I turned five years old five days ago and participated in preparing the ceremony for the first time as well. If transted into human years, I would be between seven and ten years old, a somewhat imprecise guess. I wasn't an expert, and I sidered that in my estimation, but it wasn't that far off.

  Turning five years old was important; it was when cubs began to learn the crete roles they would py iure for the tribe and when they would learn to fight, and the broad strokes of it were implemented.

  In my opinion, it was a disguised game of py fighting. It would instill the basics for those who won't bee warriors and hunters but hyperactive, feisty cubs need an outlet.

  It didn't go against the union of the Twin si was essentially the blessing of our aors to tinue what had been pnned and what we were already doing. It was a sign of aowledgment, approval, and reition, and it was one of the greatest honors for furbolgs.

  But it wasn't a formality. I never saw it, but Oakpaw had beehat sometimes the judgments of the spirits didn't align with what teags had been done. Our Chieftain, Murgut, was the prime example, but it had barely happened a dozen times in my teacher's long life. So it was unon, not as much as in my case, though… Well, the parison was unfair. I was an anomaly in more than one way.

  Normally, my father would take me for my first training as I was to follow the 'path of wisdom and might,' meaning training as both a shaman and warrior to their fullest extent. But that was without further knowledge of the matter. Most of our shamans were already petent warriors if it came down to it, and without that, they remained people-shaped bears with an arsenal of inborn onry fitting to it.

  No, it was different–far, far different–still a category of warriors, but calling them that barely scratched the surface of what they were. They were the paragon of strength, following Ursoc's way, and they did so by drawing the might of our aors, the jalgars.

  Before any of that, however, came intensive preparation and ditioning. With that information in mind, I had waited at the limit between the forest proper and the vilge for my would-be martial teacher. Oakpaw instructed me to stay here. My ears flicked around for the st three hours to pick up any sound while my nose she air without success. I atient, but I was reag my limits; the nervous excitement at the start had been thhly repced by irritation. It didn't matter whether it was a test or pin teness.

  Then, as if on cue, I felt a massive life force I didn't reize, and I swiftly turned around to be met with the rgest furbolg I ever saw. On average, adult furbolgs, if we ted females, were around a good bit more than two meters and a half, with males closer to three and a bit more for the tallest, and this one was above the equivalent te male and a half in a trenchcoat.

  If my perception of the world wasn't faulty, it was taken with the slightly hunched forositiourally took and how s made a third of our height pared to around half for the average sapient biped. We weren't thiher.

  All this made us massive, and it ushed above and beyond any ception of our limits I ever had here, yet natural and well-proportioned. He had coarse dark brown fur littered with scars and adorned by greenish-white glowing runic tattoos in a closed circuit thrumming with mana. His cws were long and had a dark metallic sheen, making them not too dissimir to bonafide swords.

  And his smell wasn't unfamiliar, as I had picked it up around the vilge's outskirts but had never seen him, well, until now. Like any others of his weight css… for even more massive balls of muscles, cws, ah, they were scarily elusive. It roven here by him sneaking up on me.

  "You noticed me, but it was too te, and you would have died, cub." The ursa totemic rumbling harsh voiapped me back to reality. I uood what he meant, but I didn't like his tone. Plus, the wasted time made me snappy, and I acted against the little better sense I had from the get-go.

  "This is impro-" I froze mid-corre of his inaccuracies, a deadly cw millimeters away from going through my wide-open eyes. My heart hammered in my chest at the sight of death so close yet not; memories of how it felt fshed briefly, and then the cw was taken back, and I breathed out softly.

  I wao say it calmed me down, but that was false. I was still pissed off, but at least I mao keep my muzzle shut this time. I usually didn't act like this, I like to think I retty calm, but the big fucker pyed with every st one of my strings on purpose.

  "Angry? As you should, cub. But it was bold and stupid for you to speak bae. At least you didn't flee like a prey." He growled in a shogly softer, almost pleased tohan his words led to, the hint of a smirk, but it went away the instant. "I'm Miel, and that is what you shall call me. Now be silent and follow me. If you speak, I will let the woods care for you."

  The pronunciation of his name would have amused me in another sario in its irony, but I only iffly and did it without pints. Questions burned in my mind for nearly two hours of marches as I awkwardly half-ran behind to keep up with his gait. Then, fifteen minutes before we arrived, he bluntly told me ere traveling away from Greenpaw Vilge.

  The shamans had noticed the presence of satyrs at the edge of our territory and desired them gone before they went deeper. Nothing shog or that I hadn't heard of since my rebirth. Ashenvale wasn't the epitome of safety.

  However, it didn't answer much beyond showing me examples of how ursa totemics' duties were ruthless, bloody, and violent.

  Miel was to extermihe invading satyrs thhly. He did just that, and while I wasn't a direct witness of the butchery for obvious reasons of being potentially used as a hostage. It was still dangerous, but having climbed in a tree dozens of meters above the ground gave enough safety. The protective leafy branches I made grow around me from the tree, only a logical addition. Not that I couldn't easily climb way higher if necessary; it was ughably easy.

  However, my position didn't stop me from hearing the scream of terror, the sound of bone snapping and flesh ripped apart.

  I didn't have the time to process much of what I felt beyond how little it disturbed me when Miel, covered in blood and pieces ans, nontly strutted out of the cave and ordered me to follow him back within.

  I couldn't say no, but I had calmed down, so I didn't grumble, and I was genuinely curious, as strange as the thought was.

  And that was the present. On the way, I gazed at the massacre oones scarred with deep cw marks, Miel's cws. I sniff the air to pick up the smell, a very strong and unpleasant one, not the blood but the urine and feces mixed in. I gagged more than a few times.

  Then came the morbid show of dismembered hooved creatures, the source of the smells, twisted desdants of the night elves and despoiler of the wild. Or what little remained of them.

  I could tell from the number of hooves, hands, and horns there had been four or five satyrs' corpses with shredded animals strewn around the cavern. The only light was a cracked crystal of a sickly green twisting the natural flow of magic oozing mana I sensed earlier.

  Evil wouldn't be the term I would use to describe the energy; it was Fel that much was clear, but it remained an energy.

  Chaotid ravenously hungry energy toward what I represented and why I was instinctively averse to its presend wa go was like fire; it burned, and my brain screamed at the da represented. My nose also hated it. The smell was sulfur-like, acidic, burning my snoot from the i.

  With those observations, many things were floating in my mind, but oood out, even above how I didn't react as strongly to the sight of corpses and gore as I thought I would have. Blood and gore wereo me even before my rebirth. The same was true for butchering, even if only in this life was it a part of my everyday ritual and tames at that.

  But that shouldn't be the sole reason. It was something more profound, more innate.

  I wasn't human to aent, and what a banal realization it was to me at this point. It wasn't the sight of violehat birthed that thought; humans are perfectly capable of that. To say the opposite was beyond stupid. No, it was how I reacted to it when I doubted I would have been so calm as a regur human.

  But my focus was on something less self-tered.

  "This cave o be sed fast…" I spoke aloud, and Miel snarled in agreement, the mana in the air extremely unpleasant. Exceedingly worse than oside. And to think it was only a bunch of those satyrs that did this. It pointed out how vulnerable the bance was if they had been sneakier...

  And if a bit of diluted Fel felt like this, then the ing war would be even more horrific than I imagined, and then what about the Nightmare and the fact it was Void-oriented?

  Dragon Aspect, and Wild Gods, among other things, could be corrupted then what about me?

  Though that was nothing I wasn't aware of, it only reinforced that I would he knowledge to uand and respond adequately to those threats, not to save the world specifically, but at least to save my life and those around it.

  "It will, cub." He rumbled angrily. I nodded, but there wasn't a smile on my snout at the good news.

  "And the creatures behind that?" I pointed a cwed index fio a closed se of the short cave, which was retly used from the look of it. And the one we were walking to—a foreboding feeling in my heart about the y of my presenbsp;

  The idea trig in my mind that wasn't to be a simple observant was one I didn't want to believe...

  "Yours part to py, ursa totemics is the same as the shamans in many ways, and the honorable responsibility to protect with our cws and fangs the tribe and its territories from any who wish harm falls on hty shoulder." He boomed calmly with pride as he tore off the blockaded part of the cave like it was wet paper and not multiple tons of wood and stone.

  Supernatural shows of strength aside, it let me see what was behind it. I didn't like what I was seeing.

  I saw cages of melted stones and wood; most of them were splintered and oained peared to be animals, and still did.

  Most were dead, though–freshly at that and by him, I presume–with the only living ones being two vaguely e beasts in one of the intact cages left. And alive was too good of a term to describe them; they weren't in any state I would call acceptable.

  Their eyes were glowing a bloody red. Their movements were jerky aic. Saliva poured in abandon from their ever-snarling maws. Though they weren't weak in appearance, muscles were busting from their pale, hairless skin as if fed on steroids in addition to various tumorous outgrowths on their bodies.

  What the actual fuck did the satyrs do to those wolves, young ones or foxes, maybe? I 't tell.

  They look beyond mutated, like the perfect image of the desdants of irradiated animals, but worse on every level... I guess it wasn't that different. Their entire beings were all messed up.

  "Normally, I would not gauge your worth this way. Hunting with purely your body and instincts would have been enough, but as I was made aware… Normal methods tend to hamper yrowth, and... I wish the opposite." Miel said in a merry tone. His savage, fanged grin only grew at my wide-eyed, incredulous gaze at what he had just blurted out.

  I was at a loss for words. That's pletely different! I wasn't prepared for that sudden ge of pn! I never even fought!

  "Go and fight till death, do you and your oppos' apart. Prove you embody the mighty ferocity of Ursoc through your fangs and cws!" He excimed boldly.

  The instant, I ushed forward–thrown even–barely stopping a fall when I heard a loud bang of stone being thrown, shattering the cage housing the two corrupted feral wolves.

  It all happened so fast.

  I blinked.

  Then, my nose was hit with the pu smell of my blood as I ushed on my back. A searing pain was c through my right arm from one of the wolves bitihe fang digging deep in my flesh, and it shook its head as if trying to rip a k out of me.

  All thoughts left my mind, fear and fusion vanishing as I seeth bared. Pain fred up as I dragged my bitten limb forward, and with my new reach, I bit the unsuspeg mut right ba its fully exposed nape.

  Everything was instincts, blood, and violence. I didn't want to die.

  The fur, hide, and muscles offered prote but were ultimately futile as its hot blood flowed to an eveer degree when my fangs dug deeper and deeper, bone scraping against teeth. Yet, the dumb beast didn't let go of me, only g down harder as I did in response.

  Then my wide-open eyes caught a shadow, and I was reminded of the seutated e as it pouo rip my throat out. But it missed thanks to a split-sed jerk of my free arm, a successful sacrificial effort to protect myself. The shock of the hit, with the added pain and snapping sound, destroyed any hint of inhibitio.

  My jaws snapped shut, strengths I never knew I had c through me, the first mutt's spinal cord ripping apart under my feet. The corrupted beast's hold weakened, allowio yank my right arm, violently freeing it—the relief of the freedom from the ining fracture and the profusely bleeding of non-importance.

  The pain was all but background noise. I immediately used my freed paw to stab the sed wolf's brain through one of its eyes, using two of my cws as if they were makeshift leues.

  The effects were immediate. It seized up shortly a limp. The first one swiftly followed after in its paralysis and heme. Like that, the fight ended, and I hardly grasped how fast and brutal it happened.

  It felt natural.

  Breathing out, I extracted my limb, whimpering at the burning agony. Crawling away from the dead es, I found myself grinning, even with the overp taste of blood and smell, mine and others.

  This brought my attention to my arms... it wasn't a pretty sight. Both were profusely bleeding from punctures and shredding wounds matting my fur, the right one in particur from my earlier pull. But what took my focus was my left forearm was oriehe wrong fug way.

  'Better thah.' I thought, then the adrenaline began to ebb away, and with it came the unmuted pain and the frighteningly clear memories of what I had done, yet the muscles of my muzzle remained unged.

  A few seds passed, and I processed what had happened. And it all caught up.

  I was too exhausted to be angry or even yell, but that didn't mean I was not joyous at my victory. I wao celebrate, but healing my wounds came first. Resting as well.

  Again... they weren't pretty, and I know I should feel more at the sight of them–the es of the mutts dug fug deep, my morbid curiosity making me look more than the y to have a diagnosis–but I didn't, and I won't pin about it.

  'Less thinking, more healing.'

  Harder as it may be with the pain making focus difficult and my mind not all right there, in addition to it being the rgest healing I had done on myself. I never healed in these circumstances, but I had the mana, well-oiled instincts, and uanding of how things should be.

  Barely keeping in a whimper, I aligned my arm correctly with my other paw and magically reected the bones in my forearm. Then, as I was doing so, I realized that I had momentarily fotten about my magic, the point that I likely wasn't allowed to use unimportant as it poio a gring weako be fixed.

  "You're all cobbled up in moments... I 't say I'm not impressed, cub. What a raw dispy of your true self it was. Ferocious little ohe old was right… There goes one of my best kegs of honey beer, a worthy exge for a promising disciple… if you survive, that was only the first taste." The ursa totemiented and finished by mumbling nonsense while I caught my breath, propped myself up, and glowered with a growl at him. I wasn't too weak to be angry, it seemed. The praise did little to soften my displeasure, the st part only aggravating me.

  He just chuckled at my show of defiance, but it wasn't mog; it roving, somehow making it both worse aer. I didn't know how to feel. He wasn't only an asshole. It shouldn't be surprising irospect.

  "Amusing to see you be this defiant; limit yring. You are too young for a duel, cub. Don't rile me up to it. Your clever little eyes-stabbing trick won't help here." He stated and prompted me to follow him, which I did, wisely heeding his advid wing at the rapidly disappeariill sharp pain of my healing bones, "Now let's ourselves in the river ahe tale to the vilge."

  The_Bip_Boop2003

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  [colpse]