A few days later, Siu was in the process of rewrapping the bindings around his forearms, not because of the injuries he received in the forest. Those were long gone, and now he stood at the side of his training area, wiping off the blood from the places where his skin cracked and opened up... Since morning, he kept smashing his fists and fingers against hard targets, until his bones were cracking, doing his best to strengthen every part of his body, even if it was not the best feeling. Still, Bone Tempering sometimes required extreme measures when one reached a threshold, which, when successfully overcome, would lead to a minor breakthrough. It was then that he heard the familiar footsteps approaching from behind.

  "Ah, finally found you!" Neya said in a hurry, stopping just a step away from him.

  "Oh? Neya!" He turned and reeled back a little, a surprised look appearing on his face.

  She stood there with a large, rectangular bundle held against her chest, wrapped in layered cloth and sealed with waxed twine, so it wouldn't get dirty while she transported it over to Siu. Her sleeves were rolled up, her hands clean and sparkly, while her expression was glowing with unrestrained pride.

  "I finished it," she said happily, "Or… them, I guess. It had two after all."

  "You got it out intact?" He straightened, aborting his plans to continue training today.

  "Yes!" Neya nodded immediately. "I did it... Perfectly."

  She stepped closer then and carefully lowered the bundle onto the table where Siu's belongings lay, untying the seals. When the final wrap came away, Siu inhaled sharply, letting it out as a whistle, because even he could tell these were extracted from the carcass of the Red-eyed Squirrel with extra care. The mouth-sacks were there, both of them, turned almost translucent, elastic, which he could feel after he carefully touched them, looking iridescent as he held them up to the sunlight. They were cleaned without being overstrained, with the inner membranes intact, and no stress tears or ruptures were visible on them, no matter where he looked. Even the connecting tissues had been trimmed with almost surgical precision, leaving clean margins that would be easy to work with.

  "Whoa, you were stuck in this?" Arya asked, looking at it, standing on her hind legs, trying to see more.

  "It wasn't see-through..." Marly muttered, "It was very dark inside! And damp! And stinky! And bad!"

  "This is…" Siu began, carefully putting them all away and resealing them, "This is excellent work, Neya."

  "I was really careful," she said, rubbing her thumb against her fingers, suddenly shy about being praised as such. "The membranes in its mouth, well... they were under tension even after death, so I had to release pressure slowly, layer by layer. It took me almost a whole day, and if I rushed it, they would've collapsed or hardened... But, but I had read up on all of it, and I think you will get a lot out of this!"

  "I am sure of that." He chuckled, nodding his head, "You are becoming a master at this, huh?"

  "I hope..." She blushed, "Surprisingly, the more I do it, the less I feel it's gross. Weird how that works..."

  "I'll take these to Senior Seloryn," he said at once, ending that day's practice early, "You did more than you were asked to, so... thank you again."

  "Don't," Neya hesitated, then nodded at him, "We are friends. Of course I'll do this for you! And... do even more..." She added, blushing even more.

  "Neya," Siu repeated, touching her shoulders, looking into her eyes, "Thank you."

  ...

  ....

  ......

  When it was time to meet again, Seloryn didn't make Siu wait; she came to visit him at his home within the hour. After he presented Neya's work to her, she glanced over it once, then did a double-take when she reached out and felt them, stretching them, inspecting them from up close.

  "I'm impressed..." She muttered, "This doesn't feel like a beginner's stock," she added slowly.

  "It was made by my friend," Siu explained, watching her examine it, showing that she had experience with working such materials, fiddling with it between her fingers.

  "These are clean cuts..." she murmured. "Not just intact after removal, but they were soaked well with preservatives, keeping them healthy. The inner lining hasn't thickened at all, which usually makes it less elastic and less resilient for folding, cutting, and shaping into what I want... Who harvested these?"

  "Neya," Siu answered, "I can get you in touch if you want."

  "Yes," Seloryn nodded at once. "Also… You should keep her close. I had worked with outer disciples a few times; the materials they bring me vary greatly, but this one is on par with our own works within the inner disciples. I'm impressed!"

  "She works hard," Siu nodded, watching her expression, feeling happy for Neya.

  "Honestly speaking," Seloryn continued, "With a material like this, I can do more than just basic impact flasks." Then she paused, tapping a finger against the edge of the table. "Give me a month, and I'll have them ready."

  "Only..." Siu straightened up after hearing her, raising an eyebrow, "A month?"

  "Yes." She nodded with a smile, "I'm not an amateur, and I can promise you four firebombs, at the minimum. Possibly five if everything aligns and I'm lucky." Then she glanced at him with a serious look. "But you'll need to get me the fillers to make them go boom."

  "Naturally," he said immediately.

  "Great! I like that in you." Seloryn smiled faintly, happy that no counter-questions were being posed against her demands. "Nothing exotic, don't worry, I have the list with me," She handed it over, explaining it while Siu took a look, "Easy harvesting jobs. You will have to get enough resin from heat-tolerant barks, some volatile sap from flame-reed bulbs, and the like. I also added the beasts you should hunt and gather for making a good fire that sticks to the skin. While I create the flasks, you can work on gathering enough of those and send them to me."

  "That works for me," he said after reaching the end of the list. "A month... huh?"

  "A month." She smiled proudly, picking the bundle up, ready to leave, "And don't worry... I am not someone who hurries or shirks her duties. They will be... excellent weapons to turn your enemies into a screaming, flaming torch."

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  ...

  ....

  ......

  Finally, after watching the leaves turn yellow and fall from their branches for weeks, heading into it and gathering ingredients for his firebombs, one morning, winter had arrived. At first, only frost covered the stone paths before sunrise, thin and brittle, shattering like glass when Siu stepped out of his home. Then, as the days kept coming and going, they became permanent, and he already knew what it meant when the leaves vanished from the trees in their entirety.

  Snow was coming next, and he wasn't wrong about it. By now, after days of uninterrupted snowfall, the world around the Hollow Song Sect had transformed into a completely different realm.

  Back home, winters were cold, but snowing was never so intense as it was here. Just a day after it began, it was lying thick on the mountain terraces, forcing the disciples to take up shoveling to keep the communal places running and to clear the blockages. It was their job to do so, or if everything was left to ground to a halt, the Elders wouldn't step in. They would let them learn what it means to be your own worst enemy.

  Standing outside, the air itself felt different, and not just because of the cold, but by inhaling it, the essence he was absorbing felt a bit... crisper. It even stung a little.

  Or it was simply what he believed he felt, because of Arya's complaints, who usually wanted to burrow away, sleep, and not bother with being awake. Marly wasn't better at all, either, agreeing with her new best friend, as the two constantly snuggled up together, sleeping atop his chest, moaning and groaning when it was time to wake up.

  But there was no time to laze around, as the Icecrown Stag, in this type of weather, probably was already stirring or may have even changed by now.

  It was as such that on one morning, Siu stood at the edge of the sect’s boundary between the forest and his home, watching the falling snow drift lazily down, landing on and between the trees. His breath fogged the air, his feet still leaving prints in the snow, but... They were much more shallow than they would have been before joining the sect. It was all thanks to constantly working on his forms, relying more and more on the Wild Cat's steps, infusing them into his everyday movements, aiming to synchronize them with the Fox's maneuvers, so that one day he would not even leave footprints.

  But that was something far away in the future, and he knew that, because he was still only in the Bone Tempering stage. However, with his current progress, he has finally begun noticing a qualitative change in how long he can train before feeling exhausted. It was getting longer and longer, showing that some of his marrows were finally beginning to capture essence, not only barely circulating what he was drawing in with his breath, but finally transforming, absorbing it... and even producing it in very low quantities.

  It was the beginning phase of entering the Marrow Cleansing stage, or at least, he believed he was at the start of it. Raising his arm, moving and flexing his fingers, he knew that not all parts of his body were ready for it or even at the same level, but, by the time spring came, he would enter the next stage, for sure. He was sure of it.

  "Reaching it in only a year..." He muttered, smiling to himself, because that achievement was, even if others wouldn't believe it, promised to him when he was only five. In his first 'home', everyone expected him to reach that stage in a year... And now, he actually did it.

  Which, of course, would be shocking news, if it were to spread, probably on the same level as when others noticed that suddenly, the outer disciple with a fox now had a squirrel following him too. A rumor has already been spreading that maybe the boy is not entirely human, which would explain why he can tame beasts so easily... They even began guessing what kind of beast he was originally, which culminated in the fact that Milli and Nilli asked him if he had a cork-like penis or not.

  He hadn't been back to the Mission Hall since then.

  Listening to his thoughts, Arya sat atop his head as usual, her tail wrapped loosely around his neck like a scarf. At the same time, Marly clung to his shoulder, puffed up like a ball of fur in a losing battle against the falling temperature, trying her best to leech off on Siu's bodyheat. The surprising part, though, was the change happening with Arya.

  Her black fur began changing, day by day, turning into white, currently passing the halfway point in her transformation, with more white streaks in her fur than black. More than that, her eyes... the gold and silver switched places, and when he mentioned it, Arya herself knew not what was happening, but she did reassure him she wasn't feeling ill at all.

  She hadn't even noticed it, if not for Siu bringing it up.

  “I hate this,” Marly muttered into his mind, her voice complaining like a pouting child, “Everything is cold, the ground is cold, the air is cold, I am cold, and there’s no food anywhere, or if there is, it is also cold. I hate the cold.”

  “Yeah, that’s winter,” Arya replied with a shrug, “It is beautiful, but only when you watch it from the inside, sitting in the lap of a warm, strong body, shielding you from it...”

  “Like Master's?” Marly asked, nodding her head, “He fits that. He should be a bit more hairy, though, then he would have a nice fur coat and be even warmer.”

  "He has hair, didn't you see it?"

  "And you both stop right there." Siu cut in, his mind already tuning the two out with no issues, only picking up on their exchange when they began mentioning him. "Take things seriously! We will go into the forest soon enough, and it won't be an easy mission. I want you to be focused, a hundred percent. Understood?"

  "Will you tame this one, too?" Arya asked, but Siu just ignored them both once again.

  "Oh, oh... Then she will be the third?" Marly asked, looking up at Arya, "But if it's a stag, it can't sit on Master, no? Will Master sit on her?"

  "Well, Master is not the sitting type, that's us," Arya answered, thinking about it, "But if he has a majestic steed, that would be cool, so..."

  Arya, of course, began rambling about something Siu was not willing to listen to... But then again, a noise had made him turn around, listening to footsteps as they crunched through the snow behind him.

  “Finding you is a fucking chore,” a voice complained, with a mild annoyance grating against his ears, “But at least you leave a trail.”

  "Are you here to complain about the winter, because if so, stand in line, thanks." He answered, facing Nue Toah, who stood a few paces back from where he was.

  “I'm here to tell you that the hunt is moving forward,” she said in a cold exhale. “Rinmei sent word that two days from now, we will head into the forest, so prepare yourself.”

  “So soon?” he asked, as winter had just begun.

  “The snow has been falling for six days,” Nue replied, crossing her arms, “Usually it starts with only a day, pauses, and resumes a few days later, doing that for a week or so before settling in to a constant. Well... This time it skipped that, and it has been coming down thick this season, so the transformation probably already happened. If we wait for too long, the beast will just grow stronger.”

  "Okay, where should I go?"

  "Nowhere," She paused, then added, smiling a little, “I’ll come for you myself, and we’ll head there together. So be at home! Don't forget, I'm the core member of this hunt, not you.” As she spoke, Nue’s gaze shifted slightly, and for the first time since her arrival, her composure cracked a little, her eyes stopping on Marly, “That,” she said slowly, “is also one reason why Rinmei feels even more confident.”

  "Me?" Marly stiffened instantly, "What did I do?"

  "I don't know what fantasies you all have," Siu exhaled softly, shaking his head, “But she’s… new. You all may expect them to do wonders, but then that would be like betting your life on someone who hasn't been part of the sect for a year.” He warned her, and through her, the rest of the core members... Although he also knew that if they didn't want to listen, it would fall on deaf ears anyway.

  "I don't bet my life on anybody, only myself," Nue shot back as she took a step closer, the snow crunching loudly beneath her boots, putting her weight behind her step, making Marly shrink slightly against Siu’s shoulder. "Especially not on pets."

  "Good." Siu answered without flinching, but turning his body to shield Marly from Nue's gaze, "At least you have some sense left in you."

  “Be careful,” she said at last, her tone returning to its unusual calmness. “Winter is when people overreach... Watch your tongue... and tone... boy."

  "No." He answered simply, tilting his head a little, "You watch yours... Woman."

  “Two days,” she repeated, ignoring his eyes. “Be ready by then.”

  With that, she turned and walked back down the snow-covered path, her figure soon swallowed by falling white, still coming down from the sky.

  "Master... who was that?" Marly asked, gulping.

  "A bitch!" Arya growled, snapping her jaws once, making Siu smile.

  "I know it was a girl, I smelled her..." Marly muttered, a bit confused, forcing Siu to cut in before Arya would say something else.

  "None of you need to worry about her." He said in a cold tone, maybe even a bit colder than the falling snow, "If anything happens, I'll handle it. You two will only focus on sensing beasts and dangers. Leave the human part to me."