The royal hunting troupe emerged from the treeline into their home village only to find it just as they left it, except for the fact there were about double as many Ooura here as when they left, and more still emerging from the treeline to make their pilgrimages to the heart of the empire for the festival. Good. Lonka had been somewhat worried they might return to find Tema staging an uprising, or all the Pyathen dead, or all the Ooura dead and the Pyathen gone. Really anything involving death, or Tema–since the two often went hand in hand–was good to avoid.

Thankfully, things appeared as they always were in the lead up to the final night’s apex during the summer festival.

Hundreds of Ooura were now gathered under the ancient Mew that held the circle of elders. The real festivities had not begun yet, but would soon. After dusk, when the would-be Kothai were enduring their second trial inside the chamber of rites, all of their family and friends would dance and feast on the new influx of Orux meat that had been brought back as a product of their first trial's completion. Nonetheless, even this early, with the sun still shining, the Ooura here were milling about like bees. Families dragged their newly Orux skull-adorned sons around for bragging rights, friends shared their congratulations and their jealousies, shamans walked around carrying burning incense that stung the nose and muddied the mind, and bonfires were being built scattered all throughout the shuffling bodies.

Lonka had once been desperate to avoid the summer festival and the reminder it held of what he wasn’t, but that sharp blade of envy that had once scraped up against his ego eventually had worn dull, along with most things. These days, he didn’t avoid it anymore. In fact, he didn’t mind being a part of it, as an observer, anyway. He might not be meant for the life of a Kothai, but there was a certain satisfaction in watching others be paraded around by their families and friends, lending the little ones their new Orux skull headdresses to play with, putting ideas in their young minds about being Kothai one day themselves. Lonka relished watching it, even. After all, Lonka was no idiot. For lackadaisicals like him to be allowed to lead their pleasantly uneventful existences, there had to be also the fighters, and the master craftspeople like his mother, and the sharp-minded leaders, and all the other overly stress-filled life paths that people inexplicably chose for themselves.

This was more than just a festival, more than just the naming of the new generation of warriors. These days of rites brought Ooura from villages across the jungle together. It was a bastion of unity amid the usual other isms and squabbling over who owned which piece of mat or other.

The Pyathen, on the other hand, were a palpable contrast to the jovial Ooura. Something had clearly gotten them riled up since the last time he saw them. Not riled enough to become violent, but there was tension so thick he could smell it wafting from the direction of their camp.

They were still set up on the edge of the clearing, far away from the bulk of the Ooura, but they seemed to have every one of their number standing guard now, positioned in a rigidly defined circle around their princess and her eunuch torch bearers. Lonka shook his head, sighing through pursed lips. The elves looked to the man like they hadn’t slept at all. Some were even visibly wobbling on their feet. Terrible plan, that. If they were really going to be joining the Ooura in the chamber of rites, they would be expected to climb up to it themselves. Not a well-suited task for their kind as it was, let alone sleep-deprived.

Lonka chuckled to himself, causing Tyube to shoot him a glance with a raised brow. Elves, he thought. One would think with all their smarts, they’d figure out a way not to have to sleep so much. It was the reason the fiddly little pointy ears never stayed out in the jungle long, because they would simply be picked off in the night due to their need to rest so often. Then again, Lonka pondered, maybe their smarts came from how much they rested themselves… Hmm. Well, Lonka decided, I’d still rather be me than something with less meat than my right leg and a bit more brains. The way he saw it, the brains he did have already tied him up in too many knots. Any more intelligence would probably be more of a burden than a virtue.

As the troupe made their way closer to the central Mew tree that dwarfed all around it, more and more of the gathered Ooura began to notice them. Most prominently, eyes lingered on the huge chunk of tentacle Poh carried over his shoulder, but even the corpses of black eels all of them but Lonka carried were the subject of some awe, since everyone knew they only came from one place, and that place, for good reason, had quite the renown of terror to go along with it. It wasn’t lost on Lonka that when their gazes found him and his lack of carrying any meat himself, they turned accusatory. Well, things never did change, did they?

The attention drawn to their group was palpable, enough so that it forced Lonka to look at the mat in front of each footstep he made just so he didn’t have to acknowledge anyone. While ground staring, he took a moment to inwardly thank the Dryad for his life, and pleaded with her to never send him back to that den of monsters ever again. There was no answer, but Lonka pretended she had soothed his worries, guaranteeing him that the rest of his days would be spent dozing in fishing huts, only woken by the excitement of tug on his line, chewing the soothing dew grass gathered by the shamans. That was life, not… whatever the past day and night had been. His knees felt on fire, his feet sore as stone, and he suspected he hadn’t traveled so much distance as he had today and last night in the past year of his life combined.

Lonka was almost more shocked that he had kept up with the pace the rest of the troupe set than he was that it was him, of all people, who had managed to deal the final blow that freed Poh and allowed them to take home a piece of the infamous Orux Eater. Plenty had claimed to have done it before. Some even claimed to have killed it. None of the proof had ever stacked up to what Lonka knew the real Orux Eater’s size was. It was all just ambitious egos trying to pass off a regular sized jungle kraken as something extraordinary.

It wouldn’t surprise him much if this was the first time someone had ever tangled with the beast and come out the better for it. Even still, he was fairly certain that it wouldn’t matter. No one would believe that it was him, the lazy fisherman, who had made the final blow, severing even that relatively small piece of its arm that Poh now carried. Which hardly mattered, anyway. Without the efforts of all involved, he never would have saved Poh on his own. The thought that recognition would likely be shared rather than thrust upon his name comforted him almost more than Poh not being dead. Lonka wanted nothing to do with fame nor recognition. That was Banon’s territory.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He just wanted to relax.

The hunters gradually passed through and eventually made their way into the bulk of the gathered Ooura around the base of the tree. Kothai all around nodded their acknowledgements to Poh, who was smiling uncharacteristically brightly. Abruptly, once enough eyes were on them to make Lonka feel profoundly nervous, Poh stopped and hefted the massive tentacle off his shoulders. It landed with deafening plop in front of the troupe, stopping them all in their tracks. “All gather round!” Poh bellowed to the Ooura all around them.

Lonka shared a curious glance with Tyube and Tamil. Dartome seemed more fixated on a certain creature currently crawling up the bark of a nearby tree to notice his worry. All the nearby Ooura trickled in until the four brothers, their father, and elder Brahman were at the center of attention.

“It is my honor,” Poh began, with a vague gesture Lonka hoped wasn’t towards him, “to call this boy my son. Once he was known for being lazy and unremarkable, and well known for that he was.”

Chuckles from the surrounded faces that twisted Lonka’s guts in loops.

Poh waited until there was utter silence again before he continued. “In these past hours, my life was almost taken from me. I stand before you now only because of his bravery in the face of impossible odds. It was him, not me, who severed the monstrous arm of the Orux Eater you see before you now.” Some of the children were already prodding at the kraken arm, and one had already nicked his hand on a suction cup’s barb. “So it is now,” Poh continued, “that I have an announcement for you I have long awaited to make.”

Lonka felt a strong arm around his shoulder. Huh?

“As my sons have come of age, one by one, all of them but one has taken the rite, earning the title of Kothai. Lonka here has always fancied himself more for the arts than for the hunt. Now that changes.” Poh glanced at Lonka to see his reaction.

Lonka finally looked up, blinking at Poh, blank faced. No…

“Give a warm welcome to your new defender. If he can prevent an empire from toppling, surely he has already learned what it means to be Kothai!”

There was silence first, but after Tamil voiced his hooting approval, a rouse of cheers and applause slowly built in volume behind him, though there was a noticeably skeptical tone.

Lonka’s entire world shrunk to a point.

The emperor could do that, it was his right to pronounce non-Kothai men as Kothai without undergoing the trials. This, however, was only reserved for exceptional circumstances. Based on the few times he had seen it happen, Lonka had always assumed it was something reserved only for those who failed their rite, yet still yearned to be named warriors after. Those who had wanted it even from the beginning but had failed for one reason or another. Usually, such a person was given something of a special task to complete in exchange, one oftentimes more dangerous even than completing the rite would have been. The last time someone asked Poh for such an exception, the task given to that poor soul had been to bring back the head of a mangrove spider that had decided to nest a little too close to where the young ones played.

But this?

Lonka now realized this whole entire thing might have been more contrived than he had thought at first. In fact, this might have been only the end of a long road of attempts Poh had made to do this before now. It was so obvious now that Lonka thought back…

Poh had bothered him for years about being his only non-Kothai son, and always tried to invite him along on various dangerous adventures. He couldn’t legally drag Lonka to a real battle, since those were reserved for Kothai, but all the years of pestering Lonka to join on hunts in the deep jungle now came into a new focus. He’d usually been able to come up with excuses not to go, but the urgency of the Pyathens arrival and the lack of his other brothers being available for the royal hunt had pushed him to accept his father’s offer this time. Poh had been deliberately trying to trick Lonka into performing some heroic feat this whole time, all these years, all so he could finally pronounce himself the emperor with a seamless record of warrior sons.

Except… Kothai wasn’t just a title.

Now… he would be subject to be called upon in wartime just like any other Kothai…

Shit. SHIT. SHITSHITSHITSHIT–

He tried to shake his head in defiance, but it was already too late. Lonka wobbled on his feet as everyone gathered around and began slapping him on the back, or wrapping him up in brief hugs for those friendly with him.

And just like that, his life as a lowly fisherman was over, and his new life of expectations and responsibilities had begun.

Something rubbery slapped down on his head. Lonka turned to see Tamil grinning at him, his arms held behind his back and a badly hidden look of mischievousness on his features. It only took a second to realize what Tamil put on his head, and when he did he could not help but grab the bridge of his nose and close his eyes. Lonka sighed heavily. If he couldn’t get that kraken suction cup off without cutting away some of his own hair, Tamil was going to wake up with a fish hook through each earlobes in the morning.

“Good headdress,” Dartome said simply, then pressed his own forehead to Lonka, looking him straight in the eye and forcing him to hold his breath lest he gag. “Fits you.”

Lonka nodded weakly.

“Well,” Tyube whined from somewhere close by, “no pressure on me then.”

Tamil laughed and slapped Tyube hard on the nape of the neck by the sound of it, causing their youngest brother to yelp out in surprise.

Lonka pressed his eyes shut as tightly as he could and willed himself to wake up.

He was more than a little distraught to find out this wasn’t a dream.

But that still wasn’t entirely true. Awake or not, this was truly his worst nightmare.

Kothai…