“What do you think, Bai? Ready for your first day of training?” she asked the cub as they walked together to the beast training area on the morning of Day 3. Her master had grabbed her into a surprise meeting where he gave her orders and send her on her way all in a period of about twenty breaths of time. The next thing she had known, a class had been added to her schedule, “Bonded Beast Training (Novice),” and today was Yu and Bai’s first day.

Her master had apparently forced them in before Bai was technically supposed to be allowed. He was either mid or high grade 1 rather than the low grade 2 he was supposed to be as a minimum when enrolled. It was hard to tell with the cub because he was stronger than he should be given his size. Her master had told her that that should not matter too much as there was little difference between grade 1 and grade 2, unlike when they reached grade 3 and could use Qi externally.

Either way, he said that she and Bai would have had to wait another six months before starting the class if they didn’t get in now. He also did not really care if the instructor approved or not. Nor, apparently, did he believe Yu’s opinion on the matter was relevant.

Bai roared and ran in circle around her in answer to her question. Then he seemed to look around and then look at Yu with a question. She felt a mix of curiosity, excitement, and loneliness through the bond. Yu sighed. He missed his aunts and wondered why they weren’t with them.

Lu had been subdued since they returned three days ago. She was still struggling with what Yu had done, which she though was entirely fair. And Li, while not necessarily disagreeing with Yu’s actions, did not wholly agree either. That – and because she wanted to be by her sister’s side to help her through her struggle – meant that neither Yu nor Bai had received much of either sisters’ attention since.

“I know, Bai. I miss them too.” She reached down and scratched behind his ears and then kept walking. His shoulders were just below her knees now and his roars were no longer so high-pitched and kitten like.

“But we have to focus. Today we have training and need to learn what it means to work as a team.” He roared again and she said, “Well, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that’s what it means at least.”

She chatted with him until they arrived at the beast training pavilion. Looking it over, Yu felt it was nearly identical to an arena on the outside, except smaller. When she entered through the doorless archway, she followed a large arching path lit with Ether lamps until it led to wide open area, once again similar to the arena except without any fighting circles. It was just a big empty flat patch of hard-packed dirt.

Once inside, she saw two outer sect disciples and at least thirty inner sect disciples. All of them either carried or were standing next to a demonic beast of some kind. There were some grouped together, and others by themselves. A few of the inner sect disciples were speaking to each other, while others were mostly looking around and interacting with their beasts in some way. Yu walked over to the pair of outer sect disciples who were standing near each other but not speaking.

One was a brown-haired girl seemingly around twenty with brown eyes, skin that showed signs of being in the sun and… brown fingernails. All of that pointed heavily to an Earth Affinity, but of course it was no guarantee. Her beast, who was on her left shoulder and examining everything in sight with his wiggly nose and whiskers, was a brown rodent that looked like a mix of a ferret and a mouse. Yu thought It was adorable. The girl looked at Yu with surprise that quickly switched to a smile.

Potential then, perhaps?

The other outer sect disciple was a young man likely in his mid-twenties. He had black hair up in a neat topknot, strangely orange eyes, an average looking face, and a jagged scar across his neck that looked painful. He was examining Yu with an expression of derision.

Great… Another stuck up noble.

His pet was standing at his side, stiff as a board. He was a wolf with a long coat that seemed to shimmer and glisten in the light of the open-topped arena. Yu took a wild guess at Metal Affinity, but was definitely not confident.

Intending to start with politeness, Yu introduced herself. She bowed her head to the girl first and then the boy. “Good morning. I’m Fenghuang Yu and this is Bai.” She gestured down at Bai who was looking up at the wolf which was up to Yu’s hip at its clearly well-muscled shoulder.

“Hi!” said the girl quickly. “I’m Ji Minu and this,” she pointed at the mouse-like creature on her shoulder, “is Gon. We know who you are of course.”

The young man huffed. “Of course you’re here. Did your master give you that tiger? Do you earn anything?”

Yu glared at him, but took a deep breath. Ji Minu looked quite uncomfortable. “Would you be willing to introduce yourself before throwing insults?” Yu asked, controlled.

He glared, but said, “Keung Shing.”

“Well, Keung Shing,” Yu said, “Bai and I had bonded already before I even met my master, not that it’s any of your business.” Then she looked down at his bond who looked up from Bai and tilted his head. “Who’s your wolf? I don’t suppose he’d be willing to actually talk to me before making an unfounded judgement?” Yu noticed his nose was crazily sniffing the air around Yu and Bai. And now that she was looking, so was Gon from Minu’s shoulder.

He let out a sigh but still looked at her suspiciously. “His name is Nan. He’s a Steel-furred Coyote.”

Yu blinked at that. “What an unusual demonic beast. I don’t think I’ve even heard of that before.”

“They are rare,” he said proudly. “I’m from a small village under the protection of Lǜsè Huābàn City in the Shu kingdom.”

So Green Petal City, under the Tree kingdom. I’d wager it’s in the heavy forest like hers, but perhaps encouraging less Fire and more Wood Affinity. The argument against that is a Metal Affinity pack-hunting beast. Fascinating.

“We breed these coyotes, among a number of other beasts, and sell them throughout the empire. But on rare occasion, when one of us manages to get a Metal Affinity and can connect with one, we get to bond. Assuming the family can afford the talisman.”

That answers that question.

“Is it mostly Wood Affinity in your area then?” Yu asked.

He was clearly loosening up as he responded in a relaxed manner. “Yep. It’s heavily into herbalism and alchemy ingredients and stuff like that. Our Wood Affinity also allows us to work with beasts, hence the breeding.”

Yu nodded. “Unfortunately, my city doesn’t really have that as an industry. We’re mostly about iron and mining, along with hunting. Very little breeding which I’m beginning to believe is a shame.”

Minu spoke up then. “Working with beasts sounds nice, but dangerous.”

“It’s certainly lively,” he said lightly while scratching at the scar across his neck.

Yikes. That explains that. Of course, heavy Wood Affinity means they probably have a good number of healers. That city must have a lot of connections to sects just by the nature of its environment. Lucky.

“We’re not sure of my mouse’s exact breed,” Minu said cheerily. “He’s Earth Affinity and he can find things buried in dirt and stone, but otherwise he seems to be just a normal rodent-type.”

“Maybe you can look it up in the library? They have a huge section on demonic beast types,” Yu offered.

“I wish I had the time,” she sighed. “I have to work all the time I’m not in class or training to pay for my stay and stuff for Gon. At least he’s small so he only eats so much.”

Talisman-bound then.

Yu smiled. “That would certainly help.”

Yu reflected how fortunate she was that she did not have to pay for Bai’s food. He still did not seem to have interest in anything but her Qi.

“It’s nice to—”

“Everyone get your beasts and gather around,” yelled a woman’s voice from the center of the Area. Yu smiled at the others, who smiled back, and they all headed in that direction. Yu was shocked to see a woman in Core Sect robes. She had red hair in a tail down to the middle of her back, green eyes, pale skin, was about two heads taller than Yu, and had a pretty face that looked to be in its thirties in mortal years. “Good morning,” she called again. “I am Elder Ruo.”

“Good morning, Elder Ruo,” all the disciples intoned.

She waved her hand, dismissing the introduction. “Yes, yes. This is likely not going to be the kind of class you are used to elsewhere. I’m a lot less uptight and stuffy than most of the elders you outer and inner sect disciples are used to. Things are more relaxed in the Core Sect, if no less competitive, and I like to bring that into my classes. I teach all the sect’s Beast Bond Training classes and these, are my bonds.” She whistled so loudly a number of the beasts, and Yu, all winced or covered their ears.

For a few breaths, nothing happened, and then the ground started shaking. Yu looked down and then around, trying to figure out the cause. A massive red bull-like creature trundled towards Elder Ruo. It had a mane of red fur like a lion, horns that went straight out to either side about an arms-length and then tilted up into a vicious-looking tip. Yu was sure she would only go up to its nose, which was spewing smoke. A long tail ending in another red puff of fur waved behind it side to side as it trotted forward, making the building shudder with each step.

Apparently all the other disciples were equally impressed because they were making awed noises that mirrored her thoughts.

“Wow,” Shing said from next to her.

Yu could only nod in agreement. Then she asked, “Wait, didn’t she say bonds? As in more than one?”

“Ahh, caught that did you?” Elder Ruo said, looking at Yu. “Most people are so impressed by Hongyu here that they forget. Well, look behind you.”

Yu turned along with the rest of the class and saw solid black-as-night owl six times Yu’s height standing not ten paces behind them.

“And that is why owls are the best silent hunters,” the elder said smugly. “That there is Eryu. She has been my bond for more than two centuries and Hongyu just short of four. We make an excellent team. And that is what you are here to learn. How to make a good team with your bonded beast. We do that through a process that has been perfected over hundreds of generations of beast trainers.” Yu was absolutely thrilled and thoroughly relieved to hear that because she had had no clue at all what to do to train or train with Bai. “We follow this process because – despite the fact that a few of you are likely thinking how special you and your bond are – it has worked for just about everyone, no matter whether they are noble or commoner, rich or poor, strong or weak. In the end, all beasts require the similar care and discipline in the beginning. The farther in the process you go, the more of a bond you achieve, the more specialized your instruction will be. For example, I am about to order you to take your bonds and lap around the edge of the arena until I say stop. The key here is that your bond, whether flying or running, has to stay at your side. You may not carry it and it may not sit on you. Now, questions?”

One of the inner sect disciples, a girl carrying a small turtle in her arms, raise one hand. “What about my Niu? She can’t outrace anyone.”

“First of all, when did I say this was a race?” Elder Ruo asked the girl. She opened her mouth and then closed it. With a smirk, the elder said, “In fact, I said nothing about a race or competition. There would be no point in such a thing, as your Horned River Turtle proves. What I said was you need to lap the arena, not race, or even run. Your bond, while a swift swimmer, suffers from slowness away from its natural habitat. The exercise is to lap the arena with. Your. Bond.”

Then she walked over to Minu and said, “You will have a much harder time than that other disciple with her turtle. I’m sure you know why that is?” Minu blushed and nodded. “Your Burrowing Hoarder Sable is a bit of a wanderlust, isn’t he? Always sniffing about, digging things up, rarely listening to you?” Minu blushed deeper as she nodded again. “Indeed. You are going to struggle at first building a relationship where he will do as you ask.” Then she turned back to the group. “Notice I said, ask. Not order, not demand. Ask. The best partnerships are ones that contain partners, not a master and servant. And that leads to the rules for this class. There are really only two. First, you do what I say, when I say it. Pretty simple. Second, no abusing your bond. You’ll get one warning because I know some of you came from places where that is how they manage their beasts. I don’t allow it in any of my classes nor in this sect. If I see it after you have been warned, I’ll beat you to death to free your bond from your cruelty and send your crushed body home alone but with a little note tucked in what remains of your robes. If you don’t like that or think you can follow these two simple rules, leave now.”

Yu was shocked at her bluntness, now that she didn’t approve. Even just the idea of intentionally hurting Bai nearly made her sick to her stomach. Surprisingly, a single inner sect disciple actually turned around and left after he said, “What a joke.” Then he snapped, “Follow,” and that young man’s bond, a purple-scaled lizard of some kind with short legs, waddled to catch up to him.

Yu turned back to Elder Ruo and noticed she was staring at that disciple’s back with narrowed eyes.

His poor bond might find itself spontaneously free one day. Shame…

“One more thing, before you begin the exercise,” the elder called. “Have any of you bonded through Ether?”

Yu raised her hand, as did an inner sect disciple with another cat-type beast. She was surprised it was only two, but Elder Ruo did not seem surprised at all. She just nodded blandly and said, “Okay. Off you go. Remember, the goal is to stay together with your bond.”

“Alright, Bai. Ready for a run?” He looked up at her and roared. “We need to stay together, okay? No wandering off.” He roared again. “Here we go then.”

It had only taken about ten breaths for the entire exercise to turn into complete mayhem. It had all started when one of the inner sect disciples armadillos apparently got fed up with running almost immediately and curled into a ball to roll instead of jog. The rolling had starting outpacing its rather broad-shouldered cultivator, who’s short black hair and tall stature made her think of her brother a bit, if far more average-looking. He had called for it to slow down or stop, but it rolled on, right into Nan, Shing’s wolf. In response, the wolf whapped it with his paw and sent it tumbling away with a ringing sound. That started a bit of a tussle between the disciples, which lead to other beasts getting overly agitated and sensitive. A few other beasts got to close to each other and that started off another set of chaos. Yu moved over to the side and called Bai to join her, but he had apparently been divebombed by a bird of some sort, which lead him to leap up after it. On top of that, Ming’s sable wandered off to do her own thing and had started digging holes everywhere, one of which Bai didn’t see in his leaping and fell into. And the humans were no better, either running around after their bonds or blaming each other for their bonds current condition or disobedience.

In short, the entire first exercise had been a complete disaster. Having had enough herself, Yu ran to pick up Bai, while ducking a low-flying sparrow and leaping over a pair of green foxes tumbling all over each other. Finally lifting him up, despite his struggles, and tried to run away from the chaos. Once she escaped, she looked back at Elder Ruo. The woman was watching the entire proceeding with complete concentration. To Yu it appeared she did not wish to miss a single detail of the disastrous event.

After only a bit more time, Yu watched as she took a deep breath, tucked her lips, and whistled again. This time it was so loud even the disciples without extra-sensitive hearing like hers winced. All the animals froze and stopped what they were doing.

"Well…” she called into the silence. “That went rather well.” Yu blinked at her.

It had?

She grinned then. “Surprised? Every year, we use this exercise as a tool to learn a bit about the personality of each bond.” A few groused about their bonds getting hurt, but she said, “Every single bond here, save one, is a grade 2. That means that your bonds really can’t hurt each other too badly in such a short time. And, if you’ll look into the stands, you’ll see my assistants, who were watching just in case something got out of hand.” Yu looked up and saw four inner sect and two core sect disciples in the stands, staring down at them.

“What you all have to understand is that bonded beasts do not act like normal beasts do in the wild. The nature of the bond makes them more docile and somewhat more intelligent. For example, a hawk dove at the only tiger we have in this class. But it was more in a teasing way then an actual attack. Did the bond of the tiger notice that no damage was done?” Yu actually hadn’t and looked him over, along with a few others who looked at her. She found that he was indeed unharmed, despite being grumpy and glaring at every bird in sight. “The hawk was intentionally trying to bother the tiger, which is a separate issue about discipline. But back on topic. So you know, Ether-bound beasts are even more intelligent, especially as they grow. The two of you will notice this as the class goes on and your bonds grow older and even stronger. For those talisman bound bonds, you will find they may be more pliant, but far less able to think independently. They will be easier to train at first, but harder as they get older because they have more rigid thinking and you will be asking them for more complicated things. That is all for later though. What you learned from this exercise is what?”

Only silence answered. Yu couldn’t figure out what she wanted either.

“The first answer, is to relax. Don’t be terrified your beast is going to get hurt. What we had here was basically a mass melee and none of your bonds were injured beyond some lost fur or feathers. The only ones in this class who can really hurt your beasts are you and your fellow humans. The second thing you should have learned is that you actually have to work at this. It isn’t as simple as ordering your bond to do something and them doing it. A few of you actually had the right idea at the start. I saw a number of you immediately run off, ordering your beasts to follow. That is wrong! Two or three of you had a short chat with your beasts where you laid out expectations and talked about it together. Yes, I said together. Eventually you’ll get to a point where you can just gesture or whistle or say a word. But that is far off. Right now we will be practicing partnership. Now, we are going to try that again, but this time, you are going to be sent to your laps not on mass, but one at a time. Your goal is to discuss the exercise in advance and then see if you can stick together for ten breaths. If you can, then do it again for twenty breaths. And then again and again until you reach two hundred breaths. If at any point, either you or your bond fails, you both start all over. This time you will have a discussion about what happened and figure out how to keep your bond’s attention and focus. But first, we are going to see if you and your bonds can even stay still next to each other. We’ll go from there.”

***

Yu and Bai were both mentally and physically exhausted by the end of the class, as were all the disciples and bonds. They had spent most of the last three hours either standing or walking next to their bonds until something happened that distracted the beast and then they’d start over after a chat about what had happened with Elder Ruo, and work out a way to prevent it from happening again. Poor Minu had a really hard time, as Gon just could not stay focused, as the elder had warned. He just had wanted to dig and explore. After their rather poor start, Shing and Nan had found that they actually got along quite well with Yu and Bai. At first the coyote was really cautious of them, Yu especially, which was apparently quite unusual. “He’s usually really confident in himself since he was the largest of his litter. For some reason he seems afraid of you,” he had said.

Yu had shrugged. “I don’t think I’m particularly scary. But I don’t have the Metal Affinity, so maybe he just doesn’t like me much.”

Shing hadn’t agreed, but they moved on quickly enough. While still cautious around Yu, the coyote warmed up to Bai as Shing and Yu had seemed to get along.

Elder Ruo spoke the exhausted class. “Before you go, I want to share the plan going forward. We are going to continue this exercise for the next few weeks or until your bonds can stay at your sides for two hundred breaths. Once that is achieved, we can move onto playing some games that work towards communication. After that we will focus on coordinating actions. Then we move onto teaming up and exploring the benefits and challenges of bonds working together. After that we start some obstacle courses which eventually leads to both individual and team competitions.” Yu and Shing were grinning at each other, him clearly as excited as she was. “Before you get too excited though, it will take years to there, so just focus on the hill before you and don’t try to jump directly into climbing a mountain. I strongly encourage you all to practice the standing and walking exercises outside of this class. Otherwise you may be left behind while everyone else is ready for the next exercise. See you in a week.”

Yu and Shing separated as he had to return Nan to the beast pens. One of the things that Yu appreciated about him was how hard he worked. It was obvious that he was forced to pay for his wolf’s housing and care in additional to growing strong himself. It had been why he had such a visceral reaction to Yu at first. He struggled greatly watching others have things handed to them while he barely got enough sleep because of all the points he had to earn. Once he learned of Yu’s work ethic, mainly by her complaining about her schedule, he had completely turned around his opinion.

After they reached the dorm, Yu fed Bai and he fell asleep on her bed almost immediately. Then she took a really quick bath, went to lunch alone and ate two servings of lunch, one each of Water and Wood. Despite her exhaustion, she managed not to mess up anything in her healing duties with Elder Mi, which she thought was a miracle. Unfortunately, she had run out of mental energy by her martial class which both Elder Haishi and Nian Kang noticed. The elder told her that it was the perfect day to demonstrate what happens when battling while exhausted. It had not gone well.

Yu, utterly spent, had gone back to her dorm, fell asleep next to Bai, and had not woken up until the following morning.

Thankfully, the girls had taken pity on her and were willing to eat breakfast with Yu again. Neng Po stopped by their table to make sure she was okay, having missed her in class. She assured him it was fine and she would not miss again.

Once he headed off, she said, “That beast bonding class absolutely did me in.”

“You’ll have to adapt again, like you did back when you first started,” Li told her.

Yu nodded, agreeing. “Maybe I need to eat a bigger breakfast. It’ll increase my costs, but I can’t be out of it for half of day 3. What if I screw up a healing and hurt someone? Or mess up and don’t hold back in martial training?”

“You’ll work it out. You always do,” Li said.

Yu watched Lu out of the corner of her eye, unsure what to say. Or if she should say anything at all. After some internal debate, she decided to try something.

“Lu, Bai is almost to grade 2. He’ll have to move into the beast pens then. Will you be able to spend any time with him?”

She looked up at Yu from her food, her face flashing through emotions so quickly, Yu couldn’t keep up. Anger and sadness were definitely there, which Yu expected, but was sad to see. She also saw what she interpreted as an honest attempt at friendliness. “I don’t know,” she said. “Without knowing which pen he’ll be, I can’t say.”

Yu nodded, smiling her appreciation. “Okay. Thanks.”

Lu nodded back, a half-smile formed.

At least she’s trying. We have years ahead of us here and I can’t imagine them without the Lu’s steadiness beside me. I hope, as time passes, she can understand and forgive me.