When it’s your turn for personal instruction the next day, Elder Minaro introduces the next stage of your lessons. “Thus far I’ve taught you only about metal vital-essence, but Silver Bear madra is a mix of metal and dreams. This is because metal vital-essence is one of the most stable. It is also one of the safest, as long as you don’t try to follow a vein too deeply. There are dangers in the depths that you will unlikely ever be ready to face.”

Elder Minaro gestures grandly, “I can delve quite deeply, as can a few others, but there is rarely a reason too. All we need is provided by our Miners and the dreams of our fellow clan members. Your undeveloped senses likely didn’t even notice, but Genialida -”

He gestures at his spirit sister, the largest silver bear you’ve ever seen. “Genialida has been sleeping through all of your lessons. She has not been idle though, she has been giving dream vital essence to Wotjeo and the other spirit brothers and sisters while you were gathering to avoid unbalancing their spirits. Silver bears require both metal and dream vital-essence in roughly equal amounts. Too much of either and they will sicken and die.”

Panic wells up in your heart and floods across your face. Have you been poisoning Wotjeo with all your extra gathering practice? Elder Minaro snorts and turns his back.

When he faces you again, his expression is the usual severe scowl but there’s something oddly gentle in his voice: “Don’t worry. Your extra practice hasn’t hurt Wotjeo. Genialida noticed the additional metal madra in your brother’s dantian right away and has been balancing it out by sending him additional dream vital-essence. She will continue to do so until our lessons are complete; so keep practicing wherever it is you’ve found to do so.”

His scowl deepens: “Now if you have finished panicking, I would like to continue with the lesson. Silver Bears, and Silver Bear madra arts, use madra that is a blend of metals and dreams.”

You interrupt Elder Minaro to ask “What is a madra art?”

Elder Minaro scowls at you. “Don’t interrupt your elders little girl. If your parents haven’t taught you any yet, I’m not going to waste my time teaching you about them either.”

Elder Minaro pauses a beat to gather his thoughts. “Where was I? Right, dream madra. For the remainder of our time together we will be repeating the same exercises as before but with dream vital-essence and Genialida’s dreams serving as the replacement for the tin ore veins. Unlike metal vital-essence, dream vital-essence is extremely fragile and much more difficult to contain. All thinking creatures and even some spirit plants generate dream vital-essence while they sleep. This vital-essence lingers for about a fifth of a day afterward. You will not practice dream vital-essence gathering on your own until I give you permission. Do it wrong, and you can drive the person you are gathering from insane. The tainted vital-essence will drive Wotjeo and yourself insane too.”

Elder Minaro glares right into your eyes, and you feel like he’s staring into your soul. Wotjeo cowers beside you. His soft cub fur pressed warmly against your side. Elder Minaro continuous glaring until you and your bear brother nod agreement emphatically enough to satisfy him.

Elder Minaro’s expression softens into something less intimidating, “Take a few moments to collect yourself and then we’ll begin. One of the reasons you will practice on Genialida is that she’s an adept enough practitioner to protect herself as well as Wotjeo and you from any mistakes you make. Be gentle, but decisive. Better to make a mistake quickly and learn from it than quiver with indecision and waste your lesson.”

The lessons on gathering dream vital-essence go much easier than the metal ones for you. Whenever you have trouble with a technique, Wotjeo gives you a suggestion that makes it click for you. Elder Minaro glares at you suspiciously whenever this happens, but he doesn’t say anything. Even better, Bato seems to be struggling. Felero is the first to get permission to gather dream vital-essence on his own outside lessons.

Bato and you both get permission a day after Felero, which causes the larger boy to shake his fist threateningly at you behind Elder Minaro’s back. You and Wotjeo stick your tongues out at him as soon as the Elder’s back is turned. Wotjeo’s tongue looks so cute and pink against his dark black fur that you scoop him into your lap and share a celebratory cuddle with him before getting back to working hard on the current lesson.

After class is over, Felero congratulates you on your progress. He, at least, doesn’t seem to envy your successes. “You’re doing great. My mother is helping me when I get stuck but you’re still catching up to me. Your mother must be very smart!”

Loyally you reply, “Smart and pretty! That’s Mama.”

Wotjeo rams his head into the back of your knees, nearly knocking you over. You crouch down and hug him apologetically. “Actually, Wotjeo’s been the one helping me. Mama is a Crystal Butterfly. She doesn’t know how to gather dream or metal vital-essence.”

Felero crouches down beside you to look at Wotjeo. “Wow! You must be really smart Wotjeo!”

Wotjeo says to you. “I like this one.”

Felero doesn’t react when Wotjeo talks. No one ever does. It’s like you’re the only one who can hear him. It is really weird. You can hear him and understand him a lot easier than everyone else, so it seems extra odd that they can’t hear him.

Felero’s spirit sister rams her head into his side, and she does knock her spirit sibling over. Felero shouts in surprise as he falls over “waaah!”

When gets back up, he scratches the base of Poca’s tail in apology. “I’m sorry Poca. You’re amazing too. I couldn’t do anything without you.”

Poca lets out a pleased rumbling growl.

***

Time continues to pass, with you spending as much time and energy on your lessons with Elder Minaro as you can.

The biggest surprise of the whole time, even bigger than discovering that you would have poisoned Wotjeo if Genialida, Elder Minaro’s spirit companion, hadn’t saved him, is the morning when you come down to the central cave and are suddenly assaulted by the sound of the dreams of the whole tribe. You clap your hands to your ears and squeeze your eyes shut to try and block out the overwhelming clamor, but it doesn’t help. Nothing helps! You fall to your knees. Strong arms scoop you up and you feel yourself carried out of the cavern. Slowly the terrible sound fades, and you blink your eyes.

You are leaning back against a cave wall with Elder Minaro crouched in front of you.

Your teacher hands you a metal goblet. His mouth moves, but you don’t hear anything.

Elder Minaro scowls and his mouth moves again as he forces the goblet against your lips until you drink.

The liquid tastes really weird and even stranger, it makes your ears tingle.

Elder Minaro’s mouth moves again, and this time you hear him: “I owe you an apology. I thought you had a few more days before your hearing expanded to dream vital-essence.”

Your curiosity about how long a few days is; is washed away in the greater wonder of Elder Minaro apologizing. You were pretty sure he hated you and here he is apologizing?

Your teacher scowls at you, and you realize your mouth is hanging open. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m not actually going to give you an apology.”

He glares at you. “If you weren’t so lazy and short-sighted you’d have anticipated this and taken steps to protect yourself or at least turned down the volume of your vital-essence sense as I showed you before you blew out your eardrums.”

Elder Minaro pauses for a moment, as if even he is stunned by the ridiculousness of his previous statement, but he quickly rallies and continues. “If you think you can stop looking as dumb as a deer that ran itself into a tree, I’ve prepared a test for you. It will help you gain control of your hearing without hurting yourself again. In one of the caves off of this tunnel, I've put a person to sleep. Follow the sound of their dreams to where they are sleeping; wake them up to ask their name; and then make your way back to class to tell it to me. I suggest you skip morning meditation and avoid the central cavern until you’ve got control of your hearing again. I won’t be healing your eardrums again.”

Elder Minaro stands up, but leaves the goblet on the cave floor beside you. “Good luck.”

He walks off and just leaves you there. You're so stunned you don't try to run after him until he disappears around the corner. Leaping to your feet you try to race after him, but trip over the goblet he left behind. You scramble up again, but by the time you reach the corner he's long gone.

You look around and realize you've never been in this part of the cave system before.

Great, you're lost and all you've got is a pair of pomegranates in the bag Papa gave you. Oh, and it took you many lots of days to get your hearing under control last time and it didn't start out as loud as it was just now either. You could be here many, many lots of days.