LOG-026.I’d give the Omatikaya one thing. Their ritualistic site for communing with Eywa had been much prettier looking than the sporadically glowing reef the Kyra’meta had tended to use for such occasions. Though I may have been biased in that regard, considering the area in question had been visibly dying at the time.“Oh, there she is!”Still, it was…a big thing for me. My motives for avoiding a direct connection to the faux goddess of the Na’vi, prior to the lunar sized fungus in question forcing that connection herself, had been entirely reasonable in my mind, inherently born of caution as they were.“M-Mom! Dad!”But damn if I didn’t feel more than a little stupid about having put it off for so long now. Hindsight and all that.“There’s our little Opal!”Casting the stray thoughts aside and doing my best not to break down in front of the crowd of Na’vi gathered around the idyllic reef, I nonetheless wrapped my arms around the figures in front of me tightly, practically burying my head between their chests as they embraced me right back.Finally gathering the strength to actually look up, I beheld the somewhat pale faces (I’d gotten a little too used to the darker tones of the Omatikaya) of my mother and father, the two of them both smiling brightly at me.Then I promptly reared a hand back, and slapped the everloving fuck out of my dad, the man hissing in disgruntlement as his wife promptly began laughing at him.“Augh! Why?!”Snarling, I reared my hand back again, causing the old man to duck back slightly in fear.“That’s for not listening to me when I said we had to leave! Stupid skxawng! Now hug me again!”The reunion was something I hadn’t been expecting, but now that I’d gotten to it, was something that I wouldn’t let go of for quite a while, foolish fathers regardless.—What might have been minutes, or hours, or days, were spent with the fallen ghosts of the Kyra’meta. With my mother, who couldn’t shut up about how proud she was that I had followed in her footsteps as Tsahìk. From my father, who had grumbled but nonetheless shown approval at my taking charge when no one else would. And of course, with countless friends whose time had been cut short, and who were all eager to hear of what they had missed in the waking world.But eventually, or perhaps inevitably, duty came calling, and I was left exchanging tearstruck goodbyes and promising to return one way or another, even as that little reef faded away to be replaced with a mist strewn jungle.I spent an unknown amount of time in there. Searching, climbing, and occasionally poking at the trees while calling out to see if Eywa would finally show her face for a chat.It took a while, but eventually I found myself tensing and admittedly damn near shitting myself as a figure almost three times the size of a Na’vi emerged from the mist and shadows, golden eyes and glowing lines along her arms and legs contrasting against almost pitch black skin, with fangs so large that they looked more like they belonged on a thanator than anything else glinting in the dim light.Where as before Eywa had taken on my mother’s face, perhaps to ingratiate herself to my sensibilities, the being before me instead invoked a primal sense of unease as she crossed the boundary between us in three long strides before kneeling down in front of me, the earth shaking slightly with each movement as long, thick vines that served to barely protect her modesty shifted about, dragging along the ground like snakes.“Opal.”Her voice was a deep rumble now, and I found myself holding down a shiver as slit pupils dissected me as if I was a cut of pale blue meat, her predatory gaze looking me up and down before focusing on staring into what felt like my soul.Faced with what felt like a Na’vi demigod, I did the only thing I reasonably could.Namely, I crossed my arms and huffed, tilting my head ever so slightly as I did so.“Finally done pretending to be my mom?”A hand large enough that it could probably grab a man by his entire torso before casting him aside rose, and I found myself stilling as a butcher’s knife of a talon gently trailed along my cheek, the same affection I’d experienced from before warping the primal energy afflicting the ancient being’s eyes.“Never. I see you’ve finally come to talk properly, I will dare to presume that the Omatikaya delivered my message adequately?”At my nod, the giant Na’vi let out a deep, rattling laugh that shook the air and left a strange feeling in my chest, her eyes closing a second later.“Good, good. It is…difficult, to communicate with them. Even more so than it is with you. Your mind was made for communing with my own, after all. The rest of them are simply forced to make do with what they have, and interpret things from there.”The shift was a slow, gradual thing that didn’t make a lick of sense, but considering we were both in what was effectively a dream, or incredibly elaborate hallucination backed up on some kind of biological server equivalent, it didn’t need to. What mattered was that Eywa slowly got smaller with each word, until the dark false goddess stood at just about my size, appearing significantly less intimidating now that it didn’t feel like she could accidentally crush me underfoot.“Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Come, come. You have the basics of my plan, but I’d like to talk to you about the specifics. I think it’s quite clever!”Before the distinctly less rumbly airhead could finish the turn she’d been attempting, I reached out and grabbed at her shoulder, shaking it slightly.“Wait. There was a child with me before I linked. Neytiri. I promised her I wouldn’t take too long. How is-”Pausing as one of those talons came and promptly smushed my lips shut, I narrowed my eyes as Eywa giggled.“Young Neytiri connected to the spirit tree mere seconds after you went to sleep. She is currently having quite the time speaking to her great grandmother, so I doubt there will be too much of a rush. Now come!”Blinking as the sharpened digit was removed, I watched my counterpart dash off deeper into the mist, idly noting that her tail was much thicker than average before finally electing to follow her.After all, despite everything I was still curious as to just what the lunar intelligence had managed to think up in regards to keeping the RDA supplied with unobtanium in the short term, especially without hurting herself in the process.
And more importantly, how exactly it was connected to the scorched lands of the Mangkwan raiders, and the lifeless desolation that currently surrounded them.