The Starseed Glade
You had sworn never to return here.

The air still shimmered with the ghostly pollen of the sacred flowers—the same cursed blooms you'd fallen into months ago, when the Urge first slithered into your mind. When you'd let yourself believe Jake was dead, his body lost to the war's chaos. When grief had hollowed you into a vessel for something darker.

But now, Jake wasn't dead. And you'd almost killed him.

Your claws retracted with a sickening schlick, the last traces of Urge's crimson aura hissing like steam as you forced him back into the iron-walled prison you'd forged in your psyche. His laughter echoed faintly—You'll tire, little dragon. And I'll be waiting—before silence fell. Your vision cleared, the fiery red haze over your eyes dimming to their usual amber.

Jake lay sprawled at your feet, his chest heaving, a bruise already blooming where your tail had struck him. His gaze locked onto yours, wide and raw, as if you were a mirage. "Y-Y/N?" he choked out, voice frayed. "Is it... you?"

You nodded, the motion stiff. Your Dragonborn form lingered, scales still rippling along your arms, but the transformation was receding—slowly, painfully, like a fever breaking. You crouched, tail coiling for balance, and reached for him. Jake flinched.

The tiny recoil cracked something in your chest.

"I'm sorry," you whispered, the words ash on your tongue. You hadn't wanted him to see you like this—a monster, half-swallowed by the Urge's corruption. Not after the way he'd looked at you in the old days, back when his hands lingered too long on yours during weapons drills, when he'd murmur "Be careful out there" like it meant more. Not after he'd confessed his love in the rain-soaked dark, voice trembling like he'd ripped the words from his soul.

"You're... still in there," Jake breathed, more to himself than you. He sat up, wincing, and dared to brush his fingertips against your scaled knuckles. The touch sent a shockwave through you—a reminder of warmth, of humanity. "How?"

You glanced at the Starseed Glade around you. The flowers glowed faintly, their petals iridescent as crushed starlight. "The Urge needed a host. I was... easy." Your throat tightened. "Grief makes you reckless."

Jake's jaw flexed. "And now?"

"Now I'm angry." You flexed your hands, watching the scales recede further. "Angry enough to cage him. For now."

He huffed a ragged laugh. "Always did have a hell of a temper."

The familiar tease hung between you, fragile as a spider's thread. For a heartbeat, it was almost like before—no war, no Urge, just the two of you trading barbs under a kinder sky. Then Bob screeched overhead, shattering the moment, and Jake's smile faded.

"You shouldn't be alone," he said quietly. "Not with that thing inside you."

You stood, muscles trembling from the fight. "And you shouldn't follow me."

But even as you turned to leave, you felt his gaze like an anchor. And when your footsteps crunched into the forest, his shadow followed—steady, stubborn, and impossibly alive.

SCENEBREAK

You stumbled into the glade, your Dragonborn form flickering like a guttering flame. The air here was cooler, quieter, the hum of the forest muted by a ring of ancient stones. Your veins still pulsed with the Urge's residual heat, scales glinting like shards of obsidian under the twin moons' light. But the transformation was receding—slowly—leaving your skin raw, your breaths ragged.

You whistled, the sound sharp and trembling. Somewhere above, wings snapped taut against the sky.

Your Ikran descended in a whirl of indigo feathers and thunder, her talons gouging the moss as she landed. Sorä. Her name rose in your mind, a relic from a time before the Urge, before the war gnawed holes in your soul. She hissed, fanning her crest, the bioluminescent freckles along her neck flaring crimson—a warning. You didn't blame her. The last time she'd seen you like this, you'd been snarling, half-feral, as the Urge piloted your body like a stolen ship.

"Sorä," you murmured, voice sandpaper-rough. You raised a hand, scales still clinging to your fingers like armor. She recoiled, her pupils thin as blades.

She's used to the old you, you thought. The you who laughed as she dive-bombed jungle rivers, who fed her strips of fish from your palm. The Na'vi warrior, not this... thing with fire in its veins.

You let your claws retract, the scales melting back into skin. It hurt—a thousand needle-pricks—but you leaned into the pain, grounding yourself in its honesty. "It's me, girl," you whispered, stepping closer. Moonlight caught the last traces of iridescence on your arms, turning them to ghostly pearl. "Trust me."

Sorä's nostrils flared, scenting the air. The Urge's stench still lingered, bitter as burnt metal, but beneath it—you. The you who'd saved her from a viperwolf's jaws. The you who'd sung her to sleep after her first hunt.

A low trill rumbled in her throat. Tentative.

You pressed your forehead to hers, ignoring the way your bones ached. "I'm fighting it," you breathed, more vow than statement. Her feathers trembled against your skin. "I'm fighting."

For a heartbeat, the glade held its breath. Then Sorä nudged your shoulder, her crest softening to a gentle violet. You choked back a sob.

In the trees beyond, a branch snapped. Jake stood at the edge of the clearing, his silhouette haloed in starlight. He didn't speak, didn't move—just watched as you buried your face in Sorä's neck, her wings encircling you like a shield.

The Urge stirred, a dull throb in your skull. Pathetic, it sneered. You think this peace will last?

You tightened your grip on Sorä's feathers.
"Watch me," you thought back.

SCENEBREAK

Jake's knees hit the moss before he realized he'd fallen.

Bob lay crumpled at the base of a mangroove tree, his cerulean wings splayed at unnatural angles—one snapped clean near the joint, the other shredded by claw marks that reeked of Urge's malice. The Ikran's breathing came in wet, whistling gasps, his bioluminescent freckles dimmed to a sickly gray. Jake's throat closed. He'd seen Ikran die before, but never his. Never the creature who'd chosen him in the screaming winds of the Hallelujah Mountains, who'd nipped his ear playfully after their first kill.

"Hey there, bud," Jake rasped, voice splintering. He pressed a shaking palm to Bob's heaving flank, feeling the feverish heat beneath the feathers. "I'm here. I'm... shit."

The Ikran chirped weakly, a sound that had once been a thunderous war cry. His head twitched, nosing blindly toward Jake's leg, as if seeking the familiar weight of his rider's touch. Jake's vision blurred. He'd been too slow. Too busy staring at you—at the flicker of hope that you'd clawed your way back from the Urge—to notice Bob's wings snagging on the razor-vines during the fight.

"Sorry," Jake choked out, fingers carding through Bob's crest feathers, matted with sap and blood. "Sorry I let you down like that. Should've seen—"

Bob's tail thumped once, a feeble protest. Not your fault, that tap seemed to say. Or maybe Jake was just desperate to believe it.

You hovered at the edge of the clearing, your Dragonborn form fully shed now, though ash still clung to your skin like a second shadow. "Jake," you started, but he didn't look up. Couldn't.

"He can't fly," Jake muttered, more to himself. He traced the jagged break in Bob's primary wing, the bone jutting through cobalt skin. "Can't hunt. Can't—"

Live, hung unspoken.

Ikran didn't survive grounded. They starved slowly, pride refusing handouts, or they threw themselves off cliffs to reclaim the sky one last time. Jake's stomach turned. He bent his forehead to Bob's, their tsaheylu bond long severed by the Urge's earlier assault, but the ghost of it lingered—a phantom ache where their minds had once touched.

"You listen to me," Jake growled, thumbs smoothing the quivering ridges above Bob's eyes. "We're fixin' this. Hear me?"

Bob wheezed, his slit pupils dilating in a way Jake recognized—pain, but also trust. Always trust.

You stepped closer, a roll of healing herbs in hand. "The Metkayina," you said quietly. "Their bone menders. They could... maybe..."

Jake's head snapped up. The sea clans were a week's ride, and Bob hated water. But the Ikran's chest hitched again, a wet rattle that sounded like a countdown.

"Help me splint the wings," Jake ordered, already shrugging off his belt. "Now."

You crouched, and begun to sing. 

The lullaby spilled from your lips before you realized you'd begun—a melody your mother had hummed as she mended nets under the shadow of Hometree, her voice as steady as roots digging deep. You hadn't sung it since the Urge slithered into your skull. But now, as Bob thrashed under Jake's trembling hands, the notes rose unbidden, raw and frayed at the edges.

Sorä answered first. Your Ikran pressed her muzzle to your shoulder, harmonizing in low, resonant pulses that vibrated through your bones. The sound seemed to ripple the air, stirring the bioluminescent pollen clinging to Bob's feathers. Jake froze, fingers still braced against the splinted wing, as the fractured bone beneath began to glow.

"Skxawng," he breathed.

You kept singing, the Na'vi words weaving through the ancient tune like vines:
"Rise, child of the wind, let the stars kiss your wounds.
The sky waits, patient and hungry.
Rise."

Bob's hiss softened into a warble. The jagged tear in his wing knit itself seam by seam, veins threading with gold light as muscle rewove and feathers regrew, sleek and iridescent as new ink. Jake's hands fell away, trembling, as the Ikran shuddered upright with a guttural cry, his crest flaring electric blue once more.

You swayed, suddenly dizzy. The song had pulled something from you—a thread of warmth coiled behind your ribs, now gone slack. Urge stirred in his cage, seizing the weakness. Showoff, he sneered. You think a pretty song fixes what you broke?

You shut him out.

"There you are, little one," you murmured, stepping forward. Bob arched his neck, sniffing your palm, before butting his head roughly against your chest. A greeting—and a reproach. You scratched the ridge above his eye, guilt sour on your tongue. "Sorry."

Jake hadn't moved. He stared at Bob's healed wings like they'd been peeled back from a dream. "How?" he said finally, voice scraped thin.

You hesitated. The truth clawed at your throat: the song was a fragment of the Urge's stolen magic, a shred of power you'd wrestled into something kind. But Jake's eyes held that fragile, shattered hope again, and you couldn't bear to smother it.

"The Metkayina weren't the only ones with healers," you said vaguely. Sorä huffed, sensing the half-lie.

Jake stood, slow, as if the ground might vanish beneath him. For a heartbeat, his gaze flickered to your hands—still faintly scaled at the knuckles—then to Bob, whole and preening. "You saved him," he said, the words weighted with something deeper. You came back.

You glanced away. The clearing hummed with aftermath, the forest holding its breath.

"Don't thank me yet," you said. "The bone's mended, but he needs rest. A week without flight. Maybe two."

Jake snorted. "Try tellin' him that."

Bob squawked, nipping Jake's shoulder, and the tension splintered into something almost like laughter. Almost like before.

But as you turned to leave, Urge's whisper followed, venomous and sweet:
He'll never trust you. Not really.
Not while I'm here.

You clenched your still-glowing palms.

Watch him, you thought.