The Grand Polassa Zoo was about a thirty-minute glide away from the city. Elis had insisted they go there by public transportation as it was much quicker. Kosmo didn’t want to go on a train, or a bus. He found Folk infrastructure, like most non-KinTaur infrastructure, to be uncomfortable. There were Folk taller than him, since he had only been about 5 foot 9, but there weren’t many that were wider than him.
If he sat, some Folk would grumble about him spilling into another seat, if he stood in the aisle, other Folk would complain that he’s blocking their exits. Plus, he rather liked Elis’ Gale-Cart. Like everything else in her life, it was neat and proper, perhaps apart from Kosmo himself.
“Excited for your first day?” said Elis tapping on the steering wheel to the sound of the radio.
“Real excited,” he smiled back at her.
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He stood in a locker room by the mirror inspecting himself. He wore an old fading jumpsuit made of Frost-Sap. It had lost its deep black and looked like a regular black. Inside it had been lined with material made of Solar-Sap.
“That way you can still use your Essence,” said Elis.
“Why do we have to wear them though?”
She chomped her teeth at him, “because teeth don’t have Pulsing cells, and if those little critters bite your cells they could shatter their mouths.” She tugged on the uniform with her tail, and brushed the right breast pocket that had the name ‘Kosmo’ printed on it. “Well, it fits you nice.”
Kosmo pondered for a moment, “Charmed wolves need more protection than me?” All those horror stories from Ilibi came flooding back into his mind. His grandparents lived in a small town just at the base of the Levara mountains in Barekara. Every time he visited, he was told never to wander alone.
“That’s how they get you,” his grandfather often said in his rocking chair, “they send out the pups with Pulling abilities, those pups distract you and out comes the rest of the pack to finish you off.” He would suddenly sit up with his hooves crashing into the ground, “don’t think just because you’re Pureborn you can take them on. The fully ascended adults’ claws can cut through your cells you know.”
“Are you scared of the wolves?” Elis asked as they stepped out into the Aradahi sun. It was midweek, the zoo hadn’t been that busy: a class on some educational trip, and a few tourists straggled here and about. After Kosmo had unconvincingly replied ‘no,’ Elis reassured him that they’d only be dealing with the pups. “Only Talentborn in their 2nd Dominion Phase and Divine Phase can interact with the grown ones.”
The wolves had a pretty decent living situation from Kosmo’s view. It was a large open space, with natural vegetation, rocks, logs, and even a little waterfall that trickled water into a safety moat. Kosmo wondered why they needed a safety moat. A mesh net, obviously made of Frost-Sap, had been draped over the enclosing. The whole zoo had been designed to ensure that nothing got into the enclosures, and perhaps more importantly as Elis pointed out, nothing gets out.
They stood peering through the barred gate that led into the enclosure. An elderly Folk man was hunched over rubbing one of the wolves on the belly.
“Chen,” Elis waved.
Chen opened the gate. Kosmo was apprehensive about entering. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Chen said through his raspy voice.
“Is it true that their claws can cut through Pulse cells,” Kosmo asked.
“Like a hot knife through butter,” replied Elis.
He hesitated and then committed. The gate shut before him.
“Come,” Elis interlocked tails with his.
This calmed his beating heart for a moment. The wolves all stood on their fours and were peering at Kosmo. ‘How delicious I must look to them’ he thought.
Chen picked up a stick and began to walk the other direction. The wolves followed.
“He was a Gale-Fighter commander in the Serf wars,” Elis leaned into whisper.
“Really?” Kosmo replied. “Which side?”
“He fought for the Iradi Imperial Coalition.”
Kosmo grimaced at this. The old Folk kingdoms had fought the hardest to keep their serfs. Even the KinTaurs buckled under Yimani pressure to change.
“He defected though,” she added. “Apparently agents from Gan Wu have been trying to you know…” she dragged her finger across Kosmo’s throat in a slitting motion.
“Really?”
“He says he survived eight different attempts in the past forty years.”
Behind some of the rocks, logs, and other vegetational features was another gate. They entered and it was another enclosure, a smaller version of the one they had left behind. Like most of the Grand Polassa Zoo enclosures, it was below ground level. When Kosmo looked up he could see the bouncing heads of little Folk kids pointing down at the pups.
The pups had immediately rushed for Elis wagging their tail before stopping to look at Kosmo. The fur on one of the little critter stood perfectly up, before catching blaze. The pup leapt for Kosmo who dodged out of the way.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Elis called it to her, and it begrudgingly went, shooting dirty looks at Kosmo. “All Charmed animals are smart. Too smart for their own good,” she said rubbing their bellies. “This is my boyfriend,” she talked in a babyish voice to the pups, “don’t hurt him okay. He’s here to help.”
He tried to approach with an outstretched palm to pet one of them. But it stood rigidly with its body tense and growling. He stepped back. But one of them came wagging its tail towards him.
“Go on,” Elis insisted.
He crouched and lightly patted the top of its head. It licked his hand and showed affection back to him. He then tried to pick it up.
“Don’t do that,” Elis tried to warn.
“Do what?” Kosmo replied now fully standing with the pup in his arms. Except for the fact that its two hind legs had still been on the ground, and its body had stretched all the way up. It gave him a paw to the face and he dropped it. He watched the pup slowly shrink back to size again. He could hear the laughter of the children watching.
Elis pulled out a note pad. She wrote something on it and asked if made any sense to Kosmo:
'1 = 0.5 + 0.5 = 1'
“Yes,” of course, it did. “The first 1 is the amount of Essence you dedicate. The first 0.5 determines how intense your Push will be. The second 0.5 determines the range. And the other 1 is the actual amount of total Essence you have used in your Push.”
Her eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly before turning into a smile. “Didn’t know you were well-acquainted with the Art of the Mind.”
“I don’t. I know the basics of doing a Push, I guess.”
She ran her tail underneath her chin and added to herself, “I never realized it would be familiar.”
“But that’s all I remember,” Kosmo said. “Our Iron Blitz coaches used to force every Pusher or Puller to get proper training. Thought it would teach us discipline or something.”
“Well, you are correct,” she replied. “About it teaching you discipline and all but also about how a 0.5 + 0.5 Pull works.” She wrote on her notepad. The pups all sat attentively with their heads looking at her in admiration. “You have a total of 15 Essence as a Mythic,” she said as she wrote down. “For a Push or a Pull.” She circled the last ‘1’ in the previous sum. “This number is for the total amount of Essence you have used. So, after a successful 0.5 + 0.5, you lose 1 Essence.”
It made enough sense to Kosmo. He had remembered that part. He also remembered that once your Essence ran, it would take about 60 seconds before you could reuse it. ‘Well, as a Mythic,’ he thought. He knew that the time got shorter as you entered the Still Phase, then 1st Dominion Phase, and onto the 2nd Dominion Phase where you’d have a total pool of 60 Essence and it would only take 15 seconds to regain. In the Divine Phase, he often heard the power was unlimited.
“Since you know about Pushing so much, I might as well relate everything to it. You know how you have a Flow and a Firm Push right?”
He knew. A Flow Push for him was Air, for a RiverWood it was Water, and a SolarFrost it was fire. A firm push would then be Earth, Vines, and Ice. He was well-aware of this even as a child, before his Talent-Birth.
At his altar, often the youth Takatoro Priests, would come up to the younger Taurs trying to impress them on the marvels of Takatoro and the rhythm of Aradahi, “Notice how all FireSap, WaterSap, and AirSap are naturally liquid. And how IceSap, WoodSap, and EarthSap are naturally solid. Everything is there for a reason. The saps are there because Takatoro knew that Regulars would need it for their salvation in the future. It’s only thanks to those rotten fruits that fell off the branch that Aradahi was broken for a long time. But grace be to those that braved Vasotoro and the mighty Akila armies and rid Aradahi of that one final rotten fruit.”
“Good,” she replied trying to change the subject.
He knew the Takatoro Testament wasn’t something Elis or KinTaurs from Harekara appreciated.
“Anyway,” she added. “It’s the same for Pulling. You have your Flow Pull and your Firm Pull. For us GaleStones, as masters of will, at the Mythic level our Flow Pull is called the mental nudge, it slightly focuses our target onto ourselves. Then our Firm Pull is a mind fray, which makes our targets’ thoughts scatter and disrupting its concentration.”
She whistled and the pups got on all fours. “The trick,” she continued, “is knowing which Pull to take. Go on agitate one of them,” she insisted.
He tried to reach for one of them. And it caught ablaze. Elis moved her tail as her tail bristles vibrated. The pup calmed down and started to look around. “A Firm Pull because its angry. You make it forget why its angry. Scatter its thoughts.” She pointed to the pup that had clawed him earlier.
He tried to approach but the pup slowly backed away.
Elis worked her tail again. The pup the stopped in place. “A Flow Pull to help it see better that you are not threat.”
“What about the other Essence types?”
“Hmm…” she tapped the side of her cheek. “RiverWoods are masters of emotion. I believe at the Mythic level their Flow Pull soothes the target provides a sense of clam while a Firm Pull induces discomfort. And as for SolarFrosts, they are masters of perception. A Mythical Flow Pull for them would enhance clarity helping the target to think better while a Firm Pull plants seeds of doubts.” She waived her tail, “we are getting distracted. We don’t have all day.”
Now it came to the difficult part so thought Kosmo, making sense of the figures.
'1 = 0.5 + 0.5 = 1'
'1 = 0.4 + 0.6 = 1.2'
'1 = 0.6 + 0.4 = 1'
Elis circled the first rows of 1. “This is the Essence you are dedicating to use. But it’s also the time you have to do your whole move. 1 second. Which means that if you want a perfectly balanced 0.5 + 0.5 Pull, the one that’s safe for these pups, you must dedicate intensity and range to be exactly 0.5 seconds each.”
She whistled to the pups, “I want you try now. Have you ever Pulled.”
“Internally,” he responded.
“Internally?”
“Yeah. It’s a thing we Pulsers can do. It helps us do…” He couldn’t really explain it to her.
“Anyway. Us KinTaurs Pull from our Tail. KinFolk Pull with their fingers. While KinAkila Pull by rubbing their wing feathers together. Stick out your tail.”
He did.
“Now concentrate on your Pull Essence.”
He breathed in a moment. His Pull Essence was different from his Push Essence that much was true. Push Essence felt more immediate, demanding to be released from the gut. While Pull Essence felt like a light fog swirling in the mind. He felt for that fog and nodded to Elis.
“Good. Now here’s the hard part. The timing. Now I know you already got this because you can Push. We just need to convert that timing instinct back to Pulling. You think you can do it.”
Kosmo nodded.
“Good. Remember, a 0.5 intensity is only an instant moment for us Kin or even for the grown wolves but for the pups its stills strong and can linger on. So, when you Pull try to wave your tail about and waste some of the Essence off to the side.”
“What about the range?”
“Range means different for Pulls. I know for Pushes it has to with distance but for Pulls it has to do with how many targets you can influence. A 0.5 range can influence only one grown Kin, or one grown wolf, but it can get two or three pups depending on their will power.”
He swirled around the Pull Essence in his mind. It had an odd sensation. It was comforting yet it made him focus that much more. Elis sent the blazing pup along his way. He felt the Essence rush from his mind to the bristles of his tail, and as he tried to move his tail to release, nothing came out, instead a stinging sensation in his temple.
Elis called the pup back. “Okay. So, we need to work more on timing first.”