We returned after dusk, carrying what little was left of the deer. After announcing our return we quickly got swarmed by the rest of the family.
"You were faster than I expected," Mom said, giving each of us a kiss.
"We pushed it into the river, it couldn't do much after that," Janym explained. "It did lose us once though."
"Knowing when to give up is very important skill too. It's not something you can learn with already dead deer though," Dad said, "At worst you can always keep tracking it until it dies of exhaustion, but that can take days, it's very crude tactic. You're better off finding something easier to catch."
"That's enough lecturing, Asher. It's not something you can teach. Once they know their abilities they will learn what is worth pursuing and what isn't," Mom grunted and pranced back towards the center of the clearing.
"Mom. Kanire said he'd show me something if you let me go. Will you?" I caught up with her while the rest were still questioning Xerio and Janym.
"How long would it take?" She asked back.
"I'd have to ask him... but he didn't say when he'd show me."
"As long as you don't miss any hunts then you can."
"Thanks, Mom!" I barked, "Do you want to play something?"
"We can, I'm sure the rest will join in soon."
"I can make a game for you if you want," Kanire suddenly appeared next to us.
"Can you stop doing this? How long have you been here?" Mom growled.
"I just walked over here, not my fault you ignore familiar footsteps."
"You would have to make a sound when you move first..." Mom grunted. "What game?"
"No clue. How about something reflex oriented? Small lights will appear in the clearing and you have to touch them, who gets the most, wins."
"Do you really want to waste magic on simple game?"
"As long as everyone has fun it's not waste." Kanire laughed. "It's not like people play with me often."
"Why don't they?" I asked.
"Respect, fear, they have their perception of me and most can't imagine me playing games. Though recently I really wasn't in the mood for them. Too much..."
"Pitying and hurting yourself?" Mom asked.
"Could you not phrase it like that?" He grumbled, "But yeah, it's getting harder with each winter. Everyone, come here, let's play a game!" He then raised his voice.
Once everyone was present he explained the rules again and the clearing lit up with countless tiny lights floating about at varying heights—some we had to jump really high to get to.
Soon all of us were engrossed in trying to capture as many as we could, snapping, jumping, sprinting, spinning, all in pursuit of small light. They were warm to the touch and sent pleasurable tingling through the body when captured.
Kanire was watching us from the entrance to the valley and soon started messing with the lights. They started appearing faster, moving about chaotically, and disappearing when they weren't touched caught quickly enough.
It was well past midnight when we started getting sleepy. The lights were blinking in and out of existence almost instantly but we were still able to catch most of them. It was great fun and happy howls permeated the clearing. The insects, however, weren't as lucky and were confused by the lights. When the swarm grew too large Kanire stopped the game.
"That's enough for today. Lyara caught most of them, if you want you can play this later."
"How do you know Lyara caught the most?" He was barraged from all sides. I knew I didn't do as well as I would have liked so I never expected to win.
"I had the lights count who caught them. There is no way to make a mistake." Kanire explained. "Now go sleep."
"You're not going to sleep?" I sat down next to him.
"I can use magic to get rid of the tiredness."
"I don't understand?"
"What don't you understand?"
"How that answered my question. Are you coming to sleep?"
"Who taught you to be like this?"
"You?" I tilted my head. It was fun messing with him, he looked cute when he was confused.
Kanire let out a long breath. "You know what. I'll probably go to sleep. Do you want to go to the ocean in the morning?"
"I wanted to play with Fertam a bit. I didn't get chance to see her recently."
"That's fine, have a nice sleep."
"You too." I stretched, "I really like talking with you. It's fun."
"Yeah... you really don't act your age, you know that? It's been long time since I met pup like you."
"is that a bad thing?"
"Hard to say. The few I met didn't really have happy lives. Don't worry about that right now though, everyone else is already sleeping."
***
The morning came soon, and after getting Mom's permission I ran off deeper into the forest. Fertam still didn't appear in her orb form in Mom's densite.
It took a while of calling and pawing at trees for her to appear.
"Little Harukaze, do you need something?" Her typical disembodied voice echoed between the trees.
"No, just came to play."
Fertam flickered and then the trees around me started moving. I howled with joy and jumped onto one of the branches that were lowering to catch me. Fertam always played like this with me and I always had lots of fun running high in the trees. I tried climbing without Fertam's help but it was way too hard, and getting down was even harder.
"I wanted to ask though. Mom said Kanire was one of the original Caniro. What does that mean?" I asked, jumping through the maze of grabby branches Fertam made and constantly adjusted.
"It means that at one point there were no Caniro. It was a reward some earned from us spirits, but most of the first generation were those recommended by the ones that earned it. Kanire was a shelled monkey when he was born. His tribe..."
"Tribe?"
"Could you not cut me off? A tribe is several families living and working together. Kanire's tribe was wiped out by another one. Reya found him still alive after the fight, saved him, and when they became partners asked me to make Kanire into Caniro."
"Oh, then did..." I slipped and started falling, but a branch shot out, wrapped around me, and lifted me back up into the trees.
"Watch where you're stepping, did I what?"
"Did you make Reya into Caniro?"
"No, she came here from the west."
"How did they get the reward? Don't shelled monkeys walk mostly on their hind legs as Kanire does?"
"They adapted quickly, and we didn't force them to accept it, besides we made Caniro form perfect in..."
"What's this claw for then?" I poked a claw on the inner side of my front paw with my nose, it was high up and never reached the ground. "It doesn't help me run, it won't reach the ground unless I'm laying down, and I can't even move that toe."
"All right, we did take a few shortcuts in areas that didn't matter, blame Orvier."