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 Five

Kerry held out his arm, letting Norm gently take hold of it. The purple marking was beautifully iridescent under the light, and when the light was turned off, the poisonous spiral glowed with shimmering violet bioluminescence. The vibrant coloring was exactly the same as the male arachnoid. The spectacle was very pretty, but also kind of weird as well. He had made the joke that he was his very own nightlight now. His aunt had chuckled and Norm had rolled his eyes, letting out a patient sigh.

All of this poking and prodding had come about when his aunt had turned out the lights in the lab for the night. It had been the strangest thing to see his own arm light up in the darkness as if a moon had been lit from within his flesh. And he had thought the looks he had received were odd when he had woken up from a four year sleep with a head full of hair, whiter than winter’s finest cloak. According to his aunt and Norm, he was the only human this sort of thing had ever happened to. Norm had even made the suggestion that his anomaly could have to do with his mutated DNA due to the “healing sleep.” The reason why his hair was white.

“I believe this will remain permanent,” his aunt finally diagnosed. “It will be best if you begin wearing long sleeves and perhaps a glove when you are out.”

Kerry just looked at her. “Are you serious?”

Norm nodded. “Do you want to draw more attention to yourself from the Jar Heads?”

Kerry shook his head, feeling and watching as Norm’s fingers slowly moved along his glowing flesh. The man’s touch was gentle. It reminded him almost of Tom’s soft caresses.

He carefully slipped his arm free and looked across the rectangular table at his bushy haired aunt. She looked as though she hadn’t run a brush through her hair in weeks.

“I’m getting sleepy.”

Grace leaned forward in her chair. “I will need to take a few pictures.”

Kerry leaned back from her. “What? Why?” He suddenly felt very nervous and even more like a freak than ever before.

“Research,” she told him, as if it were the most obvious reason in the spinning universe. “This sort of thing is quite remarkable.”

Kerry quickly saw that he had no room to make his own choice. The room was, in fact, quite small, what with those two leaning in with science filled eyes. Only Norm’s were filled with a little bit of something else altogether.

He could only lower his head, and several flashes later, he was heading back to his room with Norm right behind him. His aunt didn’t want him to be left alone tonight, should there be anymore strange side effects to the arachnoid venom.

Norm had a pillow under one arm and a blanket draped over his shoulder. Kerry felt bad that the guy had to bunk on the floor. The floor couldn’t be very comfortable.

“This is nothing,” Norm told him, fixing himself a place on the floor beside the bed. “Better here than somewhere out there in the forest.”

Kerry gently placed Tom’s journal down on the bed. He walked over and began to water his plants, while the man behind him stretched out in the floor. He paid very special attention to the orange blossom. It was very pretty. New.

His little room was always warm. So, there was little danger in Norm getting cold. That was a good thing.

“Tell me about outside,” he said, turning back to his bed.

He didn’t have to say he’d never been. Norm already knew that better than anybody.

“It was frightening the first few times,” Norm said, looking up at him. “You never know what could be stalking just behind some beautiful plant to eat you, or what could be lurking below the calm surface of some tranquil looking pool.”

Kerry cocked his head to the side, smiling. “But, you do enjoy it.”

Norm nodded. “Dr. Augustine is the best. She has yet to lose any…” He quickly cut off, looking away.

Kerry bit his bottom lip. He knew what Norm had been trying to say.

His aunt had never lost anybody out there. But, in here, that was a far different, scarier story.

“I don’t know why they chose to call it Hell’s Gate,” Norm went on. “There is such wild and splendid beauty beyond them.”

Kerry kept silent. That was because the hell was in here. Out there was the paradise.

“Get some rest, Norm,” he told him. “I’m just going to read for a little bit.”

Norm gave him a small smile. There was something else in his eyes. Something that he was wanting to say, but didn’t do so.

Kerry carefully stepped over him, climbing onto his bed. He glanced over at the door, making sure it had been locked.

“Goodnight,” Norm yawned up.

Kerry picked up Tom’s journal, opening it up.

“Goodnight, Norm.”

A few minutes later, Norm was softly snoring away.

Another page turned.

~*~

“Thank you, Trudy,” Grace said, taking hold of the sky blue journal being handed over to her. “Was it exactly where my nephew few dreamed it to be?”

The pilot nodded her dark head.

“And the two of you made sure nobody saw you?”

She nodded again.

Grace ran a hand over the smooth cover. It was a very nice looking journal. The book had faired well being hidden away within a wall.

“How did Kerry know?” Trudy asked, taking a seat before her. “Repressed memory due to emotional trauma?”

Grace held the book close. “I hope the answers are in here.”

She opened up the blue journal and began to slowly scan and flip through the bright white pages. The writing had been done in black ink and the penmanship was flawlessly beautiful. That was when she suddenly growled and bit her bottom lip.

“Is something the matter?” Trudy asked out of concern.

“I have no idea what script this is scratched in,” she said, still turning pages. “It looks to be Na’Vi, but it isn’t.”

Trudy scooted her chair closer. “Show me.”

Grace did just that.

“If I read this line here in Na’Vi, it says,” she pointed. “The singing fish dances with a headless chicken in a bucket of sunshine.”

Trudy snorted. “What?”

Grace tapped her bottom lip with her index finger. Just what the hell did Tom have here that needed hidden so well and coded.

Where was the key? Was there even one?

“The swimming cat bites off its own tail and chokes on a rubber snake.”

She closed the journal with a snap, shaking her head. Perhaps she might be able to speak with a member of the Omaticaya once more. That is, if they didn’t shoot her full of arrows first. She’d have to grow a new avatar body and everything. That would just piss her off.

She slipped the journal into her bag and left the lab with Trudy. She had a trip to plan out. Perhaps someone out there could also take a look at her nephew’s arm.

~*~

Kerry silently wiped fresh tears from his eyes.

It is kind of hard for me to talk to Kerry sometimes. I keep getting myself sucked right into those pretty blue eyes of his, and before I know it, I’m babbling about something that makes no sense at all. I nearly choked on my food pouch today because of them.

Sometimes his eyes get this look in them that makes me want to pull him into my arms and hold him tight. One moment, he is all laughing and smiling like there is nothing wrong in this new world, and the next, he looks so terribly vulnerable.

There has to be a reason for such sudden looks and mood changes. Something terrible must haunt him. I just know it.

He needs someone. Maybe he will allow that someone to be me someday. I really do think I could take care of him, make him smile all the time, and mean it.

Norm snored, making Kerry glance down at the sleeping biologist. He ever so quietly closed the journal and slipped it under his pillow.

“Let me love you, Ker,” Tom had smiled, opening up his arms for him to step in for a comforting embrace. “I’ll see to it that nobody ever hurts you again.”

A sudden yawn snuck up on him. He reached over, turning out the light. His arm began to softly light up.

He pulled the covers up around him, curled up on his left side, and closed his eyes after a few moments.

His twin would be here soon. What was he going to do?

Tom…

~*~

Tsam’Wa, warrior, hunter, and seer of unseen things to be, stood atop a large rock formation with his powerful arms folded across his broad chest. Sweet scented whisperings were on the warm breeze and they had him softly smiling with a hint of white fang. The bioluminescent markings on his handsome face glowed in the soft darkness.

Atokrina, seeds of the Great Tree, floated and shone all around his tall form, but not touching him. These pure souls, most blessed of Eywa, radiated their gentle lights.

They sang to him of the One on the other side of the same surface, He of the broken form, but whole of spirit. The one with the dead male’s face was coming. He would descend from the sky on the wings of mighty drums. The mighty Warrior of Eywa.

His ears suddenly twitched and his amber-green eyes turned to the west. The music had changed.

Fierce lights danced among the billowing violet clouds. They were poisonous green and venomous yellow.

Something else was ascending. He could feel it in his young bones. The air was filled with strange energy, causing him to swish his tail back and forth with some nervousness.

“Txum Txe’lan.”

A name long since forgotten. Only a select few still remembered it. A time before there was a time.

He trembled down to his toes and rain began to fall as all those dangerous looking lights danced in the dark.

To Be Continued…

Author Note: Please do review and tell me what you think. I am having a lot of fun writing this story. It is going to start to get really, really good here shortly. Once Kerry gets outside, and falls down the well, the Direhorse shit is really going to hit the fan.

-Flora