Chapter 21: Eat your Vegetables

“Unghhhhhh…” What’s that smell, thought Talo. Wait, I can’t move!

“Help! Help!” Why is my throat so dry? I can struggle so I’m restrained—

“Quit your yell’n. You’ll spook the bison,” grunted Powaw from outside of Talo’s view.

“Where am I? What have you done to me?”

“Always me, me, me with you, isn’t it? Didn’t I tell you not to fall asleep?”

Oh gods…he can’t have… “Did you tie me to the back of a bison?”

“I did secure you to the back of a bison. Sweet old girl that’s already wallowed this morning and had enough babies that she’s calm. I put it at a fairly low chance that she rolls over and crushes you to death.”

He’s mad. I knew it. Talo struggled against his restraints. He accosted Powaw in an urgent whisper, “You. Mad. Man. Get. Me. Down. I apologize for falling asleep, but don’t you think you’re taking too many liberties with a grand duke’s firstborn son?”

“There it is. Nice to see you actually try to throw some authority around. Too bad I don’t give damn. You’ll be fine. Trust me, you probably don’t want me to release the bindings.”

“Of course I do, how can I be safe on the back of this beast?” The bison began to shudder and groaned in protest.

“Fine, you asked for it.” Talo saw a flash of blue, then suddenly he slid down the side of the great animal. This perturbed the bison who began to stomp furiously.

Ow. Shit, shit, shit! was all that Talo thought before, “Aghhhhhh!”

“Oooo damn, right in the dong. That’s gotta hurt.”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...hugh…AHHH—“

“Might as well knock him out. There we go.” Stupid ignorant yelp. Would have been fine if he just listened. Ok controlled the internal bleeding…got the inflammation under control…almost completely healed and—

“AHHHHHH! The hell man!” screamed Talo.

“Calm down. You yell like a baby.”

“I want—”

“Do I care what you want?” declared Powaw. His aura immediately swamped the area with a will that would not be denied. “With your mana senses, I thought it would be easier for you to be attached to the bison. Now, stand up and look over there. Good, good. You see that bull on the top of the hill? Stay the hell away from the bull, we’ll be taking cover behind these older cows.”

Powaw paused to release a calming aura once more. The cow still seemed to be upset, but then again, she was taking things pretty well for a wild animal. “Hmm, better go with one more dose,” muttered Powaw as a brown mist floated towards the bison. The bull watched them closely, but for the moment seemed content to continue eating.

“There you see, she’s nice and calm again.” Powaw reached into his bag and pulled out some raw carrots. “Take one of these and slowly come up to her front. See if she’ll let you feed her, and I want you to observe with your mana senses as best you can.”

Talo grumbled at the idea but understood Powaw wasn’t giving him the option. The sight of eunuch inducing hooves still traumatized Talo, and he did his best to avoid looking at them. For her part, the cow just watched Talo with a lazy snort.

Easy does it. Reach out the hand slowly, you used to do research on animals...never big animals, but still. Talo slowly held out the carrot, and the basion quickly noticed. She began sniffing the air furiously and gave the carrot a tentative lick. With a grunt of delight, she snatched the carrot from Talo’s tiny hands. So much slobber, thought Talo as he tried to flick the gooey substance from his hands.

“No, leave that on. You’ll want as much of her smell on you as you can get. Feed her this one with your other hand,” instructed Powaw as he tossed out another carrot.

The bison was now thoroughly excited at the treats, and even let Talo begin to rub her head. She began to thoroughly sniff Talo in hopes of finding evidence of more carrots, but came up empty. It seems completely oblivious to Powaw. Talo turned to look at the enigmatic healer and noticed that a gray haze seemed to be surrounding his body.

“How do you—”

“Quiet. You need to focus. I want you to lay down next to that clump of tall grass and send out your senses as best you can.”

The thought of laying down in front of the beast terrified Talo, and he began visibly shaking.

“Huh. I suppose you’re really still a toddler—”

“Shutup! You—”

“Case in point. Calm down, I promise I won’t let it crush you again. Here, I’ll even try a spell on you, but I fear the result won’t change.” Powaw began performing ornate motions with his hands as Talo shakily lay supine in the grass—certain the cow was the harbinger of his death.

“ᓂᑐᐧᐃᐧᐋᐱᐦᑎᒻ” chanted Powaw with an outstretched arm. Golden mist flew from his hands and slammed into Talo’s eyes. Minute particles of magic raged against his eyelids, but they were continually rebuffed. Eventually the flecks faded into nothingness. Rather than the crackling, golden, pupil-less orbs that Powaw had when casting the spell on himself, Talo’s eyes only took a slight yellow tinge.

“You know that hurts like hell, right?” From being thrown out of his body, to being born, to cows, Talo felt the real theme of this chapter of his life was consuming pain. At least I’m getting a better pain tolerance.

“You know I’ve thought long and hard about how you take your mother’s mana or the dozens of healing spells I’ve thrown at you. You really need to focus on taking in the magic. Think back to the gandari blood, take up the spell I send you.”

“But it’s different! The gandari...tasted good? And felt warm and inviting? The spell felt like I was trying to keep my eyes open under a firehose and tasted like tin.”

“Hmmm... Yes... What’s a ‘fire hose’? A device to channel flames?”

“No, it’s a… Nevermind that. How am I supposed to take that in?”

“You’ll just have to suffer through it and toughen up. Kids never like taking their medicine after all,” chuckled Powaw.

Like taking medicine...It’s not food; it’s medicine. It’s not supposed to taste good. You can do this. “Hit me!”

“ᓂᑐᐧᐃᐧᐋᐱᐦᑎᒻ” Powaw chanted again, this time without the hand gestures. Again a torrent of golden mist flew from his palm, but it was slower this time, less insistent.

Talo grunted as he struggled to keep his eyes open and endure the pain. The bison lost interest in the two long ago and roamed a few meters away. By the time Powaw’s magic dissipated a second time, Talo’s eyes had a distinct golden glow.

“Not bad. Now rub that bison gunk over yourself and get closer to that cow. Really watch the way she eats the grass.”

Talo stumbled a bit as he got up. Seeing the world through mana vision was like a technicolored LSD trip with the differential gain set way too high. Talo decided he would do better crawling rather than walking, and slowly approached the bison.

They seem to pull mana up from the grass, but how do they do that? I almost had an aneurysm when I pulled on the grass’s mana? What was that Powaw said? Plants evolved to hold strongly to their mana? Talo crept closer through the grass and the mud until he had a clear view of the bison’s head. The mana in the grass pulsed all around him. The bison would lower her head and eat some grass.

Somehow the mana goes up from the hard palate and circulates around their body. But how do I get the mana away from the grass? Can I just cut it out? Talo quickly tore up some grass to see if he could pull in the mana, but failed. The mana seemed to just disappear.

He looked closer at the grazing bison for some time. Then he saw it. There. The mana pulses in the grass just before it bites down, and... there! Just moments before the cow’s teeth actually closed on the grass, a line of her own mana jumped between her lips. Like a quick, thin blade she cut the mana away from the grass with whatever was happening between her lips.

Talo grabbed the base of some grass and waited for it to pulse. The moment it did, he tried to squeeze the mana around the grass and yank it out. Nothing happened. The mana was gone just as before. Rome wasn’t built in a day, let’s try again.

Next, he tried cutting. He tried to just push his mana outside his body to make any kind of blade. No luck—not even a bubble between his hands. Talo struggled until the magic around his eyes slowly began to fade.

“I don’t get it,” sighed Talo in frustration.

“Oh? It looks like you do.”

“Well I can see that it cuts the mana away from the rest of the grass when the mana is pulsing into the grass, but I can’t seem to figure out how to cut the mana away?”

Powaw chuckled a little then replied, “don’t know how to use a knife yet? Who would have thought the young master was missing his table skills? Also, she’s not an ‘it.’ She’s brought more life into this world than you have, and has far more claim to individual recognition.” Powaw continued to laugh, but Talo just looked annoyed. “Look kid, you’re way too green to be thinking of mana blades. Did it occur to you that I told you to mimic the bison in previous lessons? Did you think to just bite off the mana?”

“Wait, are you telling me to eat grass?”

“Don’t look so incensed. It’s not poisonous. Might even help you take a good dump. But enough of that, let’s head on back to your dad’s hovel for dinner—there should be news of the rebellion by now.”