Chapter 15

A Life of Leisure

Sai woke up on the first morning after creating that one room hut. He was planning to expand it so that it could fit generations of his family in it at the same time. Sai knew though that he should take a break and work on other things.

Today, he was going to plant a garden. His parents had been worried about him when he began forage the ears around then for edible berries and vegetables. His father had thought he was going to go hunting. “Wait up son, I'll go with you,” Lavits said.

“OK,” Sai replied, he could hear his father grabbing his thick spear inside. Sai however only had his shield sitting on his back attached to a makeshift belt.

“Let's get moving,” Lavits said. He had a carving knife hanging in a pouch on his belt, Sai had no intention of telling him that he would not be using it today. Sai did need his father today in order to help track animals, because animals know what is safe to eat, therefore Sai would learn what is safe to eat. Sai remembered a proverb as he set out into the woods, it went ‘man cannot live on bread alone’, Sai assumed that this could be replaced with meat and not lose its meaning.

Lavits had his nose to the ground after fifty steps. He lined his eye up with the land and was on the trail of something very quickly. Sai had followed while standing upright. Not attempting in the slightest to be discrete.

“Get down and be quieter,” Sai’s father reprimanded immediately. Sai was already less than the height of his father when standing upright, but his father was attempting to instill a skill into Sai rather than help with the hunt his father thought he was on.

After just a few more steps, Lavits had once again set his head low to the ground to confirm that they were on the correct trail. Sai however paid attention to smaller animals. Squirrels were a good source of healthy nuts, rabbits were a good source of greens. Sai paid attention to those things. His father continued on that trail while Sai slipped more and more green things in his sack. His sack currently had several different nuts, something that looked like lettuce, and even a blue thing that looked like a carrot that several animals had been feasting on.

Sai had made a mental note of where he had found these things since they eye so close to his new home. He caught up with his father, being loud the whole time to scare forest creatures. “Quiet down!” An odd hushed yell came from a few steps in front of Sai

“I'm being loud on purpose,” Sai replied, knowing that his father would be confused, but Sai knew when to be quiet and when not to be. The wind was on their face currently, so he didn't mind being a little loud. But if the wind shifted he would be quieter so as to not scare off woodland creatures too quickly.

“What do you mean it's on purpose?”

“I'm not here for hunting, I'm here for foraging,” Silent answered, revealing the truth to his father.

“What? What are you even looking for?” Lavits asked. Like many ancient people on earth, Orza’s world had men hunting while women would gather and forage. Lavits had never foraged, and he had never taught Sai how to forage, he didn't know how Sai would even know what to look for.

Sai opened his pack and pulled out a couple berries that he had grabbed after seeing a small rodent munching on them. “Here, try it.” Sai answered his father knowing about his father's sweet tooth.

“Are you sure about this?” Lavits asked

“Of course,” Sai answered. His father plopped the bead-like berry into his mouth. “If animals can eat them and be nourished, I'm certain that we can too.”

“You're right. I guess I will follow your lead then. What are you thinking we need next?” Lavits asked, thoroughly convinced that Sai knew what he was doing.

“Just keep going. When we reach a water source we can stop,” Sai answered. Sai had a second plan as well as foraging, but he would take several weeks to complete it. Sai had a very large scale plan that would make his family never have to worry about food or even spend much time looking for food.

The two, father and son continued their journey for nearly a kilometer before finding a source of water. During that tone, Sai had shown his father what to look for in foods, he explained “Anything a rabbit will eat, you can eat. Therefore, anything a rabbit will eat, we can grow close by our house and we don't have to worry about finding food every day, we can just farm it.”

“What about hunting?” Lavits asked. Lavits had never lived a lifestyle that didn't need to hunt for food. There were no domesticated cattle or other livestock in their village. They had to go out and search for their dinner nearly four times a week, then they would salt it severely and preserve anything that they didn't eat that night.

Sai answered, “If you wish to hunt then you can hunt. I however feel that having food at the ready will allow us to train harder and for a longer time, so I do not plan on hunting for anything other than sport or to test my skills.” After answering his father, Sai had showed his father all of the things he had picked up. Lavits immediately memorized them and began to look for those things as well.

By the time the two reached the river, Sai had a pack full of greens and berries while his father had a pack that was full of mostly berries. This river was very special to Sai, not only because it was a source of life, but because it had many things nearby that could be eaten. Sai gathered handfuls of what looked like wheat that mice were snacking on and carrying away. He also grabbed a few more greens that would be helpful then handed his bag over to his father.

“Now what?” Lavits asked the question that he was most worried about, they had nearly thirty pounds of vegetarian foods, but that wouldn't do much in the short run.

“Now, I work.” Sai said mysteriously. Sai lifted up his hand and a large deep trench formed by the river. Compacting earth from its natural state in the wild was rather easy, but making it into a large enough area to shift a river was not easy. Sai did not immediately start moving the earth by the river, instead he worked a large number of steps away, this way he could tell exactly what he would be doing with the route of the river.

Sai began to trench out an area heading in a roundabout fashion towards his house. He figured that he would make an irrigation system in order to help his pants grow.

On the first day, Sai had only gone about forty steps before quitting then following his father back home. This took most of the day however. Sai had to move nearly one hundred trees and shrubs before creating his channel. After several hours of moving trees and making the forest more dense, Sai had decided that this distance was not something that would be easily traversed.

Lavits had offered to help, but Sai refused. “Are you sure?” Lavits asked

“Yeah, this sort of thing is fragile and the animals and earth need to acclimate to it. If you were to do anything and it was faster, many of the life around here would die.” Sai explained.

“You're serious?

“Why would I lie about this? Sai answered as a single tree was rumbling then scooting over inch by inch, step by step. Each tree took a long while to move. Sai had been aware that roots for trees were a very intricate and massive system, but he had been unaware that many trees would knit their roots together and have roots that spread out even further than their branches. Sai also didn't know that he would have to move each tree while maintaining the density of the soil on top of it. On one instance he needed to borrow his father's strength because a tree had fallen over.

After the instance of the tree coming out of the earth, Sai had to forcibly swallow the roots back into the earth and solidify the earth around it in order for it to not uproot again. Sai then found how hard it was to not loosed the earth before moving it.

Each tree weighed hundreds of pounds. Sai was only kind of aware about the effect of moving something with magic. He learned again that it was a toll that he couldn't afford. After those hours, Sai had used up more energy than he could replace quickly. Sai felt empty, drained by the time he has moved the last tree and removed the last pile of mud. Sai was thoroughly exhausted. When they began foraging, it had been morning. When Sai had finished it was already almost dark, one of the two moons even hung at its highest point in the sky, the other was barely past the treeline.

Sai merely laid down under the stars, his father who had just sat back and watched a majority of the day while eating those berries that he enjoyed so much also joined him. “Dad, what do you call this place?” Sai asked

“I would call it a river, maybe a forest,” a similar answer for Sai’s not so simple question.

“That wasn't my meaning. All of this land is ours. This rice will bring water to a great kingdom some day with you as its king. It needs a name, choose wisely, it will be on a map someday.” Sai didn't act excited, but rather he acted as if it were already a fact.

“I think you are getting ahead of yourself, but I'll play along. Let's call it ‘Silent River’ after its creator.” Lavits laughed as if he were joking.

Silent pulled out a small piece of wood he carved from a tree earlier and proceeded to carve a small line into it followed by a tree and a house. Above the line he wrote ‘Silent River’ and under the house he carved ‘Black Castle’. “I don't think that it would be considered a castle, at most it is a small hut,” Lavits said, reading over Sai’s shoulder.

“That is because you haven't seen what I have planned for it. I have big plans for our family in the future.” Lavits could only shake his head and assume it was Sai’s childhood imagination.

The two, father and son laid out on the grass by the river together for some time enjoying their company before finally turning back to go home. “What do you plan to do tomorrow son? Continue working on this? Add to the house to make it that castle? Lavits questioned.

“I will continue living a leisurely life. I will add to our river, I will train by body and magic, I will start farming the land. If I want to hunt, I will hunt. If I want to work, I will work. This period in our lives is to become strong enough to remove those two Chiefs from power, it will be one of us two who reaches basic level two soon and then we will free our tribe from their oppression.” Sai answered his father. Both of them continued to walk back to their new home in silence. Silent proud of his accomplishments today and Lavits proud of the good son he had barely begun raising.