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A deep, heaving breath filled my spongy, human lungs with conscious oxygen for the first time in months. My hand, alabaster and clammy, grips to the mask on my face. I slide out from my body pod, a cold sweat trickling down my back.
We were in battle and my avatar body, the body I felt more connected to than the one I was born into, had taken trauma damage. The muscles along the side of my neck flare into a tight tension headache. I can still remember the feeling of a bullet tearing through my once-blue skin. I pray to Eywa that Tsu'tey can return me to my body, that it can survive the repair.
My ashen hair is matted to my forehead in a combination of sweat and near neglect to the human body that used to be my own. My joints ache and creak when I drop my feet to the floor, muscles and body soft from disuse or practice.
The gown I wear reeks of my own humanity. I endure the foreign feeling of my body weight shifting to my thick ankles. I take one step, then two, pudgy hands unfolding my glasses to press them onto my face. My pupils adjust.
I can see the fighting happening; the ships and mountain banshees, the bullets and bows. Even if my soul came from Earth, I knew it was us against them. I feel sick. Tsu'tey is on a pa'li, I can see him along the tree line where we've hidden our pod, and the sight of him has my heart soaring. Unlike the men on Earth, Tsu'tey only has his heart set for me. We first met when he spotted my avatar body, so different from the human one I inhabit now, working as a specialist rank with the military as an emotional adjustment co-manager when I could finally step foot into Pandora's atmosphere without an oxygenator.
Two years and our love has only grown. The cerulean body on the back of his pa'li is as much his as it is mine. The bearer of our children, the connection I had to my mountain banshee, my pa'li, Eywa. The soft, dry, pale human body I returned to disgusted me even if I knew Tsu'tey could love me in any form. He rode to the large window at the front of the pod, where he could see me. and dismounted without taking his eyes off of me.
"Tori," I could see him mouth to me, the sound muffled almost beyond comprehension. Tori Taylor, I was once known as. The attempt borught tears to my eyes. when we both rushed to meet at the glass.
Despite the firefight going on behind him, Tsu'tey's senses were focused on my human body where my consciousness currently resided. I wobble towards him, pressing an atrophied hand to the glass where his own dwarfs mine from the other side. He makes me feel small, he takes care of me, no matter which body I'm residing in. I know he would kill for out family. Our eyes are locked together, we can both feel it.
We didn't know if we were going to win. We didn't know if I could ever escape this body again. We didn't know if we would see the children I'd birthed from my true body ever again. Just like when I left Pennsylvania, I didn't know if we were ever going to see home again. All that we had was this minute, my hand over his, and inch of glass between us, tears streaming down our face, knowing it would be enough because I got to see him one last time.