Cindy was still battling with the deer. Usually if a beast heard their human scream like that, they would immediately abandon their battle and come to their aid.
But the deer was in such a rage from his pride being challenged that he didn't even realize that it was Candace screaming.
The deer was still trying to land a hit on Cindy, who always dodged out of the way just in time.
It was becoming even angrier. It bashed its shiny antlers against the ground; subsequently, the ground received multiple deep cuts on it.
Cindy saw this and grasped that she could not get hit by those things or she might be seriously hurt.
The deer charged again just to miss. Even angrier this time, it decided to try something different. It began shaking its head from side to side, trying to get used to the new motion.
Cindy watched in confusion, wondering what it was up to.
It dragged its hooves against the ground, charging once again towards her with its head now moving from side to side as it ran.
Before it could even make it halfway, it tripped and fell antler first into the ground. Its enhanced, sharp antlers combined with its weight easily cut into the dirt.
It was now in a difficult position. Part of its antlers was stuck in the ground, and it couldn't seem to remove them. It tried over and over again but failed.
Cindy saw this and took advantage of the situation.
She casually strolled behind the deer and began whacking it with her bone tail.
Not enough to seriously injure it or even really end the fight. It was more like she was taunting the creature.
The whole situation, along with its already hurt pride, made the deer's eyes go red.
It finally yanked its antlers out of the ground and kicked out with its back legs, sending Cindy soaring through the air.
It quickly turned around and began shaking its antlers once again and rapidly moving its head from side to side. It then ran straight at her, not tripping this time.
Cindy then comprehended the purpose of the excess head movement at that point.
The movement of his head made it significantly more difficult to dodge its sharp antlers now that they were covering more area.
Cindy wouldn't be able to dodge to the side, under, or above him. Cindy saw this but didn't panic at all; instead, she stood her ground and prepared.
Her muscles tensed, and her claws stabbed into the ground as her tail moved slowly, waiting for the perfect moment.
She then launched herself off of the ground, straight towards the deer's shiny, sharp antlers. Cindy flew in-between the tiniest of gaps that existed right in-between the deer's antlers. She soared through them smoothly, and her small, bone-covered horn landed right onto the deer's forehead.
Cindy did receive a few cuts on her way out of the deer's complicated maze of antlers, but she didn't seem to mind.
The deer stood still for a few seconds before wobbling back and forth and suddenly falling over.
If anyone was watching, they would have seen Cindy walk over to her defeated, concussed enemy and stand victoriously on top of its unconscious body with her chin raised to the sky.
After posing for a few seconds, she did look over to where Sebastian was to check if he was doing okay. Seeing that he was standing still and not fighting, she went right back to posing.
Sebastian hadn't moved from his spot even when everyone else resumed their fighting. He just stood there, looking at his hand as if it hadn't been connected to his body his whole life.
The bone armor was still a white, pristine ivory with no blood on it since the skin hadn't been pierced during the injury.
He remembered how she screamed after looking at her own leg bent in a way it shouldn't have been able to.
'What did I do?' He asked himself.
He had never seen an injury like that before; even when the elders sparred each other and gave the children the opportunity to watch, they were rarely injured.
Sebastian had especially never hurt someone that bad before. Everyone in the village was raised to be a fighter, so of course injuries weren't uncommon. If you told a bunch of children to punch each other, fists and tears are going to fly.
But kids were kids; they couldn't do a lot of damage, especially since there was no real malicious intent between the kids. All of them had grown up together and saw each other basically every day. They would never want to really hurt each other, even more so with the elders watching them carefully from the side.
He had caused injuries before but never something like that.
Elder Estelle soon emerged from the tent and approached Sebastian, still keeping an eye on the rest of the kids as they fought.
"Well done, kid." She said.
Sebastian looked at her like she was crazy.
"I'm not in trouble?"
Elder Estelle saw this and laughed.
"Hahaha, calm down, it was just a light injury."
Sebastian's eyes opened even wider.
"A LIGHT INJURY! Her bone snapped in half!" He yelled.
Elder Estelle stared at him with dark eyes.
"I'm not your mom or dad, boy. Watch your tone when you speak to me." She stated sternly.
Sebastian immediately calmed down.
"Yes, Elder Estelle, I'm sorry."
"I know you're shocked and maybe even a little scarred by the event, but this is going to become the norm for you guys."
This made Sebastian curious.
"How come you elders don't injure each other when you spar, then?" He then added on afterwards. "Ma'am."
"We're long past that stage of our lives, youngin." She zoned out for a second, reminiscing about the past. "We're done with bruises and scrapes. We mostly spar just so we don't get rusty, but to be honest, we enjoy teaching you guys much more than fighting."
She continued.
"Plus we're much more precise with our movements than you are, same with our beast compared to yours."
Sebastian understood.
"How long until Candace is healed?" He asked.
"Probably 1 month," Estelle said.
Sebastian had the urge to raise his voice but was able to control himself.
"1 month? An injury like that should take much longer than that to heal."
Elder Estelle shrugged.
"Like you've been told, refined heal fast."
"Yeah, I know; I just didn't think it'd be that fast."
Now that Sebastian thought about it, all of the people in his village, once they hit puberty, stayed incredibly healthy.
None of them gained weight, got sick, or even went bald. And if an injury did occur, it healed fast.
'That's convenient.'
Elder Estelle still had things to say.
"It'll only get faster as you guys grow; other things will change too. You'll become more muscular, stronger, and faster. Speaking of change, what's going on with your hair? You look like your dad."
Sebastian had forgotten that he even changed his hair.
"I thought I needed a change." He said.
"Ahhh, you're finally growing up. Good for you. It's a beautiful thing; just try not to be as wild as your dad was when he was your age."
Elder Estelle realized she may have said too much.
"What do you mean, as wild as my dad?"
"Looks like someone else was just hurt. I gotta go."
No one else on the field required medical attention. Once Sebastian realized this, Elder Estelle was already too far away.
'That was weird.'
Much calmer than he was before the conversation began, he walked over to Cindy and picked her up off of the deer's unconscious body and tossed her on his head.
'I wonder why the beasts don't kill each other.' He thought.
The humans obviously knew better, but it should be instinctual for the beast to end each other's life. But Cindy chose not to, even though she easily could have.
He brushed off the thought and headed for a tree so that he could relax. He climbed it and found a comfortable branch to rest on.
He looked through the crowd and found that Jade had already finished her fight, and so had Twain, along with their companions.
'Looks like they won pretty easily.'
Neither of them really seemed to be bruised or injured in any fashion, so that was the only conclusion he could reach.
He leaned his back against the base of the tree and pulled the book he got from his father and started reading it.
Cindy rested on top of his head and hopped off it to start cleaning herself and licking her wounds.
The part of the book he was on started talking about the difficulty of determining how powerful a creature will be in the future.
The easiest way, and the way everyone else did it was by seeing how powerful their parents were. And if that wasn't possible you could look at the average power level of the species.
But Sebastian had never met Cindy's parents and most of the time it was pretty easy to tell what species a creature was, but it didn't seem to be this time.
Most of them were recorded and well known, but if Sebastian's parents didn't know then no one in the village would.
Sebastian looked at Cindy.
'Maybe I'll see if dad would be willing to do some more research.' Sebatian thought.
Not that it mattered much, he was stuck with her either way.
'No point in stressing over something I can't change.'