With your lessons from Elder Minaro over, you decide you really need to learn how to fight. The Dream Mirror technique is powerful, but it doesn’t do any damage, so you’ll have to learn how to dish that out yourself. You don’t want to let your family and your tribe down in the Luchamadra tournament.

Papa told you that trapping someone with your Dream Mirror technique would get you a draw at best, not a win. You feel like you really need to win to get the clan to accept you. You probably can’t avoid Bato and his cronies forever either. Most importantly, you promised yourself you’d get even with Chuno someday. Thinking about it, you’ve got a lot of reasons to learn how to fight. Why did you put it off so long again? Riiiight, because Elder Minaro is an incredibly demanding old man.

Definitely not because you’re a little afraid of getting in a real fight again after getting so badly hurt in all your previous fights that you passed out.

To get to the part of Mina’s cave complex where she teaches young cubs like you and Wotjeo how to fight, you have to pass through the cave where most Silver Bears work out. It is as busy as ever, and you pick your way around not only the equipment but also Silver Bear members of every age. You recognize a few of the exercises that the humans and spirit companion bears are doing from your nighttime workouts with Papa, but many manys of them are unfamiliar to you.

Remembering how much it hurt the last time you fought for real isn’t why your hands are shaking when you step into Mina’s training cave again. Nope, you’re just nervous about her reaction. You had been sleeping through a lot of her training even before Elder Minaro switched his lessons to take up the whole day. You haven’t been here for more than a season.

Mina is currently supervising a brawl between a handful of teenagers and the group of younger kids you usually train with. Amiya and a boy manage to tackle one of the teenagers. While they hold the teenager down another girl from your group lessons “kills” him. The other teenagers do better. One of them catches both kids who try to tackle her and slams them into each other until Mina rules them dead and then tries to hold off Amiya and both of her allies. The last teenager was tackled successfully but managed to get back to their feet before being “killed” and finishes off her attackers just in time to intercept Amiya before she can “kill” the second teenager who’d been tackled by the other two kids. That leaves just two of the kids to fight two teenagers, and the older girls quickly wipe the floor with Amiya’s comrades.

Mina tells everyone to gather around her. “Good job today everyone. Amiya, your group did a really good job of tackling your opponent. Most of the other tribes can’t make full use of their strength when they’re pinned. That’s why the first thing we teach you is how to tackle an opponent. It plays to our strengths, counters theirs, and allows even our youngest fighters a chance at taking out their strongest. It’s a risky move and can backfire if you try it on someone bigger and stronger than you, though, like it did when Fuerte caught you two. Don’t get cocky and don’t ever try to tackle a Water Leopard. Those cats cheat. Fortunately, they seldom attack the caves, so that’s more of a problem for the Hunters.”

Mina has everyone hug it out and then thanks the teenagers for their help and tells everyone to sit down and meditate on the fight. "It's important to review spars, lessons and real fights if there's time afterward. You will progress faster if you take the time to learn from your mistakes and consider how you can do better in the future.

She walks towards you and stares down at you with her fists planted on her hips. “Hello, Pūmiè. I’m surprised to see you here again. I thought you’d forgotten about us.”

You bow deeply and blurt out your apology in one breathless rush: “This one apologizes to her honorable teacher for her disrespect. This one just finished lessons with the honorable and respectable Elder Minaro yesterday and humbly begs permission to resume this one’s lessons.”

To your surprise, Mina scoops you up in a warm embrace. Her hug is just as crushingly tight as Papa’s. “Welcome back, Pūmiè! Elder Minaro is usually a stickler about time and never gives anyone extra days of instruction. You must have impressed him. I thought your lessons were over days ago and you’d decided to learn how to fight from the Hunters like your father instead of returning to us.”

Your ribs are really starting to hurt now, and you’re getting short on breath. “You can resume your lessons, but I expect you to work hard and not fall asleep again! Drop that ‘this one’ nonsense, and show some self-respect too. Did that old... I mean did Elder Minaro teach you anything useful in a fight?”

She finally stops hugging you, and you drop to the cave floor, sucking down huge lungfuls of sweet, sweet air.

Still gasping for breath, you summarize your training. When you’ve calmed down enough to do it, you demonstrate your Dream Mirror technique for her. She looks through it, right into your eyes. “Not bad, but don’t try to use that on anyone two tiers or more above you. If someone’s spirit is that much stronger than you, even your best efforts will wash over them like water off the back of a duck. That’s why I like fists. Much harder to ignore a fist in your face than fancy tricks.”

She grins as she holds up her fist. Even though she’s really nice, it’s still kind of a scary expression.

You resume lessons right where you left off, only Amiya is half one of your tiny hands taller than she used to be and you’ve hardly grown at all, so you spend a lot more time on the ground. Either because she tackled you, or because she deflected your attempts to tackle her. Some days it feels like you’re not even mussing her wild and beautiful blond hair, but Mina assures you that you are making progress. Wotjeo is doing a lot better than last time though. He’s grown about as much as Amiya has and Bearyo, the blond-haired girl’s spirit brother, didn’t grow as much as Wotjeo or Amiya did.

After a full season of groaning on the ground, Amiya can still tackle you at will, but you manage to tackle her about a quarter of the time. On a particularly lucky day, you manage to tackle Amiya to the ground twice in a row.

Mina walked by just then and said, “it looks like you are truly taking my training seriously this time. It’ll still be many winters yet before you're ready to face any of the other tribe's hunter's one-on-one, much less a Marbled Polecat assassin, but you’ve taken the first step on that path. I hope you’re eager to take a second one; because it’s time for me to teach you what to do once you’ve got an enemy on the ground.”

Mina starts having you alternate lessons, one day with herself and one day with Amiya. Mina teaches you how to perform several pins and armbars including the full nelson and only lets you start using them on Amiya when she’s happy you know how to do them safely as well as how to bring the pain against the many enemies of the Silver Bear clan.

Wotjeo gets similar lessons with Mina’s familiar Chimenea. Of course, this means Amiya now gets to do the same things to you. Amiya not only tackles you a lot more than you tackle her, but she’s a lot better at pinning you too. You acquire whole new sets of bruises. Papa is entirely unsympathetic to your pained groans when you return home. Instead, he praises every new injury as proof of his “clever Pūmiè” getting tougher.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Looking at how much bigger than you the other kids taking Mina’s lesson are, you ask her, “how can I fight and beat a stronger person.”

Mina laughs. “I like your ambition! Do what your father did and grow stronger! You are his daughter, so I’m sure one day you’ll be one of the largest and strongest people in the clan.”

You gesture hopelessly at yourself. “But I’m so small!”

Mina hugs you and ruffles your hair. “Don’t worry. Most of Elder Minaro’s students are short for their age and they all go on to be champions of the clan if they survive long enough. If you're worried about the tournament, don't be. There’ll be lots of kids smaller than you. Not everyone is lucky enough to be born a Silver Bear; once you get your growth you'll be bigger and stronger than most people in the other clans. The only people you're likely to meet as an adult who are larger than you are other Silver Bears. I'm teaching you how to defend the clan and yourself in that order. Not how to hurt our clan members. I'm no short-sighted Hunter to teach people how to make the tribe weaker by hurting each other."

***

In addition to your wrestling practice under Mina’s guidance in the afternoons, you arrange to meet with Felero in the mornings to swap gathering and cultivation lessons as you discussed. Ordinarily, Elder Minaro’s lesson cave would be forbidden to you now that your lessons are over, but Felero got permission to use it until the tournament starts, so you agree to meet there.

After hugging you hello the first morning, Felero nervously asks. “Are you sure you want to swap lessons? What Elder Minaro taught you is surely more useful than what my mother taught me. I think I’ll get a lot more out of swapping lessons and I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

You laugh with relief. “I thought I was taking advantage of you! If we weren’t meeting here, I wouldn’t have had anywhere to gather vital-essence from at all!”

Felero reassures you, “It’s no trouble, I am happy to be able to repay you in some small way. I checked with my mother to make sure letting you gather here wouldn’t cause problems. She said it would be fine. As far as the tribe is concerned, once the Matriarch or an Elder has given someone permission to gather, they can give that permission to anyone else, or even trade it away like a pomegranate. Since Elder Minaro didn’t place a limit on how much gathering I can do, I can share it with anyone I want, and it doesn’t cost me anything, so please, help yourself. I only gather dream madra at morning meditation and then balance it out here. It’s faster that way since the longer it has been since you dreamt, the weaker the dream vital essence around you is.”

Felero’s speech patterns are, as always, much more like an adult’s than the other kids your age, or even Amiya’s. It’s kind of weird how smart a, but he’s your friend, so you don’t let it bother you. Maybe he talks like that because he’s so smart? He is the smartest kid you know. He can even count above three!

You both agree that it is good to have a friend like the other. When you tell Mama about your conversation later, she congratulates you. “Very well done, growlitta. That’s how all the best trades work. You want both parties to feel like they came out ahead.”

***

One morning many days later you arrive at the cave to see Felero is already there. He doesn’t look at all tired or sweaty! How’d he get here before you? You thought you were faster than him. Thanks to all that jogging Elder Minaro made you do, you usually get here before him.

As if reading your mind, Felero smiles and says “I noticed Bato stopped setting ambushes four days ago. He must be furious at you to keep trying for as long as he did. Today I waited for him to leave and then walked down the shorter path we used to take. Ahh, I’m so happy he finally gave up!”

For the next many, many days you come and go through the shorter path, glad to be able to save the time having to go around would cost. Only your excellent hearing keeps this from turning into a disaster. As you approach the corner one morning, you hear Bato bragging to Decavo and Chuno about catching you now that you’ve let down your guard like a stupid doe.

Grateful to Elder Minaro for making you spend so long improving your hearing you stop Felero and the two of you return to taking the longer route you found. It costs some time every day, but it is not worth the risk of getting in another fight with them before you are ready.

To start with, you try to teach Poca, Felero’s black-furred spirit sister silver bear, the most valuable thing the Elder taught you, how to cultivate efficiently. Unfortunately, you don’t actually know it. Wotjeo does. You were busy running up and down many of the abandoned mining tunnels while Elder Genialida was teaching Wotjeo how to cultivate more efficiently. Fortunately, Wotjeo can tell you what to say and then you can tell Poca.

This game of telephone results in a long and tedious training process, but it is the only option. Wotjeo did try to teach Poca in dreams once, but it turns out you can’t cultivate while dreaming, so a dream lesson on cultivation is less than successful. Summer turns to fall and winter approaches before Wotjeo think Poca has even the basics down, and even then you both think Wotjeo is better at it. You wonder how Elder Minaro & Genialida were able to see what their students were doing. You can only guess at whether Poca is following the spiritual and meditative parts of the technique right, and it’s not easy to judge her breathing just from watching for the subtle signs visible on her torso. If you’d been able to tell what mistakes Poca was making, the way the Elder and his spirit companion could, everything would have gone much smoother. Felero is overjoyed with the results though. Poca can’t talk yet, not even with Felero as far as you can tell, but her incredibly cute baby bear hugs are a pretty good indication that she’s happy too.

It turns out that Felero has been learning the Dream Mirror technique too. With the Luchamadra rapidly approaching, you both agree to try and help each other get better at using it.

You compare your lessons on the Dream Mirror technique with Felero’s. He’s made about as much progress in a whole season of instruction with his mother as you made in the small part of your lessons with Elder Minaro that were spent on it. Wotjeo and Poca, Felero’s black-furred spirit sister, both only have enough madra to let you use the technique once and then need to spend time converting vital-essence into madra. Dream Mirror is so madra intensive a technique that you end up spending a lot more time gathering than you do working on the technique.

Neither you, nor Felero, are any match for Elder Minaro when it comes to teaching, but practicing with Felero is a lot more fun, and you both make steady progress. Felero has a very different understanding of the technique than you do. Because he’s good at parts that you struggle with and you are good at the parts he has trouble with, you both still learn a lot from discussing it and practicing the technique on each other even though you’re both about as good at it. When the Luchamadra starts, Felero won’t be allowed to use this cave anymore so you’ll have to find another place to meet afterwards.

By the time the Luchamadra arrives you’ve already improved a lot, the images the target of your Dream Mirror see are much more realistic and cover a lot more area than when you started, extending out three more of your short paces to either side now (according to Felero, three is the number after two , which you still have a hard time remembering).

All the extra vital essence and time spent cultivating has been good for Wotjeo too. He’s gone through another growth spurt. Your little brother is up to your waist now and is getting to be a real armful when you need to sprint.

You didn’t spend all your time practicing. Felero also urges you to join his family for lunch once or twice a week. You still feel shy, but your grumbling stomach makes sure you never miss a chance to go since they always make a huge lunch. During lunch, you meet Felero’s mama’s papa, Abealo, who is a potion brewer. Felero says he’ll be learning how to gather herbs from him in a winter or two. Dreamkeepers need lots of herbs to make special potions they use to help them share dreams. Abealo tells you that you’d be welcome too.

Abealo, eyes you speculatively, adding: “I’m searching for an apprentice I can train to take my place. I understand you won Elder Minaro’s extra lessons this year. I’m looking forward to seeing how you do in this year’s tournament.”

Felero helped you a lot by letting you gather in the Elder lesson cave. You wouldn’t have been able to practice your Dream Mirror technique without the access to vital-essence he gave you. You’re really happy to have a friend like him, and he and his family, seem to feel the same way about you. It’s good to have a friend.