Chapter 5
The girl was plunged into absolute darkness, but an expanse spread out before her. A field of grass materialized before her with no sign of anything else for miles on end. She moved, only that she was not really in control of her movements. But she observed silently and concentrated on what she was feeling, much like how she would do while meditating.
Her hand glided through the air in a rehearsed motion, and a thread of water appeared before her, following the movements of her hands. But it evaporated as soon as the control over her body disappeared, and she could move on her own accord. Determined, she moved just as she been made to before, focus on nothing but her empty mind that conjured what she willed. And it soon materialized the way she wanted it to. She knew she would be left to her own devices for now and played around with it, getting a feel of it. She was soon pulled out of it abruptly and her meditation ended. She fell onto the top of the trunk and the markings on her body disappeared. She didn’t know how long she had been out meditating, but it didn’t seem like too much time had passed. She immediately got off the tree and ran to the stream, where it was open and calm. She had to try it out in real life.
And it worked, but it was harder because she realized the there was nothing working against her in her meditation, but there was gravity in the real world and her arms got tired very easily compared to that. And so it went on that way. It became an obsession of sorts where she would forget to eat most days. She did not understand what still sustained her, but she did not care. She did not care how she worked past the tiresome routines and build up staIvanna on absolutely nothing through the day, but she did not care. All she knew was that she was getting better and stronger each day and that she could not stop. She wanted no breaks, she wanted no distractions. All she wanted to do was meditate and practice.
But there were moments where it disturbed her and made her cry, and she realized that she was not really forgetting anything at all, but her memories were locking themselves away somewhere they couldn’t reach her in real life and bother her. But she saw them while meditating. The parent’s menacing faces, the people walking toward her from their houses, and all the bullies she’d face in her life. She attacked them. She attacked them all in rage but found out she did not work well when angry. But she hated the fact she had to confront them so she’d cry when awake, forget again, and head to sleep. It took months to reconcile with all that had happened to her in the past that she would remember during meditation, and one day she reached a point where she simply did not care anymore. Because she was safe now. That was the past. It could hurt her no longer. She had to stop feeling afraid of it because it was hers and she’d already faced it once. Facing it should have made her stronger and she understood that after a while.
And the animals wondered if she understood just how powerful she could turn out to be.
****
A few months had passed into living this way, and there were times she would be deliberately pulled out of her meditation to confront intruders. But she was more ready than ever now to deal with them and allowed the animals to lead the way.
She jumped through the trees, her strong legs pushing her off branches and onto the next one, using her hands to grab onto and swing forward from the higher ones.
The birds followed her, chirping in her ear. The beast was a bear, and a lot larger than the rest that had come across their territory. But this one was destructive and heading straight for one of the largest beehives.
They zig-zagged through the forest to the very heart of it. She heard the bear before she saw him. She smelled his reeking of blood and dirt from afar, but despite her gag reflex she let it guide her and came toward a clearing where the bear had come to halt to sniff the ground. It was completely black, with a white diamond at her forehead. And although it was dirty with twigs, stones, and dirt matted in her fur, the girl could tell it was beautiful underneath the mess.
She watched from atop the trees, calculating its moves. It seemed distracted by something, and she felt that she shouldn’t attack it. Not just yet.
Actually, she felt like she shouldn’t attack it at all. Something was definitely wrong here. Very, very wrong.
She asked all the animals to back away from the bear. It was female, and pregnant. She could just tell by looking, although she wasn’t sure how. And she knew this wouldn’t be just any cub to be born. She didn’t understand why she felt such a connection to that bear. There was something about her, or maybe the cub inside of her that she knew would be significant. It was as if she’d felt it before in a dream, though not specifically with a bear.
She asked the animals to move away and leave. She needed privacy. Turning her back to the bear, she waited behind the trunk of a tree on a branch and waited. She waited hours upon hours, and it felt important enough to delay her daily routine of meditation and practice.
The bear gave birth rather silently, and she stayed there as she cleaned up the cub. It seemed as if the mother bear was waiting for someone, and the girl only understood for who when she came out to check on her. The bear was waiting for her.
Skeptical, she rushed to the stream to gather some water and berries as a peace offering, then walked on the ground to the mother bear, gently setting them on the ground before her. The mother bear accepted it graciously, lapping up the water and chewing on the berries every now and then. The cub was in her protective embrace, but she looked at the girl as if beckoning her closer. So she followed her request and carefully approached the cub. Mistakenly, there wasn’t just one. There were two. They were so tiny with a very thin layer of fur. One was white, and the other black, and the either had a diamond on their foreheads just like their mother.
The cubs had their eyes closed, but their heads turned toward her. It was weird how they were responding to her presence. Most animals weren’t this way with her the way the cubs were. They lifted their weak arms and let our soft, croaky squeals. The mother bear opened her mouth and groaned at the girl, nudging the cubs away from herself and toward the girl instead. She understood what the bear wanted, but not why. Mothers were generally extremely protective of their children and this one was giving hers away so easily.
The girl sat on the ground near the cubs that were reaching out for her. She patted their heads experimentally to make sure the mother did not snap. She seemed rather encouraging. Sighing, the girl picked them up and placed them in her lap. They spread out over her thighs comfortably and reached out to her with their noses, so she petted their heads. It seems to bring them a lot of ease.
The girl was confused, but she stayed until the mother got up and started moving toward the stream. The girl picked up the cubs in her arms and followed suit. The mother settled by a tree across the stream and the girl placed her cubs by her. The bear rubbed her head against the girl’s and she knew she had made an ally. But she was tired now, and needed to sleep. Asking the owls to keep watch, she headed off to her tree, fluffing up her bedding and cuddling into it, hoping the bear and her cubs wouldn’t disappear the next morning.
The following day, she saw the mother bear was standing and moving about, collecting berries. The girl was sure the mother needed more than plants to get by and started to hunt, and came back in the next hour with an intruding deer and a rabbit. She threw her makeshift spear in the stream for fish and started to skin them all at once. The mother bear got scent of the meal and approached her, so the girl allowed her to take the deer aside for herself as she worked on the rabbits and fishes, crushing together berries, leaves, and seeds to marinate her game in. The cubs woke up too soon and the mother bear abandoned her food to attend to them.
The girl was careful to start a fire away from them, feeling the smoke would be bad for them. She cooked her share and ate in silence, studying the mother and her bear.
A sort of loneliness fell over her. These cubs had someone to take care of them, rabbits stayed in groups and had families, and so did deer, birds, cats, and dogs. They always had someone taking care of the other. She was the only one here who had none of her kind with her to do the same. And it felt lonely. She had no one to communicate with her, hold her, and simply be with her.
Tears sprung in her eyes. She just felt so alone.
She rushed to her tree to hide under her bedding. The animals sensed that she was upset, but they understood absolutely nothing could make her feel better in that moment. The life tree pulsated all the energy it could to her, but it was of no use. She was lonely. There was no one to understand her the way she was there to understand them. She needed a companion. She needed someone to take care of her. She hated being alone. Her memories were locked too far away to reach even for moments of happiness in her life.
It was obvious that she would be alone this way for a very long time.
****
The next few weeks were a blur, but fascinating. She would almost forget what loneliness even felt like because of the cubs. They grew faster than she would’ve expected them to and had started chewing on solid food. She was sure bears were not supposed to grow up this fast, but there they were, already climbing trees, albeit stumbling a bit when they walked and ran.
She would take off after them to make sure they came to no harm, and they formed a strong bond each time they played together. What was probably the most dumbfounding thing was that they could communicate with her, literally. It all started so suddenly when she heard voices in her head.
Alarmed, she reached up to cover her ears, but the cubs nudged her.
It’s us, she heard a childish voice, Why are you scared?
She looked at the cubs, blinking. She opened her mouth to try and speak, her voice hoarse. She hadn’t spoken much, only crying, making grunting noises, and imitating animal speech since the next day that she was abandoned. But she still remembered how to talk in her own language she had grown up with in the human world.
“You hear me?” she whispered.
Yes, she heard two voices at once.
What? How? she thought and they caught onto it.
We’re your familiars.
The words sent her into a dizzying shock as she recalled a few dreams where she saw and heard of the bond between people and animals before. She didn’t know it was possible to have two at once.
“Is that why your mom let me near you?”
You’re the only one she would let close.
This time, she managed to distinguish the black cub’s voice from the white’s.
“So, um, what are you guys called?”
You choose our names, spoke the white one, You’re our master now.
“This is so weird.” She sighed. “Um, okay, I’ll just call you Yin and Yang.”
Who’s Yin?
“You,” she picked up the black one, and then petted the white cub, “And you’re Yang. Remember that.”
You’ll take care of us, won’t you? asked Yang, You’ll teach us your powers?
The girl recalled something of the sort in her dreams where people shared not on consciousness, but powers with their familiars.
“Seems like it.” She nodded. “But I’ll need to meditate and see what I can figure out. It’s not easy and takes lots of energy.”
We’ll manage, Yin said cheerfully. It occurred to her that Yin was most probably female, and Yang was male. She didn’t know how she would be able to look after two defenseless cubs should the join her everywhere, but she could try. The bears had caught onto what she was thinking.
Our mommy will leave us with you after some time, Yang informed her, You’re our real master and she will have no responsibility over us once she deems us old enough to part with.
“I’ll see what I can do…” she said softly. It was strange how the cubs did not seem at all bothered or upset about being abandoned. If it had happened to her she would bawl her eyes out.
When she went to sleep that night, the cubs joined her. They cuddled up to her for warmth. And it felt nice. To have someone who could talk to her, and she could talk to back. She didn’t know how close familiars got with their masters, but there was a love budding for them that she knew would be exclusive to them only. A protectiveness of sorts.
That night, she started to receive some of her memories back. And they made her cold. So very cold, and not physically, but at heart. It hardened, became cautious, and wounds opened anew. It was painful to think she was treated the way she was when she never understood why.
But she did not cry when she woke up. This time, she accepted her past and allowed it to shape her to be cautious, to keep her actions and desires to hurt under control no matter how she was offended and how much the other may hurt her. She had to be guarded, and make sure she had nothing more to blame herself for.
She woke up the next day with severe dislike for companionship. She felt she didn’t need anyone. She made it through the few months in the woods alone, and she could go on longer. But one glance at the cubs brought a wave of calmness in her heart. She could make an exception for them. Just them.