Bright Eyes [Nemo/Open]

[seeker]

Jha’rhe had come here quite late; daylight had faded, but that did not lessen her eyesight. The Na’vi were one with their environment, and Jha’rhe was no exception. The foliage that guarded the human encampment kept her safe from prying eyes – though she saw no point in hiding from these “sky people” – still she found some wisdom in her tribe’s warnings, that some of them could not be altogether trusted. Some sense found its way into Jha’rhe’s overwhelming curiosity, urging her to be, for once, cautious. And so she stayed hidden, making her way to the outskirts of camp and no further, where bars rose up from the ground, keeping one piece of land away from the other.

Jha’rhe put her fingers up between the pen’s structure. She moved until she could find a good view, her yellow eyes widening, then peering into whatever the pen held. Once she caught what lay beyond the pen’s bars – she could barely withhold a slight intake of breath.

There were her people in there! They looked like it, and if she would rely on sight alone she would have said it was so, but the warnings of her father echoed in her mind. These were humans with Na’vi skins; they had one spirit in two bodies, and when the other slept, the second awoke. These Na’vi skins laid, unmoving, yet breathing; alive, but soulless. Jha’rhe stared, her tail flicking from side to side in interest. Her people sometimes spoke of these things as abominations, but she – she found them most curious. Was it a mark of great power, she wondered, to defy Ewya so – or a mark of great hubris? Why did they need such Na’vi skins if they already had one body? Perhaps the old stories were true then. They always needed more: as they needed more minerals, they wanted more bodies too, then.
Looking up, Jha’rhe found that the pen rose high. It would be hard for her to climb, and there were no footholds for her to take. Jha’rhe would have to find a door.

She did not fear getting caught. In fact, she did not even think of it, for in her eyes, Jha’rhe had done no wrong. Even if she managed to find her way over the pen and into the nests where the sleeping Na’vi skins lay, she would only be settling her curiosity and no more. Surely she meant no harm; only to see their faces, touch them perhaps, know that they were real and maybe go back to her tribe and tell them of it. After all, they feared them – but she could see nothing frightful of these creatures, certainly no more than she could find the pink-skinned “Sky people” frightful.

Both ears stood up on her head. Jha’rhe crouched down, looking left and right, under the bars and then back upwards again as though looking for something she’d missed. When she found nothing – shouldering the long bow strapped to her shoulders – Jha’rhe crept along the pen’s borders, looking for some kind of opening. Doors she would not understand, and even less why it should be locked. Yet still the futility of her efforts did not faze her; she seemed to remain confident that this endeavor would be rewarding, one way or the other.

Beyond her, her Pa’li Gerah remained hidden, waiting for her call to show himself.

[emma]

“Are you sure Dr. Ramakrishna gave you permission for this?”
“Bloody oath. I showed ya my goddam slip, sunshine.” Nemo’s own voice, rough and edged with her heavy Cockney accent, was oddly loud in the chamber.
Even though she couldn’t see the technician’s face, she could hear the hesitation in her voice. “Alright, then. Link stable at five percent.”

Nemo smirked and shifted into a more comfortable position- at least as comfortable as one could get when surrounded by pointy metal framework. Though the buzzing electricity and the sensation of getting her brain removed still frightened her, she was getting a lot more used to this now. It was her fifth or sixth time entering her avatar. And it was her second time going in there alone- Nemo had spent a good three-quarters of her life in the smuggling business, so forging false permission papers was a cinch. All she had to do was change the date on one of her old slips and the lab eggheads were fooled. Being so brilliant, it was surprising that these scientist types were so blind.

“Link stable at fifty percent.”

Nemo had been doing this for several reasons. Mostly, she was usually bored out of her sane mind from being stuck indoors all the time. Besides that, every time she got to legally jump into her avatar, Ramakrishna and her cronies were never far away, and Nemo strongly preferred being away from their techno babble. She’d make a quick job out of this. Just run around a bit, do a little exploring, and see if she could escape the Pen this time, since her avatar had no identification code on its body to open the gate. She would have to think up something smarter. Nemo closed her eyes as she thought.

“Link stable at ninety-nine percent. Going active.”

The feeling of having her brain sucked out of the back of her skull momentarily made Nemo’s heart skip a beat, but then she was tossed into nothingness, being drawn along as if on a string. She lost contact with her body, so it felt as if she was some incorporeal being straight out of a science fiction movie. But then she was flung into something still so alien despite having been familiarized with it, and her brain settled down. Nemo opened her deep amber eyes slowly, trying to deal with the rush of smells and sounds that were suddenly so alarmingly clear. The chatter of strange animals many yards away, the creak of the building settling itself, and the fragrance of Pandora’s flora and fauna mixed with the metallic and wooden stink of the Pen’s interior were the same as always.

The radio mounted on one of the beams crackled. “The uplink went well from our side, Miss Ramsey. How are you feeling?”
“Brilliant. Just brilliant. I’ll ring if I need ya.”
“Understood. You have an hour before the sun goes down. Lab One out.”

The radio went silent. Nemo wiggled her fingers and toes before sitting up. She didn’t feel particularly huge when in her avatar, it was just that everything here was so tiny. She shifted around on the bed carefully, and then stood up. Her feet boomed against the floor, and she felt a surge of strength rush through her. She eyed her body- thin, yet muscular, like her human form, with small breasts and hips and a V-shaped torso. Her hair- according to Ramakrishna, it wasn’t hair at all, but Nemo couldn’t bring herself to think of it as anything else- was a very deep shade of scarlet, nearly brownish-black like dried blood. She passed her hands over her face, feeling some semblance to her real facial features despite the obvious differences like the nose and cheekbones. Then she breathed in through her nose, smelling the warmth of outside, and set out.

She walked past the comatose avatars of her fellow humans and stopped to pick up some clothes in one of the bins laid near the exit. She found her personal labelled bin and pulled out a dark blue tank top and white hiking shorts. Normally Nemo was averse to showing off a lot of body, but then this wasn’t her body, and those Na’vi ran around in nothing but loincloths anyway. She changed out of the ridiculous dinosaur-print purple medical nightgown she’d already been wearing and pulled on the outfit she’d picked out. Then she headed outside, tossing the nightgown onto the floor. The grass was cool beneath her bare feet, and the dimming rays of the alien sun cast long shadows across the ground. Nemo wasn’t one to stop and smell the roses, but even she found Pandora fascinating. She took a moment or two to glance around, and then turned her attention on the specially designed obstacle course that took up nearly half of the Pen’s exterior. She approached the first hurdle, readying herself for some personal training.

Words;; 823
Muse;; Good!
Thoughts;; Sorry if the ending was a bit rushed.

[seeker]

(it’s ok. xD)

Jha’rhe almost jumped when she sensed movement. Where it had been silent before, she saw now that one of the Na’vi skins had come to life. Jha’rhe went wide-eyed, her flexible ears swiveling to the front in a perked, alert position; quickly she hunched down, watching in-between the pen’s bars and just barely holding in a gasp. Her hands touched the ground softly, her body curved, waiting there like a hunter watching its prey – or at least, its point of interest.
The Na’vi skin got up from its bed. It – she – moved strangely at first, but then regained her grace. She seemed – to move just like a Na’vi. Jha’rhe felt a heightened interest. She could hardly believe that this Na’vi skin was not her own kind; it looked and moved like one, and it was obvious that, despite her tribes’ warnings, that it had at least something of a soul.

When the Na’vi skin moved, so did Jha’rhe. She followed her silently, until she stopped at a series of devices, rings and structures built into the ground. Jha’rhe watched in general confusion as the Na’vi skin seemed to run through them, practicing a different grace from her tribe’s hunters, but with the grace of a youngster Na’vi finding her feet.

Jha’rhe watched, and as she watched, slowly she came to a decision; her mind argued back and forth between her tribes’ wisdom and her own curiosity. She wondered exactly how much trouble she would get in should she contact these “sky people”; it was never mentioned. In fact, her tribe leader tended to avoid all issues concerning humans, as did the rest of her tribe; they seemed intent on ignoring them completely. Jha’rhe, on the other hand, had no bounds to her interest. Even now, watching this Na’vi skin swing about in those strange devices – she had an insatiable, burning thirst to know what, exactly, she was doing.

Jha’rhe’s tail twitched. Her eyes glinted – almost mischievously.

Slowly, the brambles rustling under her legs, she came closer to where the Na’vi skin practiced. When she was close as she could get with the pen in the way, she hesitated once – only once – before making her voice heard.

“Kaltxi? Nga! (Hello? You!)” Jha’rhe spoke in her tongue, for she did not know the humans’ language. Her voice was a low hiss, as though afraid of being overheard.

Quickly Jha’rhe glanced behind her, but there was no one. Her tail flipped again, watching the Na’vi skin and hoping that she heard her. She did not know what she would do even if she did have her attention – just being in contact with one, knowing that she saw Jha-rhe and Jha’rhe saw her – it was enough. What stories she would have when she came back!

“Can you hear me?” Jha’rhe hissed, in Na’vi tongue. Jha’rhe held out her hand through the pen bars, her slim hand just fitting through – offering it, as though to touch. “I want to speak.”

Her amber eyes watched from between the bars, excited and apprehensive.