My life was over. Nothing but sadness and misery encompassed me whenever I suffered through the classes Teival attended. The cause: of course it was because of Anders constantly laughing and snickering at my bald patch! He even had the gall to touch it! On multiple occasions! “Go bald, yourself, Anders! I’ll even help pull your hair out. One. Strand. At. A. Time.” Ahem, brushing that to the side, my one consolation was that I wasn’t being forced to dig as much when training.

It seemed that Teival no longer wished for me to focus on maintaining and developing my connection to the land. Instead, he asked me to concentrate on the never-ending gusts of wind that rolled through the open plains. I still didn’t fully understand the reason why I had to do these things when training, however it made Teival happy whenever I did it so I didn’t bother disobeying.

I have to say, I don’t know if it was just because I was growing, my diet, or my training, however I had noticed how my claws seemed able to slice things from a further distance than previously. I continued to ponder over this even when sparring against Buggy, for the second time – wondering if my claws were becoming similar to Buggy’s scythes. I absentmindedly considered this as I dodged out of the way and swiped at the mantis’ back legs, before hearing an incredibly insidious screech from my opponent.

“Ah…” Examining my handiwork of a few moments ago, I came to the realisation that I had accidentally cut Buggy’s back legs off completely. There was an expanding pool of green blood oozing out of the mantis’ severed stumps that used to be limbs. Of course, Teacher immediately ended our little sparring match – announcing myself and Teival as the winners – before applying first aid treatment.

I slowly sneaked over to Teival’s side with my ears close to my head in a bid to lower my presence from the violent tirade of shouting exuded from Michael. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t bothered about the mistake I’d made, since I saw it as sign of how strong I’d grown to be able to deal such damage. However, the insults thrown towards Teival at raising a sadistic snake somewhat irked me – I mean…I’m an aardwolf, not a snake.

Anders came over and laughed at the situation, stating how it only proved Michael’s crystal beast was weak for allowing itself to get injured so drastically. Although I appreciated the muffled moans of malice over the inaccurate insults, I wasn’t grateful enough to forget to show my disdain towards the Clan-man. Unfortunately, Anders apparently perceived my action to mean he could poke at my short and spiky fur patch! “You have no right to touch it! Only Teival can caress me! Get off!”

Once the annoying Anders had left, I hurriedly cleaned my fur before lamenting over not getting to spar against Mr Stripey. I wanted to prove to him that I was the better and vastly superior sibling! Alas, I kept being paired against people of little worth to me who proved no challenge to my talented skills. Sighing to myself over this personal predicament, I followed Teival back home for the day after Teacher dismissed the class. Oh yeah, he also told Michael he was exempt from the next spar session so Buggy could have more time to fully recover which suited me fine since it raised the chance of me getting to fight Mr Stripey!

+++

Another two weeks of boring classes passed by, along with an insignificant spar against the boy who bonded with the crystal snake. I say it was insignificant on account of how fast the match was over. All I did was manoeuvre out of its vicinity before jumping onto its head and slashing at its eyes. I then bit at it in revenge for sibling No.2 at having been bitten by a snake and dying! Though, the victory felt somewhat hollow as my opponent didn’t seem to have any ability yet which placed it at a disadvantage.

Something that is worth mentioning, is that Teacher announced the cancellation of classes for the next week! I was so happy I actually jumped into Teival’s arms and licked his face enthusiastically while wagging my fluffy tail. “No more classes! We’re free! We can play together all day now!” Of course, Teacher mentioned something about helping with the crop planting, however I had no idea what that was, so just relished in the knowledge of no more days of being cooped up for a while.

The next day, I jumped on top of Teival and excitedly nuzzled him awake. “Teival! Teival! Wake up! Give me food!” Under my affectionate assault, my master eventually woke up and gently pushed me away. I lay on the bed and rolled onto my back playfully while swishing my fluffy tail from side to side.

“Kia…it’s not even dawn yet…Why are you so energetic? We don’t even have classes today…”

“It’s precisely because we don’t have classes today! How could anyone not get excited over that?” I barked back before tugging at his bed sheet with my mouth and rolling away with it.

“Ah! Kia!” I heard him sigh as I poked my head out of the covers. “All right. Let’s have breakfast before meeting with the others at the fields.”

“Yay!”

After sufficiently sating my hunger with a sumptuous meal, Teival got dressed and put the cloth over his head and left with me towards the ‘fields’. When we arrived, there already seemed to be some adults with their crystal beasts digging methodically in long, straight lines. Looking around, I saw who I had come to learn was the village elder – the man with white hair and chin hair – issuing orders to a family.

Our pace somewhat slowed, drawing my attention to Teival who showed hesitant reluctance while heading towards the village elder. “What’s wrong, Teival? You’re not looking forward to whatever we’ll be doing?” My master turned to me and smiled wryly before softly stroking my head – as he usually did when trying to reassure me about his mood. I nuzzled his hand and licked it before seeing the village elder staring down at us with a neutral expression.

“You’ll be in the central field with the other children, Teival. Make sure you’ve tilled at least five rows by the end of the day. Your supervisors will be Adah and Solomon, so don’t slack on the job.”

“Yes, sir. Come on, Kia!”

Teival guided me towards a vast section of soil that the other children seemed to be digging lines into – much like the adults from earlier. Teival told me to dig similarly to them before humming his soothing song to me – filling me with energy – while ‘tilling’ the soil. Recalling what the old man had said to my master about not slacking, I endeavoured to exert no end of energy in an attempt to complete the task so we could play soon after.

Although I was used to digging at fast speeds, I wasn’t used to being so exact with my hole sizes before. As such, though I had every intention on finishing in record time, alas I regret to inform that I had to redo a lot of my work due to not meeting the standards exacted by the village. By the time the sun reached its apex, we had only completed two rows.

My mood wasn’t optimal as the day progressed, with the constant reprimands from Adah – Dinara’s mother – about not meeting the requirements for properly tilling the soil. As for Dinara…I was positively livid over what she was doing! While Teival and I were working our rear-ends off trying to obey the instructions of the village elder, she was off happily running around everywhere providing drinks to everyone! “This is discrimination! I am far prettier than her, why can’t I do a more delicate job?!”

While griping over the difference in treatment, nothing grated on my nerves more than the idle Anders! From morning to noon, he had been milling around the fields with his crystal honey badger without doing any manual labour whatsoever. I mean, at one point he must have been so bored with doing nothing that he even went to play with the crystal wolves that had approached the boundaries of a field further out! “Get back here and do some actual work! I want to play with them instead! No fair!”

One small advantage of me digging all day was the numerous opportunities to sneak in some snacks I’d found in the soil. Tasty worms and slugs kept finding their way into my coincidentally open and accommodating mouth. I swear it wasn’t me actively hunting for food when I should have been working!...Mostly.

I don’t know how we managed it, but Teival and I ended the day having completed at least five rows in the field. Heading back home, I slowly padded behind my master as my paws felt a little blistery from digging all day with barely any break. Entering the room, I slumped on the floor – not even bothering to jump onto the bed – and began licking the soil off my dirty body. My ears twitched at the sound of Teival falling onto the bed, followed by his tell-tale signs of sleeping via soft and deep breathing.

After sufficiently removing any traces of dirt, I clambered onto the bed and curled up beside my master’s legs. “I hope the next few days will prove more fun than today was. Although, I suppose it was a definite improvement to enduring Teacher’s drivel…” With such thoughts in mind, I slipped into a satisfying slumber.