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Training – Age 8
Somewhere in the mountains of southern central Europe
Gaia

… seven … eight … nine … ten.

The silent count of ten seconds began what children in most cultures would consider a game, but what to the children of the Aquinnashua Elves was a matter of training. Stealth and tracking were vital skills to the nomadic people, and their lessons began with their learning to walk. By eight years of age, they were expected to be proficient in the skills, and by ten they would be expected to join in hunts.

There were high expectations especially of Shoneah, daughter of the tribe’s most skilled huntress. Though she herself preferred face-to-face combat, she was most often the seeker in these training sessions. Her fellow students had ten seconds to flee, and then she had to find them before she would be allowed a meal.

She had only gone without a meal once due to one of these training sessions.

Her silver eyes took in the scene around her as she listened for the sounds of footsteps. There were no undue movements in the forest around her, but she expected that. She would have to rely on her tracking skills. Well, that was a challenge she enjoyed.

Yohto, two years Shoneah’s junior, would be near the settlement, she knew, hoping to be one of the first found so that he could eat. His stomach was always empty, or so he claimed, and Shoneah would not give him that satisfaction. Not today. She would leave him for last.

Niabi, only a few months older than Shoneah, preferred hiding in small places: animal dens, if they were empty, tree hollows, niches in rocks, holes in the ground; and wherever she chose to hide, she would remain there and hope for her trail to go cold. She would be easy to find.

The third and final student that Shoneah would have to track down was Hoowanneka. A full year Shoneah’s senior, son of the tribe’s Grandmaster, he was mature for his age and rather wise. He knew how this game was meant to be played, and he was the only one Shoneah would consider a challenge to find. He would keep moving from place to place until Shoneah found him – and he would make her work hard to do so.

She would start with him.

Though he was the heaviest of them all, being the tallest and most muscular, his prints were the most difficult to see as he was so skilled in hiding them. He made it more difficult by alternating his stride length, avoiding soft earth, walking on rocks when he could, and, when possible, taking to the trees. She had seen him go for miles without touching the ground before, and she had pestered him that day until he had agreed to teach her to do the same thing.

But no one was perfect, not even Hoowanneka, and there were few more determined than she to find him.

She didn’t need much. A faint impression. Some scuffed moss on a rock. Chipped bark on the side of a tree. She could trail him. As long as she didn’t give up, she would find him. And that was when the real challenge would begin.

It took her the better part of two hours to find him this time, and when she did she was relieved. His trail had taken her not only along the ground and through the trees, but she had even had to track through a stream, and she was still soaked. She didn’t appreciate being wet, and she was determined that she would get him back for it this time.

When she found him, it was from above. She had been following his trail through the trees when it had suddenly ended. She could see no sign of him anywhere: not in the branches around her, not on the ground. There was, however, a pile of leafy branches nearby that had fallen during a recent storm. She reasoned that he might be in there. If he was, she would have to wait him out: if she left the tree and he wasn’t there, she would be hard pressed to get back up here again and make sure she found the right branch back; if he was, she could simply wait for him to move and get him from above.

The waiting game was her specialty. Especially when revenge was the reward.

For nearly another hour she waited before there was any movement. Then, at last, she saw Hoowenneka’s sandy brown hair slowly rise out of the pile of branches. He turned his head left and right, looking and listening, clearly trying to make sure Shoneah was nowhere nearby; and when he deemed it safe, he picked his way carefully free of the branches.

That was when Shoneah struck. Silently, she leapt down from her branch and landed on her friend’s shoulders. Both of them hit the ground hard, though Hoowanneka broke her fall nicely.

“First caught,” Shoneah hissed gleefully in his ear before she rolled off his back and got to her feet again.

The older boy frowned at her. “You did that on purpose,” he complained, sitting up and rubbing his shoulders.

Shoneah grinned at him, her silver eyes sparkling. “Payback. I hate crawling through the stream looking for your tracks.” Then, taking off again and heading back to her starting point, she called over her shoulder, “See you back at the home fires!”

Within the hour, she had also found Niabi and Yohto, and the four of them were back at camp, at the fire of the Grandmaster. The four of them were sitting on their knees in a semicircle around the fire, across from the silver-haired elf, and he was looking at them solemnly.

“Yohto,” he said, and the boy bowed his head and awaited his results. The Grandmaster shook his head slowly. “You are too predictable. Always you hide in the same place. Though you are always the last one found, you are the quickest to be found. Your focus is in the wrong place. If you are slave to your belly, it will be the death of you. You must conquer your hunger.”

With the gnarled staff in his hand, he hit the ground once, the signal that he was passing judgment.

“Yohto, you will sit at the center of the meal tonight, but you will not eat until morning,” he pronounced.

Shoneah kept her face expressionless, but inwardly she was laughing. The same punishment every time, but Yohto still didn’t learn.

Yohto simply bowed his head lower and murmured, “Yes, Grandmaster.”

Then the man turned his gaze to the next person. “Niabi,” he said, equally solemnly. “You are improving, but you must vary your position. A rock may be stumbled upon by even the most careless of passersby, even when lying between two mountains; but a fox is difficult to track down.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone waited for Niabi’s judgment to be passed. It took a few moments, but at last, the Grandmaster said solemnly, “You will spend what remains of the afternoon practicing hiding your tracks down by the river. Before you eat dinner tonight, you will need to hide successfully from me within a stone’s throw of the Laughing Rock.”

Shoneah winced at her friend’s fate. Hiding from the Grandmaster was next to impossible even when they were allowed to hide in the forest; but being forced to hide where the ground was always soft … Niabi would be fortunate indeed to eat dinner tonight.

“Hoowanneka,” continued the Grandmaster, his voice as solemn as when he had spoken to the first two, “you must still work on your patience. You are swift and you are skilled, and had you remained in your hiding place, you might not have been found. Your patience must exceed that of a monk.”

Hoowanneka bowed his head deeply. “Yes, Grandmaster,” he replied humbly.

Then the Grandmaster smiled. “That being said, three hours is very respectable, and the path you left was not easy to follow, even for myself. Well done.”

The boy bowed deeper, and Shoneah could sense how widely he was smiling. It was really something to be complimented by the Grandmaster. He did not hand out compliments freely.

“Shoneah,” the Grandmaster said then; and Shoneah was surprised that he hadn’t said anything more to his son. Or had ‘well done’ been enough of a judgment? Still, she kept her face impassive as she looked at her teacher and mentor. He went on, “your skill continues to improve. As I said to Hoowanneka, his trail was very difficult to follow. Yet you did so without faltering. Your patience in waiting for him to emerge from his hiding place is admirable, though I suspect your father might suggest it is your stubbornness that won out, rather than your patience.”

He chuckled softly, and Shoneah blushed hotly. She bowed her head to hide it.

“But not only did you find Hoowanneka, you also found Niabi and Yohto, and both of them very quickly,” continued the Grandmaster, pride in his tone. “You did so quickly and without faltering. You used your skills and your wisdom, both of them very well.”

Shoneah had to fight to keep from smiling too widely. Pride was not something her people extolled, but it was difficult to keep from feeling proud about her accomplishments that day. She bowed her head lower and waited for the Grandmaster’s judgment.

“Tonight,” he said, looking at all four of the children, “our feast will be in honour of Shoneah.” He looked down at her again, and she could feel his eyes on the top of her head. “Let her be an example to the rest of you.”

Shoneah bowed her head so low that her forehead brushed against the grass. “Thank you, Grandmaster,” she said humbly, though she was trembling with excitement.

The Grandmaster chuckled again. “Someday, Shoneah, you just might replace me as Grandmaster of our tribe,” he told her warmly. When she looked up at him in astonishment, he winked at her. “You already show great aptitude for meting out punishment. You knew where Yohto was immediately, did you not?”

Blushing, Shoneah nodded, and the Grandmaster’s grin widened.

“And yet you saved him for last,” he murmured. He looked at Yohto, but rather than adding insult to injury, he simply dismissed them all. “Niabi, I shall look for you in three hours’ time. The rest of you, I shall see you at the feast tonight.”

The children bowed their heads again as he turned away from them to enter his tent, and then they went their separate ways.

Odd Fellow – Age 17
Shiezin – Day 35
Arda

Shoneah was a bit wary of Miyuki leaving her alone with Andarien when the boy offered to show her his metalworking tools. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him: she had no doubt that she was more than a match for him physically. But he was strange, odd in a way that made her feel slightly uncomfortable. She didn’t understand him. The pale neko had utilized his knowledge of pressure points to render Andarien’s arm useless and cause him unbearable pain, which had left the boy in a foul temper – and understandably so. But the moment metalwork was mentioned, it was as if the pain had never happened. It was like … a child, distracted by a treat of some kind. Candy. New toys. First served at dinner.

Miyuki called it social awkwardness. Shoneah didn’t agree.

Still, she followed him into his tent and sat cross-legged on the floor as he opened a sizable chest.

“This is the kind of stuff that I make,” Andarien chattered away, pulling things out of the chest and putting them on the floor around him. “At least I make them when I can, but I don’t have a forge to use anymore since we left Dekra. That’s where we were before this.”

While he prattled on, Shoneah cast a casual gaze over the items he was pulling out. Some pocket watches – Eron would like one of those, she mused – some creatures on boxes that looked as if they could perhaps move …

“I use gears, like clockwork and things,” Andarien went on, oblivious to Shoneah’s silence. “I learned how in Caras Galadhon. You know Kyrie, right? Of course you do, she’s the one that brought you to us. She has a nephew there, on account of her husband Ahkshi has a brother who lives there with his family because they’re a mixed couple and – you know what, that doesn’t matter. Anyways, her nephew Corazin is a gearsmith, and I always wanted to work with gears, ever since I was little …”

Shoneah couldn’t help it. She stopped paying attention. It was like listening to Yohto talking about nothing in particular. She listened enough to make sure she wasn’t missing any important information.

At length, Andarien pulled out his toolkit and turned to face Shoneah.

“Here they are,” he grinned at her, unrolling the leather and revealing the tools inside. “Does it have what you need?”

Her attention captivated once more, Shoneah leaned forward to look at the tools. It was a very nice set, she had to admit, equal to if not better than her own father’s tools. But she did need particular ones. She ran her fingers over them lightly as she looked for the specific tools she needed, and very quickly she found what she needed. She smiled softly and nodded.

“Yes. These will do nicely,” she murmured.

Andarien grinned. “Cool. Now all we need is a forge.”

“Fire pit’s enough for me,” Shoneah said as she rose to her feet. “Now all I need is the proper ingredients for the bullets, and I’ll be set. Thanks.”

“Ingredients?”

Shoneah smiled. “Nothing a gearsmith would have, or any kind of metalsmith. Don’t worry about it. I’ll collect it as I find it; Eron can help me with that.”

“I can help you, too,” Andarien said eagerly.

Shoneah took a half-step back. “No,” she murmured, “it’s all right.” She smiled at him, but she was put off by his enthusiasm. He wanted to be helpful, she could see that; but to her it felt as though he were too eager. Again as if he were a child.

She thanked him again for the use of his tools and excused herself. As she headed back to the tent she was sharing with Miyuki and Wren, she thought about Andarien. The puzzle he represented. He looked to be at least her age, if not older – he was growing a beard and was highly skilled, after all – and yet he acted like a child.

It made no sense to her. None at all.

Unexpected Friend – Age 17
Shiezin – Day 98
Arda

It had been about a week since Miyuki had finished the tent, but this was the first time Shoneah had ventured into the forge. Since it was to be primarily Andarien’s work place, she wanted to give him the first opportunity to get used to it – and, though she would admit this to no one but herself, she wanted to see if there would be a time when he wouldn’t use it, when she would be able to use it on her own, without him being around. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him; it was just that he was so unpredictable that she never knew how to act around him.

It seemed the only time he wasn’t in it was when he was training with Kaito or when he was asleep, and since his time asleep was the only time the forge was guaranteed to be empty for more than an hour, she had asked Cael to put up a sound barrier for one night so that she could do some work, too.

She loved the way the tools had been organized. Easy to find exactly what she needed, when she needed it. Andarien even had the metals she needed, and with the mould she’d made, she was able to make some bullet casings.

It didn’t take long for the motions to become automatic. Melt, pour, harden, cool, adjust, set aside, repeat: exactly as she had been doing for years. Her father had taught her when she’d been quite young.

As her actions became routine, her mind wandered. She thought of her father, who had taught her metallurgy. Her mother, who had taught her everything she knew about tracking. Her little brother, whom she had begun to teach.

A tear slipped down her cheek.

The Grandmaster. Her friends. Brilliant Hoowanneka. The ever-hungry Yohto. Niabi, who was like a sister to her.

The casing she’d just pulled from the mould fell to the floor with a clatter, but she didn’t notice. Her memories of home were overwhelming her, filling her with such longing that she felt as though she would implode.

She fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands. The tears came hard and fast, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, but she was beyond being startled. She didn’t care who it was. She turned towards the hand, and she felt arms going around her. It was a comforting touch, but somehow it only made the tears come harder. She missed her parents, her family, so badly …

When she finally calmed down, she was exhausted. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her wrists, but the action did little more than make the burning of her eyes worse.

She tried to speak, but there was phlegm in her throat, and she had to clear it away first. But before she could speak, a soft voice murmured, “It’s okay. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you’ll be okay.”

Shoneah sniffled and looked up, and she was shocked to see that it was Andarien who had his arms around her. Her entire body went rigid with surprise, and Andarien’s forehead creased with worry.

“Are you all right?” he asked anxiously.

She rubbed her eyes again and pushed herself gently away from him. “I’ll be fine,” she croaked.

Andarien sat back and looked at her thoughtfully. “You know,” he murmured, “I know everyone thinks I’m like a kid in how I believe everything but … I don’t believe you.”

He had been crouching, but now he sat on the floor and crossed his legs, making it clear that he wasn’t going to go anywhere.

“You’ve been with us a while now,” he said quietly, looking at her seriously. “I know sometimes we don’t understand each other … and I’m trying. And you’ve been really sad, I know that much. I don’t know what it’s like to not be with Nana and Ada and Mi. Even when I was apprenticing in the city and I didn’t see them a lot, I knew they were close by and I could see them whenever I wanted. So I don’t know what it’s like to be without my family. And I don’t know what it’s like to be away from my home, because I’ve never had a home. I was born when we were traveling and we’ve been traveling my whole life.”

Shoneah pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them. For the first time, she wasn’t creeped out by Andarien, and as strange as it was, his voice was comforting. Soothing.

He moved closer to her so that he was sitting right next to her. “But you know,” he went on softly, “even though you’re away from your family and your home … you don’t have to be by yourself. I kind of get the feeling that you … you kind of stay away from the others. You really don’t have to. You need to … just … talk to people. Let them get to know you.”

She sniffled again and looked at him. His goggles were up on his forehead now instead of over his eyes, and she was surprised to see genuine concern there.

She cleared her throat again and lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she murmured softly. “I … I’m so used to being the one in charge, the one who … who is always confident, always right. I’m not used to leaning on others.”

Andarien blinked. “Well, if you’re dizzy, then you should just sit down or lay down,” he said, sounding a bit puzzled. It took Shoneah a moment to remember that he often took things literally, and she smiled despite herself. Before she could explain what she meant, however, Andarien went on.

“But you can do things with other people,” he pointed out to her. He gestured towards the forge, which was still roaring only a few steps away from them. “You don’t have to hide in here at night to use it. You can come in any time. And if you and I are both working at the same time, then … then at least we both won’t be alone.”

He offered her a smile, and Shoneah smiled back.

“Thanks,” she murmured quietly. She sniffed and rubbed her eyes again, one at a time. “I … I guess …”

She trailed off, not really knowing what to say.

Andarien just smiled at her warmly. “It’s okay,” he assured her softly. “If you don’t want to say anything, you don’t have to. But if you do want to talk … then we’re all here for you. Me, too. I know I’m not always a good listener, but … I try.”

He patted her on the shoulder again and stood up. “So,” he grinned, holding one hand down to her. “Do you want to keep making things? Or are you ready to go to sleep? It’s halfway through the night, you know.”

Shoneah felt her face warming, and she reached for Andarien’s hand and allowed him to help her to her feet. Truth be told, she had more casings than she could use in a month – barring any major fights – and she really was tired. But more than that, she just didn’t want to be alone at the moment.

“Maybe …” She hesitated.

Andarien let go of her hand and took a half-step back. “Whatever you want,” he murmured. “No pressure.”

She thought for a moment. Cael had created a sound barrier for her so that she could use the forge for the night, and she didn’t want to let that go to waste … but …

“Even if you just want to talk,” Andarien smiled at her.

She hesitated a moment longer, and then she nodded. “I’d like that,” she murmured, allowing herself a small smile.