I slowly opened my eyes while my mind tried to recollect what had happened. I soon saw the tent I was familiar with behind the figure of my mother, who was wearing a soft and caring smile on her face.

"Anya! You're awake!" she said, her smile growing even more.

I blinked a few times as I processed the fact that I could perfectly understand her words. "Mama?"

"Yes, I'm your mama." she said with a soft giggle. "How do you feel?"

"Tired." I rubbed my eyes with my palm and, in doing so, I noticed how I now was noticeably bigger. I struggled a bit with my mouth but I managed to let out a, "what happened?"

"You passed your first infusion ceremony!" she said, still beaming. "Come now, we have to get you used to your big body."

She picked me up then propped me upright on the floor. From my new position I could see that I was probably as big as a one year old, maybe even a few months older. I could also start to feel the presence of hair on top of my head and a few teeth already peeking out of my gums. My mother slowly shifted her hold on me until she was only holding my hands, then said, "try to walk."

And walk I did. What had been impossible for me until that moment suddenly felt incredibly easy. I walked forward for a few meters, then my mother made me turn around to walk the way I came. This time, after only a few steps, she released my hands to let me walk on my own, while being ready to catch me at any moment. There was no need for her attention, though, as I had no trouble walking the few meters to the other side of the tent and turn around on my own.

As I walked through the tent for the third time she said, "the power of the elk is already showing."

"Elk?" I asked, almost falling because of the distraction.

She nodded. "It's one of the five spirit animals of the tribe. Its power makes you faster and more agile."

I looked at myself again and moved my limbs around a bit. I could certainly move better than I could before, but I was practically just a clumsy one year old.

My mother laughed seeing what I was doing. "It takes time, but," she flexed her muscles a bit, "one day you will be as strong as mama." She booped my nose, making me fall on my butt on some soft furs. "If you train, of course."

I nodded, got back up on my feet, and started walking around again.

She had me walk around for what was probably half an hour before letting me rest a bit. After the short rest she had me go at it again, then again and again. We spent all day in the tent like that, exercising my new ability to walk, sometimes turning into more of a game with the aid of the small soft ball I used to play with, with short rests between the sessions during which I would sometimes feed off my mother. The presence of my new baby teeth meant that I had to be extra careful, and the first time I actually got scolded from her for not doing so.

When evening came, once again the old woman who brought mother dinner didn't come, instead we walked to the communal hall together. Despite the snow on the ground and the freezing cold weather, my mother made me walk all the way to the hall on my own, wearing only a loincloth of fur and some leather strips tied around my feet for shoes. Despite my initial horror, I soon found out that I did not, in fact, feel cold outside, something that I should have expected considering that clothing wasn't a big thing in the tribe.

When we entered the hall, instead of quieting down like the day before, people got up to greet and congratulate my mother and I finally managed to learn her name, Irina. They then talked about what were probably common topics around here, the weather was cold, the hunt was still good, et cetera. As they talked, everyone started to sit at their spot and I followed my mother to sit next to her.

Soon everyone had a plate of hot meat in front of them. The portions of the adults were enormous, but I had already gotten used to them seeing my mother eating in our tent. From their plates came a faint smell of spices and nuts, something that I couldn't say about my own portion. I had in front of me a tiny wooden plate with a few bits of boiled, unseasoned meat that had been torn up into tiny bits. Sure, it was probably more appropriate for a toddler but I suddenly felt like I finally understood children who cried out because they wanted to eat their parents' food.

I got to eating anyway using, like everyone else around me, my hands to bring the food to my mouth. My mother watched attentively as I did so, ready to help me or make me expel a piece if it got stuck where it shouldn't have. There was no need for her help, though, as, while I still wasn't in complete control of my mouth, I still remembered how to eat.

Seeing that I had no trouble eating, my mother relaxed a bit and started talking more with the adults around her. Soon a conversation made me perk up a bit as, when my mother inquired where another woman, apparently named Zhanna, was, the answer that she received was, "her boy didn't make it through his second infusion. She retired to her tent after the ceremony and hasn't come out in two days."

"Her line is too weak," an old woman added, "she should ask the chief for a child or she'll end up burying her fourth one too."

"Hey! I gave my seed four times and this is the first one who doesn't pass a ceremony!" a man a few seats away from the woman shouted at her.

"Yeah, yeah, you're a big manly stallion, Anton, we get it."

Laughter erupted around me as I stopped eating to wrap my head around what they had just said. Apart from the fact that these people obviously had no problem talking about spicy topics around children, the information about these infusion ceremonies was the part that really caught my attention.

I looked around me and noticed, for the first time, how, despite the huge number of children and teens in the hall, it looked like they were all part of well defined age groups. From what I could see, it looked like a first ceremony would make a child grow to have the appearance of a one year old, or slightly more, another one would bring them to look about four or five, a third one would make them jump up to eight, then a fourth one to twelve, then to fifteen. The sixth one was probably the last one, as everyone else looked fully matured and it didn't look like there were the same sharp separations between the adults.

More important than having a fastened growth, was the other information that transpired from what they had said. There was a very real possibility of not surviving those ceremonies.