LIN had taken jake out to try riding a shahaylu.
It look lin a while to master how to ride her own horse
But after a while she got amazing at it.
Her father has let her teach many children in the past
And now she must teach a sky alien who acts like a child.
Jake's PUPILS dilate and his mouth drops open.
The horse's eyes also go wide and it honks nervously.
Lin touches her fingertips to the neural interface.
"This is shahaylu the bond. Feel her heartbeat, her breath.
Feel her strong legs." She whispers stroking the horses neck
Jake closes his eyes, nodding. Feeling one with the horse.
TSU'TEY and another young hunter come out of the forest leading two direhorses.
The magnificent animals drink from the edge of the pool.
Tsu'tey watches Jake's riding lesson with disdain.
"You may tell her what to do, inside. For now, say where to go."
Lin brushes her fingertips along the horses torso, travelling up jakes back
And patting it in a comforting way.
"Forward." Jake says
The horse LAUNCHES into a gallop. Jake flops around,
with no idea how to sit the animal, and is promptly thrown off.
He lands painfully in the mud.
Lin let's out a loud laugh walking past him as he gets up,
brushing the mud off knees and ass, as Lin leads the horse back to him.
"Again." She says sternly
Jake had tried riding the horse many times but each time failed.
Lin was now watching him set off again only to get thrown off
face down in the mud of the riverbank. He painfully rises to hands and knees.
Which is when he sees
Tsu'tey and another hunter thundering across
the shallow river on their direhorses.
Spray blasts up from their hooves.
Jake stands, covered in mud, as Tsu'tey stops his horse next
to him, looking down with disdain.
"You should go away" Tsu'tey says a harsh gaze lingering on his face
"Nah you'd miss me" Jake smirks pointing his finger at Tsu'tey
"I knew you could speak English" Tsu'tey chuckles tuning to Lin
"This alien will learn nothing. A rock Sees more."
She sighs in agreement Looking at jake then bake to Tsu'tey
"I have my hope" She softly tap the back of his direhorse
watching them gallop into the woods
Jake turns to Lin and smiles at her
She gestures to the horse and nods
"Again" he sighs walking back over to her
JAKE tries to keep up with Lin as she leaps up the core trunk like a lemur.
He climbs the last section, arriving out of breath beside her.
She leads him outside, onto A large branch. Through gaps in the foliage
Jake can see other Great Trees scattered across the landscape,
like enormous umbrellas above the rainforest.
Lin strides out across the branch toward some kind of
structure a web made of thick woven fibre.
dark shapes clinging to it stir with a leathery rustling sound.
Neytiri makes a series of trills and clicks. One of the shapes moves toward them,
emerging into a shaft of sunlight.
A huge mountain banshee better known as Ikran.
A leathery fwhoop, like the crack of sails,
as it alights on the branch right in front of her.
"Holy shit." Jake muttered whilst looking at the huge creature
Lin had walked up to her ikran and began stroking her
"Do not look in her eye."
Lin says to Jake Whilst she feeds it a large scrap of meat
which it SNATCHES and gulps down.
She murmurs to it and strokes its neck.
It lets out a signature shriek, and some of the others in the
shadows nearby answer.
Lin slowly grabs her queue and gently connects it to the Banshee's antenna.
It shivers and stretches its wings as the neural connection is made.
"Ikran is not horse. Once shahaylu is made, ikran will fly with only one
Hunter in the whole life." She climbs smoothly onto the animal's back.
"To become taronyu Hunter you must choose your own ikran. And he must choose you."
She shimmy's on the ikran's back trying to get comfortable
"When?" Jake asks watching lin, grip her feet onto the saddle
"When you are ready." She smiles
Jake ducks as the great wings explode open and the banshee
drops off the branch. It swoops down across the forest canopy,
banks hard, lets out a CRY and beats its wings in its power climb.
Completing the bank, Lin directs the banshee into a close
swooping Flyby, and Jake instinctively ducks.
LIN let's out a laugh, showing him a toothy grin
As he stares at her in Awe. She turns back around flying off into the distance,
still keeping close to Jake as she previously learnt from her mistakes.
