Sachihiro

I've been home with everyone a few hours now and the drinking and revelry has been endless and without any unpleasantness. In fact I haven't been this relaxed and happily drunk in a long long time, I can't even actively remember when even with all the meraki meditation everyone at the Compound goes through.

I am happy, truly happy deep within me with a pure content joy that makes me slightly fearful for tomorrow and the unknown. I may never be as happy as I am now and so that thought though in itself positive because this moment is wow has an intrinsic fear because things can only get worse after this.

I laugh at something Dishna does that is utterly adorable and she grins as she looks at me thinking she did right and pouring more of the juice onto the beard of the sleeping dwarf Тóma, I giggle again trying to stifle myself so as not to encourage her but my mirth in facts her further.

It is eventually Kuyoki who pulls her away from the sleeping jeweller, and give me a stern look before leaning towards me and kissing my lips. Gods I love my girls, I look across the long table at Saya and my mother furiously talking as my little girl's berserker rage comes to the surface again.

Twice before she has gone into the rage and to my utter amazement she always directs it towards people that can handle her. Either ma, da, Mira or Zhen never Kuyoki even though she also can handle it easily enough. She is at the stage at which she is induced into the rage and hemmed in until she has control over herself to a certain extent, an early development for a 9 year old.

She looks at me and I grin as she stomps on the table towards me kicking everything in her path aside.

"Ohh...! Sachi you've done it now!"

"Watch what happens watch want happens."

"The girl will be fearless! Hahahaha!"

I hear all the jerrying around the table and those around me as my little girl directs her rage towards me for the first time in my life and I look at her approach in utter fascination. I open my arms and smile as she launches into my head first and I enfold her gently as she bites and scratches and screams.

"I love you." I whisper into her ear even as I start bleeding slightly, I grin at the realisation in pride.

She punches with proper formed fists and knees and elbows for a good ten minutes before starting to slow down and starts disengaging completely spent. I hold her at arms length as she looks at me with tired teary eyes that so resemble her mother's when she's lartagic that I find myself looking for Mira with my senses.

"Well done baby, you are a true Barbarian," I say to her and she hardly seems to register my words but all around me people are clapping and toasting, which eventually pulls her attention back from inwards to outwards.

I grin and hold her in my lap like I did when she was a little girl and she doesn't protest, holding me tightly as well. I can feel her slight embarrassment at all the attention but no child is ever allowed to feel embarrassed about their rage, not in the Tundra.

Kuyoki is babying Ingwe and Vuyo Om's mate talking yo both in Universal directly to their minds and making them feel welcomed and making them aware of everything they don't understand. I'm glad she is taking it so well, I know the Hito practice forms of polygamy and dynasty building but rarely in the villages. More so in the bigger clans and in the underworld clans.

"Da, are you going to leave us again?" The little person in my chest breaks my heart with the question.

I swallow as I try to think of a way to answer that as accurately as I possibly can. "If I have to go I will take you with me." I say, and she relaxes in my arms.

"Mama Kuyoki is missed you you know, she has been spending a lot of time in the Awakened Arena, and mama Mira has been spending a lot of time with Aunty Carmella and Rigdris the Bender. I like Aunty Carmella she has nice horns, but she is mean to mama. Mama always comes back with blood and tired from the big house were Aunty Carmella lives."

And so I get snippets of the gossip and going Om's in my family and around from my baby girl. I learn that Mira has been training with the Sidhe fae Carmella and most likely sleeping with this Rigdris fellow. I learn that my baby wants to have horns like a fae and she and Dishna have been riding the caretaker wolves to the park.

I learn of the little half orc boy that managed to overpower her in the sands of the park and how she has been planning on wining next time she fought him, I learn about her little worries and hopes and eventually my heart clenches when she speaks about being old enough to go on a raid. I drink my tunkard and another is placed to replace it as the day turns to dusk and dusk turns to night.

The babies are asleep and the celebration has somehow turned into a city inclusive feast. Two of the long-houses are filled to the brim with people drinking, feasting and fighting people all in good spirits, I have never seen the like. Even the foreigners and the visitors aren't turned away as they sometimes usually if they venture into a long house alone.

The rest of the cities long houses are to providing sleeping tonight and food tomorrow morning to all those who will need it. A lot of the Awakened that been sequestered in the Awakened Arena building are out and about drinking some of the stronger stuff if they want to be drunk quickly.

The fae are out as well but its the dwarves that are loudest and most fun when drunk.

"Hiro my boy, I bet I could still take you. Its age you see, I am 110 years and not even Awakened and barely middle aged for my people." Idgar, one of Om's training partners with Master Nikitich says drunkenly.

"We have deep foundations in all the basics you see, and of course I could Awaken within two years if I worked at it. But that's not for me just yet, you will see. I will be without peer, even that Om friend of yours Master Nikitich thinks is a protégé will pale in comparison to me when I'm ready to consolidate all my efforts." He whispers loudly to my ear.

I give Om a look from across the table and he just shrugs and carries on drinking and talking to Devan, Hale and Galen I haven't seen Devan since before the war, I thought he was dead.

I see old man Tosting and extricate myself from the drunk dwarf and middle up to the man, I like him. I like his no nonsense attitude, philandering ways and devastation in the battlefield. Now he just looks like a very verile, very handsome white haired middle aged man in the prime of his life as he laughs uproaringly at something one of the few Jotnar men still around says.

"Sachi my boy, come come let me introduce you to all these lunitics. Wait go get Om, both of you and little Wagner are to join our ranks I hear. What have they been feeding you down at that Conclave of theirs mhmmm?"

With those words I meet some of the Awakened Tribesmen personally, people that seemed mythical to me not even a decade again. People with a level of power we have told stories about for centuries in the tundra, and now there are over a hundred of them. And I'm to join their ranks soon enough, I think with a grin and contentment.

I look at Wagner and he looks back, he nods and I nod. Neither of us knew that the other was ready to Awaken, it was obviously from the fight with the creature in the dungeon. There was a lot of ether in there and we all absorbed a fair amount, I look to where Volvox seems to be drinking grumpily while being the object of attention of a pair of Viking Horse Eater sisters. Another tribe that is virtually extinct from the Tundra.

He looks up at me as well and nods slowly, yea he is definitely ready to Awaken as well. I can't feel it though, I don't know why it is mundanes can't feel Awakened unless they broadcast themselves.

"Where is the Hermit?" I ask no one in particular and I get a snort from the giant Jotnar Jason.

"That one hasn't been out of the forest in years, its a shame too. I want a rematch from our last bout, I have some skills I think would surprise him now."

"Oh please." A woman I don't know who has been happily talking to Om so far says with a smile, "he could beat you with a blindfold tied around his face."

"And he has numerous time." Someone else says to laughs around the tables.

These Awakened are the ones trying to most to re establish our numbers. All of them at this point have children and some more on the way, it could be that being an Awakened makes one horny we don't know. But it certainly makes them willing and able to fornicate, and makes them much much better at sex if you believe whatbis said.

"Ahh... here comes your girl with her other man." Tosting says as Mira leads a strong young man through the crowd.

He is tall, maybe almost 2m if not there exactly. He has striking blue eyes and a strong face, a face that has taken a punch before, obviously her type. His movements are fluid and precise, a warrior and a hunter though he is only carrying a dagger on his waist visible. He is bigger than me but with a narrow waist, athletic and by the look on his face he is a bit uncomfortable bring led by the hand.

"Sachi, this is Rig, or Rigdris a good friend of mine. His only 30 years old but a competent warrior, he is expecting a children by a Scavenger girl but is otherwise unattached. His primary weapons are the spear and shield followed closely by the dagger but like all you barbarians he's good with any weapon in hand."

The more Mira talks the redder this Rig fellow gets and the she seems to be also immune to the giggles and amusement of everyone around us. I finally take putty on the poor man and reach for his arm and we clasp forearms as I pull him slightly away from her grasp.

"Sachihiro van Damage of the Norse." I say in Scandinavian.

"Rigdis van del'Aya of the Saxons." He says clearing his throat.

"I've heard much about you Sachihiro, you women can't seem to shut up about you." He says with a slight challenge, we are practically the same age but I feel so much older than this young man before me.

"Yes well, Saya mentioned you as well so you must have some redeemable qualities." I say trying to deflect the challenging, I honestly don't want to fight tonight, especially not against someone I may see on a daily basis.

She grins at the mention of Saya before schooling himself, "yes that one is like her mother. Always seeming ready for a fight, but she is worse 'cause she has that Barbarian spirit as well."

"Come, have an ale with us and I will tell embarrassing stories about Mira." I say.

"You wouldn't dare." Mira declares with a scowl, her little nose scrambled up in the adorable way of hers and we both grin at her.

She wouldn't have brought him anywhere near the kids if she wasn't serious about him so I have to give the guy a chance, plus I know how she is so for her to choose one man for herself then it must be love or something similar. Everyone is having fun tonight, even the dour faced sidhe have made an appearance and I find my eyes going to one of them now and again.

"Mira, when will you come spar with us at the Arena? We are eager to see what that side woman has been teaching you, especially since you use such an exotic weapon." One of the Awakened women says seductively playing a finger across Mira's hand.

"Soon." Mira says pulling her hand away. "Sachi, my Master has prepared an Awakening chamber for you and the others. I'll let you give her a response yourself tomorrow." She says, looks at the now frowning Rigdis.

He obviously didn't suspect I was ready to Awaken, I can't believe Mira Awakened before I did, twice. By she was about my age during her first Awakening so I am catching up. "We will talk tomorrow." I say and she nods placing a hand on my firearm gently.

"Are you okey?" She whispers looking into my eyes searching for something.

"We'll talk," I say and pat her hand.

She disengages and makes a beeline to the now Awake Didi, walking over a pair coupling within furs on the floor. I grin at it all, how I missed being home.