The cliff rose like the spine of the world.
Jagged stone jutted into the endless sky, the wind howling past its edges, carrying with it the cries of unseen predators. Far below, the forest stretched like an ocean of green, alive and waiting.
"This is where the People earn their wings," Neytiri said, standing tall beside me. Her bow rested across her back, her eyes sharp with both pride and challenge. "Every hunter must bond with an ikran. Without it, you are not truly Na'vi."
Her gaze slid to me, hard as stone. "If you fail, you die."
I smiled faintly. "Sounds fair."
Behind us, other young hunters gathered, whispers echoing among them. Some glanced at me with doubt, others with open disdain. To them, I was still an outsider—too tall, too strange, too powerful.
But one voice cut through the crowd.
"You will succeed," Tsireya said softly, her confidence steady, her smile calm. "The sea has told me."
Her words burned warmer than the sun overhead.
I stepped forward to the edge, where the ikran roosted. Dozens of them. Fierce, majestic, their wings glinting under the sunlight, their eyes sharp and unyielding. Each one a storm given flesh.
Neytiri's voice rang out. "Choose. And pray it does not choose to kill you."
The hunters whispered their prayers to Eywa, but I… I needed none.
Because I could hear them.
Not with ears, but with something deeper. Each ikran's heart, its rhythm, its rage. Their wings stirred the air like thunder, their snarls echoing across the cliffside.
One, in particular, caught my eye. A beast of deep midnight blue, scarred across its wings, its eyes burning like molten gold. Its roar was a challenge, not an invitation.
Perfect.
I leapt.
The hunters gasped, but to me, gravity was a suggestion. The wind screamed past me as I descended toward the beast, landing before it with a thunderous crack of stone.
The ikran roared, snapping its jaws at me. Its claws slashed, its wings beat like hurricanes. To any other, death would have come swiftly.
But I stood firm.
When its fangs snapped inches from my face, I didn't strike. I didn't overpower it. Instead, I met its gaze. Calm. Steady. Eternal.
"Easy," I whispered, my voice carrying like a tide. "I am no cage. I am no chain. I am storm, and so are you."
The beast snarled again, testing me, its jaws closing around my arm. Gasps rose from the hunters. Neytiri reached for her bow—
But then… it stopped.
The ikran's eyes widened, its growl fading into a low rumble. Slowly, carefully, it released me.
I raised my hand, pressing it against its snout. The bond pulsed between us, wild and unshackled.
And then—tsaheylu.
The world exploded in color. My mind collided with the beast's, its fury washing into me, my calm flowing into it. Our breaths aligned, our hearts beat as one.
The hunters cheered, disbelief turning to awe. Neytiri's mouth fell open, her eyes wide with something between respect and fear.
I climbed onto the ikran's back, the wind surging around us. Its wings spread wide, casting a shadow like a stormcloud across the cliff.
"Fly," I whispered.
And we did.
The sky opened to us, endless and wild. The wind tore past, the horizon stretched forever, and my soul burned brighter than it ever had.
For the first time, I was not just a visitor. Not just a demon.
I was Na'vi.
And yet… as we soared, a shadow lingered at the edge of my thoughts.
The Sky People would return. And when they did, no bond—beast or man—would protect what I had come to love.