Banner made from this cover art for the fic, done by the AMAZING @isaacartist
Pairing: Tsu'tey x Avatar Driver OC
Words: 3.7K (298K, FULL FIC COMPLETED, hyperlinked in post title)
Contains: graphic depictions of violence, major character death, minor character death, enemies to lovers, found family, eventual smut, forbidden love, cultural alienation, references to Indigenous genocide in Canada (this is a shortlist, full tags on AO3)
Gaia James has a gifted eye, so she's been told. A skilled and studied xenobiological artist, Gaia joins the Avatar Program to become a living camera for Dr. Grace Augustine. Better – and cheaper – than throwing cameras into the magnetic field blender known as Pandora.
Rather, it would be, if Jake Sully didn't get them thrown into an actual blender first.
At the end of teeth and claws, Jake and Gaia find themselves at the mercy of the Omatikaya, a Na'vi clan already ravaged by the colonial-capitalist RDA. By literal divine intervention, they are spared, and taken into the clan to learn the ways of the people whose skin they wear. While Jake will be taught by Neytiri, the clan's Tsakarem and future matriarch, Gaia is left under the tutelage of Tsu'tey te Rongloa Ateyitan.
Chosen to one day be Olo'eyktan, Tsu'tey is supposed to teach Gaia the ways of his people. He makes her feel like she might have been better off being eaten by a thanator.
“Next up, we have our Masters graduates.”
In the year 2148, tuition fees are at an all-time high, along with the fees for everything else in life. Historically, education had always been something for the rich on Earth. This had slacked off during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, when people began to apply for student loans to get their degrees. The population became more qualified, and more educated.
But, around the 2020's, the world’s economy began to take a nosedive due to governments catering to the ever shrinking class of the super rich. As the planet was ravaged under the weight of their greed, Earth stripped for parts and poisoned for profit, the people were oddly complacent. Rather, they were forced to be.
Their choices were complacency or death. Most of them died anyway.
By the time enough people woke up to do something about it, all they could do was try to slow the planet's death roll. Even that was met with violence. The elite began to turn humanity against each other, leveraging the resources they had hoarded and destroyed to start conflicts all around the world. Fascism reigned supreme in most places. There was such a thing as terrorism, but that was just about who had the power to declare who a terrorist.
By 2129, all wildlife on Earth was totally extinct. Climate disaster after climate disaster had rendered most of the planet fully uninhabitable. What was technically habitable wouldn't have been as counted such by most 21st century standards. The air was sick, the water poisoned, and it was only a matter of time before the Earth shook humanity off like a gorged tick.
A typical sad story: unchecked capitalism destroys planet Earth.
Graduation ceremonies were still something special though. Even though the number of graduate students at the University of Toronto stood at merely thirty across all fields, graduation was a pretty big deal.
“It is my pleasure to present our Masters program graduates for the class of ’48. Master of Fine Arts, Specializing in Paleontological and Xenobiological Artistry, Gaia James.”
At the sound of her name being called, Gaia’s pulse thundered. This was it – she had done it. She wasn’t sure how she had managed, doubling up her time between grad school and Avatar training for the past three years. She'd had her BA by twenty, and finished her MFA under accelerated programming. No breaks, full course loads, work-work-working until she dropped.
Less than five years to Masters degree felt like cheating. But she had done it.
Nearly leaping out of the wings, Gaia strode across the stage, her dark, ashy blonde curls bouncing behind her in styled splendor. On the holo screen above her was a slideshow displaying her thesis work: a fully rendered collection of past and present Earth fauna, alongside all their more alien counterparts. Bisections of musculature and organs, diagrams of skeletons, breakdowns of the circulatory systems. Living, extinct, and prehistoric, all side by side.
A collection that made it impossible to argue that life on Pandora – all life – had nothing in common with life on Earth.
Pandora, the Earth-like moon, was humanity's last hope. Aside from a few atmospheric challenges, it had everything humanity needed to survive. Sunlight, vegetation, clean soil, a great landscape.
Sure the gravity was a little low, and the air was so high in carbon dioxide that humans would pass out after one minute and die in four, but beggars can't be choosers.
Most fascinatingly to every corporation on Earth though was Pandora's mineral potential. Unobtanium was like lithium on steroids. Everyone wanted a piece of it.
Through their sheer ability to throw money and bodies at a problem, the United States had come out on top via their premiere corporate-government agency: The Resource Development Agency.
The RDA had lead the colonization effort on Pandora from its earliest inception to the first major colony establishment in 2119. They'd lobbied every government on Earth, becoming a truly extrajudicial entity through marketing themselves as the saviours of the human race.
It wasn't long before they owned the entire world. Quite literally. They were looking to make Pandora into a second Earth, complete with coring it out for parts. Promising the elite top spots in the coziest jobs and colonies hadn't hurt their rise to power either.
There was a little hiccup in their plans though. A bump on the road to total, planet-wide domination.
Pandora was populated by a people known as the Na’vi. The Na’vi were a widespread group of bipedal humanoids; Pandora’s human equivalent in every sense of the word. They'd even been named homo pandorus by the first biologists who studied them.
And they, quite understandably, did not enjoy being colonized.
Gaia politely took her diploma from the Dean of Master’s Studies, and shook hands with many of her professors from over the years. Some shared her field of study, others looked on it with disdain, seeing artistry as a lower form of comprehension of their fields. Part paleo-artistry, part xenobiology – she'd needed three departments to agree to letting her sit in on classes for it to work.
Glancing out into the audience, Gaia quickly found the smiling face of her uncle, Cliff. Steel grey eyes, graying black hair, and a face that still looked young, but weathered. People were always surprised when he introduced himself as her father. Not because they knew Gaia didn't have one, but because he looked so young.
Granted, Cliff been in cryo for a total of twelve years, so he technically wasn't as old as he was on paper.
Dr. Cliff James was an anthropologist, and he had literally written the book on early human-Na’vi interactions. He had started as an intern to the first bio-geneticist stationed on Pandora, Dr. Jonathon Wells. They'd been tasked with establishing communication, which was where Cliff came in. He was the one who learned the language first.
The Na’vi were already a subject of fascination to human anthropologists at the time. They had so much in common with Indigenous tribes of the Earth. Yet unlike humans, they seemed to have only one root language that dominated the entire planet. Cliff was the one who realized, and he wanted to know why.
Once Dr. Wells was confident he could move on to a different project, Cliff had taken over fully, slowly piecing together a Na’vi dictionary. From there, he began writing textbooks for the purposes of assisting in a new project.
Dr. Grace Augustine had been a hotshot young scientist when she arrived in 2119, penning the project in hopes of smoothing out their tense diplomatic relations with the Na'vi.
Something visceral. A way for humans to literally walk a mile in Na'vi footsteps.
When she'd proposed the Avatar Program, using cloning technology to create Na'vi-like bodies for humans to wander Pandora in, Cliff had told her she was insane. That it was horrifying – mad science and spiritual sacrilege to the very people she was hoping to reach.
But he'd still helped her. He'd still tested the first batch of Avatars with her and Dr. Wells. A few days in that body, breathing Pandora's air and feeling the earth beneath his feet, and Cliff had completely turned around on the program.
Maybe this was what humanity needed to understand the true value of Pandora: a way to feel it as clearly as the Na'vi did.
Then, in 2126, Gaia had been born to his younger sister. He didn't get the memo until she was six, and he’d tendered his resignation immediately. If anyone knew his sister wasn't mothering material, it was Cliff.
From the moment he got back, Uncle Cliff had helped their mother raise them. Rather, he'd raised them for her, the second she figured out she could dump her kids on him and go chase whatever wealthy man she needed to pay her way next. He'd met Gaia and her younger sister, Leah, at thirteen and ten. By the time Gaia was fourteen, they’d lived with him full-time.
Leah hadn't had it in her to resent their mother for the neglect, but Gaia always had. Three years was a big difference in experience in that unstable dynamic. Leah had looked the most like their mother, Gaia like some father she'd never met, and the whole thing had spiralled from there.
To Gaia, Cliff was her dad, for better or worse. He got them from their mother in their teens and preteens. The hard years. He made sure they never forgot where they came from, even when their grandfather died. He taught them everything he could think to. Gaia had eaten up every bit of it.
He'd paid for Gaia’s education too. There was just enough left for her sister now, thanks to the incredible popularity of Cliff’s books. The RDA had completely funded Cliff’s linguistic research, while letting him maintain the rights to his work. Though it was the UN that had forced their hand in that.
Still, most of what human beings knew about the Na'vi culturally could be credited to him. When Gaia had shown promise in speaking Na'vi, Cliff had suggested she study the animals and plants too.
She fell in love, just like he had all those years ago.
Gaia had drawn her first viperwolf at fifteen. She'd been practicing as an artist since she was a child, and had wanted to try and capture the things that were inspiring her. The scaling was all wrong, no life in the sketch, and she was frustrated she had nothing to tell her how to make it right. She'd studied the anatomy of recently extinct Earth wildlife, but that still hadn't been enough. Then she'd turned to prehistory, and in that, she found a way to understand how it was formed.
She'd been chasing that understanding ever since.
As Gaia stepped off the stage, she broke away from the line of graduates, turning for the back wings to relieve herself of her gown and sash. She needed out; the rentals were itchy and suffocating.
When she stepped into the lobby, Uncle Cliff was already waiting for her.
"Now how did I know you'd make a run for it, Bright Eyes?" he asked teasingly.
Gaia laughed as she crossed the lobby towards him. Cliff called her that because the life in her own grey eyes hadn't quite wained yet. She still had flecks of green and a pupil-tight burst of yellow-brown in them, like moss on mountain stone.
"Because you know me," Gaia replied.
Uncle Cliff opened his arms, sweeping his niece into a tight bear hug, growling playfully to match. Gaia tried to hug him back just as hard, growling in return, but she could never quite get her hugs as big as her uncle's. She was no waifish beauty, muscles toned beneath a layer of soft curves, but Cliff was a mountain of a man. The A-line skirt of her silky wrap dress twirled and fluttered as he rocked her back and forth.
"I should hope so," Cliff said, suddenly releasing her to tut over a curl he'd crumpled, "Now look what I did. I tried not to catch any in there – I'm sorry, mimikej."
"It's okay," Gaia assured him, wrapping it around her finger and squeezing it in her fist, "Give it a second like this. Hairdresser said my hair 'wants to curl', so this should do."
Cliff smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he watched her.
"You sure you don't wanna just skip dinner with your mom? We can go home after you do the blood work at the production lab, if you want. Have some fishcakes? I'm sure the salt cod can come out a day early."
Gaia deflated a little at the mention of their impending dinner engagement.
"She's proud of me," she defended her mother anemically, releasing the repaired curl back into its sprayed state of false freedom, "Besides, she's back on her bullshit about her daughter 'getting a great job on Pandora'. She'll be over me when Leah gets into med school."
Cliff's lips thinned, his eyes bowing in sympathy.
"You know you're an amazing young woman, right?" he said softly, putting his hands on her arms, "Amazing. Anyone with good sense would love you more than anything."
Gaia snorted. "My mom, a tenured professor, doesn't have good sense?"
Cliff scoffed a laugh. "I never said that."
"Mhm," Gaia hummed, nodding, "You know I'm at an age where it's also about what you don't say, right?"
At least he respected her intelligence enough not to try and tell her her mother loved her "in her own way" anymore.
Her uncle gave her a look, though it was undercut by the glimmer of mischief in his eyes. He pulled out a pollution mask and secured it, then handed her hers. They'd crumpled up a little in his pocket, but that was to be expected.
Once she was masked up, Cliff extended his arm like a proper gentleman, and Gaia took his elbow.
"Alright, young lady," Cliff said drolly, "Have it your way. To the production lab, and then, the dragon's keep!"
The laugh that burst out of Gaia was so powerful her eyes watered. Cliff did a silly little skip-step just to make her laugh more, before swinging them around and striding for the double doors.
The evening breeze had blown just enough smog out of the downtown that the constant yellow haze of the city air had calmed somewhat. Walking through the streets, Gaia could almost picture what it might have looked like a hundred years ago. No holo ads plastered across the buildings, less chrome, more wood and stone.
It must have been beautiful.
The RDA's Canadian division building wasn't far from campus, and it was marvellous. Housed in the gutted bones of the Royal Ontario Museum, the windows and lobbies displayed only the most beautiful fossils next to skeletons of Pandoran wildlife – that they swore were recreations only. The company had managed to clone a number of plants from before the extinction ramped up, and paired with the same filtration system they used on Pandora, they kept the whole building's air clean and bright. They'd even put up some of the hardier, more harmless plants from Pandora, grown from cryo-preserved clippings trapped in atmospherically appropriate sealed tanks.
This front was pure marketing, of course. The RDA wanted people to feel safe in their buildings. To pour their hearts, souls, minds, and wallets into their colonization projects.
Gaia's hand gripped Cliff's arm just a little tighter as they walked through the main door. The receptionist looked up at the clicking of Gaia's heels on the marble floors, but she only plastering on a brilliant smile when Cliff took off his mask.
"Dr. James," she greeted him brightly, "Welcome back to RDAC! Are you here to prep for a lecture? I know the board's been asking, but-."
"Uh, no, sorry," Cliff cut her off gently, "I'm just here for my daughter."
The receptionist balked. "I'm sorry, your daughter?"
He tilted his head towards Gaia, and she finally unlocked herself from his elbow, pulling off her mask. She knew people looked down on her here, like they did most of the field researchers. So did Cliff. It's why he used his name and face to push the rank and file around; no one was talking back to the Dr. Cliff James. Not when he was begrudgingly the greatest source of their public success.
"Gaia James." Gaia stated her full name for the receptionist. "I have blood work due in the production lab, and I have my Masters diploma here for my file."
The woman finally unlocked from stillness, eyes shooting down to her holo screen.
"Gaia James…ah! Here we go." The receptionist swiped a card over a little white pad next to her computer, extending it to Gaia. "Third floor, second door on the right, can't miss it."
Gaia gave her a polite smile, before spinning on her heel and heading for the elevator.
"Thank you!" she called over her shoulder as she went.
"I'll wait down here!" Cliff called back, "Text me if you need anything!"
Once the elevator was moving, Gaia finally exhaled. She slumped against the wall for a moment, until the doors slid open again.
And there stood Tom Sully, putting pressure on a cotton ball taped to his inner elbow. Her muscles relaxed a little further.
"Hey, Gaia!" Tommy greeted her, "You headed in too?"
Tommy was a blue-eyed young heartthrob, with the kind of warm smile that made anyone want to spend just a little more time with him. He and their other driver class colleague, Norm Spellman, took care of Gaia during the Avatar Training Program, even though they were all the same age.
Tommy never made Gaia feel like she was dumb or useless when she needed help. He'd have had the right to, with his PhD in Biochemistry being completed just this year, at twenty-two. He made that shit look easy, and he was always explaining things for her. He was patient, consistent, and a really wonderful person. Gaia looked up to him.
Tommy stood back from the elevator door, letting her step out.
Gaia returned his smile. "Hey Tommy! I take it you just finished yours?"
"Unfortunately," he rolled his eyes, "I gotta warn you, that Harrigan guy doesn't have a damn clue what he's doing. I'm gonna be bruised to shit when I get home."
Tommy was about to say something else, until his eyes caught on the black folder in her hand.
Gaia knew exactly what he was talking about.
"Oh, you mean this old thing?" she asked, holding it up.
She wiggled it and herself in a silly little dance. Tommy's face nearly split open as he took it from her to see for himself.
"Yeah, that." He whistled low when he opened it. "'Gaia James, Master of Fine Arts, Paleontological and Xenobiological Artistry'. Damn!"
Tommy pulled her into a hug. Gaia was surprised at first, before returning it. Tommy's hugs were much gentler than Uncle Cliff's, like he thought Gaia was small and soft. It was silly, but it made her feel cared for.
"That's amazing, Gaia!" he cried, pulling back to give her a beaming smile, "Congratulations!"
"Thanks, Tommy," she replied sheepishly, "I couldn't have done any of this without you. Or Norm. But you were actually here a lot of the time, so…"
Tommy's PhD had brought him to U of T because of his thesis on neuro responders related nerve regeneration and regrowth. Toronto had access to some of the best hospitals and research labs left in North America, especially after that oil drilling tsunami took out most of the West Coast. Canada was also one of the few countries left with public healthcare – it was a part of their investment branding with most European countries, so up it stayed. The superiority of their facilities had been painful for him acknowledge as a New Yorker.
Poor Norm had been forced by RDA Ops to relocate his MA in Anthropology there for cost-saving measures, so they could all train at the same facility. Norm went home a lot too. He could do more of his studies remotely than they could, like he had for the past few months. He said he liked Canada though.
"It's as green as the farm in a lot of places still," Norm would say.
Gaia didn't have the heart to tell him that, after spending so much time with extended family in the Atlantic, Toronto was considered a filthy urban wasteland by her standards. At least in Western Newfoundland, they'd still taken some pride in the land. Parts deemed worthless and unsettleable.
"We need to celebrate," Tommy declared, handing the diploma back to her, "Wanna go get dinner? We can go back to my place after, give Normy a call? He'll be jazzed. Would be great to have some time with you before I head home."
"Unfortunately, my uncle is awaiting my presence downstairs," she informed him gravely, "I'm going to have to see my mother for a 'celebratory dinner' of her own."
"Well damn. Guess I missed my shot." Tommy sighed. "That dress is way, way too nice to be wasted on Minerva James."
Tommy knew Gaia's mother wouldn't appreciate it. She'd say it would look better on her younger sister, or that the low cut V of the wrap was "a lot". Gaia would take it to heart, and probably never wear the thing again.
Never mind that the Greeks would have built temples to worship at statues carved in her image.
Gaia twirled excitedly to show off the skirt. "You like it? I could get you one, if you're a fan."
The offer was totally sincere, and that was what made Tommy chuckle.
"I doubt they come in my size," he teased, "But thanks. Want me to head into the lab with you?"
"Sure, come on," Gaia said, heading past him, "Might as well show Harrigan his poor handiwork. And don't be too sad about tonight. We're about to be stuck out in space together for the next seventeen years. Minimum! Though I guess we're only awake for five of them, but still."
Tommy couldn't take his eyes off of Gaia as she walked ahead of him, waves bounce and hips swaying. She had a little struggle with her balance in those heels, but righted herself quickly enough Tommy couldn't quite reach to catch her. He snorted, and she shot him a look over her shoulder. It quickly devolved into snickering.
"Hey, you try walking in these things," she dared, giving him a roguish little smile, "Now that, I'd love to see."
Her hair brushed against his outstretched hand as she turned and strutted on. She smelled like mint and rosemary. Tommy took a deep breath, savouring the soothing scent.
Seventeen years with Gaia James. He couldn't wait.
"Hey, Gaia," he called, eyes softening when she turned back to him again, "I love you."
"I love you too, dumb-ass," she shot back, looking at him strangely, "Now hurry up – my uncle's going to start blowing up my phone if I take too long."
Tommy threw up a tight smile, taking broad steps to walk beside her. He waited for Gaia to slip or struggle again, for the chance to catch her and pull her into his arms. To tell her it wasn't platonic love. That he was in love with her.
I've been so touched by the response this fic has gotten on AO3 (even on TikTok), particularly from my Indigenous brothers and sisters around the world, and wanted to post the first chapter as a preview to my Tumblr. I'm incredibly proud of my work, and I hope anyone who finds it enjoys reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.
