I'll Put My Red Dress on Again

Chapter 20

Afterwards we all sat on one of the mountains, using our hands to retell the story of our flying. It was full of laughs and I have never seen Jake so happy, it's clear he likes this more than the pali. The joy we all felt made me forget about everything that was happening.

We got home late and had dinner with everyone. Then we all went to bed. In the early morning Jake woke me and Neytiri up. "Wanna go flying?" He asks. I look over at Neytiri and she laughs while I throw a rock at Jake. "You're like a kid." I say while getting up.

"Oh, c'mon you want to go flying too." He adds. I roll my eyes and help Neytiri up. Even if she doesn't need my help I will still always offer it to her. "Flying while the sun rises sounds nice." Neytiri adds on. "Don't encourage him. You know how I hate early mornings." I whine as I walk with the duo to get something to eat.

"Always this moody?" Jake asks. "Yes, yes I am always this moody. You should know that better than anyone here, Jake." I say while turning around to face him. "She's never like that with me." Neytiri responds with a shrug. "Because I like Neytiri better." I say as I quickly eat some fruit. "Keep lying to yourself." Jake remarks, I roll my eyes in response.

"While we're out there, I'll show you some real flying moves." I say to Jake with a nudge. He nudges me back and we walk up to the top of the Hometree. Neytiri calls for Seze, while Jake just stands there. "Whistle." I say before whistling myself. Kae comes flying in and I give her some meat as a treat. "Hi, baby" I say to my ikran as if I didn't just see her yesterday. I hop on and look over to see Jake on his ikran. "What's his name?" I ask, nodding to the ikran. "Bob." Jake responds while petting the ikran. I laugh, "Bob?" I question. Jake nods like it's the most normal and obvious thing ever.

We set out to the skies, playing hide and seek in the clouds. Neytiri and I give each other a look and dive down, fast and hard. I look back and see Jake register the movement before quickly diving down with us. "Let's see if he can keep up." I say with a smirk while looking at Neytiri. She smiles and nods, good luck keeping up with us Jake. I dive and weave in between the trees, following Neytiri's lead. I glance back and Jake is not far behind us, I give him a thumbs up in response. Before we knew it, night time came along.

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We head back to the Hometree and Jake asks what to feed his ikran. I hand him some meat, he takes it and holds it out towards Bob. The ikran quickly snaps at the meat but Jake pulls back the meat playfully. Jake tries again and when Bob snaps again he pulls the food away. "Slow." Jake instructs his ikran. The ikran listens and carefully grabs the meat. Jake strokes Bob's head in response. "Good boy." He mutters.

I turn and feed Kae myself. I gave her some meat with a little bit of extra fruit I found when flying. She eats it excitedly and makes a low humming sound. I lean my forehead against hers, Kae's eyes close and I feel her breath on mind. That's the thing about Pandora. I loved having dogs and cats, but nothing compared to the bond you get with these creatures. We see inside each other's minds. Nothing compares to that, to that connection.

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I went to sleep with Neytiri and then woke up to Jake. I nuzzle my head into Neytiri's neck not wanting to wake up quite yet. "C'mon I know you like flying too." Jake pleads. I sigh and sit up, Neytiri finally waking up. "Fine." I get up and help Neytiri out of the hammock. We get some fruit to eat before heading out again.

This time Neytiri thought it would be good to see some of the wonders of Pandora. Also to help him hunt on the ikran. When we fly, Neytiri points over to Vitraya Ramunong (the tree of souls). Huge pieces of rock form curves that look like rainbows. The said curves overlook a huge crater. At the center of the crater is one tree. A huge tree that resembles the willow trees on earth, the only difference is that it's purple and thousands of years old. Not to mention it also has the soul of every creature and na'vi that has ever lived here.

Next we move on to hunting on the ikran. We all take out our bows and fly low above the forest tree tops. "Keep a close watch." Neytiri instructs as we fly. When a shadow looms over us. I look up and see toruk. Shit, Jake and Neytiri both look up, "Dive!" Neytiri shouts and we all dive down without another thought. Toruk is not like any other ikran. It's several times larger, with a distinctive striped yellow, scarlet, and orange pattern on its back. A huge blue crested head to add to the beast. We all dive into the canopy, crushes are heard as toruk follows us closely. It follows us without any thought, crashing through the foliage and locked in on Jake. We all dive into a narrow place between branches, stopping on the tree for support. Toruk stops the chase with a loud and hard flap of its wings. Toruk shrieks before flying up and above the canopy, gone as quickly as it came. We all look at each other in shock. Neytiri's mouth opened and my eyes wide. We look at Jake and just that simple gesture made us laugh. We laughed so hard at the near death experience.

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its been so long and i apologize for the wait, but i got motivation back and i'm gonna be writing and updating this fic a lot! thank you for all the patience and kind words for this story, i love you all so much!!