The morning light was a blade—cold, clinical, slicing through the fog of half-remembered dreams. You woke not to the rustle of jungle canopy or the murmur of the clan, but to the sterile hum of machinery and the acrid tang of antiseptic. The cryo chamber's glass lid hissed open, releasing a plume of vapor that curled like phantom wings before dissipating. Your temples throbbed, a deep, rhythmic ache that pulsed in time with the memory of Neytiri's fractured whisper. You lied.

Jake's wheelchair creaked as he leaned forward, his human face pale under the fluorescent glare of the lab. Shadows pooled beneath his eyes, the toll of straddling two worlds etched into every line. "Are you alright?" he asked, voice gravelly with a night spent monitoring feeds, his gaze sharp despite the fatigue.

You nodded, swinging your legs over the edge of the chamber. The floor was icy against your bare feet, a shock that grounded you as your tail lashed once—an involuntary flick of agitation. Its white scales caught the light, iridescent as moonstone, and you saw Jake's eyes track the movement. "Yeah," you muttered, shrugging on a loose tunic that did little to hide the ridges of scales along your spine. "Don't worry."

He didn't blink. "You talked to Neytiri before we fell asleep. Why?"

The question hit like a sniper's shot. You flinched, claws retracting slightly as your wings—usually folded tight, hidden beneath a membrane of illusion—twitched against your back. The lab's air filtration system whirred, but you could still smell it: the faintest trace of smoke clinging to your skin, a telltale ember of your true nature.

"She asked me about... this," you said, gesturing vaguely at yourself. The gesture was too broad, too raw. Your claws glinted as they swept through the air, and Jake's gaze followed, narrowing at the sight of your teeth—sharp, predator-sharp—as you spoke.

For a heartbeat, the room felt too small. The monitors beeped, the sound syncopated with your heartbeat. Jake's jaw tightened, his hands gripping the wheels of his chair as if anchoring himself. "You didn't answer her, did you?" he said, not a question but an accusation. "You're playing with fire, kid. The Na'vi don't forgive deception. Not from outsiders. Especially not from someone who's supposed to be one of them."

You turned away, tail curling defensively around your leg. Through the lab's reinforced window, Pandora's jungle loomed, vibrant and untamed, a living counterpoint to the cold steel around you. Somewhere out there, Neytiri was waiting. Tomorrow, you'd promised.

"I'll handle it," you said, your voice steadier than you felt.

Jake snorted. "Handle it? You're walking around with wings, for Christ's sake. How long did you think you could hide that?"

The truth clawed at your throat. Not wings. Not just wings. Dragon. A word too heavy, too ancient, for this sterile human world. You opened your mouth—to confess, to deflect—but the lab door hissed open.

A technician bustled in, clipboard in hand, oblivious to the tension. "Scheduled systems check," she chirped, already tapping at a console.

Jake held your gaze a moment longer, his expression unreadable, before rolling back with a sigh. "This isn't over," he muttered, low enough that only you could hear.

You didn't reply. The jungle called, its chorus of trills and growls a siren song. Steeling yourself, you strode toward the airlock, your tail leaving faint scorch marks on the tile where it dragged. Behind you, the technician yelped, scrambling to douse the smoldering streaks with a fire extinguisher.

Jake's laughter followed you out—dry, humorless. "Yeah. Real subtle."

Outside, the world breathed again. Sunlight filtered through the leaves in dappled gold, and the air tasted of dew and decay. But the peace was an illusion. Somewhere in the green shadows, Neytiri waited. And she deserved more than half-truths smoldering in your wake.

SCENEBREAK

The lab's fluorescent lights buzzed like angry insects, casting a sterile pallor over the training mats where Jake lay panting, his human legs trembling as he attempted another lift. You hovered nearby, hands half-raised as if to steady him, though your focus was fractured—a thousand miles away in the tangled roots of the Home Tree, where Neytiri's wounded gaze still haunted the shadows. Grace's training regimen had always been brutal, a relentless gauntlet of weights and resistance bands designed to shock atrophied muscles back into service. But today, the clatter of dumbbells and Norm's upbeat coaching felt distant, muffled, as though you were watching it all through water.

Your human body—the one you'd neglected for years, the one that should've been a withered husk after decades in cryo—was annoyingly intact. Grace had marveled at it during your first assessment, her scanner pausing over unblemished tissue, pristine bone density. "Like you never left," she'd muttered, suspicion sharp in her tone. You'd shrugged it off. Dragonborn didn't decay. They endured.

But Jake wasn't Dragonborn. His legs, pale and twitching under the strain of a simple leg press, were a map of scars and wasted potential. You'd taken to spotting him during these sessions, your grip firm on his shoulders as he grunted through reps, his sweat soaking into the mat. Normally, you'd crack a joke—something about his "old man muscles" or the irony of Toruk Makto needing a spotter. Today, you stayed silent.

Norm noticed. Of course he did. His eyes darted between you and Grace, his nervous laughter a little too loud as he adjusted Jake's weights. "C'mon, Marine, five more!" he urged, but the words rang hollow. When you drifted to the corner of the room, peeling open a protein bar with claws you'd forgotten to retract, Grace finally snapped.

She cornered you by the hydration station, her arms crossed, a stray curl of auburn hair escaping her braid. The scent of her coffee—bitter, human, wrong after months of Pandoran nectar—hit your nostrils as she leaned in. "Okay, spill it," she said, her voice low but edged like a scalpel. "What happened last night? You look like you haven't slept, and you're missing your usual... spark, Y/N."

The protein bar turned to ash in your mouth. You forced a swallow, your throat burning. "Just tired," you mumbled, crumpling the wrapper into a tight ball. A tiny flame licked at your palm, incinerating it before you could think to stop.

Grace's eyes narrowed. "Bullshit. You've been 'tired' since we thawed you. This is different." She jabbed a finger at your chest, where the fabric of your tank top clung damply. "You're smoldering. Literally."

You glanced down. Sure enough, tendrils of smoke curled from the hem of your shirt, the edges singed. A nervous habit, one you'd thought you'd buried. "It's nothing," you said, too quickly.

"Nothing?" Grace barked a laugh, drawing Jake and Norm's attention. "Kid, you've been helping us for weeks without so much as a sunburn. Now you're setting your clothes on fire? Talk."

The command hung in the air, sharp and unyielding. You glanced at Jake, who'd propped himself up on his elbows, his brow furrowed. Norm hovered awkwardly, a towel in hand, looking torn between concern and the urge to flee.

They'll find out eventually, a voice hissed in your mind—the ancient, coiled thing that lived in your marrow. Better to burn them now than let them drown in lies.

But you weren't ready. Not here, in this cold, bright tomb of human ambition. Not with Neytiri's betrayal still raw.

"Later," you gritted out, sidestepping Grace. "I'll explain later."

She blocked your path, her stance wide, unflinching. "Try 'now.'"

The air between you crackled. Somewhere deep in the compound, an alarm blared—a distant, wailing thing. Jake cursed, heaving himself into his wheelchair. "Grace, maybe back off—"

"No." Grace didn't look away from you. "You've been hiding something since day one. And whatever it is, it's eating you alive." Her voice softened, just a fraction. "We can't help if you don't let us in."

For a heartbeat, you almost did. The words clawed at your ribs, desperate as fledgling wings. Dragonborn. Cursed. Alive when I should be dust.

But then your Na'vi ears—hidden beneath a human glamor, another lie—twitched at the sound of footsteps echoing down the hall. Heavy, rhythmic. Security boots.

"Dr. Augustine!" A guard skidded into the room, rifle strapped to his back, face flushed. "We've got a situation at the perimeter gate. A Na'vi—female, armed. Says she's here for Y/N."

Your heart stalled.

Neytiri.

Grace whirled on you, her eyes blazing. "Care to explain that?"

The room tilted. Somewhere beyond the compound's walls, a storm brewed—a real one, this time, the sky bruising purple as thunder rolled in from the mountains. You could smell the ozone, the electric charge of it mingling with the scent of rain and iron.

And beneath it all, faint but unmistakable: the acrid tang of fear.

"I'll handle it," you said, brushing past her, your scales rippling to the surface as the glamor slipped.

Jake's gasp followed you out. "What the hell—?"

But you were already running, the fire in your veins roaring to life.

SCENEBREAK

The storm cracked open above you as Neytiri turned, rain slashing sideways in the gale, her braids whipping like furious serpents. The guard beneath her writhed, gasping, his face mottled with terror and the bruising grip of her hands. Lightning seared the sky, and in its flash, you let the glamor unravel completely.

Your wings tore free first—vast, membranous things veined with gold, their edges serrated like blades. Scales erupted across your skin, molten copper and obsidian, hissing as the rain struck them, steam curling into the charged air. Your claws elongated, digging furrows into the mud, and when you breathed, embers glowed in the back of your throat, painting the downpour in fleeting orange light.

"Neytiri," you growled, the word reverberating with a timbre no fully Na'vi voice could muster. "Stop."

She froze. The guard scrambled backward, crab-walking through the mud until his back hit the electrified fence, its hum drowned by thunder. For a heartbeat, the world held its breath. Then Neytiri rose, slow and deliberate, her eyes never leaving yours.

"Y/N," she breathed. Her bow lay discarded a few feet away, the arrowhead still glinting with venom. "You... you are ikran and toruk together. More."

"Yes." You forced the fire in your chest to bank, though your tail lashed behind you, scorching the earth. "This is the real me. I am Dragonborn. A child of ash and sky."

Her nostrils flared, drinking in the scent of you now—charred wood, molten stone, the primal musk of a predator. Her father's stories hung between you like ghosts: tales of winged demons who scorched forests, whose roars split mountains. Extinct, he'd said. Purged by Eywa's wrath.

"Lies," she whispered, though her voice wavered. "My father said your kind were dead. That you devoured your own world before seeking ours."

A bitter laugh rumbled in your chest, sparks dancing from your lips. "Half-truths. My ancestors were... flawed. But we are not all fire and teeth." You took a step forward, the ground sizzling beneath your claws. "I did not choose this blood, Neytiri. It chose me."

The compound alarms blared suddenly, red lights staining the rain. Behind you, human shouts erupted as Grace, Jake, and a squad of armed guards spilled from the airlock. Rifles clicked, safeties off.

"Stand down!" Grace barked, though whether to you or the humans, it wasn't clear.

Neytiri's ears flattened. In one fluid motion, she snatched her bow and nocked an arrow, the tip aimed at your heart. Your own Na'vi instincts screamed to dodge, to fight, but you held still, wings spread wide in surrender.

"Do it," you said softly. "If you believe I'm a monster."

Her hands shook. The arrow's poison gleamed.

"Neytiri, don't!" Jake roared, his wheelchair skidding to a halt in the mud.

But it was Grace who stepped into the line of fire, her hands raised. "Whatever you think you know—stop. This isn't the way."

Neytiri's gaze flickered between them, the rain plastering her hair to her face. When she looked back at you, her eyes were wet—or maybe it was the storm. "You hid this," she said, voice breaking. "You let me... trust you."

The arrow clattered to the ground.

Before anyone could move, she closed the distance between you, her hand hovering over the scales along your jaw. Heat radiated from your skin, enough to blister, but she didn't flinch. "Your fire," she murmured. "Does it hurt?"

"Only when I hold it in," you admitted.

A guard shifted, his rifle rising. Neytiri's head snapped toward him, a feral snarl tearing from her throat. "Touch him, and I burn your metal nest to the ground!"

Silence fell, save for the drumming rain.

Then, slowly, she pressed her palm to your chest, over the ember-hot heart pounding beneath. "Show me," she demanded. "Show me what a Dragonborn is."

You exhaled, and the world ignited.