I thought this to be the one. This child, barely eleven, showing himself to be a prodigy of his clan, dressed in robes red, impractical and green, showcasing the inferior aesthetical inclinations of his bloodline. This walking disaster that was about to get initiated on the Roads.
“Come here, my son, today you shall choose your fate,” the ostensible father beckoned from across the lodge, sitting his big, strong, yet thoroughly-cucked-by-a-street-belonging-mid-hoe figure on a blue rug with frills that rested upon, you will never guess it, a caramelized floor. This is no metaphor. The floorboards had caramel on top.
The child stepped up to the plate, up to the lines of blunt and edged weapons lain before his purported ancestor. No, little one, you are the son of that curious merchant that supplies the fucker that raises you with daggers. The redheaded one.
He calmly kneeled in front of the man, and joined the palms of his hands above his head, looking like he was high-fiving himself for having learned to walk across a room without dying.
“Father,” he unknowingly lied, “allow me to master the dark ones as my weapons.”
The man scratched his dense beard. “You cannot, my heart. It’s forbidden by our founders.”
“But, I really want to bind the dark powers to do my bidding, father.”
“No, our constitution forbids it. Look. “ He took out a book that was stashed close to his heart, under his several layers of clothing, and cleared his throat. “ ‘Henceforth, and by the love of any deity you may think of or even that luscious rabbit that tries to seduce me at night, the Gromera clan shall be forbidden from owning slaves. They are too mentally stifled to be superior to anyone. In addendum to that, enslaving them shall be considered animal cruelty and punished by two slaps on the wrist.’” He quoted the supreme law of the land, that by which all clans would abide.
“Father, I want my weapon to be a bunch of tanned big men with strong arms and stronger melanosomes. This is my fate, and I shall master it.”
“Son, no.”
“I want to master the Road of the dark ones, or, as others call them, the N— “ and so the supposed father did the one thing worth writing about in his life and bitchslapped his wife’s son.
“Pick a weapon, moron!”
And so the child picked a weapon.
This, suffice to say, was not the one. My search had to continue.
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Seven hundred fifty-fifth time’s the charm, or so they say. Half a world away from my last attempt, another child was being presented with several options by his mother. He had the traits to be the one. Unassuming brown hair, extreme Dunning-Kruger, and his mind-hamster was as obese as his progenitor, here in front of him. He was holding a Rottweiler puppy by the dog’s armpits, making the little pooch dangle in front of so many sharp metal utensils one would think they wanted to cook the poor thing. Truth is, this child, a prodigy among the people of the valley, was the sharpest tool in a shed full of dildos.
For you to fathom how ascended this family was compared to the Gromera, consider the following: they knew how to use tables and chairs. The most accomplished members of this family learnt to multiply things by two after a life of struggle and cultivation. Those who achieved immortality by means unnatural even became capable of the unthinkable: comprehending exponentiation, if only conceptually.
“My dear son, as you know, your father…”
“The butter man?”
“I said Your father, not your brother’s.”
“Uncle Simin?”
The mother nodded energetically. “Grandfather Simin to you.”
The Rottweiler began to get the feeling that he was the least inbred mammal in the room, by a long shot.
“As I said, your father is not here so it comes to me in this, your eleventh birthday, to present you the long table of weapons.” She gestured to the long, rectangular table in front of her, where three dozen different tools of murder were laid. “Now choose one and start to shape your fate, my child.”
“Mother.” The boy held the pup aloft. “To choose a weapon is to put Jagger down on the floor.” For the record, these people were still a couple generations away from caramelizing their floorboards.
“Yes, you can pick him up afterwards.”
“But wood and metal are cold, and Jagger is warm,” The child argued the endothermal nature of his companion with extreme deftness and a wit way above his age.
“Kalon, dear, the only warm thing here will be the backside of my hand if you don’t choose a road.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“I chose the Road of the Rottweiler!” The brat declared, raising Jagger as he struggled to get free from the hands of that stupid individual. He needed his beauty sleep, 20 hours a day at least.
“You cannot choose that road, for it doesn’t exist—”
From beyond the cracks on the caramelized reeds ceiling, a beam of heavenly light enveloped the child, as he had made a choice: from that day onwards, he would follow the road of the Rottweiler, to never deviate from it, to practice and cultivate it to the last consequences. Unless he had a regret and asked the heavens for a path change, that they freely allotted because forcing an eleven-year-old to make a life-changing choice was the epitome of stupidity and inconsideration.
This was not the one, but I was tired of searching, so it would have to do.
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Kalon swung Jagger against the wooden practice doll, and the pup whined. The most intelligent being in the room considered life was unfair. You were born, weaned from your mom a few days after opening your eyes, separated from your peers and brothers and probably cousins because you were a dog of a recognized breed all the same, and then mister intellectphobic decided, that, yes, you would make an appropriate weapon to master on his path of ascension.
As for Kalon, he wished Jagger would be a bit sharper or blunter. It turned out Rottweiler puppies were mostly a bag of fat and other useless things, like bones and gray matter. They didn’t have much of a hilt, being, you know, dogs and all. Evolution didn’t grant canids hilts because, until this particular point in time, there was no need nor use for them. Of course men could, with enough generations and some wise artificial selection, adapt dog tails into hilts. But then you have the problem of your sword shitting all over you in the middle of a fight. You’d want the tail to be the business end of a dog-sword, if possible.
Whomp! Another hit of Jagger's pupflesh against the training doll’s treeflesh. Jagger was getting used to this. His master would get some sort of power out of all of this training, and the concussions couldn’t do more than equalize their intelligence. As he swung through the air, Jagger took in his surroundings. The training field had a dirt floor, non-caramelized so far, and the dust rose among the unsteady feet of the rows of practicing children. Polearms, daggers, swords, single links of a chain, bows (that weren’t enough for a particularly resourceful child so she opted for catapults), and plate gauntlets were some of the weapons chosen. Each one of them had the potential to be mastered through training, meditation, collection, acquisition and consumption of elixirs, or methods particular to each road.
Kalon thought about his future. Not in the way one thinks about a college career or marriage, but rather in the way one thinks about lunch. He would have some stick scallops, oh yes, and maybe accompany them with sweet potatoes. This all after he concluded this, his first training session, and familiarized himself with his weapon.
The clan’s elder watched over them, caressing his long beard, his thoughts unable to escape through the imperturbable mask that was his face. I wonder which of them are mine. He pondered while looking at the children rage against the wood as they would one day rage against the heavens. I wonder if this thing can be cut, was the thought that followed after his fingers got entangled in his wise-man-beard.
A few prodigies quickly stood from the crowd. One of the dagger-wielding children had a breakthrough, and a second dagger, identical to the first, materialized in his empty hand, a show of light and silver that amazed the bystanders. A similar thing happened to the catapult girl, who suddenly was handling two siege weapons instead of one.
Kalon, in contrast, kept on pummeling the doll with Jagger to no avail. He didn’t feel more powerful; he didn’t feel like he had taken the first step on his road to greatness. What he felt was shame, a void inside that no amount of useless training would fill. Some know it as hunger due to rushing there and not eating a proper breakfast, but who are we to judge this young master of folic acid evasion?
Jagger’s life flashed before his eyes. It was a TikTok of tragedy and dogtits looping endlessly as he got smashed against the doll once and again. Actually, let me note that down. “A TikTok of Tragedy and Dogtits” has the potential to be a best seller in the YA market.
Whomp! Jagger hit the doll once again, back first, and felt his spine rearranging. He believed he was about to have a breakthrough of his own, skipping immediately to the highest tier of puppy-cripple attainable. A path to greatness few dared to walk… or wheelchair.
Kelon kept smashing the puppy against the doll, refining his technique with each thud of Rottweiler against undignified but lignified tissue. He was thankful to Jagger for making such an obedient weapon: he had not sprained his wrist so far.
After a hundred and twenty-seven hits, Jagger had begun elucidating a few elements of Newtonian Physics.
“You, puppy cultivator, stop for today, it’s clear you don’t have it in you to advance yet. You will have to cultivate by non-practice means tomorrow,” decreed the Elder, wondering how would Jagger taste with some potatoes, onions, olive oil and oregano. He was already well-tenderized, after all.
“But master, I feel it inside me, I am about to get a second dog.”
The elder pointed in the direction of the catapult girl. She was sweating the fat drop, and yet, had managed to attain a veritable reverse harem of siege weapons. “It takes years for some to reach that level solely by training and beginning with a single weapon. Can you hit the doll for years on end, boy?”
Kalon considered the question carefully. “If the years are short,” he answered, inflating his chest to look rude.
The elder dedicated to him the kind of stare one dedicates to a blackening banana while considering if it is worth to give in to hope and peel it. “You are the mind of your generation.”
“I shall graduate from this place before cousin Crusadina does.”
Crusadina flashed a deep gold and her number of catapults doubled once again. The oldest catapult sprouted white, feathery wings. The Elder considered the situation for a moment. “I think she will be attaining immortality by next Friday or so.”
“I am sure you will give her all the resources of the sect-clan and leave us to fight for the leftovers!” Kalon accused, spending all of his chimi—You know, vital energy— in forming a coherent thought.
He then collapsed from exhaustion. On top of the puppy.
Jagger crawled from below the slumping form of his owner. He dedicated the Elder a tired stare.
“I pity you, dog.” The Elder took a sip from an untagged glass bottle filled with an oily, black substance. That was the first time Jagger smelled that delicious scent that belonged to such an elixir.
“At least I don’t drink used Kerosene,” Jagger said, and the elder fell from the rock on which he was sitting, back first.
“The vermin speaks!” He exclaimed, victim of elation. “This is sure a signal from heaven!”