Languages: English, Na'vi
Genre: Hurt/Comfort
2nd Genre: Romance
Character A: Harry J. Potter
Character B: Tsu'tey
Summary: When they went to sleep, they hoped of a better future. But with Gaia insane and Magic as dead as his friends, Harry has no reason to stay. Escape and exist was all he had in mind when he stowed away on a ship to Pandora. Not another war. Slash.
WARNING: Slash, Character Death, AU, OCs, Dark Themes.
Last time:
Tsu'tey sneered unhappily and cast his thoughts of the Dream Walker from his mind. The Iknimaya to the Ikran was treacherous, he needed his wits about him lest he join with their Great Mother Eywa before his time
He would revisit the matter of the Sky Person in their Sacred Lands at a later time.
And now:
Harry only had a rough idea of how many months he had been living on Pandora now, roughly five he believed, possibly six, he wasn't completely certain. But either way, Zeus had made himself a fixture of Harry's life and while the Wizard had been initially reluctant to have the scaly menace constantly lurking at his shoulder, his presence soon came to be comforting and eventually, during a very close shave with a Wasp-Dragon, they learned to fly together as well.
Harry never thought he would be able to fly again, leaping from tree to tree brought him joy because of how similar the free-fall felt but this... it wasn't like riding a broom or even a Hippogriff, it was exhilarating. Zeus was in no way tame, he wasn't some kind of beast of burden, he was wild and powerful and Harry could feel that in every fibre of his being during that first flight. It felt almost like their minds had joined in that breathless moment of flight and fight.
They flew often after that, Harry's tiny form clinging to Zeus's neck, his weight not even registering to the powerful creature, the Wizard's legs folded and hooked under his wings, arms stretched out gripping the long tendril-like horns that protruded from the back of the Wyvern's skull. Harry had been fascinated by them, by the small hairy things that extended from the end of them when he applied a slight pressure to the tips, he guessed they were either some kind of reproductive organ or external sensor – kind of like how most of the animals here had more than one set of eyes, perhaps they also had more than one set of ears that heard things on a separate frequency to their other set. He didn't know and nor did he touch them, just in case.
Either way, since he took to flying like a fish to water, nowhere in the Floating Mountains was beyond Harry, which in turn often led him to visiting the Wyvern rookeries. Oddly enough he was welcomed amidst the winged creatures, Zeus happily sunning himself while his Rider explored the mountains, taking care not to disturb the large predators. The Wyverns had been content to ignore him but had taken to him incredibly well, rather like Zeus had, when he had sat down and healed one of the female hatchlings, her tail and back wings deformed while in the shell. Had he not been there, she would have been killed, now though, there was another breeding female and healthy Wyvern in the flock. They welcomed him with open wings from that point on.
Today though, he and Zeus were flying there for a reason other than pleasure.
Another one of the Wyverns had been injured.
This time by one of the Wasp-Dragons. Harry still had no idea what they were called so he continued to refer to them with that term, they were yellow, black and red with green and dark blue slashes of colour, looking rather like an angry hornet with a large black/blue axe for a head. Its double eyes with sideways pupils rather like a Goat's and a set of finger long dagger teeth, dagger like teeth which had torn a chunk out of a member of the flock.
Leaping from Zeus's back the moment they hit stone, Harry was darting between the crooning Wyverns to where he could smell the strongest reek of blood, incidentally, also where the largest number of the winged creatures had congregated. Ducking under wings, tails and throats, Harry came to the young female's side and winced, her chest was half open and she rasped in pain with every breath.
His abilities to heal had improved lately but no where near enough to heal something of this magnitude!
Still, he had to try at the very least.
He was barely half way through – having managed to stop the bleeding and the onset of shock or infection, he had begun to regrow the flesh when a chorus of territorial shrieks went up amidst the Wyverns and another sound, a sharp distinct sound that was not made from the throat of a creature Harry was familiar with. A kind of 'Aye-aye' trilling call that was more reminiscent of a human than the creatures of Pandora.
Whatever it was though, he didn't have a chance to investigate.
Zeus snarled and whipped around him protectively, ducking under Harry's arms and then lunging for the edge. Forcing the Wizard to cling to his neck or risk dropping to his death.
Harry squawked in alarm as the Wyvern rolled to one side, green eyes catching a glimpse of what looked to be a group of blue humans! His breath caught in his lungs as he hooked his legs around Zeus's neck, the Wyvern wheeling away from the Rookery where the strange people were standing. Did they have tails?
The Mother hummed happily in the back of his head and Harry assumed that they were her Favoured children, like the Magi had been for Gaia. Still... Zeus had been very determined to make sure Harry was no where near them, did they eat Wyvern?
No, no, he could see another blue person crouched atop a Wyvern swooping towards the group. They rode them in much the same way as he did. So why was Zeus so panicked? His mind couldn't understand the situation, his knowledge of this world was sorely lacking, he had no idea of its history or the relationship between the Blue people and the Muggles.
Hence why Eywa, who knew her Children better than even they thought she did, had prompted her New Life's Ikran to escape with him, protect him from a hatred neither he, nor her Favoured, were prepared to face just yet.
Now was not the time for her New Life and her Favoured Children to meet.
Soon, yes.
But first the fires of hatred needed to cool.
There were people on this Planet.
Harry stewed over this piece of information for the next few days. The female Wyvern he had been seeing to earlier was alright, she would never be as good a flier as she used to be but at least she wasn't grounded for the rest of her life. She was crippled now, easy prey for the Wasp-Dragons but, that was life, sometimes you had to lose yours so that someone else's could be saved.
But thinking about the Wyvern made him think about the blue people he saw earlier, the blue people with the tails who had to be roughly twice his height if he was calculating the size differences between himself and Zeus to the people with their own Wyverns. Was it the lower gravity that allowed them to grow so tall? It certainly accounted for Harry's easier time of lugging dead Bitch-Fish out of the water, had he tried to handle something that big on earth he could probably move it a few inches before collapsing.
The Feather Light Charms helped though.
When it came to hunting, Harry didn't cheat. He caught and killed everything without the aid of magic, no problem. Transportation was another matter. Zeus was his only friend in this place so Harry refused to have him carry his kills like some kind of pack-mule, it was an on going argument between them as the Wyvern was determined to aid his Rider but Harry was just as stubborn as the flying menace not to let him. So, when Harry won those arguments, he would cast a Feather Light Charm on his kill and carry it himself. When he lost, he would be left on the ground swearing at Zeus as the Wyvern flew away, the kill dangling from his jaws – by the time he got home, it would be half eaten and more than a little mutilated, but at least the Wyvern left him half.
That was the thing, without his wand, he needed to concentrate and control the magic. Draw it from his core, focus it, release it and draw it back into himself. Hunting and defending himself meant that he needed that split second to react, and he needed a lot more than a split second to use his Magic without a wand these days.
Did the blue people have Magic?
Harry sighed and shook his head, casting the thought aside. He had more important things to worry about. He had been here all of five to six months and not seen them; obviously this area was sparsely populated, so he doubted if he would see them again. What he had to worry about now was winter, monsoon season and his clothes falling apart.
Whether or not there even was a Monsoon season he didn't know, but he was going to prepare for it anyway, this was a jungle – chances were there was most likely a monsoon season. Which worried him because he was currently living on a floating mountain. Winter hopefully wouldn't be so bad, it would probably get a little chillier but beyond putting on extra clothing layers he doubted if it would affect him much.
As for the clothing issue, he tried to take care of his clothing, but jungle rot was more insidious than he first assumed. Harry cleaned his clothes and hung them out to dry but slowly they became more and more threadbare and worn until his trousers were quite literally falling apart at the seams. He had already fashioned himself some arm-guards out of his Bitch-Fish's scales, the rest he was carefully stringing together into a crude kind of door to cover the entrance of his home for when the rains and winds got bad. He didn't want mould creeping into his belongings.
He wondered if the blue people had clothes or fabric they would be willing to trade with him for.
Harry hummed, it might be an idea, he didn't know if they spoke the same language though and they might be hostile of a strangely coloured outsider appearing in their midst. He wouldn't know unless he tried but... he chewed on his lower lip, there were Muggles on this planet, near-by if the fact that Zeus was able to get up here while so injured was any indication. Chances were the Blue People had met with them, and if Harry's own experiences with Muggles and the left over echoes of Gaia's knowledge had anything to say about it, chances were the encounter was probably hostile.
Would the Blue Folk even consider allowing him to speak? Or would they try to kill him at first sight?
"What do you think, Zeus?" he asked the Wyvern, golden eyes peered at him from under a folded wing before he snorted and rolled over, facing away. Harry shook his head, a wry smile crossing his lips, "I'll take that as a no," he muttered before kicking a spray of dirt into the fire – extinguishing it.
He eyed the night sky as his eyes slowly adjusted to the bioluminescence of the forest around him, those clouds looked rather ominous, "Rain. C'mon Zeus. We're sleeping inside tonight."
Nickering irritably at his human, Zeus clambered to his feet and waddled past him into the den, he curled up on a soft bed of large round electric blue fuzzy leaves, known to the Muggles as Cheadle and the Na'vi as Eanean. Harry just called them damn comfortable and harvested enough to make a bed for himself and for Zeus – making sure not to take too many of them from any particular site.
It was probably a good thing they went inside when they did, outside, a lone Na'vi Hunter swooped through the Thundering Rocks, golden eyes sharp on the world around him as he looked for the Sky Person who desecrated the Sacred Place.
Tsu'tey was going to kill the intruder, and throw their heads into the Earth Wound for the other Sky People to see.
Like most Earth Children, Harry had heard the phrase 'Curiosity killed the cat'. He was however, one of the few who knew the rest of the phrase, that being 'But satisfaction brought it back'. Which probably accounted for his incredibly bad day, he reflected feverishly.
It had started as it usually did, Zeus slinking out to go and make eyes at the pretty She-Wyvern that sometimes flew in their direction, Harry feeling like he hadn't slept for a week dragging himself up as well and staggering to the nearest stream where he promptly fell in face first and woke up. God that water was cold. He washed, drank and squelched back to the den where he grabbed at his shorts – not even bothering to put a shirt on because it looked like the day was going to be quite warm again. His breakfast comprised of an Alien Banana and a few other things plus his first attempt at making bread.
He had found some seeds that he ground up for experimentation's sake, mixed it with a little water and shaped it, wrapped it in the skin of his Alien Banana and baked it. He wasn't sure how it would taste, or if it would give him food poisoning, but he was surprisingly keen on finding out. He missed bread. He missed a lot of things like pizza, Sheppard's pie, chocolate – he could kill for a Mars Bar, hell, he would ritually slaughter a small child for a Treacle Tart (he wouldn't but he definitely entertained the thought). The bread ended up tasting fairly all right, a bit like a mixture of hazelnuts and walnuts with a sweet after taste from the Banana Skin. He would have to make it again.
After that, he decided to go exploring outside the Valley of the Flying Mountains.
He was curious about seeing the rest of this world.
Taking his knife and slipping it into a holster he made out of a strange leathery like tough plant, he strapped it to one leg and set off, leaving Zeus curled up on the cliff with the silvery coloured female he had been fluttering around for the past week. Harry did not want to see them getting it on, he really didn't. Besides, he needed the exercise, Zeus was going to make him fat if he kept ferrying him from place to place.
This place was incredible, even now, several months after arriving, Harry found himself falling in love with it every day, again and again, with every new thing he discovered and new sight he saw. And he could feel the Mother's happiness in the back of his mind, sometimes prompting him to just grin stupidly at nothing, he felt alive in a way he never had been on Earth. Those ancient primordial instincts that his easy modern life had put to rest were back and now he felt awake for the first time in his life.
So far the morning had been going well, he reached the river and followed it towards the cliffs where a magnificent waterfall cast rainbows through the thick atmosphere, now that he knew there were people near-by, he could also see the well concealed path that zigzagged up the cliff-face. Almost invisible but undeniably there. He scaled the cliff quickly, his tanned skin blending in against the sun-bleached cliff face and hiding him from the eyes of observing predators, such as a near by Wasp-Dragon on the look out for some tasty morsel to start his morning with.
The view from the top of the cliff was incredible. Harry spent a few minutes just taking in the natural wonders of the Floating Valley before the distant roar of some beast shook him out of his awe-inspired amazement.
The forest outside the Valley wasn't much different to within it, the trees were definitely larger and there were less of the flying Pink Gas sacks with the tentacles, he called them Gilroys, in honour of Gilderoy Lockhart and his over inflated head, pink robes and slimy manner, and a lot more massive land-based predators. He also noticed some strange footprints in the mud and loose earth.
They looked like human feet, several times bigger, with a flat sole – they had no foot arches, and only four toes, one of which was shaped oddly and dug into the earth. Opposable toes? Like a monkey? How fascinating! He wanted to meet them, see for himself how different they were. Were there other kinds of humanoids as well? Like Gaia had both Magi, Goblins, Giants, Veela, Merfolk, Trolls, Hags – curiosity was driving him wild.
He hunkered down and began to follow the tracks – the tiny subtle signs of another being's passing.
Harry never expected to find a log cabin built on stilts.
He blinked and sat down, legs folded beneath him in sheer bewilderment at the unusual sight. Just a random building, plonked in the middle of the forest, a dirt path lading to somewhere else, it even had a flight of stairs leading up on some kind of porch-like veranda. He just couldn't wrap his brain around what he was seeing.
What was more – he could hear English being spoken inside.
Why the hell would aliens be speaking English? It was hardly a universal language. Hell, it was made of several languages thrown together. If Harry could compare English to anything it would be the mugger's language, it follows other languages down alley-ways and beats them up before rifling through their pockets for spare vocabulary – at least that was what Hermione said about it.
He shook his head in disbelief and silently hopped to his feet, still crouched in the undergrowth, if there was someone speaking English then there was a Muggle in that building. Harry's stomach curled in on itself in trepidation. He wanted to get a better look at the blue people from earlier, but at the same time, he was scared of going anywhere near a Muggle again. It had been an exercise in sheer will not to freak out whenever he had been around Muggles on Earth, the Purge had left very deep scars on his psyche and now with the knowledge Gaia had accidentally bestowed upon him, those scars were deeper than ever. Instinctive now. Genetic.
He had probably been sat there for too long, lost in memories and shaking in fear because the next thing he knew someone was behind him and a long, wiry blue arm with almost water-colour like dark blue tiger stripes patterns banded under his arms, across his chest and heaved him into the air like a child. Several feet up to a point where his toes were a good metre and a bit above the ground, considering the height of the blue skinned individual, he probably was child sized in comparison.
Harry yelped in panic, trying to pry the arm off him as the blue skinned being – who smelled quite pleasantly of earth, plants and a little like spices – marched him towards the building. Calling for someone called 'Grace'.
Several little blue faces with large lemur-like gold and green eyes appeared at the window and door, all children with thick dark brown-black hair and white freckles on their faces, full-pouty lips pulled back in expressions of curiosity, fear and anger, Harry noted that they had rather enlarged canines a bit like a Vampire or a cat's.
Those observations came to a stuttering halt when a blue skinned woman in a pair of khaki shorts, boots and a red top, appeared, a small necklace around her elegant throat and four sets of braids hanging down in front of her oddly horse-shaped ears.
His heart stopped and all the blood drained from his face as the instincts of the Magi who had been dormant on Pandora roared to life with an almost physical force, screaming at him with the echoes of Gaia's fear and pain, drowning out the whispers of Eywa that tried to calm him. Green eyes went wide and his flailing limps seized where he was trying to pry the blue person's arm off him. He began to shake.
Muggle.
Grace was looking at a Scientific impossibility.
Not even five minutes ago she had been teaching her students, the young Na'vi children, about the animals on Earth and how they were different and yet similar to the ones on Pandora. They were loving all the pictures she showed them of the exotic and furry creatures, she was explaining about the long extinct Magical Creatures following a question from Neytiri when she heard N'deh calling her name outside.
Immediately all her students had abandoned their seats and rushed to the windows, and her heart sank when she heard one of them squeal about a Sky Person. She had been expecting some Jar-head with a gun throwing a tantrum at N'deh when she'd appeared at the door. She hadn't been expecting a kid.
He couldn't have been much older than eighteen or twenty, he was hooked over N'deh's arm and pinned against the Hunter's chest – the Na'vi looked a little perplexed but not hostile as the teenager squirmed like an upset cat against him, trying to pry his arm off. He couldn't have been much higher than 5'5" in height, he went shirtless and shoeless, a knife strapped to one leg in a crude sheath fashioned out of Canalyd – something the Na'vi called Tstxa'a. His body was lean and corded with muscle and a few scars which she identified as belong to a Thanator of all things judging by the size and shape. His hair was wild and long, just brushing the skin below his jaw in thick black strands, he wore a pair of shorts that looked as though they had seen better days. His bare feet were absolutely filthy along with his hands, knees and elbows. But it was his eyes that caught her out, such a clear shade of bottle green.
She heard Neytiri's sharp intake of breath and the deep snarl of anger that came from Tsu'tey but she didn't pay them any attention as the human caught sight of her and froze, all the colour draining from his skin and his eyes dilating to pinpricks. Grace drew back, uncertain of how to react to the expression of abject terror that blossomed onto the teenager's face.
Then she realised.
He wasn't wearing an Exo-pack.
The boy began to thrash in earnest now, his eyes stuck to her as he began to kick and claw at N'deh's arm, trying to get free as he hyperventilated. The Hunter pulled a face and tightened his grip on the boy's chest, making him gasp and choke as his lungs were squeezed.
"N'deh, be careful! You're suffocating him!" the Scientist exclaimed in Na'vi, leaping forward to break the two apart.
Bad idea.
The second she moved towards them, the teenager freaked out and kicked out at her with a yell of fright causing N'deh to stumble forward slightly – later on Grace would realise how big of a significance this was, it meant the teenager was a lot more physically powerful than any human and more on par with a Na'vi.
"Get away! Get away, Muggle!" the boy yelled, kicking out at her in blind panic while the Warrior struggled to prevent him from escaping. Grace jerked backwards at his violent reaction and she was peripherally aware of Tsu'tey and Neytiri leaping from the windows of the school building.
N'deh squawked with pain as the teenager reached behind his thin waist and grabbed his Queue – pulling it hard. The Na'vi bent backwards trying to relieve the pain and the human rolled backwards, legs flipping up and arms going straight, allowing him to slip out of the Warrior's grasp, Tsu'tey drew his bow while Neytiri tried to grab him – stop him from shooting the Green Eyed Not Sky Person she had seen in her dreams.
Harry used the blue person's shoulder as a launch-pad, throwing himself onto the roof of the school and over a rather large arrow that almost found its bull's eye in his bellybutton.
He didn't think. He just ran.
The air burned like fire in his lungs as he ran as hard and as fast as he could, it was almost as if he were running into the wind due to the denser air, he could hear shouting and the sound of pursuing footsteps behind him. He didn't stop to look, just bowed his head and poured every ounce of strength and speed into escape. He'd survived the Purges, he's survived the streets of a dead Planet, he had survived the Second Rise of Voldemort – he was not going to die here, now, he refused to die.
He could hear the Native snarling at him, it was the younger one, the one who tried to shoot him earlier.
Tsu'tey had darted after the Sky Person the moment he escaped N'deh's grasp, the Demon moved far more swiftly than any other of his kind and with a lot more familiarity through the trees – which only cemented his belief that this was the Demon who desecrated their Sacred Grounds! The little Sky Person launched himself up a tree, bare hands and feet getting purchase in the thick bark, Tsu'tey snarled furiously, he was not allowing this Demon to escape!
Swift fingers unslung his bow, a blue fletched arrow already being lined up against a pink back only to pause, a moment before release.
A single Atokirina, a seed from the Sacred Tree, drifted across his line of sight, silvery white tendrils floating gently.
Golden eyes narrowed, and he adjusted his aim. He could not shoot through one of the seeds of the Sacred Tree, he would not dare betray Eywa so.
There!
He released the arrow with a shrill of cry of glee as the Demon scampered across a tree-branch, well clear of the Atokirina.
Harry stumbled with a curse, his foot slipping from the tree branch he was running on, his side burned and the Wizard tumbled to the forest floor below with a hard THUD. He rolled and skidded back to his feet, knife wrenched free from its sheath as he crouched on the ground, the blue skinned Native dropping down in front of him, lips curled back into a victorious snarl.
Harry bared his teeth and snarled right back at the lion-faced bastard.
Tsu'tey hissed at the defiant action, pulling his own knife from its sheath, if this Demon wished to fight honourably then he would acknowledge him – even though Demons did not deserve such a death.
The Wizard pressed a hand against the tear in his side, it wasn't deep but it was still fairly bad, that bastard had scraped him with his arrow, if Harry hadn't stumbled when he did then he was fairly sure he would have taken it in the spine. Already he could feel the edges of the wound burning and tingling unpleasantly. Poisoned arrows, fucker!
The two began to circle each other, knifes held at the ready, green and gold clashing as they waited for the other one to make the first move.
"Ma Tsu'tey!" a female voice called, making the Na'vi twitch slightly and Harry's eyes narrow in preparation.
The human could feel his temperature getting higher and higher as the poison took its toll on him, he was going to faint soon, damn, no wonder this bastard seemed so ready to fight him in hand to hand, he was just waiting for the poison to take affect and put him under. What a fucking coward!
A light breeze swept between them, bringing with it a floating white seed.
Harry paused, seeing the little white seed, those things... they didn't just drift anywhere, he had seen them flying against the wind, distantly, in the back of his still clamouring mind, he could hear the Mother crooning to him. The seed looked a little like a silvery white jellyfish, beautiful in how fragile and pure it seemed to be, he could feel something emanating from the little floating seed. The Native seemed to be transfixed with it as well.
Harry sighed and stowed his knife away, he wasn't a spiritual person by any stretch of the imagination, but even he knew a sign from the Mother when he saw one. He couldn't identify what he could sense from it, but it felt similar to the Mother, and if she was standing between their fight then obviously she did not wish them to cross blades. Harry didn't think he would have been much of a match anyway in his current state, already his vision was beginning to blur and his face feel too hot and his skull too small.
Tsu'tey paused, another Atokirina drifting between them, floating harmlessly, almost beseechingly in front of him. For a moment he could imagine that the Great Mother was trying to tell him to kill the Demon for her sake, because it was her will but... But then the Demon sighed and sheathed his knife, standing straight and giving him a slight nod before turning and walking away.
Surely his eyes were deceiving him.
None of the Sky People, not even Grace, had believed or heeded any of Eywa's signs, they didn't understand them but he... this one... the one who moved as though he were one of the People, the one who panicked when Grace, a Demon in a False Skin, came too close... A demon who was still alive after being struck with one of his Arrows.
Tsu'tey didn't know what to think, already he could hear Neytiri approaching and flicked his ears with indecision, tail swaying thoughtfully.
Atokirina floated lazily in the same direction as the Demon had gone and the young Na'vi followed, ducking under the seed to chase after the Demon's trail, the Sky Person was moving slowly, stumbling slightly. The poison was working, but not nearly fast enough to kill him, it would be a torturous death – Tsu'tey couldn't help the smirk of pleasure at the thought of the Demon dying in agony, the same agony they inflicted upon the Great Mother.
He tensed slightly and darted behind a tree, the familiar cry of an Ikran reaching his ears. Wild Ikran had been known to carry off a Na'vi if the predator were hungry enough and the Hunter careless enough.
Crouching down and peering through the foliage he paused, not really understanding what he was seeing.
The Demon was leaning against an Ikran, the beast's brown and blue-green patterned hide bright and healthy as he crooned and nuzzled against the Sky Person who looked so ridiculously small it would have been amusing to the Hunter. The Ikran could have easily fit the Demon's skull twice over within his jaws. Instead, he crouched down, lowering himself enough so the now, quite obviously, sick Sky Person could climb on.
He clung, like a monkey, to the Ikran, arms around his neck, feet hooked under his wings and the mighty beast hissed – Tsu'tey didn't understand, the beast was treating the Demon as though it were one of his own hatchlings, even communicating in the same fashion. They had not even initiated Tsaheylu and yet, and yet the beast took to the air regardless, the Demon half unconscious on his back.
He did not move from his place until Neytiri finally came to his side, looking upset and yet curious about what happened to the Sky Person. He couldn't even find it in himself to be frustrated with her inappropriate fascination with their species, too stunned and confused by what he had witnessed.
Later he would convince himself that Eywa wished the Demon's escape so that he may die alone and in agony.
For some reason, the thought did not help him sleep later in the night.
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