The next day, you and Papa go to morning meditation like usual. Afterward, you see Bato, Chuno, and Decavo all head towards Elder Minaro’s lesson cave even though they don’t have lessons. You see Felero head that way too. Happily, you found another way to get there, and you skip towards it eagerly. You wonder how long Bato will wait around in the hallway for you.

You walk all the way down to where the mine tunnel connects to this tunnel. Then you walk through the mine tunnel to the lesson cave tunnel, and all the way back up to the lesson cave. After how long that took, it is no surprise that Felero is already sitting in the corridor outside with his eyes closed. You wonder what he’s doing. You and Felero never got lessons on how to cultivate from a distance the way the other boys did. He’s not trying to figure it out on his own, is he? Elder Minaro said that was dangerous!

Your concern for your friend can’t dampen your good mood at out-smarting Bato. You greet Felero cheerily, and he scrambles to his feet when he notices you.

Felero whispers, “shh! Bato and the others are waiting for you just around the corner.”

Felero points up the corridor to where it ends in a T-junction many paces away. “Bato is in a nasty mood. He said he was going to beat you up for stealing his lessons and threatened to beat me up too if I didn’t give him my lunch. I wanted to fight them, but Bato and Chuno have been getting lessons in how to fight from their parents while we were focusing on our cultivating lessons, so I didn’t stand a chance by myself.”

Papa packed you a lunch of two pomegranates, some nuts, and even a small piece of dried deer meat to celebrate your first day of private lessons. You open up your bag and give Felero one of the pomegranates and half the nuts. “Here. I got past them with my lunch. We can share.”

You look in the bag. The only thing you didn’t give Felero half of is the meat. You don’t get meat very often and you were really looking forward to eating it. On the other paw, out of all the people in your lessons with Elder Minaro, Felero has been the nicest to you by far. You sigh heavily and reach into the bag. Felero can have your half of the meat, it wouldn’t be fair to give away some of Wotjeo’s meat. He likes it even more than you do. You are not a strong little girl, and you struggle to tear the dried meat strip in two. Finally, with Wotjeo’s help, you manage to rip it in half. You hand Felero the dry half. The other half is wet from where Wotjeo bit it to help you separate it.

As you hand the piece of meat to him you tell him. “Wait until Elder Minaro’s lesson is over, and I’ll show you how I got past Bato and his bully boys. That way we can both keep our lunches tomorrow.”

It doesn’t even occur to you at the time that Felero is such a weak fighter that Bato could beat Felero up to force him to reveal your secret path. Your thoughts are all on how to help your friend.

Felero hugs you enthusiastically, and Poca, Felero’s silver bear sister, hugs Wotjeo. Felero looks like he’s going to say something, but then Elder Minaro’s grating voice bellows from inside the cave. “Whoever that is outside, stop yammering. My idiot student isn’t here yet and I’m trying to make good use of the peace and quiet before she arrives.”

Guiltily, you scurry into the cave.

Elder Minaro grunts grumpily when you enter the lesson cave. “Congratulations on arriving intact girl. No doubt you’re very impressed with yourself, but you’re still late. Even though you are the only student now, I still expect you to arrive right after morning meditation and not dilly dally around. Our time together is too valuable for you to waste by lazing around like a toad on a log. No punishment today, but I expect you to do better tomorrow.”

As soon as you sit down in front of him, Elder Minaro places a goblet like the one he had you drink from yesterday in front of Wotjeo. He tells you, “Wotjeo is still small for his age. The amount of madra spirit companions provide is directly related to their size, and most of what I have to teach you requires you to be able to draw a lot of madra from him. Accordingly, Wotjeo will get the potions for this portion of our lessons and I will be turning the lessons over to Genialida to instruct him on how to cultivate vital-essence into madra more efficiently. The only thing I expect from you, girl, is to stay out of the way and not interrupt Wotjeo’s lessons.”

After completing his lecture, Elder Minaro swaps places with Genialda and goes to sleep.

Genialda, Elder Minaro’s silver bear companion, yawns and paces forward. Her fur is a pale yellowish-brown fading towards silver at the roots.

Genialda speaks, not in the way Wotjeo does, but in the same language everyone else uses: “Good morning children.”

Her voice sounds a lot like Elder Minaro’s but two octaves lower, and her pronunciation is slightly mangled as a result of coming from the mouth of a bear but still intelligible. Your jaw hits the floor in surprise, and so does Wotjeo’s.

Genialda rolls her eyes: “Yes, I can talk. All spirits can speak your clumsy tongue by the time they reach Copper or Iron. I usually have better things to do with my time. Like sleep.”

Genialda yawns again. “Where was I? Right, Pūmiè, you can listen but don’t interrupt. This lesson is for Wotjeo.”

You pick your jaw up off the cave floor and listen attentively to the yellowish-brown-furred silver bear. “My human already taught you how to follow your human while she is gathering. Right now, when you get vital-essence, you eat it and send it to your body the way my human taught you. Since you ate it, it is now in your stomach. Once there, your stomach breaks it down and it starts seeping outward, trying to escape. As it passes through you, your body absorbs it, but this is a slow process and vital-essence escapes quickly. Only a small amount of the vital-essence is absorbed into your body, and an even smaller portion is absorbed into your dantian.”

Genialida taps her forehead with one large, furry bear paw. “Your dantian is right here, between your eyes, and a lot of the vital-essence goes in a different direction and so is lost before it even gets there. Only once vital-essence reaches your dantian can you turn it into madra so that you and your human companion can use it. Since most of the vital-essence seeps out of our bodies, it ends up in the air around us. Proper breathing technique inhales this vital-essence rich air and recirculates it, allowing you to gain more madra from the same amount of gathering. This technique is especially effective in areas rich in vital-essence. Our cave complex is a particularly good location for this technique because with so many of our relatives leaking their vital-essence into the air the place is relatively saturated with it…”

The lesson is long and boring for you since it is all about teaching Wotjeo how to breathe differently so he can cultivate better. Just like Wotjeo can’t gather, you can’t cultivate or join in on the lesson, but you do your best to pay attention so you can help Wotjeo with it later.

When the boredom gets to be too much, you play around with the exercises Minaro already taught you to improve your vital-essence and madra hearing with only a short break for lunch.

When you leave the cave after the lesson, Felero waves you over and gestures for you to be quiet. He whispers: “Bato is still there. He’s been waiting for you all day!”

You grin back confidently, but not so confidently you forget to reply in a whisper “Good thing we’re not going that way. He, Chuno, and Decavo can sit there all day and rot for all the good it will do them. Come on, I’ll show you how to avoid him from now on.”

Felero wraps you in a grateful hug. "Great! Thank you so much! I was worried I'd be stuck here all night. Thank you for sharing your lunch with me too. You're the best."

Your face feels warm at the praise, and you quickly head down the corridor, curtly telling him to follow you in unconscious imitation of Elder Minaro.

While you were talking with Felero, Elder Minaro came out of the lesson cave. The tunnel only goes in two directions, and he went in the opposite direction from the one towards the main cavern and Bato. You follow after him, but his longer legs soon leave you behind. In the winding tunnels you live in, it doesn’t take long to lose sight of someone.

As you walk with Wotjeo on one side and Felero a half pace behind you on the other side, your stomach grumbles loudly, reminding you that it is dinner time. You're always a little hungry, but you're extra hungry today because you shared your lunch with Felero. You laugh nervously and then worriedly glance behind you. Hopefully, you are far enough away that Bato didn’t hear you.

It seems you are in luck, Bato didn’t hear you laughing. At least, no furious trio of bully boys comes chasing after you before you can duck into the safety of the abandoned mining tunnel.

You lead Felero through the abandoned mining tunnel that connects Elder Minaro’s lesson cave tunnel to the tunnel with Amiya’s family's cave. When you get to the main cavern, it is less busy than usual since most people have headed home by now. Felero spots an adult coming out of the lesson cave tunnel and asks him if Bato is still there. He is. The two of you giggle at the thought of Bato waiting all day and night in the other tunnel.

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Before you part ways to go home, Felero hugs you goodbye and then he looks down at his feet. He glances back up shyly. “Would you like to share our gathering, cultivation, and madra techniques with each other? I’m not gettings lessons from an Elder like you or anything, but I think he taught each of us different things and I’ve been getting lessons at home too.”

You love Wotjeo more than anything and want to get good at gathering so you can take care of him. You're tempted Felero’s offer, despite being worn out from the long day of lessons but then our stomach loudly announces its hunger again.

Felero quickly adds “Not tonight, but sometime?”

Wotjeo and you both nod your heads in agreement at the same time. You say "Sure!”

Felero and Poca hug you both again and Felero says, “I'll think of some way to thank you! It's good to have a friend like you."

Your face feels warm at the praise, and you quickly head home.

The next day, as morning meditation breaks up, you see a tired looking Bato and his cronies headed for the lesson cave again. You sprint down the other tunnel in an effort to get there quickly enough to avoid getting yelled at by Elder Minaro. Wotjeo's baby bear legs are too short for him to keep up, so you scoop him up. Cradling your bear cub brother against your chest, you sprint through the tunnel, but halfway through the abandoned mineshaft you are exhausted and have to stop to catch your breath. As soon as you feel like you’ve recovered, you scoop Wotjeo up and resume running. When you arrive at the lesson cave, you are sweaty, exhausted and disheveled. Elder Minaro face twists up like a rotten fruit.

He yells at you: "You're still late!"

You protest that you tried your best and he snaps: "Your best is obviously not good enough."

Elder Minaro moderates his voice to be merely as unyielding as bronze. "As your teacher, it is my responsibility to correct your failure, slow and weak butterfly that you are. Every day, while Wotjeo has his lesson you will run from here down to the deep tunnel guard post and back. Don't think of slacking off just because I'm not awake. I'll be asking the guard if you're applying yourself."

Disgruntled you scoop Wotjeo up to carry him the same way you did to get here and Elder Minaro snaps at you again. "Leave Wotjeo! He still has lessons."

You put Wotjeo down and start sprinting out of the lesson cave.

Elder Minaro snaps at you for the third time. "Jog! Don't sprint!”

Your barely developed self-control is completely overwhelmed by this and you turn to glare at him. Your angry stare has no effect on him at all.

Elder Minaro brusquely instructs you, “you're just going to tire yourself out sprinting the whole way. Jog until you are about to collapse and then walk. No sitting around twiddling your thumbs. I expect you to be either jogging or walking the whole day."

You jog out of the lesson cave fuming. You pass Felero just coming out of the abandoned mineshaft. He jerks back out of your way, and you wonder what your expression must look like. Jogging up and down the tunnel all morning is grueling. Long before lunchtime, you are exhausted and continuing only out of sheer determination.

Genialida has to call your name twice before you realize she’s trying to tell you to stop to eat lunch.

Felero brought a huge lunch today, and he shares it with you. There are even bits of meat and vegetables on metal skewers. So delicious. Wotjeo’s and your lunch seems pathetic compared to Felero’s and Poca’s, but you split it with them too.

While you share their lunch and Felero explains, "I told my mother what happened yesterday, so she made extra food for you. Isn't that great Pūmiè?"

You're not sure what a 'mother' is. Maybe it is like Mama? In any case, you're too busy stuffing your face to answer. Your cheeks are packed with food like a chipmunk's when you nod your head in enthusiastic agreement. You'd agree with anything right now if it meant getting to eat more food like this.

Days pass like that. Too many days. More than even many many days. Days spent jogging up and down the tunnels while Genialida teaches Wotjeo how to breathe back in some of the vital-essence he's leaking into the air.

You're exhausted from jogging all day, and don’t even get to hear Wotjeo’s lessons. Still, you make a little time every evening after your lesson with Elder Minaro ends to repeat what Wotjeo tells you about his lessons to Poca and Felero. You don’t see how Poca could be learning much from what little you have time to pass on, but she and her brother seem very grateful. Felero often offers to share what he’s learning too, and while you don’t really understand it, Wotjeo tells you it is helpful.

Felero never brings as big of a lunch as he did that second day, but his lunch is usually bigger than yours, and he often shares part of it. Which is good. You're not sure how you'd have kept up with Elder Minaro's demands for ever more speed without the extra food.

One day you can jog all the way to the lesson cave while carrying Wotjeo without stopping for a rest.

Elder Minaro greets you: “I see you’re finally able to get here without panting like a half-dead leopard. If you were a hunter or a guard, you’d be expected to be able to sprint the whole distance, but I suppose this will do for now. When we began your extra lessons, you had some questions about your hearing, and I said I would help you with that. Over the next few days, I will teach you some new exercises to help you get better control of your hearing. If your own interest isn’t enough to motivate you to do your best, know that when I’m satisfied you understand the rudiments of the new exercises I’ll be hiding items that give off vital essence throughout the cave complex and you’ll have to find them before the next day’s lesson.”

More days pass. According to Mama, two-thirds of your time with Elder Minaro has been spent with Wotjeo learning from Genialida most days. Meanwhile, you jog through what seems like every abandoned mining tunnel in the whole cave complex looking for lumps of unshaped metal full of metal vital-essence or weirdly shaped metal statues radiating dream madra. You can finally fully shut off your spirit hearing as well as pick out what metal something is made of.

Intriguingly, the exercises have improved your normal hearing as well. You have a hard time not laughing when you hear Bato and his cronies grumbling about where you are most mornings. They seem to be losing interest in trying to ambush you, as they usually leave well before lunchtime now. You’re still a little disappointed that none of the exercises have brought you any closer to figuring out what, if any, meaning “mero dudla” has.

Elder Minaro addresses you with grudging approval before sending you home: “Your progress so far has been adequate, girl. Your most glaring faults, aside from your poor choice of parents, have been shored up now. I still know more than you’re likely to learn in two lifetimes, so what would you like to learn?”

You hadn’t really thought about it before. You’d just kind of assumed that he would make all the decisions for you. You sit quietly while you think about this strange new question.

You are silent for too long for Elder Minaro apparently because he adds, “Every other member of this clan knows exactly what they’d learn from an Elder if they ever got the chance. Only an arrogant butterfly like you wouldn’t have given it any thought. I suppose I’ll have to give you some options then. The first problem facing you is that you still don’t have access to vital essence sources aside from those available during morning meditation. Normally your parents would provide you at least some access, but your father already trades away most of his cultivation access. Genialida could continue Wotjeo’s cultivation instructions to allow him to make the most of what vital-essence you can get him. I can also provide instruction both on how to gather faster, to make better use of morning meditation, or more deeply, which will be useful should you gain access to rich vital essence sources like those in this cave again.”

Elder Minaro points at the ring he gave you and that you are now wearing. You remember he demonstrated that it creates a bronze wall in front of you when you are attacked. “I had thought to teach you how to recharge madra using equipment like the ring I loaned you, but you haven’t used it at all so that might not be the best use of your time. Still, it’s a useful skill. While you can learn it from several other tribe members, none are as skilled as I; so I will happily teach you if you want.”

Elder Minaro points to the empty goblet set out of the way against one of the cave walls. Every morning Elder Minaro gives either you or Wotjeo a potion to drink to help you learn faster. “I brew the potions you drink every day and I can give you an introduction to potion brewing or creating madra equipment. We don’t have enough time to cover more than the basics, but I can teach you one or two useful tricks in our remaining time, and it will provide a good foundation should you choose to pursue such skills further. Our tribe can always use more crafters. The Corazon Chamois make the best potions, but we make the best weapons.”

Excited by the opportunity to boast of his many accomplishments, Elder Minaro leaps to his feet and starts pacing in front of you. Genialida grunts irritably in her sleep every time he steps near her but never fully wakes up. “In a similar vein, you are now ready to learn a wide range of madra manipulation techniques. Whichever of our proud and valuable Paths is lucky enough to have you join, will no doubt teach you their own techniques, but I can give you a head start on any of them. Be it the Hunter techniques to guide metal weapons to their target or sharpen them; or Guard techniques to dull the edge of metal weapons or reinforce their own bodies with the power of metal or Miner techniques to reinforce their tools to prevent wear and tear or the more esoteric arts of the Dreamkeepers who can put our foes to sleep and cross great distances in the space of a thought like you do in a dream. No, don’t say anything now. Think about it tonight and discuss it with your parents and let me know what you’ve decided tomorrow morning. Not everyone gets even one such opportunity in their entire life. This decision deserves your thought and attention.”

When you get home Mama and Papa ask you about your day, as they do every evening. When you tell them about the options Elder Minaro gave you, they both urge you to ask for lessons on different things.

Mama, who is beautiful, wise, and charming, advises: “Learn potion brewing or one of the Dreamkeeper techniques. Potion brewing is an elegant and valuable skill in all tribes. Skilled brewers stay young and pretty looking longer than almost anyone else. You would be valued and feted by the whole tribe so you would have no trouble finding a good husband even though you don’t spend nearly enough time on your hair. It’s just dreadful what all this running and sweating is doing to your lovely curls. The Dreamkeeper techniques are the ones my old tribe had the most trouble with. It’s impossible to win a fight if you’re asleep.”

Papa, who is strong, loving, and hugely huge advises: “Learn the miner techniques to reinforce metal.”

Papa boasts “I used to break my weapons at least once a month. I am so strong; our smiths couldn’t make weapons tough enough to survive my attacks! It would have saved me a lot of trouble and scars if my weapons didn’t keep breaking. You’re my daughter, so you’re sure to be super strong just like me!”

You’re not sure Papa’s advice is the best. You’re still smaller than all the boys except Felero and Amiya is a lot stronger than you. You know he means well though so you hug him and praise him for being strong which makes him smile.

Later, while Mama is tucking you and Wotjeo into your shared bed furs in the sleeping cave, and Papa is out of earshot in the main cave mouth, Mama praises you for handling Papa so well. She tells you that Papa loves hearing how strong he is and how much you love him.