The days pass quickly and you play with your bear brother Wotjeo every night in your dreams.

Despite your determination to catch up to the other kids, your bruises are nearly healed before Elder Minaro grudgingly grumbles: "Good enough for now. Continue working on your vital essence gathering skills on your own time if you have access to a metal vein or other vital essence source. The more you practice, the quicker and easier it will become, allowing you to both gather vital essence for longer and gather more in the same amount of time.”

Wotjeo and you celebrate with a hug and an affectionate nuzzle.

Elder Minaro’s habitually grumpy expression brightens a bit as he boasts. “This is the finest Tin vital essence cave in the clan, but you can earn access to other, lesser, caves by performing tasks that help the tribe once you are older and have learned a useful skill.”

You ask. “What’s a useful skill? Like cooking? Papa is a great cook!”

Elder Minaro glares at you for interrupting and yells! “Not like cooking! Do ten pushups for foolishly and ignorantly interrupting your instructor!”

You quickly start doing pushups, making you exercise while he lectures at you is one of Elder Minaro’s favorite punishments, for you at least. The boys hardly ever have to do them.

You’re used to listening to him while doing pushups by now and don’t miss a word of his explanation. “I mean useful specialist skills like Potion Brewing or Mining or Smithing. Much of the clan’s wealth comes from the metal in these caves.The Miners who gather the metal ores and the Smiths who refine it into weapons are given food and access to caves rich in vital-essence in exchange for their contributions to the clan. Until you learn a useful skill like that, you can only leech off metal veins your parents or instructors have access to.”

You finish your last pushup and situp to listen to the end of his lecture. “Even for us Silver Bears, who can afford to spare a room like this to train new cubs who have not yet proved their worth, deposits of vital-essence are rare and valuable. Most of Aestia Valley has been picked clean of vital-essence by spirit animals. The greater spirits are always quick to drain any new deposits as soon as they form. Meanwhile, the least spirits constantly search for even the smallest speck of power that might feed them."

While Elder Minaro’s lessons are always instructive, he sometimes leaves out details he considers unimportant. In this case, he didn’t tell you exactly what options were open to you. As soon as you get home you ask Papa about what vital essence sources you might be able to access. He tells you: "You're so smart Pūmiè! It took me most of a season to get permission to practice on my own. Of course, I will take you with me to gather iron vital essence. I am allowed access to the richest deposits of iron vital essence three times a season. Two of the other Guards have agreed to protect our cave mouth for Papa while we’re gone. I’m afraid I don’t know of any others that would be safe for you. I can’t leave the cave unprotected to go hunting for you, and all the caves with vital-essence here are controlled by other clan members."

You know from the lectures Elder Minaro peppers his lessons with that iron vital essence will take more effort for you to gather than the tin you have been practicing on, but it is better than nothing. You chatted with Felero briefly about it and learned that most of the caves that Silver Bears live in have metal veins with varying strengths of vital essence, so your classmates all probably have frequent access to vital-essence nodes to practice with if they want to.

In desperation you ask Mama about vital essence deposits, and she explains, gently and pleasantly as always, that crystal butterflies like Azuria need light and wind vital essence; both of which she gathers from the sky every day. Not useful for you. Unfortunately, trying to feed Wotjeo on them would make him sick at his current stage of development. She promises to keep an eye out for tin vital essence while foraging, but doesn’t expect to find any.

You’re tempted to sneak out of the cave to go looking for yourself some nights. Twice you even dream of doing exactly that and then celebrating with Wotjeo when you find a rock with bits of Tin vital essence in the forest. You never do it for real though. You know Mama would be upset if you got hurt again and you don’t want to worry her.

***

What you are learning from Elder Minaro starts to be more and more different from the other students as your lessons progress. Bato, Chuno, and Decavo are instructed to sit further and further away from the metal outcroppings each day. Meanwhile, you and Felero are slowly shifted to the side until your spirit companions are seated under the outcroppings and you are sitting next to them instead of the other way around. Elder Minaro doesn’t bother explaining why.

When you ask Felero about it after lessons one day he confides in you, “He’s preparing to teach us how to bring our spirit companions with us. That’s what my mama told me when I asked her. I think he’s teaching the others a different technique that will help them spot vital essence at a distance. Hunter’s like Bato’s papa, Aracato, are supposed to hunt vital essence deposits as well as animals. Mama says the Corazon Chamois and Crystal Butterflies, your mama’s old clan, usually get to them before we do, though.”

***

When your bruises start fading to a yellowish-brown color, Mina finally agrees you are healed enough to start learning how to fight and leads you to one of the fight caves. Instead of only a single pair of warriors sparring, lots but not many lots of pairs of kids, all older than you but younger than teenagers are fighting there today in pairs.

Mina leads you towards a girl who looks two winters older than you and has bright yellow hair: "Wotjeo, Pūmiè, meet Beayro and Amiya."

Amiya and her spirit companion, Beayro, rush forward to hug both of you tightly. You eagerly hug her back. It’s so nice to finally meet someone kind, even if she is a little older than you.

After introductions are complete, Mina address the bright yellow-haired girl, "Thank you for agreeing to help me teach them Amiya. Remember, this is their first lesson, so please be careful."

Mina crouches down and scratches Beayro under the chin. Even crouching, the giant woman still towers over all of you. "Especially you Beayro, Wotjeo is a bit small for his size."

Mina turns to look at your bear brother: "As for you Wotjeo, I heard about how you won your fight with Decavo. Going for the throat is an excellent instinct for a Guard. In a real fight we'll be defending our homes and loved ones so we can't afford to hold anything back or pull our punches; but until I tell you otherwise, try to avoid hurting your sparring partners. That means no biting and no clawing. Every injured tribe member makes the whole tribe weaker. I'm teaching you how to fight so you can protect yourselves and the tribe. Us Guards don't go looking for fights like the Hunters do. Understood?”

The huge woman waits for you to nod your heads “Good. Now today, I'm going to teach you how to tackle an opponent and drag them down to the ground. On average, Silver Bear warriors are larger and stronger than the other clans so getting in close usually puts our opponents at a disadvantage. Pūmiè, Amiya is going to tackle you first so you can feel how it works. Watch her approach carefully, it'll be your turn to tackle her next, and you should try to copy her. Amiya, you know what to do. Before you start, all of you hug to remind yourselves that while you're training here you're all friends and not trying to hurt each other."

Amiya hugs you again, and you hug her back. Your bear siblings look very cute and awkward trying to hug each other.

Amiya turns around and walks off a few steps. You brace yourself as best you can while she turns to face you. Even prepared, you are shocked by the speed with which she rushes at you.

Amiya squats down at the last moment then leaps up at you. She wraps her arms around you as she slams her shoulder into your gut and knocks you on your back. It felt almost exactly the same as both times Decavo tackled you.

Distracted by the memory, you hardly notice being slammed into the ground on your back. Has Decavo been getting fighting lessons too? If he has, he must have been getting them for a while because this is harder than it looks. When you try to do the same thing to Amiya your arms get tangled up between you and instead of knocking her over she just takes a step back, leaving you defenseless at her feet.

Amiya gives you a hand getting back up: "Don't worry, it took me a few tries too when my elder sister started teaching me. Try it again."

Mina and Amiya give you pointers throughout what's left of the morning, and by the end of it you're able to knock her down as long as she doesn't brace too much ahead of time, but your arms are still getting tangled up.

Mina encourages you to keep practicing until you're completely exhausted and can hardly push yourself back to your feet. Amiya brings you some water in a tin cup, and the two of you catch your breath and watch while Mina's spirit companion, Pliso, supervises Wotjeo and Beayro through the silver bear equivalent of the same drill. Wotjeo has even more trouble with it than you do, he's not even half as big as Beayro. The two of you obviously have a lot of work to do if you’re ever going to be able to fight people who have survived as many winters as you.

The next day, you ask Mina for advice on how to deal with Bato, Decavo, and Chuno.

Mina was pounding her fists into a stone dummy in the shape of a leopard when you found her and she continues to do so while she answers your question "You're never going to win *punch* as long as there's six of them against the two of you *punch* *punch* and you're all the same tier. *punch* If you want to win, *punch* you need to make some friends or leap at least a tier ahead of them. *punch* *punch* *punch* Two would be better. *punch* *punch* One of the most important lessons for a Guard to learn is that you don't have to win, *punch* or even survive all your fights. *punch* *punch*Sometimes all you need to do is buy a little time or scare *punch* an attacker off *punch*. I can teach you how to do that. *punch* If you can hurt *punch* them enough, they’ll probably leave you alone. *punch*"

You’re distracted from considering her answer by the realization that her hands aren’t hurt at all by hitting the stone.

***

By the end of the first moon of Elder Minaro's lessons, he's taught Wotjeo how to follow you to the vital-essence nodes when gathering which drastically increased how quickly you could feed him vital-essence.

Felero learned how to do it before you did, though.

Because the other new cubs have been getting increasingly different lessons, it is hard to tell how your progress compares to Bato, Chuno, or Decavo; As best you can make out Bato, and maybe Chuno, are ahead of you in gathering lessons as well as Felero.

You've been listening to the other kids lessons when you were supposed to be practicing or meditating, and the way Bato, Chuno, and Decavo learn is weird. Sometimes they understand things immediately and only need help to refine their skills. Other times they stumble over even the most basic things that you and Felero learned quickly. You are increasingly convinced that someone else has been giving them lessons, and not just in gathering and cultivating, but probably in how to fight too.

Elder Minaro has promised three extra moons of instruction to whoever makes the most progress. The additional moons of instruction with Elder Minaro would be especially valuable for you because it would provide daily access to vital essence nodes which you otherwise can only access only rarely with Papa; unlike your classmates. You'd have to really focus on it if you want to earn them though, and you've got another problem.

When Elder Minaro's lessons end, so too does his enforced peace. It is obvious that Decavo and Bato will come after you again as soon as they get a chance. You have to assume Chuno will tag along even if he doesn’t seem as eager to attack you as the other two.

Even if you focus on your fighting lessons with Mina, three on one odds is going to be very bad. The last time you fought all three of them you took out Bato right at the start so it was really only two on one and they still beat you unconscious. Counting on surprising Bato like that a second time would not be wise. Maybe spending most of your time with Mina and learning how to fight would be a good idea. On the other paw, if you spend more time with Felero, he might help you fight. Four versus six is a lot more even than two versus six, Mina even suggested that. You briefly consider trying to befriend Chuno too, but then remember you promised yourself to get revenge on him, so friendship isn't an option there.

Part of you has toyed with the idea of getting a second spirit companion. You don't know how that would work, but if anyone does it is probably Mama. Or maybe the Matriarch, you've heard stories that she can turn into lots of animals, so maybe she would know, but you don't even know where she lives. She's just appeared and disappeared whenever it suited her whim so far.

Before making any decision, you decide to ask Mama and Papa what you should do.

Papa picks you up and tosses you from one hand to the other like a juggler: "Before I met your mama, I used to think I could solve all my problems by crushing them. She taught me a different way. Lessons from an Elder are a once in a lifetime opportunity, you should make the most of them. You're very smart Pūmiè, I know you'll make the right decision. Your Papa will always be proud of you. Even I don’t win all my fights, what is important is that you never give up. When you go down, go down swinging and roaring your defiance! That’s the Silver Bear way."

Mama has very different ideas about proper behavior than Papa. She sits down for most of your talks for one thing. When you ask her what you should do today, she brushes your hair back out of your eyes: "It would be wonderful if you earned extra lessons with the Elder! That would show everyone else just how smart you are. I wish you’d take better care of your hair, though. If you did they'd all see not just how talented you are, but also the beautiful girl I see when I look at you. It would help you make friends. Your life would be much easier if you had more friends."

When Mama told you should make more friends it reminded you that you were hoping to bond a second spirit companion. Wotjeo is great, but if Papa is bonded with a silver bear and Mama is bonded to a crystal butterfly, you feel like you should have both. Plus, if you had two spirit companions, then it would be… that number that comes after two.. What is it again seven? Yeah seven! Surely fighting seven against six would be better than two against six! “Mama, you have a crystal butterfly sister. I want one too!”

She rubs Wotjeo’s head while she answers you, “I’m sorry growllita, but I don’t think that’s possible. Not only are the crystal butterfly nests the most guarded part of my previous clan's territory, but I also don't know how to bond a second spirit companion. Don't you think Wotjeo might get a little jealous if you tried? He's been an excellent companion to you so far. You need to make sure he knows you appreciate him. You should try to make new friends, but don’t be in such a hurry to do so that you upset those you already have. Not everyone is so fortunate as to bonded to as friendly a silver bear as Wotjeo.”

Mama gives you a pointed look until you hug your brother and apologize to him. Once you have she continues, “That’s my good growllita. It would make me very happy to teach you how to gather light and wind vital essence as a way to get closer to my estranged family, but learning that won’t help Wotjeo. Silver bears can’t cultivate wind or light vital essence into madra. Trying would only clog up his channels and make him sick. You should focus on your studies and making friends so you can protect yourself from the bullies who are jealous of how strong and gorgeous your Mama and Papa are.”

Frustrated you cry, “Why won’t you and Papa just tell me what to do, Mama? I don’t want to decide!”

Wotjeo licks your face while mama strokes your head. She waits until you’ve stopped crying and then dries your face. “Both of our families tried to stop us from marrying. We had to fight very hard to be together. We don’t want you to feel like you have to fight us. And we want you to be able to make your own mistakes so you can learn from them. We’ll give you advice, but this world is not safe. You need to learn how to make decisions because we won’t always be able to protect you.”

Papa and Mama’s advice is pretty clear, but ultimately, only you can decide the course of your life. Do you want to learn how to fight, make friends, or focus on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of lessons with an Elder and probably get beaten up a lot.