Sachihiro

The shaking is insistent but I ignore it, it continues regardless of my best efforts. I turn over folding myself tighter in furs silently protesting the awakening.

Maybe it'll go away if ignored.

''Sachi wake up, you promised to go hunting with us.''

My brother protests again shaking me from my slumber with a whine. I can't believe he's really waking me.

''Go away!'' My eyes stay shut as I push him away but it's actually no use now, I'm wide awake and won't be going back to sleep anytime soon.

''What do you want?'' my voice cracking with sleep giving Daewon my best stink eye promising painful retribution if this is another stupid request.

''Get dressed, we're going hunting,'' he says throwing me a waterskin I snatch from the air, uncorking the lid with teeth still giving him my best glare I take a swallow. It was a long night of celebratory drinking and coupling, not that I got lucky but my mood was too merry to let that bring me down, not last night.

This water is so smooth, ''you do know I can still kick your ass right?'' I ask after a wonderfully fresh gulp. Already my head is clearing and my thirst quenched but I take more gulps not waiting for a response.

MMCHAAAAA, that hit the spot.

Daewon leaves me be but stands impatiently by his cot already rolled and packed away. His side of the room is tidy as it usually is when he is ready for the day, dagger already on his belt. He gives me his best 'brotherly' smile while offering me another waterskin.

Ppffh, I almost snort water in the wrong pipe with the face he's making. His desperation is comical if nothing else.

''So why am I going hunting with you again?'' I ask vaguely remembering agreeing to go into the Dawn Forest with him last night.

The place is only 'safely' accessible the first ten hours of the day when the normal fork-eels, piondeer, poisonous snakes, panthers, ambush algae and the like abound instead of the more dangerous Awakened Beasts that are out the rest of the time.

''Because you promised, twice now but the first time reneged so you owe me,'' he says throwing me my kilt.

We are four years apart in age but already Dee is almost as big as I am whilst still at the tender age of sixteen, one of these days I'll have to remind him I've still got it.

Stretching my arms over my head with a moan of pleasure [crackle] I hear a few clicks from my joins, muscles tight as I pull strongly on my back stretching my spine. I exhale a long breath with a smile having fully purged the sleep from my body, water doing the rest for my mind.

''You've been obsessed about that creepy place a while now,'' I say stretching my legs as I get up. Flexing my tighs and gluts, [k-tra], my tailbone clicks. I grab my kilt stepping into it tying it tight around the waist.

Dee paces as I get dressed too preoccupied to be bothered by my naked callisthenics as he usually is. He seems a bit wound up, too wound up for someone that was at the village celebration most of last night.

''And you seem too distracted to be any good in a hunt in the Dawn,'' I say admonishingly bringing his attention back at me. He has that stubborn set in his eyes that means he's going with or without me. What the fuck has he gotten himself into now, I shake my head and go to the bowl of water already collected to wash my face, it looks like it may turn out to be a long day for me. I sigh at my reflection.

I've been obsessed with something of my own these past few months, the entire Norse Tribe has really. Last winter there was a meteor shower that impacted mostly within the boundaries of the veldts.

Though rare, meteors are not an unusual occurrence and may be mined for meteoric ores and other minerals, a great boon for any tribe. Black-iron is usually mined from meteorites to make superior steel weapons that are more resistant to the elements and more durable than normal steel. Steadier, heavier tools and weapons that last years longer than the usual Gaian mined ores and metals.

The excitement created by the great windfall has had the whole tribe working together mining every bit of ore from the meteorites before the start of the raiding season. That was exciting enough for me in and of itself, but then to instead find not just meteorite-ore in those craters!

"To think, being able to harvest all that celestial ore? We are truly blessed by Gaia and in a few years the Norse will be without equal among the Barbarian Tribes hey Dee?" I say with enthusiasm to my brother as I pull a tunic over my head, distracted by my own thoughts and musings. Visions of glorious battle and acts worthy of a name are at the forefront of my mind, the things I may accomplish with a legendary weapon that adds to my strength. I can't help but grin just thinking about it all.

Now that the furious mining is mostly finished I can hardly hold my excitement.

With celestial-ore made weapons legendary or maybe even mythical attributes could be coaxed from the weapons.

Dee seems frustrated and doesn't wanna talk metal with me, he has been preoccupied a lot lately now that I think about it. I look at him, my attention back on my gloomy brother, he's such a bore sometimes. I really don't understand why he isn't more excited.

"Why do you keep going into the forest anyway? The mining is done after four long seasons, you should be sleeping off last night's debauchery not looking to go dawn hunting." Having pulled myself from my musings I honestly wonder what's up with this kid, he's into his own things but I usually understand him a bit, I think.

He gives me that look that's a mix between frustration and excitement, maybe a trace of fear. I know he's been keeping a secret but I haven't been paying much attention to him in the past few months with how busy everything has been. The work has been demanding on muscle and stamina, I flex rough hands.

With the ore within safe reach of the four closest villages harvested, the pressure to have the blessing secretly collected as quickly as possible lest we are raided has abated.

Patrols have been exhaustingly scampering the valley, forest and mountain routes making sure we aren't being scouted by another tribe for an attack whilst we were focused on the mining. The elders and chiefs have been very paranoid of late, nothing comes without a cost and what we have is bound to be coveted by the other tribes so patrols are necessary.

The Tribes have been raiding each other for generations, being far enough away from the other humanoid races that we will probably keep raiding each other for many more years before the Sandersonians get here. We test each other and sate the call to fight written within our blood by raiding each other's villages annually. It's a thing, and raiding season is almost upon us again not hunting season.

"I just-- ... I- I need to hunt something. Okay?" He stutters frustrated. My brother is many things but a good liar isn't one of them.

I sigh as I grab my belt and commit myself mentally to whatever he has planned.

"Let's go then," I walk through the clothe that partitions our room from the receiving room after collecting my hunting spear as Dee collects his spear, rope, and knives. "How much time do we have?"

"Seven hours," he replies quickly running out of the house as I continue stretching. I look around the roundhouse with sudden nostalgia. It's a good home; but I am old enough to take a mate and get my own house now at 20 years old, I should already have my first child by now in fact.

I went on my first raid when I was 16, nearly died twice on that raid but it was exciting and only two youths from the tribe died in the ensuing fight. I helped fend off two raids against my village that season but I have never actually killed anyone, both to my shame and relief.

Almost everyone my age is blooded now either through raiding, defending against raids or killing an Awakened beast from the Dawn Forest. The last feat being the most difficult and earning the greatest respect. I'm old now, old enough to be making my own way forward not mooching at home.

Shaking my head slapping my face I walk over to the peg and unhook my belt knife tying it around my waist then pull my wolf pelt boots on and tie the strap on tight.

I walk to the door and look out at the morning. Singing birds, fluttering butterflies, shrubs, grass and bushes dotted here and there painting a soothing vista of nature in its raw beauty.

Taking a deep breath the crisp air filled with scents of lavender, cocoa, dung, mud, and fresh grass fills my lungs. I exhale; enjoying the dawn sun on my face, the sight of mist and inhaled vapour as I sigh contently at the harmony and peace of it all. Yea, I'm weird for a Norse but I blame that on my foundling mother.

We Barbarians don't like living on top of each other and generally with all our houses a few stone's throws away from each other. But we as a family like our space more than most living on the outskirts of the village in a community where the houses make circles around a central hall, one ring of houses within another with the communal longhouse in the middle of our village.

I watch as my brother and his two friends crest the hill carrying their spears, it seems they were already ready. I start jogging towards the path to the forest enjoying the activity, the movement, the refreshing feel of the morning air on my face as I run.

They catch up and we increase our pace, no one speaking as we run with spears in hand in a triangle formation with me in the centre lead. We crest the highest hill in the valley a few miles from the house to stop and gaze upon the Dawn Forest in the distance.

It's majestic. At this time of day, it looks like a magical forest from a mythical tale of legend about heroes, dryads and magical beasts; endless and vast as far as the eye can see. When I look at it I imagine this is what the fabled ocean must look like, except with endless water instead of trees. It probably is a mythical forest for all I know.

In the opposite direction almost directly behind us far in the distance are the Titan Mountains, the base of the first Titan being seventeen days hard walking away. I've never been past the first mountain which is almost 20 000 feet high. It might as well be a hill compared to the rest of the Titans further in the range though.

"You guys ready?" I ask Om and Harold.

I get two impatient grunts in return and a smirk from Daewon as he runs ahead, shaking my head I follow. At our current pace, we will be under the canopy of the forest within a hundred and twenty minutes, two hours. We use this run as our endurance training.

We slow our pace as we get within the shadow of the forest. I empty my water skin into my mouth, barely slowing and abruptly we are in the Dawn Forest. Already I can see tracks and scat that we could follow to prey, the Dawn being rich in flora and fauna.

"Ok, out with it," I say as we slow to a walk following a route we've mapped out on previous hunts leading to the stream.

"I know we are here for a reason besides hunting, we only have 5 more hours of dawn before the really serious beasties wake up. So out with it." Om and Harold both look at each other, then at Dee as we continue our walk, continuing to stay vigilant.

The ten hours of dawn a day may only bring out the mundane creatures of the forest but to us, they are plenty dangerous themselves.

Days on Gaia are one hundred hours long, each hour 60 minutes long, each minute 60 seconds long. Ten hours of dawn, forty hours of sunlit day, ten hours of dusk, and forty hours of the night. The Dawn Forest is so amply named because normal mundane creatures only have the forest to themselves at dawn. Thus for about ten hours, it is relatively safe for an unAwakened human to hunt in the forest by themselves.

"You know how I've been going to the Seer every other day right?" He asks as he looks at me with worry. I remember da telling him to go to the Seer a few months back but I honestly had no idea he went so often or even why. I should start paying more attention, but to be fair I've been distracted mining, watching Teà and other worthy pursuits.

"Yea..." I reply to keep him talking, Harold snorts as my brother delays.

"They are training him to be a Seer," Harold says with his monotonous voice that can make even monumental news sound like a normal declaration of the weather. He then walks ahead to scout the route I assume.

"This is huge! Why didn't you tell me?" Being a village Seer is a big deal and not every village has one. It is the Seers that predicted 'a gift from the gods within our grasp accompanied by great perils for the Norse'. It is the Seers that predict a war with the Sandersonians within our generation. The Seers are honoured for their wisdom and power throughout all the Barbarian Tribes of the Tundra.

"They want to train me as a Seer, I'm not sure it's a good fit for me," he says quickly. "The Seer says I have strong spirit energy, apparently very strong for my age," he adds with a complicated expression.

"What does ma have to say?" I ask cautiously. Dee grumbles under his breath. "What was that?"

"Nothing. She says nothing when I need her advice the most." He replies grumpily. The petulant pout of his lips reminds me just how young he really is somehow easing my mind of any worries about him being in some sort of trouble. I chuckle at his pout with my first laugh of the day, smirking at his expense.

"Maybe she doesn't want to say anything that would contradict da. You know how they get sometimes," I say to cheer him. Ma is the planner in the family. Most Barbarian women go berserk but it's not a trait that every girl has, and only a very small number of boys never berserk at all. In my tribe, only berserkers become warriors, usually.

Ma being both a foundling and a woman, no one expected her to be a warrior and she usually isn't, she's the planner. Except that one time she couldn't convince da to abandon a night hunt into the Dawn for a magical beast. Of course da couldn't let his friends go without him and ma decided she would go as well regardless of what da said. 28 hours later all 20 of them returned injured, dishevelled, but alive, with ma a blooded warrior. She hasn't said a word about the whole thing to this day. That was right before they left for their long trip away.

"Remember when ma went away?" I suddenly ask.

"Yea, I was about 8 when she got back. Her head was as bold as my bottom. Why...?" He looks at me suspiciously.

"Before she left she argued with da about going on that night hunt. You might not remember but I had never heard her so adamant, and da kept asking 'why' but she couldn't give him an answer. 'Just a feeling' she said. Of course, she ended up going and you know the rest of the story."

"What's your point?"

"My point little brother is that ever since then da has asked for her advice before every major decision and he weighs her words heavily."

"Even though he ignores her half the time," he grumbles.

"She doesn't always get her feelings about things, anyway my point is that you can be sure ma gave da her opinion on the matter so stop worrying so much.

"We're here," Harold says suddenly as we walk into a clearing.

''Here where?''