Chapter Text
The Na’vi find the death of animals sad, judge it unnecessary when humans kill regardless, they don't know our woods.
The Na’vi condemned humans for their brutality, it kept them alive, they don't know our home.
Humans scoff when a Na’vi calls them assassins and killers, we have done worse to ourselves, they don't know.
The Metkayina dive in their seas, they think humans can't swim, they don't know our oceans.
Neytiri, the Omatikaya and the Metkayina all judged humans as killers of their mother… they don't know her killcount.
Gaea is NOT Eywa
Jake never felt the need to excuse his species' actions… a kind of self punishing
While celebrating and grieving (after the second film) the Metkayina ask Jake to tell them of his planet, the young ones are the ones that ask, the adults make distasteful faces but turn their pointy ears nevertheless.
“Jake Sully! We defeated the sky people! You are. a. Proud Metkayina!!”
The Olo'eyktan Tonowari spoke
Everyone cheered with their chants, Jake scoffed at the sky people title, he believed no human felt truly safe in the sky
“Dad!” His daughter approached him with several kids in tow.
“They kept asking about the sky people!”
She turned to look at them, her tone shifting in a more calm one
“Come on, ask him, he will answer” Tuk said cheerfully
Jake's tail shifted, straightening himself, the first child walked forward
“Where do the sky people come from, do they live in the sky?”
Jake's ears twitched…
Right, they knew next to nothing about Earth .
Jake decided to chuckle
“No, they come from a planet like this one, with woods and oceans, they just found a way to leave”
The kids gasped and the adults shifted their focus.
The kids looked at him with eagerness in their eyes, Neytiri also, she had never asked him about his planet, but he knew she was just as curious.
He sighted and pitched the bridge of his nose.
“The planet’s name is Earth , it roughly translates with Dirt”
The kids started laughing, he chucked too, Neytiri rolled her eyes.
“Well ask away-”
He didn't even finish the phrase that questions about the ocean and water started spilling out of the kids mouth
“Ok ok! One at the time ehm, Earth has more water than land, yes, humans know how to swim but our oceans are too dangerous to do so, they stay where you can touch water with your feet”
An adult beside him scoffed
“Yeah dangerous” they commented
Jake had endured the superiority with which the Omatikaya had treated him.
He decided the same wouldn't be true with the Metkayina
“Yeah, there are these animals called sharks, immagine an akula, only smaller, faster and stronger. Its jaws are strong enough to break bones, they often leave their prey half eaten… that is how we find the humans were unlucky enough to get attacked. A missing arm, half a torso, missing head”
He waved a hand around dismissively
“When you enter an akula territory that is what happens”
Jake smirked, he knew they would say it, but right now, they weren't talking about Eywa, they were talking about… Gaea, he was playing with his deck for the first time in forever.
“No actually, sharks aren't territorial, they wander the entire ocean even in shallow water, that's where they take your legs, or arms”
The adults didn't seem to understand what they got themselves into, Na’vi had a lot of pride.
“Then there are killer whales, they eat the sharks, strong too, sharp teeth.
The the great whales, something akin to Tulkun, half the gentleness through, they often fight with the giant squids”
Neytiri started to see a pattern… They all fought, as Jake started describing a battle between a giant squid and a sperm whale, the adult tried once again to reason about the motifs of such fights.
Jake shot them down almost with a glee
“Not to talk about the land animals, many predators won't stop at a body of water or trees, and will maul you even if they aren't hungry.
We had to shoot bears down when they eat a human so that they wouldn't know we were edible”
After he covered bears, mountain lions, the savannah in general the kids asked a rather strange yet good question
“And what kind were you? A water human? A wood one or a plains one??”
They asked eagerly, Jake blinked
“Eh… humans don't have types, you had to know how to survive everywhere you went, you didn't, you died, you didn't fight, you died, you stopped, you died.” Sigh ”sometimes you just died because Gaea decided it was a good day to strike you with electricity”
It was the Tsahik turn to turn her head and attention
“Gea?” She turned towards him
“ Gaea, or Mother Nature… we also call her the cruel mother”
The Tsahik seemed tense at the way he talked about his Eywa
“No dialogue with her, trust me, a flood doesn't have favorites, nor a forest fire, nor a earthquake ” he realized there wasn't a Na’vi words for earthquake
“The ground shakes and splits and you get swallowed and die”
He decided to say
“Are there Tsahik among the sky people?”
Jake through for a moment, there were people who were more in touch with nature.
“Yes, but none are treated with the same reverence… i had a friend who was something akin to a Tsahik”
He chucked
“Before departing she read my future… she said I would change deeply, that the marine in me would die, quite accurate if you ask me”
He eyed Neytiri, who rolled her eyes and scuffed, her tail hitting the ground.
She doesn't like when he refers to the time he almost died.
“And she talked to Gaea ?”
The Tsahik continued
“Oh noo, you absolutely don't want her attention, she talked more to “the universe ” in general”
The Tsahik was confused, but dropped the subject
“It was actually quite strange to learn not to attack anything that looks at you for too long”
Neytiri smacked him playfully with her tail
The children had already gone to bad, and now the hunters and warriors were intrigued
“Why would you attack something that looks at you?”
Jake leaned forward and with a calm tone spoke
“If something looks at you on Earth for more than a quick glance, it's thinking that you are either edible or stompable”
He chucked, the Na'vi felt unsettled
“And you either attack or run, no holding your ground, that works with a restricted number of animals”
He muttered a quiet ‘Mooses’ but said he wouldn't elaborate on the ‘beast of nightmares’
“Oh, and the gravity is much stronger, I believe a Na’vi would collapse under their own weight, i broke things once or twice because of how fragile they were”
He looked at his hands
“I have adapted to the planet's gravity after years… i’d probably die if I went back anyway”
The Olo'eyktan sensing the topic had gotten heavy signaled that the night came to an end.