Archive of Our Own

‟Tsu’tey is still taking that tone with you?” Grace frowned, more pensive than distressed; she was looking at him as though he’d brought her a puzzle, Jake thought . . . which was not reassuring, especially since he had no idea why. ‟Stalking you and,” she waved a hand, looking exasperated, ‟the taunts? Even with your training with Neytiri, and your welcome amongst the aysaronyu?”

Jake’s brows rose as he confirmed it. He didn’t find it terribly surprising himself; Tsu’tey had wanted to kill him on first sight, and Jake had expected nothing more than his disdain and taunts later. He wasn’t actively trying to kill Jake any more, so it was no big deal; he might not want Jake around but it wasn't his call - Mo’at had decreed Jake was to be taught, and Jake hadn’t really needed Grace’s little mini lecture his second day out here to realise no one crossed Mo’at’s words.

‟Better use protection, Sully!” Trudy yelled from down the tiny outpost, where she was balanced on the back of a chair, making a vulgar gesture as she tossed a copy of Grace’s book back onto the narrow table beside her. ‟Don’t think the docs have had the chance to evaluate that particular Na’vi and Avatar interaction yet.”

Jake laughed, flipping her off and letting himself settle back. He got on surprisingly great with Grace these days, and he was glad Norm had got his head out of his ass, whatever had been bothering him, but Trudy made him feel at home.

Nothing like soldiers spouting shit to really make you feel comfortable, Jake thought as the link unit closed around him.

What a fuckin’ day, Jake thought as he made his way higher in Hometree, barely needing to think to keep the rhythm of feet and hands from one broad branch to the next, running along them, slipping around others on his way to find his hammock. A familiar rhythm, now, a familiar path; one that felt like. . .

His throat tightened. One that felt like home. He pushed the thought aside, because it hurt to let it settle too close, too fast.

He was worn out from flying, a long hunt with two hands of hunters on ikran and thrice that on pa’li below, and in another way also from the ceremony that had marked his acceptance him into the clan, stretching long into the night - and he was still keyed up from both, jittery and flying high.

He swallowed a laugh at the turn of phrase and dropped into his hammock, sliding on his knees to get comfortable. Flying high indeed, though Ban was roosting above somewhere with the other bonded ikran and had been since before the ceremony. Hopefully not picking fights again; Seze usually indulged him in his games, after the first, but it would be a hell of a first day as a fully accepted member of the clan if it started with the other hunters giving him dirty looks for his ikran’s behaviour.

Not that Jake really knew what the day was likely to hold. He knew there was a lot left for him to learn - a lifetime he was catching up on, and he quashed the niggling awareness in the back of his mind that there was another aim he was here for, not only this, not only himself.

He pushed it away, thinking instead. . .

He was now a man - something that would have made him laugh, months ago; now, it was an accomplishment and one he had fought hard for, and an acceptance that truly meant something to him besides. Neytiri was still his teacher, but she was quite prone to throwing him into things and expecting him to catch up; he had little idea what to expect from the coming days, his first as a recognised adult member of the clan, a full hunter.

Heavier responsibilities, no doubt. A new bow to be made, perhaps, if not immediately then soon, from the wood of Hometree.

You may choose a woman flitted through Jake’s mind; something Jake had . . . not really put any thought into as he threw himself into learning everything Neytiri taught him, as fast and as well as possible. She’d expected nothing less, and the learn fast or die attitude she had towards him was reassuringly familiar.

Jake was used to running challenges, learning everything he needed as fast as he could, because if he didn’t he would die - and so would the rest of his squads, the brothers and sisters in arms depending on him.

A romantic partner, a mating, was . . . not something he had looked to in his future. Ever, perhaps, but certainly not in his time here, among the Omatikaya. He wasn’t even. . .

You may choose, Jake thought, remembering Neytiri’s voice, almost flat, and shook his head. It wasn’t likely to come up, and even less likely for it to happen tomorrow. He might be accepted now, but Jake was well aware most of the Omatikaya viewed him as something of an oddity, even the ones that he was fairly confident liked him.

Another lesson he hadn’t needed - from Grace or her book, which he hadn’t had much time to read between lessons with Neytiri and long days with the Omatikaya, and shorter lessons with Grace or Norm squeezed into every spare moment - he thought with amusement; that it wasn’t some sort of unilateral choice he could make now he was a man, as one might hear choosing a woman. That there might be the available matured Na’vi to choose among, but mates had to choose one another - not that Jake knew what that looked like either; he’d probably seen pairs courting amongst the clan but he had no more idea what actions denoted that than he did three-quarters of the things going on within the clan.

Jake stiffened as a thought occurred to him, winding together in his mind in an unexpected pattern; he felt his ears fold back and his tail curl, and grimaced, wriggling to pull it free of the webbing where it had gotten caught. The memory of climbing up into the Hallelujah Mountains for his Iknimaya wound through his mind; he remembered being told that he had to choose an ikran and that he must choose Jake in return.

Neytiri had taught him how to catch an ikran, how to handle a yìmkxa, but how to choose - how to know he was chosen. . .

He will try to kill you.

Neytiri’s voice was matter-of-fact and expectant in his mind, and while at the time it hadn’t been amusing, looking back. . . He snorted quietly, stifling laughter and rolling his shoulders against his hammock.

Ban had indeed tried to kill him, and Jake had won out, of course, and now they were . . . a wonderfully matched pair. They soared together, the bond tight and easy; where once Jake had been thrown from a pa’li’s back as she tried to respond to his instructions - and, honestly, he still wasn’t much better; he wasn’t much of a horse guy - after barely more than minutes flying together, his ikran, wild and vicious, read him so fast he barely had to think before they were moving.

But Ban would have eaten his ass if he hadn’t been strong enough, fast enough, to earn that bond.

That was a familiar dance. Was that. . .

Even if there was some familiarity there, it would not be the only way, Jake was sure. But the one corner of the clan and culture Jake did understand more than any other was the hunters, the warriors. Both because of his own background, because of Neytiri, and because it was they who Jake had spent the most time around. It . . . would not surprise him, if there were something of the dance between ikran and hunter to the courtship between them, at least.

And Tsu’tey, who Grace had been so surprised was still taunting, insulting him . . . though he had not crossed Mo’at’s decision - and risked Neytiri’s wrath - to offer Jake any physical harm. Not even anything reminiscent of the hazing or jokes Jake had faced from fellow marines who took a disliking to him in the past, from basic to just about every posting he’d ever been assigned.

Tsu’tey was a warrior to his core, who had accepted - with however much ill grace or initial doubt - that Jake truly was as well.

If that was the case . . . if. . .

None of this, possibility or not, was among the knowledge Neytiri had offered up in lessons - and given her abrupt and flat offering of what little information she had on the topic, Jake did not think questions on that would be well-received. Possibly it was not something a hunter-teacher was supposed to be responsible for, Jake thought wryly, not that he had anyone else to teach him about other parts of life with the Na’vi.

Well, Grace, but asking her seemed. . .

Besides, cultural habits and rules, perhaps - certainly they tried to pound those into his head - but no one could offer an explanation for Tsu’tey’s behaviour but Tsu’tey, Jake thought. He hummed quietly, folding one arm behind his head, looking up at the branches of Hometree close above - Neytiri preferred a hammock close to the very top of the spaces available for single hammocks, and so that was where Jake had settled from the first. He liked it, now, and it was comfortably close to the ikran roosts above, and Ban.

Many of the hunters preferred to be near the top, likely because of their close bonds with their ikran. Jake didn’t know where Tsu’tey spent his nights, but probably around here somewhere, he thought wryly. Not that he’d want to surprise Tsu’tey at rest, or be likely to be back in his Avatar before Tsu’tey rose for the day. But he found . . . perhaps he did want to track Tsu’tey down.

Jake smiled slightly, shaking his head, amused at himself. Perhaps. He hadn’t even thought twice about it once the possibility occurred to him. More than perhaps, then. Jake just hadn’t really . . . thought about it - thought about Tsu’tey, or examined himself - from that angle; had thought Tsu’tey - whose respect he was proud to have earned, however grudging, and who he respected in turn, in more ways than one - hated him and dismissed it with a mental shrug. If Tsu’tey might, instead, be watching him with appreciation. . .

Jake considered. He reached up to the outermost edge of his hammock and stroked along it, encouraging it to curl more closely around him.

He wasn’t going to find out what Tsu’tey was on about without asking - without confronting him directly. And if Jake was wrong?

. . .well, then he potentially embarrassed himself in front of someone he’d thought for a good while would never want anything but to see him dead, and had never expected to regard him as anything but an idiot and a threat. Not exactly the most harrowing possibility.

But Jake didn’t think he was wrong, not really. Not now it had come to him and he’d turned it over in his mind. It made a settling kind of sense, fit into the picture that Jake had built of the way the hunters and warriors were with one another, even if it wouldn’t necessarily fit for everyone in the clan. And it made sense of the way Tsu’tey offered taunts and laughter - and never harm - while so often watching Jake, not warily but intently, in a manner nothing else quite had.

Jake snorted, grinning, and closed his eyes. He had some idea of what his next day with the Omatikaya might hold, then. If not how that particular curiosity might shake out; not Tsu’tey’s response and not what it might mean, however he responded.

Hell, things never got boring here, Jake thought. He might actually be looking forward to finding out. He pictured Tsu’tey’s bright eyes and bared fangs, the way he crowded Jake, tail lashing, as he fell asleep, and came out of the link almost laughing with anticipation.