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GRACE: Gawwd!! What a day. I need to get: some rack. I recommend you do the: same. Village life starts early.
Josh is reeling. That's it? "What a day"? He realizes he's lost all sense of what they are doing here, if he ever had it.
Grace crashes down onto her bunk with a mighty groan. He pulls himself out of his chair and into his bunk. A beat. Then...
GRACE: You did good today, Josh. Really: good. I'm proud of you.
THE NEXT MORNING Josh awakens early to hear Grace talking to Giese at the base. Giese is saying that Selfridge is cutting off their work. After the crash he can't spare a ship to ferry them around every day. And Quaritch is pissed off about losing another man. They are being recalled.
Grace tells him to forget about the sampling up in the mountains, they're onto something. They're in the Tsumongwi village, and Josh has made friends with the Patriarch's daughter. This could be a breakthrough. And they don't need a Samson. Giese tells them to stay on it, he'll deal with Selfridge and SECFOR.
Grace hands Josh a cup of coffee.
GRACE: Let's go amigo. Time to take flesh: and walk the earth.
JOSH/AVATAR blinks awake, looking up at the inside of the cathedral tree. Shafts of sunlight stream down into the high vault above him through gaps in the "braided" trunks. Flying stingbats twinkle silently high up in a shaft of light.
Grace comes by, snapping her fingers.
GRACE: Another beautiful day in hell.
Josh walks outside, looking for Zuleika. We see village life among the Tsumongwi... kids playing, people cooking, cleaning fish. Mo'at tells Josh where to find her daughter.
CUT TO Zuleika bowfishing from a rock in the pool below a large waterfall. Josh emerges from the trees nearby and freezes, watching her.
With deep concentration she stands still as a statue. Then the spear-like arrow shoots into the water, and Zuleika jumps in waistdeep to retrieve it. She holds up a good sized fish, and grins at Josh.
She comes up out of the water, a dripping primeval beauty. She pulls the arrow out of the fish and hands it and the bow to Josh. His turn.
CUT TO JOSH. Flailing about in the pool, trying to shoot a fish. It's a lot harder than it looks. Zuleika has to turn away, she's laughing so much. Finally Josh nails a fish about four inches long, and holds it up proudly.
JOSH: Anybody can hit the big ones.
TSU TE and another young hunter, TRI COOCHYESTEWA, come out of the forest leading TWO DOMESTICATED DIREHORSES. They control the huge animals with a leather nose-ring, but there is no sign of bridle, reins or saddle... only a woven grass surcingle around the animal's chest. The direhorses drink from the edge of the pool.
Tsu Te disdainfully watches Josh slogging out of the pool with his tiny prize.
ZULEIKA: This is Tsu Te.
JOSH: Gezundheit. Pleased to meet ya.
TSU: When are you going away?
JOSH: Direct. I like that. It's fresh.: Actually, I hoped to stay awhile.: Pick up a few hunting tips from: Zuleika.
Zuleika speaks to Tsu Te in their language. In subtitles we learn that the Matriarch has instructed her to teach the alien the ways of the forest, to see if it can be done. Tsu Te sneers at that, and says something which needs no translation.
Tsu Te flips his head and catches the end of his long queue in one hand. With the other hand he gently takes one moth-like ante
In one fluid move, Tsu Te hooks his bare foot into the bottom of the surcingle and vaults up onto the back of his direhorse. He grips the horse's flanks with his legs, and guides it with direct motor commands from the neural hookup. The animal has become an extension of his own body. And his hands are free to fire a bow.
The two hunters wheel around and ride into the woods along a game trail. Josh realizes how much he has to learn.
MONTAGE OF ZULEIKA TEACHING:
We see a sequence of vignettes over the next few days, of Josh and Zuleika together, in the village and the forest. She is teaching him their ways.
We see her pointing out different plants, and how they can be used. Which juices or saps or leaves can be used to attract, or repel certain animals. Which plant poisons are good for the arrows. What to avoid. How to walk. How to be invisible.
ZULEIKA stands behind him, correcting his position as he draws a longbow. Her hands move on his arm, his shoulders, correcting his stance. Aware of her touch, Josh finds it hard to concentrate.
NEAR A TRAIL we see them crouching behind concealing foliage as a herd of Hammerhead Titanotheres walk past. We see only the legs, huge as treetrunks. In the middle of the herd, a couple of babies walk, sheltered from predators among their parents legs.
ZULEIKA whirls a bolo round and round above her head. She hurls it and the two balls, co
NIGHT SHOT, from overhead... we see Josh and Zuleika bowfishing from a dugout canoe over the glowing anemones at the bottom of a pool. A large fish swims silhouetted against the glow. ZAP! Josh spears it.
SHOT OF ZULEIKA backlit by the sun. She is talking a mile a minute, gesturing rapidly, explaining something. We don't hear the words. Like Josh, we are just spellbound watching her.
JOSH nervously grips the woven surcingle on the back of an old, swaybacked direhorse. Zuleika holds its nose ring, keeping it steady, while she instructs Josh to bend its ante
IN THE VILLAGE Josh and Zuleika feed a direhorse foal with a gourd shaped like a nipple. It is the survivor of Lyle Wainfleet's casual slaughter, picked up by Zuleika's people when N'deh signaled them with the bullroarer. The foal gulps its meal.
SOME OF THE VILLAGE KIDS squeal with delight as Josh shows them how to play baseball. He pitches a leather bolo ball to a kid with a hand-carved bat. The kid makes a strong hit but when Josh yells "run!" in Na'vi, the kid bolts into the forest. Everyone cheers, thinking this is the game.
IN THE FOREST, ZULEIKA gently reaches up and bends a large flower toward her. From the pitcher-like flower she sips the nectar, which is sweet and thick as honey. An incredibly sensuous image.
JOSH, ZULEIKA AND N'DEH have come upon the body of a slinger killed by a powersuit trooper. The flying dart is hovering around the parent body like a hummingbird, whimpering pitifully. Zuleika gently captures the starving dart. N'deh chews up some food from his pouch and feeds it from his mouth to the dart's beak. It swallows hungrily, crying for more. We will see what a captive dart is used for later.
A STREAMBED completely overgrown by a tightly woven thicket. Josh and Zuleika hear a thundering sound and around the bend ahead of them comes a solid wall of stampeding STURMBEEST. Visualize an indigo and orange wildebeest five meters tall, weighing ten tons and moving like a locomotive. Then multiply it by several dozen.