From the bottom of my heart, thank you to my p4tr0ns: Morpheaus, and RTB <3 <3 <3 Become a p4tr0n too and read up to FOUR chapters ahead!:
h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / t r a s h w i t h g l a s s e s
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"You've been working me to death here, don't you think I at least deserve to know your name?", I asked the girl who was washing her family's clothes in the river.
"I've been offering you shelter and food, shouldn't you be more grateful?", It was true, I've even been allowed to sleep inside the hut then.
"Thank you… ponytail girl."
"Don't call me like that, shaman!", she turned to me barely able to keep an angry expression, her lips involuntarily curving upward.
"Sorry, I've been calling you like this all this time inside my head", I said, dipping the two clay pots into the river and collecting water for the day.
"My name is Lobelia. Of the Chaser Clan, though one may not be able to tell from our place in the encampment…"
"My name is Skyblue. Coyote Clan."
"You mean, some other Coyote Clan?"
"I mean, I was kinda adopted by this one. But I'm not exactly welcome here either. Why do you live so far from the others, though?", I walked to near her, and started to twist the clothes she washed, drying them, and putting them inside a basket.
"I'm an orphan. My parents had a disagreement with the tribe's elder, so they moved our hut away from the rest of the tribe. It wasn't a common occurrence, but not the end of the world either. That is, until they died before ending the dispute, letting the three of us sisters inherit the pariah position, but not the authority to end it since we are too young to have a voice in the tribe's dealings… But, what about you? How did you end up in our Clan?"
"I saved Sunburned and Cloudless from a beast, but I had no memories of where I came from. So, they gifted me with a Clan name", having finished washing her clothes, Lobelia got up, and walked back into the forest, just to start picking up mushrooms. I didn't know which were edible and which were poisonous, so I did not help her with that, but got back to picking up firewood. "Isn't it dangerous to live in your position, however? So far from the rest, monsters could attack."
"It is. And that's not all: we can't share from the tribe's collective supplies, or marry, or pray together, and much more", she then looked at me with a half-smile. "I'm impressed, though. I didn't think shamans risked their own lives for others, I thought they only let others risk their lives."
"...Does the death of your parents have anything to do with shamans?"
Lobelia frowned and looked away.
"Yes. We have been a family of hunters for many generations. But since the food of the Gods vanished… We were at a loss. Our way of life had been deturbed, and we needed to find some other way to live. And my father decided to hunt monsters to let Sunburned exchange their parts with the shamans from the Bear Mountain. But… He never came back from the hunt. Our mom passed away from sadness one month later. Spirit-of-Happiness believes that, if our parents liked shamans, they must be nice people, and her sister was too young to even remember our parents… So I try to be the mother they couldn't have."
"I'm sorry. Really."
"Don't worry", she threw me a glance, and if not for my supernaturally enhanced body, I wouldn't have noticed the redness of her cheeks before she looked away from me again. "Yo-You're fine for a shaman. Hard worker at least. Yeah."
I tried to not think too much about that.
Tried.
We got back to the hut, and Piri came running towards me immediately.
"Shaman, shaman! Look, I invented another magic trick!", She hugged my leg before posing with an angry expression and throwing a single punch into the air. "DRAGON FAAAAAALL!", she screamed with the roughest voice she could pronounce. Suddenly smiling again, she explained: "Then the bad monsters all fall to the ground burning!"
"I see. Something like this?", I turned away from the little girl, pulled my fist up, controlled my magical power, and… "Dragon. Fall!", I threw a punch to open field, and let out a five-meter-long fist of fire come from my knuckles before dissipating it.
When I looked back to Piri, she was gaping, and her eyes were wide and still staring into where my spell was conjured. She fell onto her knees and slowly turned back to me.
"Please, let me call you master!"
"Ugh?!", Piri jumped onto my leg, and didn't let it go, no matter how much I shook it.
"Please, please, please!"
"Okay, fine, you may call me master…", that wasn't good, I couldn't teach magic to a child, that was an obviously stupid move. "But wouldn't you prefer to call me like a friend? By my name?"
"Friend…! What's your name, friend?!", Piri looked at me with stars in her eyes and a big toothless smile.
"Skyblue. And since friends help one another, I'll give you a hint of how to conjure magic: first, listen to what your big sister says!", I patted the little girl's head and noticed Lobelia looking at the two of us and smiling. "Now, let's help your big sis to prepare lunch, alright?"
"Alright!"
"Big sis, let me help you with that", Joyline sat down beside her sister and started to prepare the fish I caught.
…Maybe there were still sacred things in that world. Maybe there was something that wouldn't let me down in the end.