46. Endurance
They walked for days.
The sun didn’t set.
They each reached the point of exhaustion
They pushed through it.
Finally, on the seventh day, their leader stopped walking, and they stopped running/jogging/leaping/sprinting to keep up.
“Let’s make camp,” the boy said, and Yara and Hien Ro and Lokul Lokul quickly went about setting up their tents, starting their fires, and ignoring the other cultivators who didn’t know what to do.
They hadn’t brought tents. They hadn’t brought food. They were hungry and thirsty, having pushed through their limits in the hours/days/weeks that they had been walking.
Little bug smiled and when Yara gave him his bowl of stew, he gave it to Thaseus, who looked at him in surprise.
“Go ahead. If I wanted to kill you I wouldn’t use poison,” the boy said.
That wasn’t the reason that Thaseus was surprised, but he ate anyway.
The ones who knew how to make camp reluctantly prepared meals and set up the tents of the others, showing them how to fend for themselves along the way. Hien Ro and Lokul Lokul showed the boys, while Yara showed the girls.
When they had finished, Little Bug Stomped his feet and a stone edifice rose from the ground, forming a shelter large enough for all of them. He grinned cheekily as the campers groaned at him and threw pebbles.
They ate and drank, and they sat around the fire. At first there was silence as nobody knew what to say, and then Polkluk broke the silence by exclaiming “Is it just me or is this the fifth day we have been walking and it’s still light out?”
“It feels like longer than five days. It feels like a fortnight,” Hien Ro said.
“I feel that I have been walking through the jungle for a month,” Lokul Lokul stated.
They compared notes, and the boy that was their leader allowed them to before speaking.
“You’re all correct,” he said. “Thank you for helping me practice.”
The others turned to him in surprise.
“It’s a technique. For me, a few hours have passed. But I have been working even harder than any of you have to keep up with me. I’ve been bending space and time to push you to your limits, and when you reached them I put you in a pocket by yourself. This is the path that we walk together, and we will walk it together, even if sometimes one of us must be carried,” the boy said.
They were silent for a moment.
“They say that you reached the bronze path at the tournament, but no bronze ranked cultivator could do what you just said,” Thaseus challenged. “What are you really?”
“A cheat,” the boy said. “Just like you.”
The older teenager recoiled as though he were stung.
“I will not be explaining everything, because there are some secrets that are better to keep and some which must not be shared. But this one is simple. I am learning to create dimensional spaces after studying a spatial artifact. It’s not easy, and it requires experimentation. So today’s journey was very educational for me. I thank you for your assistance,” the boy said. “Now then, we should get to know each other. I am Po Guah. It means ‘Little Bug’ in the language of the north, and I would actually prefer it that you call me that in your native tongue. It reminds me of my sister.”
“Your sister?” Hien Ro asked. “Why didn’t she join the sect when you did?”
“She lacked the talent. Do not forget that I came from a family of mortals, Brother Ro. But I was not sad when we parted ways. She was very cruel to me when we were young. I regret not being able to see whether or not she grows out of it. I hope that she does, but it has no bearing on the here and now. Taimei, I’m afraid I know the least about you. Would you please share something about your past that is especially meaningful?” the boy-leader asked.
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The teenager who had come in fourth in the tournament looked surprised, then thought for a moment. “I do not know who my father is, but I believe that it is either my clan patriarch or one of his sons, for he has always doted on me. When I was young, he saw to it that I learned to read, and when I managed that trick he gave me a primer on cultivation. It is nothing compared to the Peach Blossom Dream, but it allowed me to ignite my dantian and become the woman I am today. Even if I am wrong and not bound by blood, my first loyalty is to that man, who set me on my path.”
Little Bug nodded. “I do not ask that you forswear yourself, Taimei. Tell me, what path do you walk now?”
“That of gathering strength,” she said. “I proved myself in the tournament when I came in fourth, but that meant that there were three stronger than I, and perhaps many others that retired might have beaten me if but for luck or chance. I wish to become a pillar upon which the rest of my clan can lean against for strength when I am older, as I lean on the patriarch now.”
“Good. Hien Ro, we had this conversation once, but would you tell the others where you come from and where you hope your path will lead?”
So Hien Ro repeated the story of how his parents had bribed his way into the Six Mountain Sect. He admitted that he had started following Little Bug because it had seemed like a short cut in cultivation, but now couldn’t imagine any other path for himself.
Yara’s turn was next, and it was then that she revealed that she was the cause of her family’s poverty when her father had met Little Bug and Hien Ro. That it was her fault that her mother had died, as her mother had contracted the disease which killed her from taking care of her sick daughter. How sometimes she thought that her father and mother would have been better had she died early, so that they could have saved the money on the healer and had more children instead.
Polkluk talked of his insignificance. How the single greatest thing to happen to him before this journey was to fight against the great Po Guah in all of his glory, and how he still relived those triumphant moments in his dreams.
Farun spoke of how he had bribed his way into the sect as a mortal servant at age six, bribed his way into earning cultivation lessons at age eight, and ignited his dantian at age nine. How he had been weaving an ever increasingly complex web of informants among the younger children in exchange for handing out tips and advice on how to progress their own cultivation, or other such bribes.
Arjun confessed that he did not feel worthy of this journey, stating that he was only selected for his political connections. But that he hoped that he would prove worthy, and that the elders would not come to regret wasting their slot in this journey on him.
Lahri confessed that she was in love with two men and could not make her mind up on which she wished to have to herself. She wished that there was a way to have them both, but she wished for more than just sex, but a true companionship.
Little Bug wished her good luck, but advised her that such relationships were often messy and required ten times as much maintenance as a monogamous one.
Lokul Lokul commented that he would not mind sharing a woman with another man if she did not mind sharing him with another woman, but got into an argument with Lahri that what he wanted was just sex. The argument lasted for half the day that was, to them, a night.
When he was finally pressed for his path, he sighed. “My master saw my swollen belly when I was on the streets of Mer’cah and offered me a bite to eat. I thought that he would take his payment from me in unspeakable ways, but I was so hungry that I didn’t care. I followed him into the jungle, and that is how I set foot on this path, just as all of his other disciples have. But now my master is dying, and I do not know if I will see him once more before the end of this journey. We have said our farewells, however, and I am looking forward to telling the story of this journey to the other disciples when I return to the great fire.”
Finally, it was Thaseus’s turn to speak.
“My family cheated at the tournament,” he said. “I did not know it at the time and I apologize for not realizing it until it was too late. But there it is. That is the reason I am here.”
With that, he stood and walked into the enclosure, where he pulled off his clothes and got into his bedroll.
The others retired soon after, and the fire continued to burn into the night.
They walked for a week.
They walked for weeks.
They walked for months.
Each time the intervals between their rest periods seemed to grow longer and longer.
They kept notes, and noted that they were beginning to sync up with each other.
Each night they sat around the camp fire in the day or the night or whenever it was that their leader called a rest, and they shared truths about themselves.
About their pasts. About their hopes for the future. About their hopes and dreams and fears.
The ten teenagers grew closer and the bonds between them grew stronger. They began to laugh and compete with each other, with only one of their members feeling that he was an outsider.
Little Bug smiled with the rest of them, but he knew how much these bonds he was forming would hurt when they inevitably broke.
And the entire day/week/months that they walked, a young thunderbird flew overhead.