While it was still cold enough to see my breath hanging in the air, winter was finally over, and knowing what the new year would entail for me filled my body with warmth... plus my new coat probably helped as well. Usually, our tribe would be too far south to experience much snowfall, but the harsh end of last year had hit all of us as a surprise.

Some of the older hunters had even thought about going on their last hunt, but my mother had thankfully convinced them otherwise on my incessant pleading to stop them. Whenever I had thought about them going out, it had felt like my right hand was burning and my dreams had also been plagued by visions of shadows lurking out in the blizzard. I wasn't actually sure, why I sometimes saw fragments of the future, but ever since I could remember I had this gift.

Most often they were rather mundane stuff, like when a storm was approaching, or which plants to avoid eating. Every so often, however, there was a more serious premonition, although the last time I had a big one was when there had been a heavy flash flood that caused some of our tents to be swept away a few winters back. During stronger prophecies, the birthmark on my right hand also starts heating up, sometimes to even painful sensations, though others apparently couldn't feel any heat off it.

Right now I was abusing that power quite a bit, though. Being away from the camp and gathering food was probably the most important task during spring, after all, and that meant everyone had to help out, even little old me. That was where my power helped out, as it made finding hidden away mushrooms and edible plants rather trivial. More often than not, the buckets I carried around were filled before the sun had even reached its zenith, though that usually meant I would just have to go out again and find more.

Sadly I wasn't allowed to join the hunter's bands and not just because of my age... or my horrible aim with a bow. Mother had made it clear that I should focus my training on the more non-violent subjects and, once I was old enough, I would undergo a test to find out my affinities. My affinities for what you ask? Well to put it in one word: magic!

When the topic had first been brought up ages ago, I had pestered my mother - and also a lot of the other elders - for hours until she finally agreed I could start my training when I reached adulthood, though I only later learned that was actually customary. And while I didn't even know if I had any strong affinity with the arcane, that wouldn't stop me from trying.

In Eurota culture one was usually accepted as a full adult when they had lived through their tenth winter and, incidentally, the last one had been my tenth since I was born. To some of my older memories that seemed rather young, but as far as I could tell, Eurota seemed to grow quicker than I was used to in my old world, or maybe a year was longer than I was used to. In terms of actual growth, it would be comparable to thirteen or fourteen human years.

That age was also when the girls were allowed to join the big hunting parties, which meant this would probably be the first time I was all alone in my family tent during the summer hunts, as my twin sister would be going with my mother and older sister for the first time. I knew I shouldn't be that disappointed about it, especially with my magic training right around the corner, but a part of me couldn't help it. Bragging about having literal magic powers would be half the fun of having them in the first place, after all, but I had known that this would be my lot in life for a long time.

You see, the Eurota were a pretty unique species, especially when compared to the humans I had been more familiar with in my old life. The closest comparison would probably be the centaurs from ancient mythology, with a humanoid upper half on top of a quadrupedal base similar to a horse. One uncommon trait, though, was the female-biased sexual dimorphism. Even my younger sister was already a hand-width taller than me and with puberty still going strong, I should probably expect that gap to only increase in the future.

That was also the reason most tribes had female leaders, like my mother, though male chieftains weren't unheard of. For my tribe, however, it was expected, that my older sister would take up leadership once my mother retired, although any tribe member could theoretically challenge her for the position.

Suddenly, my daydreaming was interrupted by movement in my peripheral vision. I hadn't been paying all that much attention to my surrounding while gathering herbs, but I knew that the movement couldn't have come from a predator. Or at least not one who would attack me. Looking the bush over, I saw that the plants had also been caught off guard by the harsh winter as I saw dying branches with leaves and sticks lying all around the stem, but that wasn't what had caused the movement, so I kneeled down to get a better look.

On the ground, just next to one of the smaller bushes, was a tiny area filled with rounded stones and a young stone-polisher pair looking up at me, trying not to make any movement. These small flightless birds were a common sight on the steppe and they got their name thanks to the perfectly round stones they hoarded in their nests. They somehow managed to get them to look exactly like their eggs. The birds were also deceptively quick on their feet and as soon as the two realized I had seen them, they bolted away. Unfortunately, the nest didn't seem to contain any eggs. Guess I blew it. Maybe I really wasn't meant to be a hunter. Well, not much I can do about it now, so I got back up and, yep, there were the two birds running away in their characteristic zig-zag line.

Just as I was ready to move on, though, one of them was hit by an arrow from above, before the second one narrowly dodged another projectile. It couldn’t dodge for long though, and soon enough it lay twitching on the ground as well. The arrows’ trajectory came from my right and looking over to some low hills, I did see a pair of hunters making their way over. The younger one went to collect the kills, while the bigger one came in my direction.

As they came nearer, I realized I knew those two very well, so I waved at them, fixed my basket to my hips, and walked over to them. After a few seconds, Fela - my older sister - and I were standing face to face, while my younger sister was rushing towards us, one bird in each hand.

“Good job, Charas!” My older sibling got a few steps closer and did exactly what I had expected her to do and, although I would never admit it to anyone, her head pats did feel kind of nice.

“Hello to you, too. And besides, you guys did all the work.” I quickly ducked my head away and pretended I hadn’t enjoyed the contact, even if she wore her gloves.

“True that... but we wouldn’t have found them without you.” I knew she meant that first part as a joke, but it still hurt my pride a bit to hear her admit it so easily.

“Hey, Charas. Look what we got!” My younger sister, Aya, finally reached us and triumphantly held up the birds by their feet. She seemed a lot more enthusiastic about the result of their hunt than Fela, and I couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle.

“Yeah, I saw,” I replied with a smile. My twin sister was obviously the same age as me, though, I suspected that Aya might be even more excited about becoming an adult and full-fledged hunter than I was at learning actual real-life magic - and that meant quite a lot.

Our older sister had actually been hunting with our mom since her eighth winter, probably special privileges as the chieftain’s firstborn, and I had to listen to all the whining my twin gave me about it... Not that I hadn’t joined in whenever I could.

“I see you’re as diligent as ever.” Fela suddenly said while looking at the half-filled bags on my belt.

“Well, you know me, always hard at work.” Fortunately, a certain joke with that setup didn’t work in my new native language, so I was safe this time.

“Yeah... By the way, mom said we should be on the lookout for any outsiders. We certainly weren’t the only ones hit hard by that winter and she expects some of our more desperate neighbors might try their luck in our territory. Plus, some others might view it as a time of weakness for us. So keep your eyes open.” Whenever Fela got that serious look in her eyes, I could see why the others thought she would make a good chieftess someday.

“Thanks for the warning, but I doubt I’m the one you should worry about.” The gatherers usually stayed within a safe distance of the tents, so if something serious came up, I should still be able to get away. I was personally more worried about my sisters; if an enemy tribe would try to attack us, it was common knowledge to overwhelm the hunters first, after all.

“Don’t you go worrying about us,” Fela grinned and gave my head another small pat before she motioned to my sister to move out again.

“Yeah, don’t worry, Charas. Besides, don’t forget, our tribe just got her best huntress yet!” Aya’s optimism was pretty infectious and I could even see Fela chuckling to herself. Soon after, the two went their own way again and I lost track of them. Meanwhile, I got back to my own work. We all still had a job to fulfill and I wanted to be back in my warm blankets sooner rather than later. It was still too early in the year, after all.

As I was continuing my gathering, however, my thoughts wandered off once more. This new family I had gained was great and I would probably do anything to keep them safe, but thinking about them often brought my mind to my old life and who I was before, for some reason. While I no longer got any headaches from thinking about it, I hadn’t actually regained many personal memories from my time as a human. And worst of all the few fragments I could decipher only opened up more questions.

It would probably be best to keep them on the back burner for now. Not like it would make much of a difference if I knew who I was before. Maybe some of the mages from a bigger tribe could help me, once I was old enough to travel there, but that would be potentially years in the future. For now, it might be best not to think about it.

Eventually, my bags were filled up though. I had mostly found the usual berries and nuts, but also some rarer medicinal herbs, and I even caught a few lizard-like critters who had been affected by the temperature a lot more; overall not a bad haul. Depositing the bags at the big communal tent got me the familiar praise from the cooks, but I quickly bounced over to the second biggest tent. As the chieftain’s tent, it was naturally the most decorated one, even if that meant just a few embroideries here and there and some better-quality fabric.

“I’m back,” I called out as I went through the flap at the entrance, and inside I saw two people talking to each other. One of them was my mother, or Chief Efadel, to most people. That wasn’t her birth name, but instead, an honorary title denoting her as the Chief of tribe Efadel; I didn’t actually know her real name, since she had been chief for longer than I was alive.

The person opposite her was someone I had heard a lot about, even if we had rarely talked to each other. Elder Tasos. It was said that he is a master in more forms of magic than anyone else and that in his glory days, he once caused an entire enemy tribe to surrender all by himself. According to my mother, he could single-handedly beat her in a duel if he had any ambition of becoming Chieftain. He would also most likely become my teacher in the coming seasons.

“Welcome, young Charas. We have been waiting for you.” Tasos was the one to speak up first.