Brown Face and I nod and pull the strings on our bows. I remember a tear forming in my eye… Fox held up his hand, “Hey, hold up.”
We relaxed our bows. Fox walked over and put an arm on my shoulder to pull me a few yards away to talk. “If we do not give its energy back to Gaia, it will hold a grudge for its life which is beyond our own. It will tell its family about us. It would be back here with us to either kill us or force us to stay out of their realm. The badger would know if we did not kill it, and we would need to find another spirit. This… is…”
Monkey-feet yelped in a very girly unwolf-like manner, still formed as a wolf. Fox and the rest looked back, we weren’t paying attention to the hawk, but Monkey-feet was watching. Brown-face had let loose an arrow and it hit the spirit in the neck. The spirit rolled to one side with its wings wide, we all heard it hacking and wheezing through the arrow, it still breathed and it was fairly obviously not a quick, but suffering death. It took Fox seconds to put his foot down on a wing and shoot the spirit close up in the body, stopping it from moving. Its energy seeped into the ground like a bubbling crude.
Brown-face looked at the rest of us like it didn’t matter, he said, “What? Gaia’s spit, Runt wasn’t going to be able to do it, and we were needing to kill it any…”
Growling came from the pit of Fox’s stomach and rumbled through the ground. None of us had heard him growl like this in any form. He walked over to B.F. with a purpose. He was a short man, but he still was taller than the rest of us, he walked within a foot of B.F. and put his forehead against the teen’s. He said with a rumble, “Do you want to be alpha? Boy? Do you want to make decisions over me? Boy? Do you want to challenge me? BOY?”
Brown-face’s face turned redder than Fox’s hair. “No alpha.”
Fox continued in the same pitch, the same anger, “This was a pack kill, a pack win, did YOU want to take this AWAY from the pack? BOY?!?”
B.F. couldn’t make a word come out of his mouth, he just shook his head frantically.
Fox was livid now, “You are a member of a pack. This pack is not cohesive because of YOU. You are NOT better than this younger boy. He is a warrior of Gaia, same as you, and you fail exercises day in and day out because you fight like this as one, but you play separately. Do you think I am playing with you here? I am building you to be a warrior of Gaia, not as some lone-wolf. This apparently is something I need to say out loud. You are NOT better than this boy, we are pack.”
B.F. couldn’t raise his face level, he was stuck staring at the ground. He tried to back up from all of the animosity in front of him, but he tripped over a tree root, Fox grabbed his shirt with a lightning fist and pulled him close. He then lifted the boy off of the ground a couple of inches and pushed him up against a tree.
The rest of us were damn near stunned at the goings on, I remember being stunned into embarrassment, the focus was clearly on me for not being able to go through with this as a weak warrior. So much so that Fox had to stick up for me, again. The rest of us could barely do more than gasp as it continued.
Fox seemed to not be able to get the growling tone out of his voice, “You, Brown-face have a lot to learn about this world. This is not some soft-skinned, soft-hearted world filled with grocery stores and commuting jobs to pass the days, it is a hard life of surviving with your pack and you will see stuff that you will yearn for the days when the boy over here was backing you up as you mocked him because he did not grow up like you.”
Brown-face’s face was the color of a cherry at this point, Fox was pissed, and he wasn’t sure of anything that he could say to get through it otherwise.
Fox pushed him up against one of the close-by trees, he said to the rest of us, “Everyone, I am not your dad, your brother, or your teacher, I am your alpha. There is something else you need to learn Brown-face, in this world, there is pain and it is something you need to endure. The boy feels pain every day while he walks, Monkey-feet falls out of trees, Tree-shredder almost died today from that spirit… and now…”
B.F.’s eyes widened, he tried to duck, but an uppercut hit from Fox hit his jaw, vibrating his skull and shooting his head up in the air, and a straight punch a second after that hit him right on the bridge of his nose. Blood gushed from B.F.’s mouth and nose, he had bit his tongue, his jaw was in a sharp pain he hadn’t felt before, other than the shifting which was much more natural than this. He lost more blood from his nose onto the ground just like the bubbling crude did recently… only a few yards away.
I felt such shame, which at this point might be misplaced, but it couldn’t be helped. All of this was because of me. Everyone else was strong, fought well, and could do various things, I was just not great at anything, and everyone focused on it all the time.
B.F. tried to run around the tree and get away from being the center of attention, but Fox grabbed him, “You will not run. You will not abandon us, or your honor. You will stay here, you are pack. Stand against this tree and wait for your nose and tongue to heal. One of these days, you’ll make me upset.”
Brown-face and the others again were a bit surprised, he wasn’t upset yet? We didn’t have time to process the fact that Fox just punched one of them, hard. This wasn’t some nice mentor we were just living with to pass the time and get older, this was our alpha getting us ready for a harsh life.
Fox walked over to the bubbling crude still melting into the ground, coins had popped out of the body and were covered in spiritual energy. The bird had coins for us to share, and Fox pocketed them.
Fox stated, “It is done, however it was done, it is. Let’s go back to the badger and see what happens now.” He got nearly an inch away from B.F.’s face and said, ”You will walk behind me, you will not look behind you for the sympathy of your pack members. If I ever hear you bully or mock any member of your pack again, you will understand how upset I can get. I know you heal from the regular bruises you get when I test you.” The last part was said with a smile in no uncertain terms that he was not there to coddle them.
We walked in silence back towards the badger’s cave, taking much longer than we had before. We unstrung the bows and carried them as walking sticks. When we got to the river that blocked the way to the other side of the lake, Fox told us to sit for a bit. Or, in other words, shut up and meditate.
Fox sat with his eyes closed, listening to the spirit world, silently asking for guidance. Brown-face tried to get the attention of the pack silently. He didn’t say anything, or make any noise, he just tried to get our attention.
Tree-shredder’s face darted to the side, not able to meet his gaze. I certainly wouldn’t pay attention to him, he was trying to do the same as Fox like always, eyes closed and listening to anything. Monkey-feet met his eyes coldly from what I could tell. He silently asked for sympathy, hoping to see some. From what I could tell, there was none from her in any way, she scrunched her face towards him. Brown-face knew she sided with me fairly often, she had on almost everything else.
Fox ordered, “Brown-face, stand and walk with me, the rest of you stay here.” Both stood and walked out of earshot of the rest of us and pressed our way into the material realm to be completely in another world so we could not be heard, the rest waited by the river.
They came back a short time later, neither smiling. Fox clapped his hands together, “Now, we go back for our prizes. Form into wolves, I’ll collect your clothes and we can go back.” We started to form into a wolf, and after clothes were gathered, the others followed suit. We walked back from the river and got a running start before jumping the distance once again and jogged as wolves not sharing a word, look, or grunt.
When we got closer to the side of the lake where the cave was of the badger, it yawned open in front of us as we jogged up, stretching out of the ground like it was lips opening up to eat. The young badgers didn’t run away from us as we walked through the main hall of the hovel, but we didn’t come out of our little pockets to meet us either. I stretched my hand out to see if one would walk up, and it backed away.
About to the same area, momma or daddy badger, we didn’t know or ask, stomped through the hole up to our area and stopped. “Bad bird gone.” Very blunt, still monotone and high-pitched, not cheerful.
Fox answered, “Yes, thank you great badger spirit, the bird is now back with Gaia to leave you in peace. We are here to complete your quest.”
The badger nodded, “Come separate.”
We walked forward separately and items started shuffling out of the spirit’s fur as it twisted from side to side. Fox walked forward first and accepted a net with claws around the edges, smiling at the gift and stepped back. Monkey-feet walked up and a pair of gloves shifted through its fur, landing in front of her feet. She smiled back and bowed to the spirit, thanking it. Brown-face walked up next and a bowstaff clanged to the ground. He looked at the gift in a bit of disgust, and leaned down to pick it up.
Brown Face asked, “A walking stick?”
The badger looked down at him, and didn’t reply with anything other than a short but quiet high-pitched growl. B.F. conceded and accepted the gift, and walked back. Tree-shredder walked up next, he was gifted a sword with a large hilt, enough to separate his arms shoulder wide, but a small blade at the end, not a full staff. It clunked and clanged to the hard earth ground. He scooped it up looking at it, very special and shiny. He bowed and walked back.
Lastly, I walked up, “I understand if I don’t have a gift great spirit, I didn’t….” Out of the fur fell a bag. It seemed unremarkable, but I looked down at it, then back up at the spirit, then back down at the bag. I slowly slid the satchel on the ground toward me, wondering if the spirit would grab it away since I didn’t truly hurt the spirit much during the fight.
There is a main flap, two smaller pockets, and it was all made of some strange material. Not cloth or leather, but nothing that I knew, and my face lit up when it wasn’t taken from him, he took it back to the pack.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Brown-face looked at Tree-shredder’s weapon in jealousy, at least his weapon had a blade at the end. He said, “Hey T.S. let me see that.” Reluctantly, T.S. handed it over, and B.F. told him to hold his staff for a second. The cave was too small for him to swing it around, but he tried.
The spirit growled, “Use given!”
Fox looked up at the spirit and looked at the two boys. He told them to switch back, and T.S. was happy to see that B.F. wasn’t going to try to get it for now.
Fox called up, “So, great badger, are we to be your pack now?”
The badger shook its head, but then it seemed to be hearing something else that the rest of us aren’t. It growled back as its head turned to the east, a strange direction away from them. It said in a conversational tone, “No, friend not worth fight….” it was talking to something else, not them. It continued, “No, you no make up to me, no hurt,” the large spirit shook its head. “You do it, no want to leave.” It listens for another few seconds, then nods to the other contact away from our conversation.
It shook its head with it turned back to them, “Spirit? No, continue. Bird side, keep going, find bad smell.”
Fox asked, “Bad smell, like what? Lots of things smell bad.”
It continued, “Keep going. Lots of food lives there, my little ones eat many times, can go there. Find biggest.”
Fox continued, “How long is the walk?”
The spirit answered, it unbadger-like shrugged its shoulders, “Long.”
Fox said under his breath in thick sarcasm, “Very helpful, thank you.”
The badger nodded and smiled, in a quick last word, “Good jailer, thank spirits.”
The rest thanked the spirit, and I held out the bag, and thanked it in reverence, “I live because of you and yours great spirit, I thank you and I will honor you.”
The spirit looked over at Fox and the others, then back at me. If an animal could show condescension in its face, it would be showing it, I could tell. It then looked back at the others, then back at me, “Go.”
We left the cave and the presence of the big badger. When we left the mouth of the cave, it slowly closed back into the ground as though there was nothing there.
We looked at all of our gifts. The staff was sturdy, we couldn’t tell what it was if it was special. He punched it up against a tree and it vibrated in his hands.
“Oww…” a slow drawn-out voice was heard, from the staff.
“Wait what? Did any of you hear that?” B.F. put the staff up to his ear and heard nothing. He hit it against the tree again but harder and none of us heard anything. His face scrunched up, he seemed like he really wanted to find out what this thing did.
The long-hilted sword, we eventually learned, was a naginata, but easy enough to just call it what it was, a very special strange looking sword. It had no sheath and was strange to carry in general, but it was a nifty-looking weapon. There was no hiding this thing, not until we could truly hide things easier. Holding it from the hilt side dug it into the ground strangely and it couldn’t be held from the blade side, so he just sort of strangely carried it blade up in the air.
Monkey-feet put her gloves on and looked at them closely. Her fingernails grew slightly with us on, and they seemed more sturdy, from what she said anyways. She slowly raked them across a tree and they did not pull as much as she expected. She curled up a fist and lightly punched a nearby tree to test. She said that it didn’t feel like it hurt more or less than usual, but it didn’t leave marks or dents in the tree either.
She did find it a bit easier to climb though, there is a mystical effect where it would lightly grip the sides of things, not be able to hold her weight with them, but enough to help her grip other things, or climb on different things, she wanted to test it all over. We were normal on her small hands, but when she changed forms we would be very tight, if not suffocating on her hands, but if she could eventually set it to be able to change size with her, she was excited to see differences.
The bag was a large satchel with a strap. I checked inside the pockets for anything, but there was nothing in it, just a big bag. He wasn’t sure what the thing was, but he couldn’t be happier. He had gotten a gift, directly from a spirit, there had to be something special with it, there had to be.
Fox called out, “Ok, back to the tribe to prepare for the trip, we don’t know how long it might take, but we should get food and water for a couple of days. This sort of thing can sometimes take some time.”
When we made it back to the tribe, we asked around from the older pack for some guidance. They asked us to show them the gifts. We didn’t know what to specifically add, but suggested we infuse some spiritual energy into them. The different items hummed with that energy when we did.
When he infused just a small amount of energy into it, the net for Fox became more rigid and he felt it a bit easier to handle as he twirled it around. Forming it like a bola, it whirled it around his head, and threw it at a nearby tree. At his will, it wrapped around the tree and clamped on itself and to the ground. Moving targets might be harder to deal with, but he’d figure something out.
Brown-face infused a little energy into the staff and it seemed to do nothing different. He started to get frustrated and hit a nearby tree. Those around him and he heard that, “Oww” again, and still didn’t understand the situation. The tree had a tiny bit of an energetic dent in it, but not much more.
Tree-shredder infused his interesting sword with a longer handle and it got lighter and more sturdy, adding a little more sharpness and energy to his strike and swing.
Monkey-feet infused spiritual energy into her new gloves and didn’t feel much difference. The glove material tightened to fit her hands better, which worried her about shifting forms but the gloves tingled in her hands. She looked around to make sure nothing strange was happening, like the human police officer or detective was hanging around.
Slowly she concentrated to only shift her hands into the mild warrior form. Slowly her hands stretched into the mild-warrior form, and the gloves did as well. They felt tighter, but not suffocating. Her claws stretched longer and sharper than usual as well. She felt like it could be the same in other forms, she could bring them with her as a wolf, which would increase the size and strength of her claws, but much more energy needed to be involved.
My hands trembled as I infused the bag with some of my energy. Nothing happened with it, it was still a plain bag. At first, I wondered what could be special about a bag, but then he just asked for one of the water skins from Fox and he put it in the bag. I felt it in the bag one second, then the next second it was gone. Asking for another skin and some food, I put it in the bag and it disappeared. Looking in the bag again, I didn’t see anything. Thinking of what I wanted, the things appeared in the bag to get.
Next, thinking of something else that he might want in general, some berries from a nearby food patch. Looking in the bag, I saw nothing to grab. Until finding out more, the need to solve the puzzle hit me hard.
Tree-shredder asked as nicely as he had ever asked, “Excuse me, can we please try to put this big sword thing in there? I’ll never be able to carry this if we have to run.” I gladly opened the bag to try. It was a large-sized satchel, but it didn’t fit the big sword. We tested a theory at the suggestion of the older pack members, more energy to make the item stronger to possibly fit something larger. We did just that, adding more of his energy into the item, holding it open, and holding the sword hilt down, we tried to see if we could figure out a way.
When my spiritual energy was nearly depleted, there was an energy spark, as though this thing hadn’t been filled with the amount of energy it currently had. There was still no difference, we tried to stretch the bag over the sword, but it wouldn’t stretch nearly that much.
Tree-shredder attempted to add some of his own spiritual energy into the bag to test it, and it even took some of his energy to fuel the idea. Some of his energy fed into the bag as though it couldn’t drink nearly enough, and we felt some sort of give, the bag initially was wide enough to fit the handle guard, it slid upwards along the blade, and could close over it. We both smiled wide.
The sword fully disappeared into the bag. We attempted to fit a bow unstrung into the bag, they were smaller than the sword, and we fit in as though the bag was triple the size, and it disappeared. Opening it wide enough to let the bow be seen, it slowly rose out of the bag like the sun from the east. Pushing it back down, the bag closed without a hint of restriction. We put a bow for each of us, and a dozen arrows for each as well. Along with Fox’s dozen in his quiver, we’d have quite a few for the quest.
Brown-face walked up, was about to say something, then thought better of it. He walked nearly fifty yards away to spend some time alone. We all separated to get a few things done before we left and did not meet up until the next morning.
The next morning, Brown-face had something to say, “I spent some time with this walking stick,” which we didn’t see, “I found out a couple of things. I did as the old geezers told us and spent some spiritual energy into it. The staff rested on the ground next to me and eventually woke up. It can gain mystical strength, and as I infused it while it was on the ground, it seemed to ask how I wanted it to help me. Like Monkey-feet, spending enough energy in it to specifically fuse with us in other forms, it was able to do that. I bet the other gifts can do the same. It took a good bit of my energy, but eventually, it could. I have it with me now, even though you don’t see it.”
The other pack said they were pretty unique gifts to be able to do that, only the ritual to mystically bind things to us allowed that. It could eventually be done, but we needed the spiritual guide to teach us.
Having something to share, I spoke up wondering if the rest even cared. “Last night, I dreamt of a void swallowing everything that came close to it. I believe the spirits gave me this to help us, but it can be dangerous. I tested it again today, it still held quite a bit, and when I imagined T.S.'s gift, it slowly popped up out of the bag when I had it open. How much energy did it take to have the item meld with you?"
In the nicest way he has ever said anything to me , Brown-face cordially answered, "Nearly all of my energy. You might have used a good batch of your energy to fuel the bag to gain in size for the sword and bows. If you try to focus on letting it meld with you, it might do that."
I tried to answer without stuttering, "Well... I'm... nearly out of energy from yesterday, but maybe I'll try that soon, thanks." The ending note was quiet, hard to be said when there was so much animosity between the two, "If we are forming into wolves, can someone put my clothes in the bag after I form, then fix the strap on my back so that I can carry it?" Fox said he would set that up before we left.
We got a small breakfast and talked a bit about the eventual planning. Fox brought up, "We still can't communicate until we get a spirit totem, so until we do, let's plan on stuff. Easily enough, when we get wherever we are going, the boy here can be the last one to shift so that we can get the bag off of him before he shifts. We can set all of our clothes into the new bag other than most of my stuff that fits in mine without issue. We are looking for someplace that has bad smells past the lake, the badger spirit says it might be a long hike."
One of the other pack members asked what the spirit said, and we told us what the spirit said for the most part.
One of our members said, "Oh, it might have meant the dump pile the Americans put there a long while ago, it is full of things a badger might eat. For us, it might be about a half day's jog that way. If it was talking about a big spirit, it probably meant Rat, a big spirit out there. It isn't so dangerous, but don't mess with it, it has a bunch of spirits there as backup."
Fox nodded in thanks, "Good, well, when we start getting to the larger part of the area, we'll leave wolf form, it will be pretty rough on our noses if we stay in that form trying to talk to a spirit there. Let's go."
A few spares of clothes in the bag and we all formed into wolves, Fox helped me strap it well so that it flapped on my back. It might have been a bit strange, but we'd deal with it for now, and it wasn't a long run. The rest of them formed into wolves and the clothes were put into the magical bag.
We jogged to the lake and after looking around for anyone looking in our direction, ripped our way through the border and into the spirit realm. We kept moving to the edge of the lake where it drained off into the river and jumped over as usual and continued to run.
Jog we did, for nearly half of a day, stopping a few times for everyone to catch our breath, well mostly for me to catch my breath. I couldn't last nearly as long on the road as the rest of them, but I pushed myself quite hard on that run, we were on our spiritual quest. When we jumped over the river, we drank our fill at the river so that we wouldn't have to stop as often during the long jog.
It would be blasphemy as far as the rest were concerned, but I daydreamed of sitting in a car, or even on a bus as Americans do. Sure they landed and conquered hundreds of years ago, but they even rode horses before cars. Werewolves couldn't ride horses because we'd freak the hell out and wouldn't let us, but even that would be fun compared to this. May not be as nice to horses, but whoever thinks to ask that, given the opportunity.