Elder Minaro’s announcements hardly took any time, so you still have most of the morning to figure out how to survive traveling from home to your private lessons with Elder Minaro. Bato and his friends, Chuno and Decavo, are sure to try to stop you just like they did the first few days of Elder Minaro’s group lessons. You can skip Mina’s lessons too if you need more time to think. You hope you don’t need to though, you’ve napped through too many already.

You’ve already seen what happens if you try to bull straight past Bato and his cronies to get to class, so you’ll need to find a more clever solution. You really don’t want to go through that again. One brutal beating was enough, thank you very much. Even if you did get to knock Bato out.

Even though you learned a little about how to defend yourself from Mina, your focus was on Elder Minaro’s lessons so you don’t feel like you learned enough to win even a one-on-one fight with Bato, Chuno, or Decavo. They haven’t been as focused on Elder Minaro’s lessons as you, and, to your mind, there’s only one other thing they could have been getting better at - learning how to beat up people like you.

By the same reasoning, you decide that trying to get Felero to help you is a bad idea. He might help, but even if he does, you’ll still be outnumbered, and too weak to win.

It doesn’t even occur to you to try to make friends with one of Bato’s cronies so that you’ll have the advantage. It would be the sane and reasonable thing to do, but you want your revenge. You can’t get it immediately, but you swore an oath of vengeance and you will have it, someday. Who cares if befriending Decavo or Chuno would ensure your victory over Bato and allow you to safely and swiftly make it to Elder Minaro’s lesson cave every day if it means giving up on satisfying your need for revenge?

You only brief consider asking Papa to escort you but decide to save that for the last resort. Papa’s stories have been very clear. A Silver Bear fights for themself. You think you’d rather die than hide behind Papa. You might literally die from embarrassment if he helped you with this.

That leaves only one option open to you. You can’t outfight them and you can’t out-charm them, so you’ll have to outrun them. When Elder Minaro led you down to the Deep Tunnels, he did so without going through the main cave. Before that, you hadn’t realized how large and connected the cave complex you live in was. Your entire world had been a few short tunnels all connected to the main cavern. You don’t even know where Felero or Bato or Mina or anyone else lives.

The cave complex suddenly seems vast and mysterious to you. It might be full of wonders like the caves full of meat and water you discovered during your isolation or mysterious dangers like the Deep Tunnels. Might there also be a way to reach the lesson cave without going through the tunnel Bato waited for you in, both times he stopped you?

You might not need to fight your bullies at all. If you can find a way to reach the lesson cave that Bato doesn’t know about, you can continue your lessons uninterrupted. This would be a very good thing, but you’ll need to keep avoiding Bato and his friends afterward, too. While you are taking lessons from Elder Minaro, they’ll be getting lessons on how to fight and do other things. It’ll take you a long time to catch up with them.

You push such gloomy thoughts out of your head and focus on your current problem. Finding a secret way to Elder Minaro’s lesson cave. If you’re really lucky, you’ll find something exciting too, like the deep tunnels entrance or Mina’s fight cave! With this exciting thought lifting your spirits you leave the lesson cave, and instead of turning left like you usually do, you go right. The tunnel is well lit by bowls of burning rocks supported by tripods at regular intervals. Smoke rises from the burning rocks and makes dark clouds that obscure the high ceilings of the tunnel. The floor is very smooth, and the tunnel walls are mostly smooth. The tunnel dips and falls irregularly, but trends generally downwards.

Most stretches of this tunnel have at least two openings off of it in sight at the same time. You wander into the first couple you come across because no one has ever taught you that’s it's rude to go into other people’s caves without being invited. They’re all fairly large and often have several attached caves. Often you hear sounds coming from one of the attached caves and quickly leave. All the caves are rich in vital-essence, and not just tin either, but many different types. Elder Minaro taught you some of the names already. You recognize the sounds of copper, iron, and even patches of tin vital essence.

When you find another tunnel leading off of this one you follow it. The first few times you do this you get lost in abandoned mining tunnels like the one you learned how to control your dream vital essence hearing in, and it takes you a long time to get out. Unlike that tunnel, these are all empty though.

You take a break for lunch the next time you find an unoccupied cave with bed furs and a small copper barrel of water. The caves have been getting smaller recently. This one doesn’t even have any other caves leading off of it. There’s three separate piles of clothing in the cave, each with more sets of clothing than you own.

You drink your fill from the barrel. Wotjeo is smaller than you, and you have to pick him up and hold him so he can lap up as much water as he wants. You eat one of the pomegranates Papa gave you this morning and feed the other to Wotjeo.

You haven’t had any meat since you learned how to turn down the volume on your dream vital essence hearing. You wish you could have some more of that dried meat and wonder if you could find your way back again. Unfortunately, you weren’t paying attention when Sonadoro led you back. You don’t even know where to start looking and Elder Minaro sounded like he plans to keep you too busy to do any exploring after today. Glumly you decide you probably won’t be able to find the dried meat again any time soon.

Wotjeo looks up at you and then rubs his furry face against your cheek. “Don’t worry sister. Fruit is yummy too.”

It makes you feel better to know you can always count on your brother and you embrace him in a tight hug.

Standing up, you brush the grit from the cave floor off your legs and head back out of the cave to continue exploring. The Silver Bears who live there will later be confused by the two empty pomegranate skins you leave behind in their cave.

You find another abandoned mining tunnel, only this time it connects up to another smooth floor tunnel. When you step into the new tunnel, you spot Amiya walking down the new tunnel towards you. You call out, “Hello Amiya!”

The yellow-haired girl has survived two winters more than you and is both significantly taller and stronger. Her enthusiastic greeting hug squeezes the breath out of you. “Pūmiè! I didn’t see you at Mina’s today. You should pay more attention during her lessons.”

She gently scolds you “I think Mina heard you snoring the last time you showed up.”

You protest, “I do not snore!”

Amiya’s mention of Mina reminds you. “I need to tell Mina I can’t come to lessons for a whole season. I earned extra lessons from Elder Minaro. He told me they’d last until the middle of summer and he says they will be even harder than the other ones.”

Amiya grabs your hands and cheerfully bounces and bounces up and down around you. “Congratulations!”

Caught up in her enthusiasm you jump up and down with her too.

She stops bouncing and staggers dizzily. When she regains her balance she tells you, “Come on, Let’s go tell my mama! Our cave is just around the bend in this tunnel.”

Amiya drags you along with her and takes you into a cave nearly as large as the cave mouth you live in.

Amiya’s mama, Vaquera, turns out to be an older looking woman, older looking than your mama at least. Broader too, but obviously heavily muscled with orangish-brown hair. Amiya’s mama’s face is creased with laugh lines where Mama’s face is smooth and beautiful. Vaquera is busy cooking when Amiya dashes in. Your mouth waters when you see her adding delicious-looking chunks of fresh fish to the pot on the fire. “Hello, mama! This is my friend Pūmiè! She got extra lessons from Elder Minaro just like Rubia!”

Vaquera takes a short break to give you a welcoming hug “Congratulations, dear.”

She notices you staring at the pot of fish soup she’s making. “Would you like some?”

You nod your head yes. Beside you, Wotjeo does too. His cute pink little tongue hangs out in anticipation of the yummy looking fish when he does. Remembering your manners you say. “Yes, please! Who is Rubia?”

Vaquera smiles approvingly at you. “How polite, and at such a young age too! Rubia is my older daughter. She’s very clever, just like you must be to have earned extra lessons from Elder Minaro. He took over teaching shortly after I joined the clan, but both my daughters said he’s very strict.”

Amiya interrupts. “He’s not strict. He’s mean. I think he enjoys making fun of kids. He told me I was stupid every day.”

Vaquera comforts Amiya by hugging her. “Don’t let his insults get to you, dear. We both know you aren’t stupid.”

Amiya pouts. “Then why didn’t I get extra lessons from him?”

Vaquera sighs, and with the air of someone repeating something for the manyth time replies, “Bonita’s son was in your age group. Bonita is famous, it is no shame losing to her son, and Elder Minaro told me it was a very close thing.”

Amiya brightens. “Really? You never told me that before!”

Vaquera says, “Haven’t I? I’m sorry dear, I thought I had. Besides, Rubia taught you everything Elder Minaro taught her, so it isn’t like you missed out. How’s your new apprenticeship going?”

Amiya frowns. “It’s okay, I guess. I know Rubia recommended him, but my sifu is kind of… really into killing. He talks about how much fun it is to hunt and kill animals all the time.”

Vaquera tastes the fish soup and then adds a few more dried leaves to it. “Almost ready. What’s wrong with that, dear? He is a Hunter. Killing animals is his Path. It’s good that he enjoys it, right?”

Amiya shrugs. “I guess. He weirds me out though. I enjoy fighting, but he talks about death all the time like some sort of Marbled Polecat.”

Vaquera hugs Amiya comfortingly, “Well, you can change to a new sifu after next winter. Where did you and Pūmiè meet?”

Amiya seems happy to change the topic and says “I met her at Mina’s! She asked me to help teach Pūmiè! I like teaching you, Pūmiè, but you should pay more attention during lessons!”

Vaquera tisks. "Pūmiè! You aren't paying attention during your lessons? That's rude! Your elders are spending their precious time on you, the least you could do is pay attention and show them the respect they deserve."

You hastily defend yourself. "I'm sorry! I've just been practicing Elder Minaro's lessons so much that I'm tired during Mina's."

Vaquera tisks again. "It's good that you're working hard, but even so, you should try to pay attention to Mina and Amiya too. Not only is it good manners, but Mina could be an Elder someday."

Vaquera scoops out some of the soup into copper bowls and hands them out. “Time to eat. If you like it there’s plenty for seconds.”

Oh boy, seconds! You never get seconds at home!

You have a delicious second lunch with Amiya and her mama.

Afterward, Vaquera fills three copper bowls with fish soup. She hands one to Amiya: “Take this to your sister, dear. She forgot to come home and eat again.”

Amiya stares at the bowl like she’s afraid it will bite her “Aww mama, do I have to?”

Amiya’s mom scowls at her rebellious daughter “You know your sister must be starving after training all morning, and I’m out of hands. I need to take your father his lunch too. The old fool must still be out fishing, and you’re not old enough to go to the river by yourself yet.”

Amiya sighs and reluctantly takes the copper bowl full of fish soup, “Yes, mama.”

Amiya turns to you with a smile. “Come on, at least we can talk until we get to the main cave.”

Not wanting a repeat of being unable to trace your steps back like when you followed Sonadoro, you pay close attention as Amiya leads you to the main cavern. She chattered happily the whole way and hugged you goodbye when you got there. Her hug was as energetic as ever and splashed some hot fish soup on the back of your leather shirt which Wotjeo enthusiastically licked up before it could warm up the leather enough to hurt.

Stepping back, Amiya gestured to one of the many tunnels leading off the main cave. "I need to take Rubia her lunch, but I'll see you at Mina's soon. Go ahead and practice with someone else today if I'm not back in time."

Not only did you find another way to the lesson cave, but you also got to eat some delicious fish soup and spend time with Amiya. You decide this was a good day.