Avatar: A lost survivor on Pandora

"Good afternoon class.", an old man with greying blond hair and rectangular glasses said with a warm smile to a class of kids between the ages of four and seven years old who stopped talking all at once the moment he entered the room.

"Good, if you stay calm, participate, and work well, I might end the class earlier or… Or possibly even give sweets to the most astute one of this group.", cheers were heard after those words.

With a simple hand gesture, all quieted down as he asked, "Today's class will be focused on English but first does anyone want to help my failing memory by graciously giving me the date?"

A four-year-old Na'vi wearing an exopack on his face lifted his hand with palpable excitement, almost jumping from his chair, and with an affirmative nod of the old man he knew he could speak. 

He wasn't the only one to have done so, he was just the one that stood out the most in the small group and so he was chosen by the teacher, a female Avatar of roughly the same age huffed in annoyance as it wasn't her chosen, the five-year-old human boy seated next to her swallowed a chuckle at that earning a small glare from her.

"Mister Edmund! It's Friday of Mark hm Marth eight of-of the year 2159… ", the boy said pensively with a thick accent as he counted his fingers to make sure he was correct and didn't count wrong.

"That is correct Neteyam, bravo.", Edmund praised the son of the Omatikaya Olo'eyktan and before he could open his mouth again the Avatar girl lifted her hand.

"Mister Langford, can I write the date on the holoboard, please…?", Kiri asked almost hesitantly after the teacher acknowledged her. 

Many were visibly annoyed that she managed to get it first which made a small smile appear. The human boy next to her, Miles, dramatically rolled his eyes at that.

"Indeed Kiri, you may proceed to do so.", Edmumd said as a large holographic screen came to life behind him, picking up her stylus she began to write on her table.

As she did so her writing appeared in the upper right part of the holoboard showing her exceptionally good penmanship for someone her age some would even say for her species but that they would never say it out loud. 

It would bring the wrath of very important people such as her mother, and godfather who for the latter was always listening, always ever knowing each word in the base for him to know.

And so the first class of the day for the four to six-year-old group at the Community Schools began. The English class was around an hour long and done with the interests of the students in mind, kids needed to be interested, and Edmund Langford was very experienced in that domain as he was a father of three and grandfather of seven back on Earth. 

After this there was a short pause then Edmund switched the subject to mathematics but it was done in Na'vi orally as being bilingual was not an option but a necessity here. 

Sometimes it was in English or sometimes it was in Na'vi. Starting to use both languages from a young age was one of the best methods to make the future generation accept the others better, at least on paper but a start needed to be somewhere.

It was far from easy for the kids but each teacher was chosen specifically for this task after having volunteered and passed a dozen sets of tests made by Grace, she was intransigent on who she deemed possessing the aptitude for this job.

The school was not a building on itself but the revamped inhabited Habmod of Hell's Gate, plenty of plants were added with paint and in general modified to be a cozy area where nobody would feel uneasy or worse trapped. 

So when the class ended the entire group of children walked out into the common living space of this mod where many people could be seen from humans to Na'vi wearing exopacks to breathe properly in the recycled air of the base, but the natives of this moon was in the single digit.

Miles followed Kiri who was happily munching on a lollipop and stopped moving as he saw John McCosker, the son of Mary and Nash McCosker being taken into a big hug by his father.

Nash hadn't seen his son in the flesh for the last two months as he passed them hard at work on one of the many mines of the smallest moon orbiting close to Pandora, so the hug for John was almost too strong.

Miles felt a pang of jealousy had the sight, more accurately what it represented but it was very short-lived, he had better he thought. Then he made a brief eye contact with his supposed adopted mother Mary whose gaze instantly shifted up to the ceiling as if in shame of herself.

If he was older he would have seen conflicting emotions in her features and more but he wasn't so he didn't understand. For him… He could but see that she didn't like him, she felt shame in his presence and he was fine with that, he didn't like her very much either.

*CUPLA INQUIRE WITH CONFUSION: MILES.*

A robotic voice snapped him back to reality as he gazed up to see an animal similar in body shape to an otter and as long as he was tall hovering one meter above the ground thanks to a set of rotor blades growing from its metallic back, its head with its head plate flaring out slightly in confusion.

"Cupla!", he shouted in joy, his mood doing a full turn for the better as he ran up to the hovering alien otter, Kiri throwing the lollipop stick in a bin followed after him but her target was the slinger behind.

*CUPLA SAY WITH HAPPINESS: MILES*

The otter declared again, that it was not a sound produced by any of its biological functions, it was through a micro microphone around its neck that used a voice box containing hundreds of words and sentences for many situations. 

The otter didn't understand all of them but it was trying its best, it was very smart to the point of self-awareness like all of Liam's tames and Cupla was very high on that list of intelligence for its age. 

Considering in the wild its species used tools with its thumbs on nimble hand-like paws, and they were very small, highly social, swift, and agile predators in a hyper-competitive environment it made sense this species was naturally gifted in the intelligence departments, it was their only true advantage over others.

Since Liam adopted and tamed it three years ago it grew both mentally and physically and was cybernetically augmented thereby leading to it being able to hover and breathe here by miniaturized machines functioning in a way similar to exopacks that were added to its operculum and more. 

Cupla was the first subject under the Lost Child hands and the All-Mother roots to have been augmented with various inorganic additions for it to live a better life. None of this the otter understood but one thing was for sure it was very happy with the result, it could swim, fly, and crawl everywhere it wanted or needed.

Arvok looking from the side sighed as he saw the two kids fussing over the two abnormal animals he waved goodbye to the other handful of adult Na'vi as they had already finished herding the rudy Na'vi children in a group.

Netyam, one of the last to be 'herded' waved goodbye to both Miles and Kiri which they answered in their own way, one nodded and the other waved back. The firstborn son of Neytiri and Jake was their friend.

The way Na'vi acted was a drastic discrepancy from the humans who stayed together doing small talk with one another. It didn't mean there weren't positive interactions between the two species, the opposite.

It was because the Na'vi didn't have a lot of time on their hands right now, traveling into the jungle when it was going to be nightfall was far from being a good idea.

This was even more the case when it was with a bunch of children who lacked any sense of self-preservation and would not hesitate a second to walk away after having some pretty light that would be the lure of a carnivorous plant.

Infantile death was not common but neither was it considered rare in their society due to Pandora's biosphere, Na'vi were an integral part of the food web, Eywa was fair and saw all lives as a part of the cycle.