The metal bars shone in the pale moonlight. What was it she used to tell them?

The room was dank and cold but the window far above her head kept the path lit. Not that she could walk it.

Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Alva had and now she was dancing with it again. It twisted and swung her - led her and dipped her. A never-ending dance of pain and misery. Many years had gone by since they last dance but she still knew all the steps.

For a split second she could see the yellow eyes of Kida peering at her from beyond the bars, but then she blinked and that too was torn away from her. A metaphorical cage wasn't enough for them anymore. There was a bitter irony to her words, all her speeches about cages and now they had put her in one.

Bitter resentment pooled in her stomach but even that could not tear her away from the overwhelming loneliness that threatened to swallow her whole. Echoes of children laughing spun around the room, haunting her. Why now?

After everything she had been through, why was her mind betraying her now? She had been reborn but her past still followed her like a shadow, tainting every experience, darkening the world around her. For so long she had been pretending that the world was full of happiness, butterflies and laughter but sooner or later reality caught up to even the most damaged minds.

Her brother was pacing outside of her cell but she paid him no mind. He had been talking for the last thirty minutes but all she heard was the taunting of the memories around her. Her mom cooking, her father pushing her on the swings, her neighbor falling and scraping her knee, the tall well they used to get water - a new shimmer to it she hadn't noticed as a child, the coughing of her aunt, the blood pouring from their eyes instead of tears, the mountain of bodies-

No.

Alva wouldn't let them win again.

"What do you want, Parker?" she asked, voice void of anything but utter exhaustion. Her dark skin was pale and lacking the usual shine, and dark bags lingered under her eyes.

Parker Selfridge stopped his pacing. "For you to get better."

"Your idea of better is sticking me in a cage?" she snarled, tilting her head.

"It's only temporary," he muttered.

Alva sneered and turned around. Not as much as a straw of grass could be found in the room, only cold cement. So much for brotherly love. Surely he knew flowers wilt in the darkness.

"I can't let you go off the deep-end again, Alva," a hint of pleading entered his tone but he was much too proud to beg. "I had to pull a lot of strings to get you here."

"Don't try to guilt-trip me, brother," she said to him, closing her eyes. "We both know you didn't do this for me. You took me here so you could keep an eye on me."

Parker shook his head.

"You destroyed equipment worth millions of dollars, Alva," he started pacing again. "There's only so much I can do to protect you. I had no other choice but to put you here. This isn't the time for one of your temper tantrums! There's a war coming!"

"Oh, I know all about this war," she glared at him. "You think that I don't see you and Jake whispering in your office? The way you push your soldiers just a little bit closer each day? The way Quaritch is smirking at me when I walk past him in the hallways?"

"Then you know why I have to do this."

"I really don't." She replied, picking her nails. "You could let me go and I'll run off to join the 'savages'. I'll be out of your hair forever." Alva made air quotes at the word, lips turning down in a sneer at the bitter reminder.

"You know I can't let you do that," Parker sighed and pinched his nose. "You're impossible, you know that right?"

"Impossible? No. On the right side? Yes. Fucked up in the head? Yes. Is it your fault? Also yes."

Parked lunged forward, slamming his hands on the bars, a wild look in his eyes as he stared her down.

"I had nothing to do with that!" he snarled before backing off. "The sins of the father are not the sins of the son."

"They are if you do the same thing," she pointedly reminded, giving him a sarcastic smile. "But what do I know about murdering an entire kind of people? I'm just crazy Alva."

Alva could see her father standing behind Parker. Khalid looked as strong as he did all those years ago, dimples on show as he gave her a proud smile. Behind him, her mom emerged, holding her baby cousin. They both loomed over Parker, her mom at least half a head taller and her father even more. It was a bitter reminder of what she had lost, and where that loss had gotten her - trapped underground with a man so similar to his father she almost couldn't tell them apart.

Parker spun around to see what she was looking at but her family faded away.

"See? You're hallucinating again."

"I can tell," she snarked, throwing her head back with a groan. "Must we do this again, brother?" Alva spat the last part as if it was poison. "My mind is broken if you can't remember?"

He shook his head again and bit the skin on his thumb. "Everyone can see that."

"Yes, everyone can see a broken woman clinging desperately to the last strands of sanity. You think I want to repress every emotion that's not positive? Think I want to have my mind pull me away from reality? You think it's fun?!" Alva stood up, baring her teeth as if she was still in her Avatar body. "Think it's fun to have everyone talk behind your back about how weird you are? How you should be thrown behind bars in a hospital? How it's sick how alike a child I am? My mind is falling apart, Parker, and it's all your fault."

Parker desperately tried to catch her eyes but she refused to look at him. "Please, Alva," he pleaded. "No one's saying that."

"Eywa will punish you, brother, and I'll laugh." She spat at his feet, eyes burning with rage. "You and that Quaritch will burn. She won't stand by and watch you murder her children. I may be innocent in some ways but I'm not naive. I've seen it all before and she will make you pay," with each word she took a step closer to him, snaking a hand through the bars, touching his cheek. "My sweet, sweet brother, how I'll smile when you can't control me anymore."

Alva laughed as he tore himself away from her touch. "Run, run, little piggie before she comes to get you."

And run he did, away from the twisted laughter of the woman he called sister.

As the heavy door slammed shut Alva sat down in the corner of her cell again, soft pearls of laughter still wrecking her body. She felt better after releasing some of the pent up anger inside of her, and she could feel the warm arms of Eywa soothe her aching soul.

Now that her breakdown was over she could finally relax, feeling the soft pink color of safety and peace curl around her. A small piece of her returned and she sighed.

"I'll make them all pay," she whispered with no one but Eywa to hear her promise.