Dance in the Dark

Dance in the Dark

Flora_Winters

Disclaimer: I do not own James Cameron’s Avatar. It all belongs to him. I’m not making any money off writing this story either.

Summary: Can a true love survive destiny? Grace has a nephew and he’s sort of crazy. Don’t worry. He has good reasons. Language, MM, OC, Violence

Chapter Four


Shadows played just beyond his line of sight. They were spinning and jumping about to the wild beating of loud drums and jungle music. The crazy rhythm washed over him in a wave of heat, feeling almost like a fever was making his blood boil within his veins.

His body began to jerk and twist, stepping and stomping right along with the frenzy shadows. He cried out, long and loud, voice echoing and harmonized with the nature calls.

A shadow spun around him, tall and humanoid in shape. Its touch was silk and a shower of brilliant, fiery red petals seemed to freeze in the air. A cool wind, sweet and soothing came from behind, causing his white hair to billow about his face like sea foam.

The forest went dark and all he could hear was the near silent sound of his own breathing. It sounded harsh and almost forced to him.

Something softly tickled him. Long, whispering strands of vibrant pink bioluminescence gently ghosted across his smooth white flesh and over him. There were so many voices; young and old, a thousand-thousand of them. It was a song in his head, nearly driving him down on his knees from the power of such a presence.

“Do not turn around,” a voice spoke to him from behind. “My txe’lan.”

Powerful arms came around his narrow waist, pulling him swiftly back against a broad chest, where the sudden familiar embrace nearly caused his legs to give out on him. He cried Tom’s name, feeling the treasured kiss upon the back of his neck. It tickled like it always did from the slight stubble.

“I did it for Pandora, my tanhi.”

A tight squeeze and he felt that chin resting atop his head. Pink strings of light flowed and danced all around them, like long strands of spider silk.

“You look good in white, Snow.”

~*~

Blue eyes snapped open and he violently gasped for breath. He rocked from side to side, lungs burning for the air they so desperately needed. Kerry felt as if his chest was on fire and there was no water to put it out. He could hear his own blood roaring away in his ears.

“Quickly!” He heard his aunt yell at the top of her lungs. “I need roots from the octoshroom, goddamn it!”

Kerry wheezed, struggling to break free from the hands holding him down, but he couldn’t. His newest thought was that the Na’Vi was all insane if they willingly allowed the arachnoid to sting them.

“Hold on for just a few more minutes, Kerry,” Norm said, looming over him, blurry and loud. “We need for you to stay calm. You’re going to be okay. Just focus on breathing for us.”

Kerry couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The biologist was speaking to him as if he were a pregnant woman.

“You’re so lucky your mother’s dead and not here, little boy,” his aunt seethed from his right. “You might be almost thirty, but she’d still whip your ass to the point where you wouldn’t be able to sit for a year.”

Kerry wanted to laugh, but was in far too much agony at the moment to do as such. If this sting didn’t kill him, she sure as hell sounded like she was going to.

He couldn’t see his hand, but it felt like it was going to blow up in a shower of blood and bone. It hurt like a bitch.

“Look at me, Kerry,” Norm instructed, and Kerry rolled his head over. “I need you to stay calm.”

He suddenly felt something being inserted slowly into his burning hand. His eyes widened as he took a deep breath. There was only one thing he could do.

He screamed.

“Hold him!” His aunt shouted.

“You’re okay, Kerry,” Norm said through gritted teeth. “It’ll all be over with soon.”

“Damn,” Trudy griped. “He’s a strong little thing.”

Kerry squeezed his eyes shut against the terrible pain, feeling it ever so slowly begin to lessen. It felt as though all the hurt with the ouch was being sucked away by something. He could feel it.

“I swear to every god invented by human and non,” his aunt vowed. “If you ever pull this shit again, I’ll break both your fucking legs off and beat you with them.”

Kerry took another deep breath in order to calm himself down and opened up his eyes once more. The pain was almost completely gone now. The hellish burning had been replaced with a cool, sort of balm feeling.

“We’re very lucky we had this specimen on hand,” another voice said from beyond his line of vision. It sounded an awful lot like Max. “Otherwise…”

“I’d have ran out and got one,” his aunt finished for the tongue twisted scientist.

“How do you feel, Kerry?” Norm asked, looking down at him with his aunt and Trudy on either side.

He suddenly began to feel terribly ashamed for what he had done, but there was nothing he could do to take it all back now. He could only assume he’d never be rid of the head doctor now. That man loved to look at his brain and poke at it with his shiny poking rod. It was like a hobby of his or something.

“I feel,” he said, being allowed to slowly sit up along with Norm’s help, looking at his hand as he did just that. The words instantly died on his lips.

There was a deep purple swipe beginning at the double sting marks, spiraling over the top of his right hand and up the length of his arm. It looked just like some kind of spiraling, exotic tattoo. It was almost as if his skin had been stained with some kind of ink from within. He looked to see that the purple coil stopped at the edge, over his right shoulder. It almost reminded him of a serpent wrapped around his arm.

He looked up at his aunt with wide eyes. “Will this be permanent?”

She shrugged. “If it is, let it serve as a reminder when the urge to do something retarded should ever cross that mind of yours again. You’re a lucky little fool. Not too many men survive that sting.”

“I think it looks wild,” Trudy spoke up. “Do you want a matching one for your left side as well?”

Kerry looked at her, but it was Norm who sort of growled, only to cough rather loudly. He glanced at the bigger man with a cocked brow.

“Choked on my saliva,” Norm chuckled, blushing terribly.

“I’m relieved that you’re okay, Kerry,” his aunt said, suddenly slapping him upside the head with her open palm, making him yelp in pain. She put her long finger right in his face, nearly making him cross his eyes to stare at it. “And just you remember what I told you.”

He bit back the urge to bite the finger before him. It would only serve to piss her off all the more.

“And no,” Dr. Grace Augustine whispered. “Tom told me nothing.”

Kerry turned his head away from her. She was lying. He knew she was.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at the venomous marking that now marred his once perfect flesh. “I just…”

“I know you miss him,” she quickly stopped him. “And I know you’re still angry, but I have a very important job to do here. The flora on this moon could very well be the keys to bringing our world back to life.” She put her hands on his shoulders, squeezing them. “I need for you to pull it together and fast. You were once a straight A student. The top in your class. You can help me out there.”

He instantly caught on to what she was really saying to him. He could help her out there. They could both discover the key and that key would open the door to Tom’s murderer.

He lowered his eyes. “All right.”

She ruffled his hair a little roughly. “You need to eat something. Norm?”

“I’m on it,” he said, rushing from the room.

The door slid closed behind him.

“How long was I out there?” Kerry asked, looking up and over at Trudy.

Max was no longer in the room either.

“I heard the doc yelling at you and I came running in,” she said, taking a seat on a plastic stool. “You were on the floor, limp and babbling out your mind. I seriously thought you’d lost it again.”

“Under four minutes,” his aunt broke in. She began to clean up around the table he was sitting on. “So, did you happen to find your totem?”

His lips were awfully dry, so he licked them with his tongue. He needed some serious balm.

He shook his head. “I can’t remember.”

It was really fuzzy. He thought he could make out some drumming. Had there been dancing people? It was all shadow and spinning lights. He felt the sense of chaos upon a scary sea of harmony. Lots of wind and rain.

“What about a journal?” Trudy asked.

He stopped. “Journal?”

Kerry didn’t see the sudden look his aunt shot at Trudy from over his shoulder. If he had, he would have jumped up and started stabbing himself with random needles.

“I’m asking you,” Trudy answered him. “You were the one having the toxic dream.”

He made a face.

A journal. What kind of journal?

“I did it for Pandora, my tanhi.”

That had been Tom’s voice. Tom had been in his dream. The sudden feeling of ghostly arms tugged at him.

Had Tom kept a journal?

“What does tanhi mean?” He asked.

“Star,” his aunt answered.

“I did it for Pandora, my star.”

“Why do you ask?” His aunt asked in mild interest.

He calmed his breathing and simply shrugged his shoulders, still thinking.

Norm had been Tom’s roommate. Maybe he’d know something about a journal.

Disappointment struck him. Even if Tom had kept a journal, it would be gone now. All of Tom’s things were gone.

He cursed in his mind. That journal would probably contain all of Tom’s secrets. It could even have contained why he had been shot to death.

But, if Tom had been against the RDA, then that journal would have been immediately analyzed and destroyed even faster. He had his doubts that Norm would have taken it. The guy was just too damn honest.

“Trudy,” his Aunt Grace said. “Why don’t you go find Norm? He’s probably gotten lost again.”

Kerry watched her leave.

But, what if Norm had taken it? What if Norm and his aunt knew?

He stared at his aunt’s back. If they did have this journal, then the secret inside must be so dangerous, they couldn’t ever let anybody know. It could destroy any hope of proving who the guilty party was if they acted too soon.

“I wonder if Tom kept a journal,” he suddenly said.

Grace turned to face him. “All scientists keep journals. I have more than a hundred.”

“I know that,” he smiled. “I’ve read half of one.”

She rolled her eyes.

“What?” He asked, snorting at her reaction, hopping off the table.

“Take it slow.” She went over to a small shelf and pulled a thin book from it. It was light green in color and stained just a little bit.

“What is that?” He asked, leaning back against the table.

It really was amazing. Just a few moments ago, he was screaming his head off in agony, now he was perfectly well again.

“It is one of Tom’s field journals,” she told him, turning back around. “A good read if you enjoy complaining and talking bad about said boss.”

Kerry practically snatched it away from her hand and held it like a little child would have once held a fuzzy puppy.

“Food!” Norm yelled and Trudy came in after him.

Kerry was all eyes on his newfound treasure. He never saw the sudden and silent exchange between the older three adults. If he had, he would have calmly put down Tom’s priceless journal, and then promptly begin throwing random objects at them, while screaming his head off.

Pandora: Day 2,190

It is so very hot here. It never gets cold. I’m sweating down to my socks again. I seriously think I can actually smell myself.

Please, oh please don’t let that new “kid” come near me today. I don’t want him to smell how gross I must look. I really want to get to know the Plant Lady’s nephew, but not when I’m smelling like some dead animal that’s been cooking under this alien sun.

Oh! I see a mushroom. Maybe I can talk Norm into eating it.

Kerry faced his aunt. “Where are all the others?”

“That was the only one I found and that was because it was left in here,” she told him.

He knew that all of Tom’s digital recordings had been corrupted. They had been the first things to go. That in itself still looked terribly suspicious to him.

“Let’s eat,” Norm quickly piped in.

They did.

“Norm?” He asked.

“Hmm?”

“Did you eat that mushroom?”

Norm looked puzzled for a moment and Kerry held up the journal. The man’s face turned reader than paint.

Trudy shook her head and his aunt lightly laughed over her food.

“I was hungry!” Norm yelled at Trudy, suddenly stuffing his face again.

The pilot howled.

Kerry turned the page.

Pandora: Day 2,240

I wonder if a human such as myself could raise a prolemuris to be a pet. People back on my world did it with chimps back in the day. I’ve seen the Na’Vi youngsters doing it with those crazy Fan Lizards. Norm once told me that they were the favorite of the boss lady.

Oh!

I also saw Kerry again today. That “kid” is actually kind of spooky. He was sitting on the outer rim on one of those large oval windows, looking out. I have no idea what he was looking at. He could have been looking at any of the other moons for all I know. It could even have been that big red eye that’s always looking down from the giant planet. I still think it looks an awful lot like Jupiter.

The “kid” reminds me of the lead character (except Kerry is male) in that old fairytale my mom once read to Jake and me when Jake still wet the bed.

Snow White!

That boy is as pale as a banshee’s bleached bones, his hair puts me in the mind of a Viperwolf (liquid darkness), and his eyes are bluer than the shimmering leaves on the warbonnet fern.

I wanted very much to walk up and speak to him, but I smelled really bad. So, I just settled on watching him for a moment (turned into ten moments before I knew it. Honestly!).

He sighed only the once and I nearly jumped out of my boots and ran away. His lonely sigh had been the saddest sound I’ve ever heard. That “kid” seriously needs a friend, before he starts getting bored and getting himself into trouble.

I’ll fake an illness tomorrow and start a conversation with him. I’m sure Grace (anything but) wouldn’t mind a frolic in the bush without me. All I do is complain and whine at her about how hot and tired I am just to get some kind of rise out of her. Sometimes I think she wants to hit me, or leave me out there.

Kerry chuckled and closed the green book. He had never thought Tom to be the shy type. Their very first real conversation had been hilarious.

Tom had tripped and fallen right on his face before him, causing Kerry to quickly check to see if he was all right. Tom had laughed and told him that hadn’t been part of his master plan at all. He told him all about how he always wrote these kinds of things out first, handed everyone their scripts, and then rehearsed it fifty times before following through with any of it. He had told Tom that he had never received his script, which caused the tan guy to considerably pale. Kerry remembered Tom telling him to quickly dismiss the whole catastrophe as being a figment of his imagination, and that he would introduce himself again on a later date, once he had gotten the script and went over it.

“Good read?” His aunt asked.

He looked up.

Trudy was gone and Norm was preparing specimens for the microscope. When had Trudy left?

“You could have given me this sooner,” he told her.

She turned from her workstation. “You were sick and needed healing.”

She was right, of course. At that time, this journal would have made his “sickness” even worse. He would have probably been killed in cold blood as well for going after the bastard who had taken away the kind and funny man within the pages he held in his hands.

“Need any help?” He asked.

“Me,” Norm said. “Come help me.”

He carefully put the journal down, took one last bite of his “yummy” supper, and did just that. He knew Norm was looking for any excuse necessary in order to finish off his “yummy” leftovers.

“The blue one!” Grace yelled. “Not the red one! Are you color blind as well?”

“Oh, shut up!” Kerry playfully snapped right back at her. “Or I’ll screw up the violet one just because.”

Norm burped.

“Give me patience,” Grace swore.

Norm winked at him and Kerry snickered as he handed his aunt the correct specimen.

To Be Continued…

Author Note: Once again, I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story so far. Thank you all so very, very much. I’m so glad that you are enjoying it. It makes me smile. Please, keep reviewing and telling me what you think of the tale so far. They keep me thinking and writing.

I’m still using Avatar: An Activists Survival Guide for all my information on Pandora. It is such a fun read.

Na’Vi-English

Tanhi-Star
Txe’lan-Heart