Thinking back about a few moments Jake said to himself "the first hunt was meant to be simple".
Flashback:
The first hunt is not a trial of skill, not a test of courage but just an introduction. The elders chose a small party of children who had reached the right age (8), pairing them with experienced hunters who would guide their hands and tempers alike. Jake was included without comment. His injury had healed enough, and more importantly, he had learned to listen. Ralu was there too, vibrating with nervous excitement, and Eyna, quiet but pale, her eyes unusually solemn.
They moved through the forest at dawn, the air cool and alive with scent. Jake felt alert as his senses extended, every sound layered with meaning. He had hunted in another life—not animals like the big native animals in Pandora, but the memory of pursuit still clung to him. It unsettled him more than he expected. Here, there were no abstractions. No distance. Life and death were close enough to touch.
The elders spoke softly as they walked, reminding the children, "You do not hunt to prove yourself, but you hunt because life feeds life. You must remember the cost." Jake listened carefully, absorbing each word. He believed them as he is not a maniac fighting the beasts only for fun just because he's a top predator.
The seasoned na'vi hunters along with the children did not go far before the forest changed. It wasn't dramatic with a sudden silence, and obvious threat. Just a subtle tightening, like breath held too long. Jake felt it immediately. His pace slowed instinctively. He glanced around, searching for the cause. That was when he heard it, a sharp, frightened cry, cut short too abruptly.
The group froze. The elders signaled for stillness, then motioned for the children to stay back. Jake's heart pounded, unease coiling in his chest. He did as told, but his eyes followed the adults as they moved ahead. Through a break in the foliage, he saw another group. They were children from a neighboring family, slightly older, on their own training excursion. One of them lay on the ground, unmoving. The others stood around him in shock, blood darkening the leaves beneath his chest.
A hunting animal—a viperwolf, had struck faster than caution could account for.
Jake stared, breath caught in his throat. The child was not someone he knew well, just a familiar face seen around the Hometree. That made it worse somehow. This wasn't personal tragedy but it was a communal reality. The elders knelt, hands gentle but firm, assessing wounds already too severe. The boy's eyes were open, glassy, reflecting the forest canopy. There was no drama in his death. No final words. Just sudden absence.
The children with him began to cry in a ragged, broken sounds that tore through Jake's chest. Ralu gripped Jake's arm, fingers digging in hard. Eyna turned away, shoulders shaking, her quiet composure shattered. Jake felt rooted in place, mind racing. He had seen death before. It was clinical, distant, sanitized. This was different. This was close, immediate, irrevocable.
As the elders prepared the body, voices low and reverent, Jake felt something twist inside him. A question, sharp and unyielding: Why him? There was no answer waiting. No sense of justice or balance. Just loss. He felt Eywa then as presence, vast and sorrowful bearing witness alongside him.
The hunt was called off.
They returned to Hometree in silence, the forest seeming heavier, dimmer. The clan gathered, grief spreading in quiet waves. Jake watched as the boy's family held one another, their pain raw and unguarded. He felt like an intruder in their sorrow, yet unable to look away. This, he realized, was the cost spoken of. This made him understood that life could be taken, unpredictably, without malice or meaning.
That night, Jake did not sleep. He sat alone, knees drawn up, staring into the dark. Images replayed the stillness of the boy's body, the blood on leaves, the sound of crying. His chest ached, tight and hollow all at once. He reached out instinctively, just acknowledging the death. Eywa's presence was there, it did not soften the grief. It did not explain it away.
And Jake understood, with painful clarity, that this world was not gentler than the one he had left. It was his honest thoughts.
By morning, something in him had settled into a heavy resolve. He would learn and prepare for such future evrnts. To minimize suffering where he could. To never treat life, his own or another's, as expendable.
The hunt had been simple.The lesson was not.