"So I heard you got the tracker out." Quaritch told Alva who had once again been forced to come back to the base for a check-up, only this one wasn't even in the medical area of the avatar parts of the base, thus one was in the hangar they used for the big planes and machines that couldn't fit in the smaller one. She had been forced to wear a Na'vi sized mask that pressed against her face uncomfortably.

Alva nodded and grinned. "Sure did, got it out on my own and everything."

He rolled his neck sideways, making it let out a series of loud cracks that made Alva want to wince and shake her wrists. Never had Quaritch made her feel this way, before he used to feel like the friendly neighborhood dog that occasionally barked at you but now he felt like the neighborhood dog that everyone told you to stay away from and that had escaped several times and had bit the children, only this time he was after her.

Alva stared at him, eyes threatening to turn vacant and thoughts jumbling together as they raced around in her crowded head.

"That's not good, Alva. We put the tracker there to keep you safe." He paced in front of her. "Now I'm afraid we'll have to take more...drastic measures if you're not willing to cooperate peacefully with our...prefered methods." Quaritch stared up at her, rubbing his chin and sending her a regretful glance.

"I will not be caged by anybody. Eywa will protect me." She mumbled and placed a hand above her heart, feeling the way her skin was turning clammy and heart beating faster.

"Eywa won't do shit and you know it. She didn't save you when we put a tracker in you." He pointed out and spun around on his feet, walking away to his desk.

Alva shook her wrist so she could hear the calming clinging and clicking of her bracelets and rings. Her eyes kept dancing around the room and she could feel herself space off, her head drifting into the clouds and heart slowing down. "Eywa works in ways you could never imagine." She sighed like one of those nicotine addicts that just took a big dose of it after being left without it for far too long.

"You know I heard about a tradition the Sami people up in Scandinavia used to do to their reindeers." He replied, spinning a knife on the edge of a small desk that had been pushed up to a big wall and being dwarfed by the big plane that stood there. "They round them all up after the small ones reach a...certain age and then they mark them, cut their ears in their specific mark. Isn't it beautiful, a cut and then they would forever belong to you."

She shivered at the thought of harming an animal but even she understood the metaphor and where he was going with it, but she knew she couldn't leave. All she could do was take it with a smile and hope that Eywa would somehow save her from it even though she knew she had to make it out on her own. Quaritch was no match for Alva but now wasn't his time, he still had a role to play in the big battle for her home, for Pandora and for their way of life.

"Sounds horrible." She commented and stroked a ring clad finger down her thigh.

"Oh no, they barely feel it." Quaritch chuckled and sheathed the knife in his thigh holder, crossing his arms as he smirked up at the Avatar driver before him. "They let them roam free in the north but they always came to collect when the time was due, and they made sure the reindeers were in their territories. An animal thinking they were free but still being watched over and controlled."

A fire lit inside of her, she would never be caged, she would never be kept by anything or anyone. Her freedom went above all of it. Those who tried to cage her would burn, burn in the fires of Eywa and of her undying anger. Alva would never let herself be caged again now that she knew freedom, now that she knew what it was like to live she could never go back.

"Why did you do it?" He asked her, eyes curious but shimmering with twisted satisfaction.

"Because I want to be free." She breathed out and slumped against the wall she was sitting against. Her head hit the wall but she didn't mind the sharp pang of pain it shot through her skill, if anything it helped ground her more to the moment and allow her to be more focused on the man watching her with ill intent. Alva's eyes shot to his leg where the sharp knife he previously dangled was resting and just waiting to be drawn again.

He hummed and rested his scarred hand over the holster before leaning his hip on the desk, turning his sharp eyes to her. "Freedom." His fingers ghosted the strap keeping the knife locked. "I like you Alva, which is why we let you run off with that million dollar body with only a tracker. The natives seems to like you too." He popped the button on the strap, still keeping his eyes on her even as hers widened and unconsciously reached for her ears.

"And I like them." She defiantly raised her chin and stared him down. "They are my people just as I am theirs." Alva stroked a finger down one of her stripes before glancing up at him again. He was smirking at her, eyes lit with sadistic pleasure.

"Then you understand why we can't let you run free, don't you? Especially with that...mental condition you have." He took ahold of the handle of the knife and drew it slowly, watching Alva's eyes follow the motion as more and more shining silver was revealed.

"One day a reckoning will come for you, Quaritch." Alva swore passionately and refused to let her eyes avert from the deadly weapon he was handling, already knowing where this was going and preparing for it. "One day Eywa will strike those that harm her children down and I will stand there amongst the people watching you slowly die." She giggled and let her fingers ghost her right ear, feeling the nerves twitch as she pressed down on them.

Quaritch growled, "is that a threat?"

"Not at all." She leaned forward, tilting her head and smiling, closing her eyes with an airy sigh. "It's a promise." She whispered and opened her eyes again, squinting them and showing her sharp canines.

"Very well." He sighed and spun the knife around in his hand once before gripping it hard enough to turn his knuckles white from the pressure. "There is only one thing left to do before you can go back to your savages." Quaritch's eyes followed her every move as he stalked towards her, swaggering and grinning. "One last order of business."

"One last order of business." She agreed and tilted her head to the side, angling it so her right ear was more easily accessible. "Will it hurt?" Alva asked him with wide, innocent eyes.

"Yes." Quaritch responded and stopped just a few steps away from her sitting form. "For a few seconds and then you'll be good as new."

She hummed and traced a small circle of luminescent dots. "That's good. Eywa won't forget this, Quaritch. I hope you remember that for when your reckoning comes." Alva grinned at him, showing too much teeth for it to be a genuine one. "What are you going to do to me?" Alva asked though she already knew the answer, if anything she wanted confirmation of his soon-to-be unforgivable deed.

"I'm going to mark you like the sami did to their reindeers." The words felt cold and harsh against her but she embraced them knowing that they would only bring fear if she didn't.

Cold steel touched her ear but she didn't flinch. She hummed the song of her sister, of her journey and her leaving. Her bracelets clicked with the beat as she felt Quaritch trace her upper ear with the knife, observing her with a face set in cold stone.

"May Eywa strike you down." She calmly responded and twisted one of her rings around her finger, thinking up a memory of her mother dancing around in the plains that would later be painted red with her blood.

"She'll have to get in line." He responded and she saw a glimpse of regret flash through his eyes that she embraced before she felt the first sharp cut of the knife and warmth flowing down the side of her face.

Alva felt a sharp pain travel through her body, lighting them on fire as he carved through the nerves that went there but she kept humming, channeling her ancestors for strength against the pain. She hit a high note that wavered as he dropped a piece of her ear on the ground as if it was trash. Alva watched it fall, the piece of skin coated in her blood and watching it spread it over the floor as it rolled around on it.

She whimpered as another wave of pain set in but she didn't stop humming. He continued to carve into her ear and all she saw was blood, it dropped onto her shaking fingers and down to the floor, it painted her right side of her face red and her bare shoulders were an artwork of scarlet and contrasting blue.

An image of Tsu'tey popped into her mind, he was grinning at her, shaking his head like he always did. They were at her tree, watching the sun go down, hearing the calls of ikran echoing all around them as they basked in the orange and pink lightning. They had their tails entwined and Kida lounged under the tree peacefully. Alva grinned and placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling the warm, soft skin there before letting it fall down.

"You're not real." She told him, watching him frown and reach for her hand again. "But that's okay, one day this will be us." Alva gestured to them and the forest all around them, her face was sparkling with happiness but she could still feel the pangs of pain from the real world, threatening to pull her back to reality any second. "I will see you soon, 'Sey, we'll be matching."

She sighed and forced herself away from the blissful image her mind had thought up, watching Tsu'tey and the tree melt away and the steely grey of Hell's Gate take its place. Smaller parts of her ear laid on the floor but most of the blood on her hands had dried, except for the blood dripping from crescent marks she had made in her palm.

Alva looked up at Quaritch, through the blood laying thickly on her eyelashes and through the hate and anger that wanted to break free but never would. His face was set in stone, even his eyes, and his motions were short, careful and precise, never cutting where he didn't have to. She couldn't see her ear but she knew it was different, knew it was now marked by Quaritch permanently.

He stepped away from her after one more, burning cut and a small piece of skin flapping from her ear. The blade of the knife was dripping steadily with her blood and to the blood splattered floor. His hands were steady, not a hint of tremor or shakiness to them even after marking her like an animal.

"Wasn't so bad, was it?" He asked her and let the knife fall to the desk, making it let out a metallic clunk when it hit the surface.

Alva didn't respond. She reached up to touch her mutilated ear, feeling the areas where she used to have skin that was now cut away or torn. Blood pooled on her fingers but she didn't care. Her motions got quicker, more rapid as she tried to understand what he had done to her. Alva's eyes flashed to the floor where parts of her ear was carelessly thrown, pieces that used to be attached to her but was now cold and lifeless.

"Do you have a mirror?" She asked him slowly, a tired grin barely able to tug her lips.

She heard him looking through some of the drawers before she saw a small mirror being stretched her way. Alva thanked him and softly grabbed it, seeing how her blood tainted the white handle of it. She raised it and then smiled when she saw her ear.

Alva laughed and tilted her head, knowing that if she didn't laugh she would cry. She felt nauseous as she regarded her new ear. He had taken a big portion of the centre of her upper ear, a circular form and then dug from that upwards and made a straight line. The cuts oozed blood that dripped down on her shaking hands but it didn't bother her. Alva forced herself to hum softly, shaking her ankle to give her a soothing, slow beat. He had made a cross-like sign on the bottom of the circle he had made, crooked and uneven but it was clear what it was supposed to resemble. He had made a few random cuts along the side of it that went just a bit inside of it.

"Is this your mark?" She asked him with tears in her eyes as she let the mirror fall to the ground, hearing the glass shatter and fall around her ear and blood. "Is this the price of freedom?"

"Yes." He answered her and begun to walk away. "Now we will always know it's you."

She gulped and placed a bloody hand over her even bloodier ear. "If this is the price for freedom then I accept it." Alva shot back even though Quaritch had walked out of the big hangar. The dreamwalker chuckled and fell back to the wall, feeling the aftershocks of the cut coarse through her body. "I swear to you Quaritch that when the reckoning comes I will be the last face you ever see, and that Eywa will reject your spirit from ever entering her paradise." Blood had formed a river down her chin and she licked it after making her promise, swearing it by blood.