The wrong star

Spirits

"Hey... do you want to come with me?" I whisper to Miles in the middle of the night.

I've felt him tossing all night and that's not normal.

"Sorry for keeping you up," he says, taking my hand in the dark.

"It's okay. What's going on? We can go somewhere to relax," I say.

I hear him take a deep breath.

"I don't know... I feel uneasy. I don't like waiting for bad things to happen," he responds.

I brush the top of his hand with my thumb.

"Come with me, let's go somewhere quiet," I propose and stand up.

"But Nakoa..." Miles says.

I figure that letting him stay here and sleep would be good, I don't think we'll be gone for long but... I can't risk my son.

"Do you think Spider will mind looking over him for a moment?" I ask.

"We'll have to wake him up..." Miles hesitates.

"Well yeah but, we talked to him like two or three hours ago, there's no problem," I say.

He looks a little sorry but I wait for him to come back with Spider.

Nakoa is sleeping so soundly that I can't help but stare at him. My son, my beautiful son.I am grateful for how well he is growing and that he is okay given the circumstances of his birth and our trip back home.

"Hi," I hear Spider when he comes.

"Hi! I'm very, very sorry to wake you up but I need to take Miles to the tree of souls and we didn't want to leave Nakoa alone,"

"It's okay. I'll look over him," he says and sits down near us.

"Thank you, we'll be back soon," I say.

He nods and lays back a little, then waves goodbye at us.

As we walk to the top of the mountain to call our Ikrans, Miles looked back like three times.

"Relax, they're going to be okay," I tell him.

"I'm relaxed," he answers. His tail is slashing a little.

I snicker and call for Inet.

The trip to the tree of souls is short and easy, we land somewhere close. The bioluminescence makes the tree stand out a lot more and I hear a soft humming coming from some of the branches.

"Take a deep breath," I instruct Miles and take his hand.

He looks around astonished and does as I said.

"Do you hear that?" he asks, his ears twitching.

"It depends... what do you hear?" I ask smiling.

He shakes his head a little.

We walk around for a bit as I tell him the story of the tree, and how it connects us with Eywa and our ancestors. I tell him that when I was little and used to miss my father I came here and waited to see if he would answer to me.

"So... there are ghosts in here?" he asks a little confused.

"No, not that! It's energy. Like everything around us, like you and me, here," I touch his heart and his forehead. "We are something that lives here, when our time on this earth ends... our energy goes back to Eywa," I explain.

He thinks about it for a moment.

"And so... what now?" he asks.

"Now you relax. Talk to them, listen. They may have something to say to you, maybe you can tell them how you feel... just let it out," I say and give his hand a squeeze.