"Oh. Huh, you have a matrix here, I'd have thought -- 

Anyway, a matrix crash is like a natural disaster. Anyone who was plugged in during the last one just died."

"Huh. You might be talking about the mana field." Shrug. "Anyway, monster farming! The first camp I'm pretty sure about is about five minutes ahead. Your Guardian bombards 'em, I move in to finish them off?"

"Sure. You have way more experience at this than I do so I'll let you take the lead."

"I wouldn't attack a whole camp by myself but with a Guardian as backup we can clean up easy. You can hear me when you're controlling that thing right? Have you done any target practice yet?"

"When I'm controlling it I can perceive things through its sensors, yeah. And no. What things should I practice on?"

"...Uh. That rock?" Link shrugs. "Not me that's for sure."

"Right, let's get started then. Uh, do you have any rope?"

"You're going to try and rig up a seat right now? Why don't you, like, sit on a horse and I'll lead it while you walk the Guardian along?"

"... I'll need the rope if I sit on a horse too. Otherwise I'd just fall off."

"Scoots has a saddle! It's harder to fall out of a saddle than bareback."

"Even if you're completely passed out?"

"...Hmm good point."

"It would be fine if someone carried me," she says, dubiously. "Or if I was strapped to a horse. Or to someone's back while they were riding a horse. I still don't have any rope..."

"I don't really want to strap you to a horse, you could get hurt. Guess I can carry you and have Scoots follow along. I'm strong enough. Makes us slower though."

"... why don't I just keep the Guardian on autopilot and I'll stick by you if I need to drop to the ground and fix something."

"...Oh right these things have an autopilot. Okay."

They do that. Link might find that Naomi is separately a very slow traveler. She can't maintain a run for very long and seems to get winded easily. 

"You sure you don't want a horse riding lesson? It's not difficult if you're not doing anything fancy with him, and it's easier than walking."

"Sure," she says. Her voice is tinged with apology.

"I don't mean to make you uncomfortable it's really better for you to ride instead of walk."

Riding lesson? She keeps it simple. And starts by getting Scoots used to Naomi and vice versa - she can feed him an apple.

At least she's never been particularly bad with animals. She's heard riding requires thigh strength, though.

The apple-feeding goes without incident. Naomi climbs on the horse with a little difficulty.

Link helps!

Scoots is an even-tempered horse. And this is a pretty good saddle and bridle, it's easier than it otherwise would be.

Then Naomi will only be mildly terrified!

They set off, after testing the prohibitions on friendly-fire Naomi set up for the Guardian. (Which were weirdly difficult to implement: Guardians were apparently not built to be able to handle complex programming.)

The guardian successfully refuses to fire at the tree they tested it on.

"I don't really trust that thing though. I'll get over it, but... Yeah."

"That's fair. They were pretty irreversibly scary for a long time, yeah?"