The day of the feast approached and Ves'ra and her band were sent out to hunt another boar. She succeeded again, finding solace that the boar wouldn't have to suffer as long as the first did.
They returned with ample time, only to be roped in to help prepare the rest of the feast. They cleared a large area in the middle of the forest for some games and constructed a fire for each band. Ves’ra had to create large blocks of ice under direction of the chieftain. Which were used to construct a parkour later - one for climbing and one for running. Finally they fetched the two boars, readying them for slaughter in the middle of the cleared area.
All bands returned earlier than usual, together with her frustrated siblings - they were left in the dark just like she was. Once everyone was assembled and the fires were burning - full of small game the other bands hunted - both shaman and chieftain left their huts and moved to the middle of the gathering.
“Now that everyone is back let's begin! First order of business, you can thank young Ves’ra and her band for the boars of this year!” She yelled, causing everyone’s attention to land on her. The shaman continued immediately after, leaving no time for any interruptions. “Let the games begin, and may the best win!”
Ves’ra stood up, these courses gave an advantage to all others in the village and she decided to get over with it immediately. She was forced to sit down immediately before she moved, hearing the best message she could have hoped for.
“You too young, feast only for adult kobolds.”
That wasn't just fine, it was perfect - she wouldn't participate if she didn't have to. Ves'ra would definitely enjoy the show though, now that she didn't have to participate.
Weightlifting was easy, the participant got a proportional amount of points for each lifted weight, but was only allowed to lift three weights in total. If you failed to lift a weight you lost all further tries. It was quite fun to watch, especially when someone overestimated him/herself and lost in the first round.
Not everyone participated though, she noted that only half of the adult kobolds - which in this case meant over three years old - took part in the strength competition. In the end Tes’ro - one of her band and Zer’ta, another one of the kobolds won.
The whole village cheered once the shaman made the two winners known, both joining the chieftain at her fire. They made a small break, allowing all to regain their strength.
Climbing was about speed and tenacity, the participants had to climb the trees up to a marker, one at a time, and weather the children throwing small rocks at them, trying to get them to fall down. Whoever managed to climb the most trees won. This was even more fun, throwing stuff at other kobolds while they were doing their best to climb their tree as fast as possible. They had to throw in shifts, or the latter participants would have a serious advantage, but that did little to stem their fun. Ves’ra had no connection with the two that won this time - Zet’ko and Vas’za.
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The last competition started soon after, the other kobolds had to run as many laps around the clearing as possible - all while jumping over a log or crawling under another and the kobold with most laps once the suns had vanished over the horizon won. It was won by another two from different bands - Ges’vo and Zes’sa.
They killed the boars soon after. Her siblings were experiencing the joy of eating boar for the first time, and it showed in the glee on their faces. The six winners of the competitions were given the six best parts - the hearts and livers. Ves’ra was a bit ruffled with that, HER band hunted those by themselves, but she supposed the winners deserved some kind of reward.
She returned from the fire where the two boars were being roasted and set down next to Kes’ra.
“So what is this competition for then? Other then the boar of course?”
“I suppose I can tell you now. They will have eggs together.”
“That's it? I thought we were competing for something interesting.”
“I heard it’s quite the pleasurable experience, I definitely plan do compete next year!”
“Good luck. So the three with children will take over the production of our spears and stuff?”
“They will.”
Ves’ra went to sleep early that day, she had felt stuffed ever since the first bite of wyvern a week and a half ago and the feeling grew unbearable after eating the boar this evening, it was making her cranky. She decided to meditate on that feeling before sleeping, it had helped her so far and wouldn't hurt even if it failed.
No wonder she felt like bursting, her energy-veins were strained, nearly bursting from their seams. She would have to do something about that, she didn't think something good would happen should her energy run rampant.
She’d have to somehow compress the energy to a state it would naturally stay at.
Of course she had noticed how her total amount of energy had been growing ever since she started hunting, but she hadn't paid it any mind as she was unable to use all of it at once and it seemed natural. That had obviously been a mistake.
After some thinking Ves’ra remembered how Kes’ra taught her how to make ropes out of bark, how the long stripes were slowly transformed into the slightly thicker and shorter but way sturdier ropes. She started with a strand of energy just leaving her magic heart, separating it in three strands. She twisted these strands around themselves first. Once she felt the strands would regain their original shape if twisted further she rotated two of the strands around themselves while rotating the last in the opposite direction, around the two others.
Once the first part was done she made sure the energy wouldn't unravel of its own - it didn't, her energy seemed fine to stay in that state on its own. She was pretty was sure the energy would stay as a rope, for now. It would unravel in time, if she didn't transform her entire energy into an energy-rope.
It took nearly three thousand breaths before the pressure on her energy veins was back to a comfortable level. She needed another thousand breaths to add the rest of her energy to the rope, until there was no energy outside of the rope left.
Once she left her meditation she saw that most of her band had already returned, sleeping in a pile around her. A quarter of a day of continuous energy manipulation had her pretty wiped as well, especially the fine manipulation needed to spin the rope. She fell asleep with a smile on her face regardless, feeling content with her lot in life for the first time this day.