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:
It felt like he was swimming through treacle.
Harry cracked into existence outside the ship, crumpling to his hands and knees panting as though he had just run a marathon. The air smelled like cinnamon. He was surrounded by pink willow fronds and he smiled slightly, brushing a hand down the oddly textured thing, they were more like tentacles than leaves or branches.
That was perhaps all he had time to admire before the thick poison air turned his world to darkness.
And now:
He felt safe, warm, loved (this-wasn't-right).
His Mother held him (lily-was-dead).
Cradled him (gaia-had-no-arms).
Soothed him (but-he-never-knew-peace).
He wanted to stay (no-he-didn't).
Get-out-of-my-head.
The Mother's presence was overwhelming, so much bigger than his, he felt so small and so cold compared to the sheer size and brilliance that the Mother had.
And she held him.
Her voice would have deafened him had he possessed ears, instead, he felt himself unwillingly relaxing, his instinctive fear of the pain and terror Gaia put him through shuddered painfully across his scarred little being.
Mother soothed him and time passed.
NEWLIFE, she mused, examining him, NOTOFMYOWN, she noted.
Fear prevented him from opening to her and if she could, he sensed that she would have smiled.
REST, she told him, NOWISTIMEFORPEACE.
He had never known peace, it sounded nice but... Something in him recoiled and howled at the thought of Peace after fighting for so long. He would not know what to do with Peace, he spent so long trying to protect it, summon it, create it, only to have it snatched away by that which killed Gaia and now threatened the new Mother.
He could not rest. He would not rest.
YES, she told him, her tone firm.
She enveloped him, his tiny being, and bore him to sleep.
He choked when he woke up.
Something was in his mouth – something was in his mouth!
He jerked upright and coughed, hands flying to his mouth to remove what had crawled down his throat, down his nose, he paid no mind to the sound of tearing grass as he gagged and choked and wrenched handfuls of thin, slightly greasy hair, or grass, or roots – he wasn't sure what it was – from his face, nose, eyes and mouth. Whatever it was it had crawled into almost every orifice it could get to!
He rolled onto his stomach to better cough up the strands that had descended into his stomach and heard the delicate green tendrils tear some more.
Correction.
It had gotten into every orifice.
Thank every deity that ever existed that no one was there to witness him pull several feet of slightly dirty glowing green, whatever it was, from his trousers and... ahem, other genitalia. He could have sworn he heard a giggle somewhere in the back of his mind and grumbled, blushing, as he gently toed the wadded collection of whatever that green stuff was to one side as he gingerly got to his feet.
Damn he was hungry.
Looking around, he stared in amazement at the natural stone basin he found himself in, the large arches of stone structures curled protectively around it. Almost like ribs over a heart, or the remains of a protective shell. Animal cries from the distant jungle he could see at the rim of the basin jostled him from his amazement and he began to notice how large everything was in comparison to him and sighed. He was used to being the midget in everything, it would be just like when he was eleven and introduced to the Wizarding world – only everything would be Hagrid sized instead of the other way around.
Well. Time to get moving.
Grabbing his bag from where it had fallen on the floor, he paused and looked over his shoulder to the pink willow tree.
Something told him... that tree had something to do with this world's Mother. It felt like her, it... if he could put a colour to the Mother, he would have decided on the very shade of pink this tree possessed. It was very disconcerting for the young Wizard, the Last Magi.
"Thank you," he said to the willow and he could have sworn, for a split second, that the tendrils swayed happily at him as he heard a giggle somewhere in his mind.
Smiling a little bemusedly, he turned and began the arduous climb out of the stone basin he had somehow apparated into. As much as he would have liked to stay with the pink Willow, he had the feeling that if he remained, he wouldn't be well received by whoever found him.
And he got his first proper look at Pandora.
"Ho-ly... shit..." he murmured, eyes wide and his mouth a little wider as he stared at what the Na'vi called the Thundering Rocks and the Muggles called the Hallelujah Mountains. He paid the flying beasts little mind – he'd flown against Dragons, on Threstrals and Hippogriffs, whatever the hell they were, they didn't register overly much beyond 'oh, giant flying things, ok' – his brain was rather stuck on the floating mountains.
How the fuck did this place get flying mountains! He couldn't sense any magic from them so it wasn't Levitation Charms, how were they flying like that?
OK, he had to see what was on top of those things now.
Gripping his bag, he took a deep breath and Jumped – only to fall flat on his face not even two feet away from where he had been standing beforehand. It was like trying to jump into a brick wall!
Whispers resounded in the back of his head and he felt like kicking himself.
The green eyed Wizard heaved himself up and groaned, he was an idiot, the air here was denser by quite a margin, by all rights he shouldn't have the muscle strength to even breathe the air here but the Mother, Eywa the whispers called her, had changed his body. Changed him from the inside so that he could survive here, at least, that was what the whispers said. He wasn't so sure he liked the idea of being changed – and just what the hell did she need to change that was up his arse?
Either way.
Apparation was impossible here. The act of slipping between the particles of air and travelling from location to location was impossible in the denser atmosphere; there simply wasn't enough space between the air molecules. If he were desperate enough, and poured enough power in, he probably could punch his way through, but it would hurt and he would most likely splinch himself across half of Pandora. So it looked as though he were hoofin' it.
Great.
The whispers giggled as he rolled his eyes good naturedly and went on his way. He wanted to get to the top of those floating mountains!
They would either be the safest places within fifty miles, or have the best damn view for a hundred. Either way, when he got there, he doubted he would regret it.
Three hours later and it didn't feel like he had made any progress towards the floating mountains at all, the Wizard pouted, he was getting hungry and thirsty as well. And his bag was getting in the way.
Sighing in frustration, Harry admitted defeat and cast a feather-light charm on his possessions. With that sorted, he could move a lot more easily, which in turn led him to hunting for water. He knew there was a river around here somewhere, his nose wouldn't lie to him – regardless of the atmosphere here actually smelling of cinnamon, the scent of water was universal.
Ah-ha! There it was.
Prowling to the water's edge, Harry peered around carefully for any sign of a predator that may think he looked like something tasty. A few really BIG bugs, an odd deer like creature that was blue in colour, quite a pretty thing now that he looked a little more carefully, some off ugly brown lizard like things with spots of orange glinting at the edges of its body. But nothing that looked as though it wouldn't have minded a Harry sandwich.
Moving quickly and carefully, Harry slipped to the water's edge and dug out his water canteen – there was no fucking way he was putting his head down and his arse up to grab a drink in a place like this. The whispers in the back of his head hummed with approval at the thought as he continued to check and double check his surroundings before capping his water and moving away from the river.
Nothing was creeping up on him, but at the same time, he wasn't entirely sure about where he was and whether or not he was heading in the right direction to reach the flying Mountains. Call it childish but he really, really wanted to see those things up close. He huffed and eyed the tree next to him; it was massive, easily about as wide as the Dursley's whole house and twice as high as Hogwarts, covered with ivy or a plant that resembled ivy. Harry gave it a very long considering look as he took a sip from his canteen.
Chances were, the canopy was safer than the forest floor, less in the way of big predators unless they were of the flying kind – and Harry knew flying creatures quite well, he would probably be safer avoiding them than any other kind of Alien Monster intent on cracking his skull open and having brains for breakfast cereal. He grinned to himself as he stowed his canteen away. He had a tree to climb.
Kicking off his shoes, he tied the laces together and slung them around his neck as he scampered up the massive tree roots, nimble little hands and feet finding purchase on the rough bark that larger predators would not have. He felt rather a bit like a squirrel if he was entirely honest and the thought brought a smile to his lips as he imagined what it would feel like to leap from tree to tree as they did. He wasn't nearly as agile as they were though, still, it was easier to climb the tree than he had been expecting, he felt lighter on a whole, as if a weight he hadn't even been aware of was lifted from his back.
Probably the feather-light charm.
It took him a while to reach the top of the tree, settling into a thick bough, he pulled out his canteen and took a well deserved mouthful of the crisp clean water. He had never tasted water so pure if he was completely honest, it was almost painful, this whole planet was so clean, so free of any kind of Muggle taint that could poison it. It felt like he had stepped into Eden.
Maybe he really had died and gone to heaven.
He snorted and shoved his canteen back into his bag, if this were heaven, where were his wings? If he died and didn't get any wings with which to fly he would be very disappointed. He leaned back lazily against the wood of the tree, basking in the slight breeze that drifted across his skin, cooling the sweat that had formed during his climb – it was easier than he expected but it was still no walk through the park. The sun overhead warmed him and he listened happily to the sounds of the forest around him, it had been too long since he had heard something that wasn't Muggle or industrial.
And then it went silent.
Green eyes snapped open as a dark shadow lunged down at him.
He dove forward, leaving his precious backpack in the tree as he rolled head first over the edge of the branch, a shriek of thwarted hunger grating on his ears as his fingers latched onto the rough bark. Leaving him dangling several hundred feet in the air by his very fingertips – well, wasn't this a familiar feeling. One that certainly was not missed since his first Quidditch Game.
The creature lunged at him again with a shriek and Harry had a few seconds to realise that it was roughly the three times the size of Buckbeak before his body moved on instinct and he managed to swing himself back onto the tree branch.
No time to grab his bag.
He pegged it.
Racing across the tree branches refusing to look down at the winged creature that chased him from beneath as he went higher and higher and higher through the trees. Leaping, swinging and crawling a terrifying gauntlet of survival as the creature's hooked talons gouged into the wood and glass coloured dagger like teeth – each as large as long as his finger – tried to tear chunks of meat from his body.
Instinct told him to jump – so he did.
Throwing his body from the tree tops as glass fangs snapped at the wood where his feet had been a split second before.
Harry plummeted, his heart beating too quickly for him to even formulate a scream of terror as he landed roughly on a large green leaf.
Rolling weakly from the large object and onto another leaf, like some bizarre game of ping-pong he rolled from leaf to leaf until he landed on a giant mushroom. It smelt warm and musty and familiar as he just lay on the fleshy table-like plant. Trying to catch his breath as the creature shrieked in impotent fury above.
"Well," he gasped, slowly levering himself up to stare at the world above, "That was more fun than I'd ever like to have again," he muttered, and upon hearing the giggling in the back of his head, he knew that he would probably find himself in this position quite often.
He sighed heavily and crossed his legs.
He had no idea where he was and he had been so focused on just getting away and surviving that he never gave a thought to his backpack, which he left behind.
Time to get it back.
Even with the thicker air, a Summoning Charm should still be able to bring a feather-light sack to his hands. Taking a deep breath he turned his focus inwards to his Magical core, bright and strong and young, the flame greeted him with a gentle pulse, and he breathed deep, the pulsing of his Magic moving in time with his heart as it grew bigger and bigger.
He stretched his hands out in front of him and released the magic, pushing it through his breath and into his words. Wandless magic was not beyond Witches and Wizards; it just required a lot more focus than they were willing to give due to the Muggle influences in their lives and culture. Why bother with focus when a swish and a flick could gain the same results, but much faster?
"Accio Backpack," he intoned, feeling his voice resonate with Magic.
The warmth of the spell tapered off but he remained with his arms outstretched, concentrating as he felt the threads of magic that he sent out for his Bag began to return. His core pulling the desired objects to him, fighting against the ambient Magic and the thickness of the air itself as it flew lazily towards his outstretched arms.
Catching the bag, he checked to make sure it hadn't come to any damage in the short time they had been separated, only to find a little brown lizard with orange highlights clinging to it in shock and horror. Feeling sorry for the creature, Harry reached out to untangle it from his bag and set it down in the undergrowth when the long stick that ran down its spine snapped open.
Unfurling and lighting up in shades of orange, pink and red, unfolding like a Chinese fan and spinning away on the thick air like a feather in a breeze. Enchanted, Harry found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the sight.
The fan-lizard drifted away on the wind, leaving Harry with his bag and bruises suddenly feeling... alive.
He laughed and yanked his bag back on, mouth widening into a feral grin as he launched himself at the nearest tree, bare feet and fingers gripping the rough bark as he began to climb in earnest. He had lost his shoes running but that hardly mattered, he didn't care.
Look out Pandora, here comes Harry Potter.
It had been three months since Harry had first landed amidst the fantastic plants and animals of his new home, it had been a hard trial getting to where he was now, with triumphs and many slip ups – the most prominent of which being the scars on his left leg where he got into a tangle with a Panther the size of an Acromantula and just as mean. Most humans would be lucky to escape alive, Harry was pissed off because that over grown House Cat stole his fucking dinner!
He had taken up residence in the floating Mountains as, despite the Wyvern like creatures and the large tentacle clouds, it really did not have as much in the way of predators as the ground. It had some fairly good plants he could forage for food – some of which he could not, and them he learned through experience and bad luck. It would take him roughly an hour to get back down to forest level where he could go hunting for food, thankfully though, the mists that rained upon each of the Mountains gave him enough water to survive and he had witnessed the Wyverns eating the odd egg shaped blue plants that grew on the stone floors. In the beginning, he thought they were perhaps the Wyvern's eggs, until he witnessed one lay a clutch of her own and realised that the glowing blue things were in fact plants. Plants that were oddly salty if he could describe their taste as anything.
He had made his home in the roots of a huge tree, some kind of burrowing creature had created a hovel before his arrival and the lack of tracks and smells or other identifying markers said that it was long since abandoned. A little bit of transfiguration and he had quite the nice little home, some creativity regarding some of the plants he had found and he wanted for nothing, his belongings were set carefully throughout his home which was more than large enough to accommodate him – all the animals here were massive. Even some of the insects were bigger than his head.
He had forgone shoes long ago, finding it both easier and quicker if he just stuck to barefoot – he ended up having to do a lot of climbing and he needed his toes for better grip. His nails were broken and ragged, his hands and arms were scratched up, he was absolutely filthy, and he loved every minute of it. Even when he had to go running for his life from the Wyverns.
His body had come to adapt to this life, it had to or he would die. He was faster, more agile, his balance which had already been a thing of beauty was practically inhuman now, he was stronger too, capable of lifting things he hadn't a hope of doing so before now. This was his home and he felt the Mother purr in the back of his head whenever he found something new that amazed and fascinated him, he would throw question after question at her in his excitement but she never answered, just sent feelings of fond amusement to him. Unable to speak because their tongues were different and his mind was not open to her.
But the nights were hard, beautiful though they were, they still brought with them nightmares and ghosts of the past. Harry's sleep was troubled and broken, he woke often and in distress before he forced himself back to sleep, only to repeat the process not even an hour later as his mind cruelly replayed the memories of the Purges and cried out in agony.
The Mother tried her best to sooth him but whenever her consciousness drew near to the New Life between her leaves he drew away in fear of her, subconscious or conscious, he was a Child whose Mother had turned on him. And her heart ached because she witnessed why. His pain shuddered and echoed across her like a thing alive and she knew that his pain affected her Blessed, the People could feel it resonate within their gentle souls. And they mourned with him.
The New Lives her own Blessed called the Sky People had destroyed a Mother before her, driven her to the point of turning on her Blessed, on her children. And suddenly, the sore, the place of pain and silence and cold took on a much more sinister impression and her own fear began to grow. New Life never knew his memories played for her to witness, his turmoil was clear as the Father in the sky to her. She never wished to be a figure of such fear to her Blessed as his Mother had become to him.
She would not allow it. The Sky People were not to be trusted. Or more than just green eyes would fill with tears of pain and anguish.
Eywa swelled with intent.
This tumour did – not – belong!
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