Chapter 10

Chapter 10

A weight hits me in the stomach, and I bolt up, my ears filled with yelling and screaming. I roar in annoyance, and grab my attackers, one in each hand, and shake them menacingly. I'm stronger now. I give them my best glare, one at a time.

What did I say about waking me like that?

Don't! The two speak at the same time.

Yet you dare disobey my orders? I sentence you both to.... TICKLE TORTURE!

Shrieks and giggles fill the room. After a short while I bring the two of them in close for a hug, and give each a quick kiss on the cheek.

The two in question are Tali and Tate. They are a pair of demi-human twins, a girl and boy respectively. They are half-goat, a little over 2 years old, and were adopted by Charok and Alsantset a few weeks after the festival. It turns out that there are a large number of demi-human orphans running around.

The reason there are so many orphans has to do with how demi-humans are born. A demi-human is the product of one human parent, and one Ancestral Beast parent. An Ancestral Beast being a creature that has lived long enough and become smart enough to take human form. So, technically bestiality? I don't know. Human enough I guess.

While they have evolved into a human form, with human intelligence, Ancestral Beasts still have a tendency to obey their baser instincts. When an Ancestral Beast looks at a demi-human child, who can take more than a year in order to learn how to walk, the Beast's instinct after a few months is that the child is so weak that there's no way for it to survive. So they abandon the child, as they believe it would be a mercy compared to living as a cripple. Of course, the child is healthy, and could only be considered a cripple compared to the child of two ancestral beasts.

The other side of the coin is when a demi-human is born from a human woman. Usually the Ancestral Beast daddy doesn't stick around. Sometimes the child is killed, or abandoned just because it's different. Not all are as understanding or accepting as the people of our village. I'm glad I was found by them. Amber eyes are an oddity, and most people in this world react badly to things like that. Small favors. Hence, the abundance of demi-human orphans. They're the lucky ones. nove(l)bi(n.)com

Of course that's just a generalization of the situation. There are many humans and Ancestral Beasts who happily raise their demi-human children with love and care, sometimes even working together. Those families, unfortunately, tend to be the exception, as opposed to the rule. Almost all of the demi-humans of the village are abandoned children found by the villagers. Taduk and his daughter were apparently the exception, having arrived together.

I also asked about demi-humans having children, but they are all unable to have children, even with another similar demi-human. Due to their genetics, I guess. Like Mules. Or is it donkeys? Either way, this means that the number of families looking to adopt is fairly high, so things seem to more or less work out.

I was extremely skeptical at first. I thought it was ridiculous. It was a bunch of slow, choreographed, interpretive dancing. How is that supposed to teach me to fight? Then I tried it out. I couldn't get through a single form before running out of stamina. I mean, I had spent months doing hard labor, but I didn't last 5 minutes into the first form. It's the first real mystical thing I experienced here. I thought the movements were just a bunch of hand waving, leg raising, arm swinging bullshit. Sure they can build muscle endurance, flexibility and balance, but the movements drain you more than it seems possible, like you've been sprinting full tilt instead of twirling in place. It doesn't make any sense to me, and no one can explain it.

Demonstrating the Forms isn't just about following the movements either. It's knowing when to take a breath, how deeply you breathe, where you place your feet, the tilt of your head, the angle on your elbow, how you exhale. The list goes on. You start awkwardly, needing to think about every step, every breath, every turn of every joint. It's as mentally demanding as it is physically, if not more. You find yourself out of breath, or the strength just leaves your muscles. Your arms feel like iron bars, or your legs like jelly. But slowly, after weeks of practice and repetition, your body realizes what you're trying to do, and it adapts. Not all at once, but bit by bit. A breath comes organically, a muscle relaxes, a balance correction occurs, and the movement becomes natural.

When that happens, you feel as if you could do the forms in your sleep. You could read a book while doing it. The movements eventually become less exhausting, and more invigorating, as if you're drawing energy from them. At some point your mind clears, and everything, you, the movement, and the moment, all combine, like you're there in your body, but you can sense things you shouldn't be able to see, like you're looking at yourself from third person. That mindset is called the State of Enlightenment.

The State of Enlightenment serves as a state of mind, for combat. While in the state, you can think more clearly, and act and react more quickly, making it suitable for combat or other high stress situations. Bullet time almost.

I touched upon it I think, just briefly, after 5 months. It was like a dream, fleeting, ethereal, but it felt right. Comfortable, safe, warm. It was reassuring. Everything was different, like I've been looking through a cloudy film, and for the first time seeing more color, higher definition, a wider perspective. I felt like I could count the grains of sand in the hourglass, or the hairs on the back of my neck. Only for just a moment. Then I lost it, and everything was normal again.

When I asked Alsantset about it, she was ecstatic. They don't tell you about it beforehand, because there is no easy way of verifying if someone has truly reached it. Knowledge of the phenomenon leads to many believing they've reached it, when in fact, they haven't.

I haven't been able to reach it ever since though. I'm worried she's disappointed. I might've gotten her hopes up. But she's right, it takes most people years. I have only just begun. Being able to maintain the State of Enlightenment is one step on the martial path. I intend to take it.

I will never be made a slave again.

For that, I need to be strong

I only need this first step. The rest will come.

I continue demonstrating the Forms, slowly, one movement at a time, relishing the strain of my muscles, searching for Enlightenment.