#avatar creatures

Chiroptera Rider/Narluk Makto.

Snippet from Chapter 12. Goin' Solo

Story spoilers-- obviously! :P (If you want to see what Zu looks like, check the pinned post on my page!)

The Ash Na'vi warriors were sparring in the 'drill field' in full gear— light armor, but it was armor. Metal chest plates, arm shields, and wielding obsidian spears and long blades. Ta’zem, who Miles hadn’t seen in days was commanding these warriors. Yelling at them in Na’vi, like a drill leader. Miles noticed the sparring was a lot less lethal in appearance than his fight with Ta’zem. Of course it was. The warriors were fierce though. Well-coordinated. Human military like. Other Na'vi, workers not warriors, were carting materials to and from huts and around various stations at the base of the volcano. Wood for the forge fires, jewels for the sculptors, finished products for storage huts, and other materials transfers. Miles continued scanning the floor of the volcano with his binoculars for Zu. He found her. She was at the tree, bent down, resting on both knees in the soft soil immediately around the trunk of the tree. She had her queue, or tswain as its called in Na’vi, connected to one of the low hanging, succulent-like tendrils of this unique-looking spirit tree. He watched her. She looked peaceful, her hands on her thighs, her tail curling slowly. After a few moments she disconnected her tswain from the tree and stood. She then headed towards the drill field where Ta’zem was.

On his ledge, and through his binoculars about two hundred feet below him, Miles watched Zu and Ta’zem speak on the dark-colored, basalt floor of the inside of this dormant volcano illuminated by the sun shining through the volcano's rim above and the glow of the spirit tree. She had a friendly face on, but Ta’zem seemed especially animated in speaking to her, smiling and his tail moving rapidly. They were seemingly discussing the warriors judging by the gestures and observation of their sparring. Ta’zem then walked in close to Zu and gently put his hand on her upper arm. She stood there and smiled very slightly at Ta'zem. Seeing this gave Miles a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach, but he brushed it off. They continued speaking for a few more minutes. 

Suddenly, Miles’ ears reacted to sound behind him coming through the cave. It was a Na'vi worker guiding a draft animal with a cart of materials coming into the cave. Miles was startled and moved enough to accidentally knock some pebbles down the ledge.

Zu, being as sharp and aware as she was, detected this strange event above her. Her eyes and ears rapidly picking up what happened and wondering what caused such. She squinted in suspicion. Ta’zem and the sparring warriors didn't even notice. She watched the ledge and waited and recognized that between the rocks falling and the worker with the cart appearing to move down the ledge it was much too long for them to be connected. In Na’vi she said to Ta’zem, “I will be back.” And she grabbed a spear from the sparring arena and quickly headed up the zig-zagging ledge.

Miles avoided being seen by the man with cart by hiding behind a medium-sized rock that was on the right side of the ledge he was on after the cave ended. The man never even knew he was there, he just casually continued down into the caldera via the path which went left after the cave. Once the man with the cart made it past the first zig on the way down to the floor of the volcano, he stealthily leaned over to observe Zu and Ta’zem again. He didn’t see her though. Where did she—OH SHIT. She was moving fast up the path. He had to leave. He quickly turned around and headed back out the cave to the outside of the volcano.

He knew Zu would catch up to, hear, and see him if he called for Cupcake here. So he continued down into the forest basin deeper past the base of the volcano, gravity taking his legs fast and far downhill away from the dormant cone. Finally. He got to a place of presumed safety from discovery by Zu. There were animal sounds ringing loudly throughout the forest and he noticed that some of the vegetation here was strange even by Pandora’s standards, more fungal-looking than plant and it was a very dark canopy. Ironically, he felt more safe in this dark alien forest than getting caught by Zu. He slowly spun around to take in his surroundings and was about to whistle for Cupcake when right there in front of him, standing rigidly was Zu. The Marine jumped with a jolt from every muscle of his body and couldn’t help exclaim, “WHOA, GOD!” upon seeing her orange eyes glaring up at him. She was standing there, angry, holding the base of her spear in the ground. Her gray blue skin appearing gunmetal under the dark canopy of the forest. Miles just stared at her in shock. Eyes wide, ears back, tail absolutely still.

“Why did you follow me, My-ulls?” she asked firmly.

Miles had no reason to lie, but his brain scanned for ways to say it in a way that wouldn’t make the clearly angered, giant-fanged, warrior princess standing in front of him even more angry.

“I… I asked you where you had been going. You didn't tell me. And I wanted to know.” Miles said, knowing full well this was not at all the best response as it was coming out.

Zu looked irritated. “If I wanted you there or to know about that place, I would have showed you. You are not allowed there.” she said raising her spear and slamming it back into the ground.

Miles was perturbed now. His tail curling erratically at the end signaling his frustration. “Well, I have a mission Miss Zu. And in case you haven’t forgotten, we are giving an update on our mission status tomorrow. I don’t think telling them that our host disappears to a secret place nearly every day that she won’t discuss fulfills that mission. We’ve been sharing everything we can with you. Where's the reciprocation?"

"Reciprocation?" Zu asked inquisitively, but still angry.

"Mutual. Fair exchange." Miles said shortly.

Zu squinted and said, “What I do, show, and share with you is my choice. My choice for my people. You are not allowed there,” she repeated heatedly, this time stepping toward him and baring her large fanged teeth slightly.

“Well, we're not in there anymore are we? And what, not like your glowing damn tree is that unique or special. Practically every clan of you people has one.” Miles said condescendingly, his voice elevated.

This one angered Zu. She made a face like death at him, her orange eyes filled with rage, rage at this ignorant, disrespectful alien, and she tipped her spear close towards his neck. Miles just stood there, chin up, trying to increase the distance between his neck and her spear, looking down at the point of the spear and Zu's eyes. His hands were held slightly out and low, and in reacting to the threat he instinctively became acutely aware of the fastest weapon he could draw—between his AR slung on his back, his side arm, or his knife.

She spoke, “Our tree is special.”

Miles pulled back his lips and bared his teeth with a smirk. “Alright fine, your tree is special. But Miss, we have a job to do here and you can either work with us or—”

“Shhh!” Zu said suddenly, but quietly. Whipping her spear and body around to face behind her. On edge. Miles looked around and listened. It was quiet. None of animal sounds of before. Both his and Zu’s tails were up. Ears alert. The sensed something. There was something here.

All of a sudden out of the brush a giant long snout appeared and snapped at them from a high angle, Zu and Miles just barely dodged out of the way. It all happened so fast, but Miles had seen the head of this animal before. It was the skull on the altar that he saw during the clan dinner. This animal was huge. It was far bigger than an adult Thanator and the size of a large Hammerhead Titanothere. And it was after them! Zu and Miles ran through the brush, this giant creature fast after them. They dodged over and under branches and logs which slowed them, but not this animal, its mass helping it smash through any woody undergrowth.

With this creature right on their heals, they dove under the mangrove-like roots of a giant tree for cover and readied their weapons. Miles slung his AR to the front and fired. This was the first time Zu had seen Sky People weapons be used and she wishes she was under threat of death at the moment to be able to take in the technology. However, Zu knew that even this Sky Person weapon was futile against this creature as it was massive and heavily armored. Miles quickly realized said futility after emptying about half the magazine and the giant predator barely reacting to the bullets landing on its body. Miles grimaced, frustrated, ears leaned back sharply. The most powerful weapon either of them had and it did nothing for them. Miles then, without thinking, put his huge right arm over Zu’s chest, as if to protect her. In a moment, Zu looked at his arm then to Miles, his focus fast on the creature. It seemed like he didn’t even realize he was doing this.

The creature slowed and started walking around the base of the tree, surveying where its lunch was before reaching in its long snout in to get them. Miles was able to get a good look at this animal while it stalked around. It had a long slender body with a deep, tall, long crocodile-like snout, a crown of colorful blue and purple quills on the back of its head, its two queues emerging from them, and a long neck with the quill-like structures continuing down on it. It had dark, spiky, overlapping scutes going down the center of its back and had hard thick, scaly, armored skin, with a deep green tint to it, helping it be well camouflaged with the dark forest's vegetation. It had six limbs like most Pandoran animals, but its posture was closer to like that of a centaur, it had free arms with three massive curved claws at the end of its fingers. It also had a long tail that ended in the same quill-like structures of its head and neck. As Miles was getting a good look at the creature, it peered through a large gap between two of the tree’s roots. Right above them.

“GO!” Miles yelled, pushing Zu’s back to quickly move her, the creature dove into the base of the tree, effortlessly bending the firm the roots out of the way with its sheer mass. Miles and Zu both scrambled out from the roots and ran deeper into the brush, the creature hissing and chasing behind them. It was gaining. The creature suddenly lunged to snap behind them, its head turned sideways and jaws closing horizontally to try and snap them both up, but Miles and Zu instinctively dropped to the ground and missed the closing of the toothy jaws just a few feet above them. They both then rolled the opposite way from one another to get away from the creature’s head and claws which were above them in that moment.

Now they were separated, this giant creature between them. It looked towards both Zu and Miles, then fully turned its attention to Zu. Her orange eyes grew wide with fear, but she oriented her spear towards the beast, and viciously hissed at it, her fangs fully bared. Miles needed to do something. He yelled, “HEY!” and emptied the rest of his AR magazine at the creature's backside. Though he knew this didn’t hurt it, the bullets certainly irritated it and caught its attention and the creature took its eyes off Zu and quickly turned to Miles slashing its giant free armed claws at him. Miles jump stepped backwards and his back caught a tree trunk, and the claws missed him by about one foot. Miles was agile in this body, a well-trained Marine, but still, Marines weren’t trained to fight monsters. The creature went to snap its jaws horizontally at him again, but Miles rolled around the tree and the creature’s mouth closed on the trunk, he could see the ends of its massive upper and lower jaws to both his left and right biting the tree. Miles then ran around, past the creature, some of its huge teeth seemingly embedded in the tree, to Zu and grabbed her wrist to run with her through the forest. The creature turned around and roared and continued its chase.

Miles and Zu ended up at a slightly less vegetation-covered clearing in the middle of the woods. Oh no, they’d be exposed. But they couldn’t turn around, they had to keep going. They ran across the clearing, feeling the primal fear of a predator closing in behind them. Suddenly, they came upon a narrow fissure in the ground and processing it for no more than a millisecond, they measured this as their best option for survival. A place where this huge creature could not reach into. Miles and Zu looked back at the creature barreling towards them, then looked at one another and the fissure. Miles quickly helped Zu down first. He looked back at the creature, just twenty feet away making one last lunge towards him and he jumped into the small crevasse. The creature’s jaws missing him by a hair. He could feel its hot breath on top of his head.

He and Zu landed at the base of this narrow fissure, which was actually a tiny pit cave, barely bigger than the bottom of a well, Zu and Miles practically on top of one another. She made sure to maneuver her spear out of the way and against the cave wall as not to impale Miles when he came down. The creature was desperately, frustratingly trying to stick its snout in to reach them, then trying to grab them with its arms and claws, but to no avail. Miles and Zu were about six feet out of its reach. Incredibly close for comfort, less than a body length, but they were out of reach. The creature put its head in the fissure one last time, roared loudly at Miles and Zu, the volume causing their ears to lean back in pain. And then it left. Off to find an easier meal. Or wait them out.

Both Zu and Miles were on their backs and Zu was leaning against Miles’ left side on top of his huge left arm in the tight space, their legs unable to stretch out fully. They were breathing rapidly and heavily. Adrenaline coursing through their bodies, but beginning to slow. Their tails quickly thrashing around with exhilaration and also elation. After a few minutes of silence, letting the shock and relief of having survived set in, and after their breathing started to slow, Zu started to laugh. Miles couldn’t believe it. They almost died to some giant toothy monster and this crazy Na'vi girl was laughing.

“Oh you think that was funny, huh?” Miles said playfully and he began to chuckle as well. Zu just kept giggling and she and Miles both tried to get up at the same time, but the tight, rocky, dirt-lined space didn’t make this easy. Miles slid back down onto his back and she slid closer into his body, his huge arms catching her. Their mutual giggling stopped.

Zu lowered her ears and looked deep into Mile’s eyes-- Her fiery stare locked with his golden gaze. Miles’ ears leaned back, his jaw clenched, his muscles tensing, then he swallowed, and his jaw went slack. Zu’s lips parted, her large canine teeth revealed. She unlocked her eyes from his and looked at his giant arms, and lightly touched his exposed chest above his tactical vest. She looked into his eyes again. Like a reflex he couldn't control, Miles took his right hand and slowly, gently reached for her face with his huge fingers, moving some of her loose wavy-curly hair from her forehead and softly stroked her gray-blue cheek. Zu then quickly moved her body forward to kiss him. Miles didn't hesitate to kiss her back, lightly holding her pretty face with his huge hand. After this kiss, they both looked at each other with wide eyes, emotions swirling. Zu then leaned up over him and began making her way up to climb out of the pit to see if the coast was clear.

Miles sat back for a moment longer.

What the hell are you doing, Marine??

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Day 15 - MEMORY

My memory has indeed improved on all the ikran detail, so here is an ikran sketch page from memory...

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