicking his hands to the side."Sure, why not. Eywa. What is it?"Almost subconsciously, one of my kuru rose with the question, tendrils writhing from its end and drawing everyone's gazes as I grabbed hold of the extended appendage. Grace's features screamed fascination, Quaritch, predictably, seemed wary, and Parker looked just a little grossed out, which didn't feel like too much of a surprise."Eywa…is the trees."Selfridge's mouth opened to speak, only for it to clack shut as my eyes snapped from observing the kuru to bore into his own, a soft pulse shining through my hair in time with the action."And I mean that very, very literally. She is the trees. And the plants. The moss. The animals. From the smallest organic particulates to the greatest of jungles. We bond with her, just as we do the beasts. And what we know, she knows."I sighed, resisting the urge to bite my cheeks in thought."That's how I know English. You've lost people in our forests, and Eywa has taken them. Just as it was with the Na'vi, so is it now with you. What they knew, she now knows. And by bonding with her, I have learned a very many things about humanity."There was a slightly muted horror in everyone's eyes now, though Quaritch looked more angry than anything else, and Grace still had that unrestrained wonder mixing in with the apprehension in her expression."Nonetheless, that is what Eywa is. We live on her skin, coexist with her many selves, and call her our God. And in return…there is a real, tangible afterlife waiting for us, our minds transferred and preserved within a distributed intelligence that, one way or another, rules this world. Mostly because she is this world. And believe me, she is intelligent. That's why the Omatikaya are so protective of their tree of souls."My eyes narrowed a little, tone deadly serious."That's their connection to that afterlife. Where they're able to connect with Eywa, and speak to their dead. A connection which you want to dig up to mine rocks. You see why they would have an issue with that, now?"Letting go of my kuru, I let the silence sit for a moment, before turning to look at Augustine and snapping my fingers."The three laws of Eywa, given to the Na'vi. Name them."The woman blinked, before shooting back an answer, almost as if she'd memorised it. Hell, probably because she had, actually."The Na'vi do not dig ore. They do not stack rocks on top of each other. They do not use wheels. This is…this is our creed."Waving my hand at the scientist, I glanced between Quaritch and Selfridge, shrugging."Oddly specific, no? The laws, as I've come to understand them, exist to keep my people stagnant. It was a measure enacted by Eywa to ensure that the Na'vi couldn't, and wouldn't advance industrially, such as you have. And believe me, the system works. Since the first songs, we have been at harmony with the world, with nature, and with Eywa, even if the latter two are the same thing, really."Bringing my arms up and behind my head, I stretched slightly, and somewhat smugly took note of the way Parker's eyes wandered across my form."Things were fine for the Na'vi, and acceptable for Eywa, since there weren't any major issues occurring that might threaten her. Of course that's before you lot came."If only the man didn't love watching numbers go up more than he liked exotic alien women, maybe I could have manipulated him a little easier…ah well, corpo's gonna corpo."You're a people from the stars, a people who were never shackled by such rules. And now you've come to our world, to the world of the Na'vi, and you break those rules even now. Not that I blame you of course, it certainly seems to be working for you all. I'm a little jealous even."My somewhat admiring tone was replaced by a deadpan voice and expression as I stopped stretching and straightened up, allowing my arms to fall back to my sides."But if you want your fantastical ores, if you want to dig through forests to mine rocks and fill quotas given to you by the ones you serve, who wait within distant stars, then you need to keep in mind that it's not the Na'vi you need to be worried about."Grace's voice was soft as she spoke, glancing down towards the pen and paper she'd seemed so intent on before, now long since abandoned."It's Eywa."I nodded at the woman's realisation, only for the moment to be broken by Quaritch snapping his fingers in a parody of my own motion from before."Alright, so the forest itself wants us dead. Nothing new, just that it's smarter than anticipated I suppose. How do I keep my men alive out there then?"Whatever Selfridge wanted to say was seemingly stifled by the man himself, interested as he was to also see the Colonel's question answered.Shooting the grizzled old veteran a grin that exposed just enough fang to be endearing rather than threatening, I quirked a hairless brow."Why my dear Colonel, that's where I and the Omatikaya come in. Well, once I get them on board at least, though of course you'll need to give me some time for that."Everyone besides Quaritch flinched back slightly as I abruptly clapped my hands, pulling back my grin to just a smile."Ah, but that will have to wait until things progress on that front, so we'll talk more on that later. And on Eywa as well, lots of details to go over in regards to her. For now, how about we discuss the unobtanium deposit I'm fairly certain poisoned my clan somehow. At least in part."It was kind of funny honestly, watching the sudden yet blatant eagerness appear in Selfridge's eyes. I could almost see the dollar signs…"Right! Now that's what I really like to hear! So where-""Ah ah, I'm not going to give it up that easily! Go on, be a real man. Negotiate with me."Watching both Augustine and Quaritch roll their eyes in unison before noticing that they'd done the same thing was even funnier though."...Food and shelter?""Oh come on Parker, you can do better than that! Give your big blue friend a deal worth her and her clan's time! There's profit enough here for the both of us!"Hmph, at least getting the RDA to pay me and the Kyra'meta a fair finder's fee likely wouldn't be too rough.…Ha. No. This was going to be a bitch to get done. Fucking capitalists.Still, it was trying to negotiate with the Omatikaya on their behalf that was probably going to cause me the most grief, in the end.