Your first day of lessons with Elder Minaro finally ends, and you return to the main cave. The main cave is where everyone meditates while the sun emerges from the night. Papa, tired from guarding the cave mouth you live in, always led you back home immediately after meditating so this is your first time down here during the day. You are astonished by how many people are still here. Adults stride steadily across the open area while teenagers rush around, weaving between the adults. Wotjeo’s head swivels back and forth trying to take it all in.

One of the adults stops Bato and Chuno as they carry their snoring companion. You walk close enough to listen as they explain an Elder put their friend to sleep. The adult frowns at the boys and sends them on their way, not offering any help. The boys head down one of the many tunnels leading out and deeper underground from the main cave.

Two of the rushing teenagers bump into each other. Shouting quickly escalates into punching. The rest of the people pay no attention other than to curve around the fight.

You decide to explore a little and walk around the outer edge of the meditation cave. There are lots of tunnels leading away from the main cave. Only three of the tunnels lead up, which is a good thing because you still get two and three mixed up and thinking about higher numbers make your head hurt. All the rest of the tunnels slopes downwards, there are lots of them; but not many lots you think. You already know one of the tunnels leading up goes to your home, where do the others go? Drawn by the sound of people shouting you follow one of the tunnels leading up until you arrive at a series of interconnected caves.

You are overwhelmed by what you see. Members of the Silver Bear clan of every age and cultivation level are exercising here, along with their spirit companions. Human and silver bear clan members alike are pumping iron, doing crunches, and lifting themselves into the air by the strength of their arms alone, as well as pounding sand-filled leather bags with fists and knees.

You recognize a few of the exercises from your lessons with Papa, but there are many more you haven't seen before. Some clan members are exercising together. A few of the caves have a sandy floor, and two pairs of clan members and their spirit companions are fighting in one of them. Several other clan members are standing around watching them and cheering. Nobody around the edge is doing anything to stop the fight here either. Captivated, you watch until one of the fighters pounds his fist into the sand three times and the woman holding him down helps him back to his feet, and they shake hands. Another pair of fighters move onto the sandy area. They meet in the middle to hug ritually, clasp wrists, and finally, start attacking each other.

You wander over to the next cave with wide-open eyes. You swivel your head constantly from side to side, not wanting to miss anything. Wotjeo directs your attention to a yellow-haired girl punching a big bag hanging from the ceiling. It's shaped kind of like a tree trunk but must be softer because you see her knuckles sinking into it. You watch open-mouthed until she's done, and then you walk up and try to repeat her motions. It's tougher than it looks! The bag is made from animal skin, not wood, but it's not soft at all. Your punches don't sink your knuckles into it at all! Instead, your knuckles hurt. You glare at the bag while sucking on your hurt knuckles than try punching it again. Nope. Still not working.

You hear someone clapping behind you and turn to look at them. You find yourself staring at their knees. You look up. And up. And up. The woman clapping is so tall you think she must be almost as big as Papa. Her hair is the same flat black color as Papa's too. She crouches down, but still towers over you. "You must be Pūmiè, Guarnicio's girl. You've got his spirit all right; even though he clearly hasn't made time to teach you how to punch. Would you like to learn how to fight properly?" You agree enthusiastically. "Well, get your father's permission, and I'll teach you. I haven't seen him down here in years, I bet he doesn't know you're here does he?"

You shake your head no.

The woman smiles kindly. "Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble. Not with me anyways. It's your first day with Elder Minaro, right? Your father is probably worried about you. Run home now. When you get there, you can tell Guarnicio that Mina offered to teach you how to fight. I appreciate him guarding that cave mouth all these years. Least popular job in the whole Guard that used to be."

***

Papa and Mama are both there when you get back. Mama was sitting on Papa's lap but leaps up when you arrive. Mama welcomes you home with a tender hug. How was your first day of lessons with the Elder, my little growllita?"

You have so much to tell them about! You want to tell them about the fights you saw and the exercise cave and Mina and the Elder.

The words get all tangled up until Papa scoops you up and crushes you against his ridiculously muscled chest in a bear hug. "Settle down, Pūmiè. Your papa can't understand you when you try to tell him a dozen stories at once. Especially after staying up so long." Papa looks at Mama “Can you take her, love of my life? I need to get some sleep. Just in case.”

Mama rubs your back affectionately. “Of course, Guarnicio. I don’t get to spend enough time with our lovely daughter. Come along growllita. We’re going to be looking for more pomegranates today. Do you think you can climb up and get them for me?”

“Yeah!” You say, Wotjeo’s excited voice echoing in your mind. He likes fruit almost as much as you do and is an even better climber.

***

That night you tell Papa about the exercise cave and meeting Mina while he's holding you upside down by your ankles and you do situps. "Mina?" He lets go of one of your ankles to rub his chin in thought and you scream as that side of your body drops towards the floor. "Oops! He grabs hold of your ankle again and holds you back up. Sorry, Pūmiè. I guess your Papa is a little absentminded today because I did not much sleep yesterday. I lost count, you'll have to start over. You were saying about Mina?" You grumble about having to do extra hanging situps but tell him about how you met Mina again. "That's my girl. She's a good person to know. Not as strong as me, but close. I'll wait for you in the meditation cave and we'll go see her after your lesson with Elder Minaro. She's probably asleep now. Papa yawns as he lowers you down so you can move to the next exercise.

You continue exercising and cycling Wotjeo’s madra through your body until it's time to meditate with the rest of the tribe. Papa hugs you goodbye and hands you a breakfast bag with two pomegranates and a handful of hard-shelled nuts. You look back as you head towards your lesson and see him walking back to your home for a short nap while you take your lesson.

In the same spot as yesterday, you see Bato, Decavo, and Chuno again. At least Felero isn't with them this time. Wotjeo growls as soon as he sees them. Bato blocks your way: "Where do you think you're going, butterfly? You made me look stupid yesterday."

Bato pushes you. "Nobody makes me look stupid and gets away with it."

Chuno chimes in: "Yeah, we beat up lots of people who make us look stupid!"

Bato grimaces and looks at Chuno, "Shut up Chuno, don’t say lots of people make us look stupid. It makes us sound stupid."

Bato turns back to you. "Give us your breakfast and your shoes to apologize for yesterday or we'll pound your face in." Your shoes are brand new and made of very soft fox fur. They're the nicest pair of shoes you've ever had and Papa warned you not to lose them because he won't be able to get such nice fur again for several winters.

You look around the cave tunnel and consider your options. There's a tripod with some burning rocks providing light beside you. You feel a little braver after Papa's talk about being safe from fire and think you might be able to tip it over onto the boys. You also remember how to get to Mina from here. Maybe she would help if you can run that far, but you're pretty slow. Even Wotjeo is faster than you, so running to Mina is probably a bad idea. The pomegranates and the nuts Papa gave you for breakfast are both pretty hard. They'd probably hurt if you threw them, and you consider doing just that.

You’re pretty upset about being in this position again the very next day. Don’t they realize the Elder is going to be mad at all of you no matter what happens?

You size up the three bullies again. Bato is significantly larger than all of you, large enough that he could easily be mistaken for someone a year older. His spirit companion isn’t as massive, but he’s still bigger than you. Decavo, to his right and slightly behind, is only a little bigger than you, but his spirit companion is significantly bigger than Wotjeo. Between them in size and to Bato's left is Chuno. Chuno's spirit companion is larger than Bato’s but smaller than Decavos. Add it all up, and you are out-massed about 4:1 and Wotjeo is out-massed at least 5:1. Only briefly do you consider your options before making your decision. Fighting is obviously hopeless. Throwing fruit and nuts at them will only upset them. Running away just means getting exhausted and then beaten up. There’s really only one choice.

You sigh and look down at your feet. "Okay Bato, you win."

You hold your breakfast bag out.

Bato looks surprised at first. Then his face lights up with cruel joy. He reaches for it, and your raise your head, revealing the smile you were hiding. You shout "You want my breakfast? Come and get it!"

He freezes mid-reach as you swing the heavy bag back and Wotjeo roars.

You swing the bag forward. It slams into Bato's shocked face.

All three of the boys are stunned. Nobody has ever stood up to them before, and they don't know how to react.

You swing again. This time there's a wet thunk as you whip your bagged pomegranates against his head.

Bato collapses bonelessly. Each pomegranate is the size of an adult's fist. More than twice the size of your toddler's fists and you swung it with all the strength a year of nightly exercise has granted you.

Wotjeo attacked at the same time you did, but Bato's spirit companion is half again as big as yours, so Wotjeo isn't doing nearly as well. When Wotjeo charged forward, he literally bounced off the bigger bear cub despite having completely surprised her. He quickly scrambled back up. Thankfully he was back on his paws before the shock of your initial attack wore off and lashed out with his front paw. His young claws aren't long or sharp enough to cut through the other's thick fur and he did little more than annoy the bigger silver bear.

You swing your breakfast bag back, getting ready to help Wotjeo but are tackled by a screaming, red-haired blur. Untrained in fighting, you awkwardly swing your bag at Decavo, but he's got his arms wrapped around your chest with his head tucked in tight, and the only thing you can hit is his legs. Which just seems to make him angrier. You get in one halfway decent punch with your off-hand before Chuno joins in.

After that, it's all over but the screaming. Of which there's a lot. You and Wotjeo provide all the pained screams but the others provide plenty of furious shouts to add to the noise. Elder Minaro must hear the fight. Does he not care?

Neither Decavo nor Chuno is old enough to have any self-control. It doesn't even occur to them to hold back to avoid crippling a fellow tribe member. They hit you as hard as they can. Their untutored strikes pound into you relentlessly. You can hear and feel Wotjeo getting viciously clawed and knocked around by the boy’s spirit companions. They don't know enough to hit you in places where it would hurt but not knock you unconscious, so mercifully, you pass out quickly and miss the worst of it.

You wake up some time later. You hurt all over and can feel ugly bruises forming all over your face. You drag yourself over to Wotjeo. The only good news is that the boys’ spirit companions’ claws are as undeveloped as Wotjeo's and there are only a handful of superficial scratches in addition to bruises similar to the beating you took.

Wotjeo whined at the pain as you checked him for serious injuries but licks your face affectionately afterward. "At least you got Bato, sister. Sorry I didn't do as well. I'll have to train harder."

You curse the three bigger boys for what they did to Wotjeo, and for what they did to you.

You look around. There's no sign of the boys, and you don't know how long you've been unconscious. You spot your breakfast bag and snagging one of the leather drawstrings you drag it to you and open it. One of the pomegranates has been cracked open, and several of the nuts are smashed, but your breakfast is otherwise intact.

You don't think Wotjeo is seriously injured, but he Papa told you that sometimes people get injured inside where you can’t see. You also might have missed something. This is only your second fight, and you have no medical training. Your heart races with concern for your adorable brother who always helps you and is always by your side.

For that matter, your insides might be injured. They sure hurt a lot. You're not sure you can even stand. Just thinking about how much it'd hurt to try makes you groan.