[Xander – 12 years]

  How do I tell them I want to go home? I couldn't figure out how to do it before we left and now we've left and are hunting. The more our group walks for the hunting trip, the less I want to be here because of how obvious it is they're excluding me.

  Even though the scenery is kind of nice to look at. The forest is really beautiful here, though it's also different from outside. I was really sleepy so I didn't see it yesterday but the leaves here are all reds and oranges and yellows.

  Those aren't really good colors to me, but it really feels like autumn here even though it's still summer. The temperature is even cooler, and it seems there's magic in the air and soil creating this effect. Autumn is a nice time of year, excluding the colors.

  "Know how it took us forever to get here last night?" Tucker, one of the boys in Carter's grade joining our group for the hunt, asks me.

  He says it out loud instead of using the telepathic relay Mr. Cox is running, so I guess it's okay to talk with our mouths instead of our minds right now. There doesn't seem to be anything worth hunting right now, so that's probably why it's okay.

  "Um… yeah," I nod. "Time and space got all wonky, turning what should've been only an hour's drive into a much longer one. I slept through most of that, but saw it starting."

  They were both bent and distorted, making it feel almost as if we were going into another world when we weren't. The twisting of space wraps around this land, adding in extra land to where it wouldn't be possible without the use of magic.

  "Right," he says. "This area here? It's why the region is called the Autumn Realm. Everything within the 'hidden land' is like this. And for those of us descended of the tribes which settled in the area… it's sacred."

  "Sacred?" I ask. "That means really special, in a sort of religious way, right?"

  "Yeah," he answers.

  "Is it okay to hunt here?" I ask. "If it's sacred?"

  "It's not related to the gods," he shakes his head. "Do you have any superstitions?"

  "It's not superstition if it's real, is it?" I ask.

  "Well, that's different," he chuckles. "I'm just gonna assume 'yes'. It's sort of like that for all of us. You've been to our church, so you know we follow a religion. But we also follow the form of religion from our ancestors, in a way. Treating this area the way we do is part of it. The Martinses own the cabin here because their family is one of the three overseer families for the area. The Tates are another, and my family is the third. A special magic keeps people from entering without permission from the heads of all three of the families."

  Now I'm confused.

  "What does that have to do with superstitions?" I ask.

  "That part," he says. "Not much. But dating back to ancient times, before more modern religions with the gods were introduced to us, there are beliefs. We still abide by them today. One of those has led to a tradition among those within the Autumn Realm. A rite-of-passage for boys, though some girls go through it as well."

  He touches the necklace around his neck.

  "It's what earned us this," he tells me. "Once we do, we wear it under our shirts when hunting, though while in this area, we wear it over the shirt. The under thing is just convenience, so it's not moving around on us, but we can wear it outside of the shirt as well."

  "Some guys wear it all the time," Bo tells me. "Not just when hunting. That's the old way of doing it."

  I'm not sure where they're going with this, though now I know a little more about the necklace. It's because I am an outsider that I don't have one. I didn't notice the others wearing one the last time we hunt but I was too busy trying not to look at them while they were shirtless. Once they had their shirts on, it probably hid the necklaces well.

  Since they're in this sacred land, they're wearing them on the outsides of their shirts.

  "Anyway," Tucker says. "There isn't a single nonmagical creature here, and Rifts never open within it. We believe it's because of an ancient spirit which governs the land – that it's his magic which prevents people from entering without our permission. Or more like… he denies entry unless they've received it from the heads of the three overseers.

  "We're allowed to hunt whenever we want, though," Tucker says. "So there really are a bunch of hunting parties here. The three families don't often give permission to enter to go hunting outside of specific weekends in Autumn, and almost never for outsiders. People who aren't a part of our communities. It's considered to be bad luck."

  They brought me here even though it's bad luck? Why?

  "Doing so brings about bad luck if we do," Tate says. "So we generally don't grant permission to outsiders unless there's been a sign that it might be okay to let them in."

  "You want bad luck?" I feel panic rising in my chest. "You brought me somewhere sacred?"

  "There's a sign that it's fine," Mr. Martins says before I start to teleport away, and I halt the spell. "Something Carter didn't know about when telling you about the higher breeds of flaremanes is that what caused them is known. Unicorns mated with regular flaremanes, and the higher breeds were the result of that. Unicorns have different magics from them and rather than adding their powers to the flaremanes, it enhanced what was already there."

  "Yeah," Carter says. "Dad wanted to wait until I was older to let me know, since unicorns being real and not mythical was kiiiiiiiiiind of a big secret. Not even Collin knew, apparently."

  "But since a unicorn has made it abundantly clear to everyone that they're real," Mr. Martins tells me. "It was fine for me to tell them. And one of the signs that it's okay to bring an outsider here? A unicorn allows them to ride them."

  That's so weird. A unicorn insisting on being my mount for when I ride a horse apparently means it's okay for me to enter an ancient sacred area unrelated to unicorns. The logic in that is really strange.

  "We'd normally wait until the start of autumn to start allowing people to hunt here," Mr. Cox informs me. "As the rite of passage Tucker mentioned occurs then, and here. This makes hunts here more special and is one of the reason so many people came out for it."

  "But why are you letting it happen earlier?" I ask. "Um… sorry for questioning you. I know that's bad."

  Questioning adults is always bad.

  "It's fine," Mr. Cox chuckles. "The rite of passage usually takes place before one turns thirteen. Not always, just usually. It can happen later. Since you're turning thirteen next week, well, we wanted to see if you'd be able to complete it."

  "A-a test?" I ask. "I'm horrible at tests! And I've done no preparation! And it's not a hunt! I'm here to hunt! Not for tests! I can't do a test right now! I can't-"

  "Xander," Carter interrupts me. "Deep breaths."

  "Collin warned me we should've told him," Mr. Martins quietly tells Mr. Cox as I try to take deep breaths. "That he might not handle it being sprung on him like this even with a couple of hours before it."

  Because I'm not prepared! I don't know what to do! This isn't a hunt! This isn't a hunt! This isn't a hunt!

  "Xander," Carter says as I continue to try to take deep breaths. "It's still a hunt, and if you don't want to participate in the rite of passage, you don't have to. We just… noticed that you're very in tune with nature. At home in it. Like most of us. It made us wonder if you'd get approval to try to do the rite of passage. And if you don't want to? You can just do the hunt."

  "By 'approval'," Tate adds. "We mean by the spirit which governs this realm. You can get permission from the three overseers, but the rite-of-passage only begins if the spirit of this realm allows it to. And you've got time to decide if you want to participate or not."

  But I'm not prepared! And it's not what was on the schedule! We were only going to hunt!

  We continue traveling through the woods and I want more and more to leave. But this place is sacred, which means leaving will probably anger the spirit watching over this place, which means it'll get mad at them, which will make them not want to hang out with me anymore. All of that is bad!

  As we walk, the others hunt a little, catching some rabbits, an elk, a deer, three snakes, and some birds. Not the bird sitting on my shoulder, though. They can't see him because he's just a hallucination, being a phoenix. Grandpa Adrian didn't tell me they're real so he's definitely a hallucination. The fact that no one else is reacting to his presence means it, too.

  This is the same phoenix I've pet before, and I reach up and pet him a few times as we walk. I don't participating in the hunting. I can't, it's too hard. The schedule is all wrong! But petting the phoenix is calming.

  "Carter?" I whisper after awhile.

  "Yes?" He whispers back.

  "What's the rite of passage?" I ask.

  "You're interested?"

  "No," I answer. "But something is telling me I should try it. Now I'm wondering if that's just my subconsciousness wanting me to give it a try even though it's not on the schedule."

  "Something…" he trails off for a moment and I can feel his awkwardness. Why would he feel awkward? I hope it's not my fault, that'd be really bad. "There's a lake near here and during the time the sun is rising – basically, from the start of dawn until the end of sunrise – and the time the sun is setting – from the start of sundown to the end of dusk – a sort of beast appears there. But it only appears if someone has been deemed worthy by the spirit of the land.

  "You have to strip down," he says. "Not naked, but down to pants or shorts. Some guys do their underwear. And you have to fight it. When fighting it, you can't use your magic at all. It's impossible to, as if something is sealing it. And the beast always matches your body's mana level in terms of strength and durability and stuff, so it's just as strong as you. Nobody knows how that works, but it's probably because it's from a powerful spirit."

  He touches the necklace around his neck.

  "These come from it," he tells me. "They represent its body. It has crystals in its antlers, and the sphere is from the smaller one that's like a third eye on its forehead."

  That sounds like a really weird creature. I try not to look at the hallucination. He says that it's a beast born of the forest, great and majestic.

  "That sounds really dangerous," I say. "I'm gonna get hurt, ain't I?"

  "It happens, yeah," he nods. "You're fighting a beast with just your body, no weapons or magic to help you out. But with how fast you heal, it shouldn't last too long."

  "But it'll still be painful!" I accidentally raise my voice a little. "Sorry…"

  "It's fine," he says. "I guess I didn't think about that for you. We're always getting bumped and scraped when playing around here, so we don't mind the challenge. Like we said, though, you don't have to participate."

  The hallucination is telling me I should try it anyway, that even if I get hurt, it'll be a good experience for me. I really don't want to do something like this but my subconscious apparently wants me to. What do I do? It's not on the schedule and it means getting hurt!

  Sig would probably do it without hesitation if they let him. He doesn't care about getting hurt at all when he does stuff. If Luke heard me being scared of getting hurt, he'd probably try to talk me through it. There's a chance he'd probably ask me if I wanted to pass up this experience without trying just because I'm scared, rather than braving through it.

  But pain is awful!

  "The beast does use magic," Carter adds. "Mostly elemental and plant magic. But as with its own body, it's on the same magic level as your body is. You're also in an isolated pocket space – sort of like your spatial pockets. It's just you and the beast, no one else."

  "There ain't a risk of you dying," Tate informs me. "If you get hurt too badly, or you take too long to kill it, the beast leaves and you return to us. You ain't able to try again for at least one year if you fail, but if you manage to kill it, it turns into the necklace."

  That's definitely something magic.

  "Um…" I think for a few moments. "How come y'all wanted to take me for this now instead of in autumn? Didn't your dad say it's normally in autumn?"

  "Custom, yes," Mr. Cox says. "Mostly because this little sacred space is always in autumn. But there's no rule that it has to be within it. And we're bringing you here earlier so that if you do go through it, it still happens before you turn thirteen. We try to get the boys' first attempt to be when they're twelve."

  "But I'm not-"

  Oh. They're letting me participate in a sacred custom for the region and they're even letting me do it earlier in the year than normal. That's despite me not really being one of them. For whatever reason, they want to make sure I can do it at the same age everyone else gets to try.

  "Um… how come y'all want me to try this?" I ask. "I ain't one of you and it's a sacred tradition, ain't it?"

  "It's a tradition which takes place in a sacred land," Mr. Cox says. "To us, it means you've begun changing from a boy to a man."

  "That's what puberty is."

  "Yeah," Carter says. "That's where your body starts changing. And your mind is always changing, too. To us, being able to complete this challenge means you're not just changing physically, but mentally."

  "But it's a fight?"

  "A fight where you need to think," Mr. Martins tells me. "Not on the level of an adult, but beyond what, say, a ten-year-old might be able to figure out in a fight. It shows that you're reasoning skills are developing well and you're able to make better decisions. It also requires you to demonstrate bravery in the face of danger. You might still do things rashly and impulsively, maybe not think things all the way through, but you're in the final years of boyhood."

  This is confusing and I don't want to think about it anymore.

  "In the ancient times," the phoenix hallucination says, his words directly in my mind because he's a hallucination. "It meant that they were able to join in on protecting the village. That's no longer necessary, but those descended of the tribe from back then still view it as a rite of passage for their people. By inviting you to participate in the rite of passage of their people, they're saying they view you as one of them, even if an honorary one rather than one by blood or region."

  Or region?

  "Not all from the area are descended of the tribe which first settled here," he says. "Others moved in later, or even more recently. But as long as they accept the ways of the region, they're considered to be a part of it and participate in the rite-of-passage as a local."

  But I'm not a local.

  "Of course not," the hallucinatory phoenix says. "But in the short time you've known them and they've known you, they've come to view you as an honorary local. You're willing to hang out with them and learn about their lives, what they do, and more. This is a sign of them accepting you on a deeper level than just as a simple friend."

  That's really confusing, but it means I was wrong earlier, I think. They aren't excluding me, this is them wanting to include me in some of their customs.

  "Also," the hallucinatory phoenix adds. "It used to be that they wore the necklace all the time once the Autumn Lord gifted it to them. Not wearing it all the time only began about three hundred years ago, while the rite of passage is several thousand years old."

  I'm not sure why he's telling me that last part, but I guess it's my brain's way of trying to tell me that things can change. How I know that information, I don't know, but I guess I do.

  As the phoenix speaks with me, the others take down a stonebullet elk we drew near. All of the beasts in this forest being magical means they don't have to worry about whether or not it's legal to hunt it. Only nonmagical elk are out of season right now.

  I wait until after they finish to talk again.

  "Um… how does the special hunt happen?" I ask.

  "There's a lake nearby," Carter tells me. "We're on our way to it right now. The rite-of-passage won't just activate, you actually have to strip down to no more than pants. Oh, but your bracelets and anklets are fine. It's shoes, socks, shirts, and hat which have to go."

  "Remember," the hallucinatory phoenix says. "You get pulled into a pocket space for it, so others will only see you briefly. And you don't need to get naked, just bare-chested and barefoot. This is because without protection for your chest, it feels more real, and the same goes for your feet."

  My feet?

  "Shoes help protect your toes, after all."

  But then why not-oh. The rite-of-passage isn't meant to inflict severe wounds, and the beast to fight in it probably doesn't go for the crotch. That's why pants are fine and shorts are preferred. It's not actually looking to seriously injure me, it's just testing me with a little bit of pain involved.

  Maybe it's not so bad, after all.

  "And by completing this rite of passage," the hallucinatory phoenix says. "Then you can brave your way through some pretty scary things as well, right?"

  That's true. Just thinking about agreeing to do it is making me feel a little dizzy and light-headed, and my heart is beating faster and I've been having to force myself to take slower breaths. Getting into a fight where I can get hurt isn't something I want to do, not at all.

  But if I can do this one, maybe other things won't be as scary anymore.

  My subconscious can be scarily right sometimes. And I know it's my subconscious and just a hallucination because absolutely none of them have reacted to the phoenix sitting on my shoulder. That means they can't see it, which means it's not real. Well, and also because I've figured out how to tell when my magical perspicacity is allowing me to see through illusions and stuff and it's not doing that right now.

  Which means either the phoenix is real or it's my imagination. Since no one else is reacting to it and it's not invisible, it's a hallucination. I'm fairly certain I'd be feeling shock, surprise, and/or confusion in their minds if he were really here, too. No matter how hard I try, I can't.

  "Um… okay," I say. "I-I'll try it. I think."

  "Cool!" Carter exclaims, then blushes a little when his dad shoots him a look. "Right. We're hunting."

  The lake turns out to be not too much further away, only about ten minutes' walking and hunting. When we arrive, my breath catches in my throat a little. It's so beautiful. The water looks extremely clear and it sparkles in the early dawn light. The sun has barely begun to rise but only just, and it makes the forest almost look like it's on fire, too.

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  "The grand spirit of the realm approves of you," the hallucinatory phoenix informs me as we all enter a clearing beside the lake. "The moment you've stripped down and walked to the water's edge, you'll be pulled into the pocket world for the challenge."

  There's some sort of magic here which keeps the trees from growing in, forcing the clearing into existence. The clearing itself is around two hundred feet along the shore and stretches about a hundred feet into the forest, without any plants other than grasses and flowers growing in it. The open space doesn't seem artificially set but one that's just a result of the magics in here, and the way they flow is really beautiful.

  "And remember," Carter tells me. "You don't have to get naked, you just have to strip down to your pants."

  Yeah, I know. The phoenix just-oh, right. He can't see or hear the phoenix, so he doesn't know. And he's probably trying to make sure I know I don't have to be fully uncomfortable for this, just a little bit.

  I nod and put my hat into one of my bracelets, then pull off my shirt and put it inside while hoping no one's looking at me. My abs still aren't fully defined yet so I'm still not completely healthy and they'll probably not like me too much if they can see it's taking me too long to get healthy.

  Once my shirt's in my storage, I pull off my boots and socks and add them in.

  "Just go down to the water," Mr. Martins tells me. "And it'll begin."

  "O-okay," I look at him and find that all of the others are looking away from me.

  Am I that ugly?

  "No, you dolt," the phoenix snorts as he lands on my left shoulder again. "They're being considerate of your shyness about your body. Tate's father ran a separate telepathic relay to tell everyone else without you hearing, out of consideration for you."

  I guess I subconsciously noticed the spell's use and that's why my hallucination's telling me this. Though it's probably a guess as to the reason why. But since it's my subconscious telling me this… then maybe that's what it really is? Carter's even admitted he thinks I'm cute so me not being healthy probably isn't why he'd look away.

  If Mr. Cox really did run a separate relay like that, then that was really nice of him.

  "Indeed," the phoenix says. "Go down to the water when you're ready. You'll notice the shift into the pocket world."

  Okay.

  "Before you go," Carter says. "One more thing – the fight basically has two parts. The first part is it attacking you with magic. It's basically impossible to fail in this part, and I don't know if anyone ever has."

  He looks at his dad for some reason.

  "I've never heard of anyone failing the first part," Mr. Martins says. "At least, not unless they fail to get through until dusk – or dawn, if they start at dusk."

  "Okay," Carter says. "So yeah, the monster will attack you from afar. It'll hurt, but you just have to push through that and rush the beast. That's where the bravery comes in – you have to gather up your courage to charge at something that's attacking you from afar. To get close to the very source of the danger you're facing. Only once you get close will it switch to trying to kick you or ram you, though it'll still use magic. There's no real advice I can give for this other than to try and think clearly and be brave."

  "Try to figure out how to get past the attacks," Mr. Cox tells me. "And think of how you can 'kill' the beast with just your body. And remember, it might seem like you can die there, but they never deal a fatal blow. If you would actually die during this second phase, they leave instead of issuing the attack and you return to us, unable to try again for a year. Also, you're fully healed when you leave, and your clothes are either mostly or fully mended as well."

  The spirit heals people after? That's really nice of him. It means he's probably a little good.

  "But remember," Tucker tells me. "Be brave, especially for the first part, where you're being attacked from afar. You pretty much can't fail it as it just does the same thing over and over no matter what you do."

  "O-okay," I nod a little. "Be brave. Be brave. Be brave. I'll try to do that."

  "That's all you need," Tate tells me. "Good luck."

  "T-thanks."

  I take a shaky breath, then begin walking toward the water. It's chilly without a shirt on here and I shiver a little. The autumn setting for this sacred area isn't just for the trees, it's for the temperature as well.

  Upon reaching the shore, I feel a shift in space. It was brief but it was definitely the creation of a pocket space that's different from other pocket spaces. Nothing looks any different here and the magic even seems the same.

  There's also no beast for me to fight. I look around and turn around and can't see anything at all. It was a trap! But how could that be? No one lied to me. Unless they managed to figure out how to trick my lie-detection magic; there are mind mages among them so that's a possibility.

  A strange magic of a type I rarely ever see and can't really understand fills the air here, and it's moving around a lot, too. That's the most terrifying part about this. I don't know what that magic is and can't understand what's going on. What if it's-

  "Aaaah!" I scream a little when a beast appears near the edge of the forest.

  It just appeared out of nowhere, as if it had always been here, and it arrived through that strange magical energy and seems to be made up of it.

  The beast has the body of an elk by the head of a wolf, its coat golden-brown. Horns poke out from the sides of its head, stretching out a little before turning back and upwards, and a pair of antlers sprout from the top of its head. A crystal rests in the center of its forehead, and tiny ones dangle from its antlers via tiny vines. Golden eyes look back at me, and we stare at each other for a few moments.

  Where did it come from? It really came from that magic energy I don't really know that well, and I'm not sure it was teleporting.

  The beast shakes its head for a moment, and a bunch of small shards of ice shoot at me, each one made up of that strange magic. It's not using mana, it's using whatever that other energy is. Spirit magic? They did say this area is governed by a spirit, didn't they? Then that must be a spirit beast, if that's a thing.

  I try to dodge the ice shards, but some of them scrape my skin. Whimpers escape me upon feeling pain. I don't want to be here anymore! But teleporting doesn't work when I try. Fuck! I forgot they said I can't use magic during this!

  The beast sends more ice shards at me, these ones on fire. The next round is small shards of stone, then little shards of compressed air. He keeps switching every attack or two which element the shards are made out of, and they're sometimes on fire.

  It hurts so much and it won't stop! Why is it attacking me? I've tried to be good! I'm sorry!

  No, no, no! I curl up on the ground and put my hands on the back of my neck. Stop, stop, stop! Please stop beating me! Please stop beating me! Please stop beating me! I didn't mean to be bad! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!

  [Sig – 13 years]

  The sun has fully risen now and some antelope have come out. Well, the sun has only barely fully risen now, but we can see pretty well. Some antelope have come out and are near the creek and I really want to give taking one down a try.

  I really don't understand why we had to come out so early. There's no way the antelope would have been scared off by us coming out at a more reasonable hour.

  The only thing keeping me sane as we wait is "looking for gold". Xander's instruction last night was so random and it's stuck in my head. Rather than looking for actual gold, I keep looking around to see if there's anything which could be considered golden, like the hay bales. It was fun for about five minutes as nothing is really changing, but I'm doing it anyway because there's not really anything else to do.

  "S.G." Mr. Fuller whispers after a few more minutes. "Based on what Seph told me about enhancing arrows, you should be able to hit one of the bucks in that group," he points at one. "If you want to give it a try, go ahead. But if you miss, don't rush another shot. They might run and you may end up wasting a second arrow and the mana for it. Even if they don't, trying to quickly correct can lead to you aiming wrong."

  I want to tell him I know how to shoot a bow, he's already taught me all of this. Snapping at him will probably just lead to him revoking my right to hunt, though, so I just huff and try to focus as I nock an arrow and cast. The spells take me a few seconds to set and once they're all on the arrow, I aim at one of the antelope.

  There's a bigger one that I want to shoot, but he's another five yards further away than the one I'm aiming at. Attempting to show off and missing would be really embarrassing and I want to be able to show Xander what I caught today.

  Deep breaths, I tells myself. Don't rush, but shoot before the spells fade.

  Once I feel I'm aiming right, I release the string. Several of the antelope look over the moment the string lets out its twang, including the one I'm aiming at. None of them move more than that at first and my arrow strikes true, straight into the chest of the beast I was aiming at.

  The moment the antelope drops, the others take off. They've probably realized there's danger and are heading for safety. I know I would think there's danger if one of my friends suddenly dropped dead with something sticking out of his body.

  Or in Xander's case, if he suddenly looked really annoyed at the arrow that attempted to pierce his body. He'd probably be really mad about his shirt getting ruined.

  The danger wouldn't be towards me in that case… I pity anyone who might try to kill him. Xander seems like the kind of guy who would go for elimination first and get scolded later.

  "Good job," Mr. Fuller tells me. "Let's go get it."

  "You said small game don't have a season, right?" I ask. "That we can hunt them at any time?"

  "Yes," he says. "But one thing at a time. We need to take care of your kill first, both to make sure it's dead and remove its guts to lessen the chances of it spoiling."

  "It's just," I say. "When I looked at you, I spotted some big rabbits hanging out by another bale. They're in range and their fur is kind of golden."

  Mr. Fuller looks in the same direction I am and spots the rabbits. They're fairly large, probably three-quarters of the way up to my knees or more. Three of them are hanging out beside the bale and would probably blend in if their fur wasn't a little metallic. Even with that, they still blend in rather well. The only reason I noticed them is probably because of what Xander said last night, to look for gold.

  I want to try and catch one just because of what Xander said.

  "I think those are hares rather than rabbits," Mr. Fuller tells me. "But yeah, there's no season on small game here. Never seen a hare with fur which looks that much like gold, though. Go ahead and try, then we need to take care of the antelope."

  "Alright," I aim at the hares and cast the trio of spells again.

  The moment my bow lets out its twang at my release of the string, all three hares turn their heads to look at us, then their fur begins to shimmer, turning them into blurs.

  I'm already nocking my next arrow before the first one strikes and I want to rush the next shot but know Mr. Fuller will scold me if I do. He might scold me anyway with me attempting to shoot a second one.

  One of the hares goes down from the first arrow and I fire off the second arrow after seeing where the other two are running… sort of. They're blurs as they move and are bolting in a zigzag pattern. I don't have time to cast any of the spells except for the one which enhances the speed of the arrow, but I quickly figure out the path of the nearer hare and shoot it.

  The moment that one goes down, the third hare turns and starts charging toward us. Focusing on it is hard due to the shimmering of its fur and I try to aim an arrow at it, but it's grown brighter and I can't see very well.

  Normal rabbits (and hares, probably) don't charge toward their predators. If the light magic wasn't already a sign, I'd know this is a magic beast.

  "Relax the string!" Mr. Fuller shouts.

  No blind shots. I relax the string just in time for something to impact me in the chest. My bow and arrow drop to the ground as I'm sent falling backwards, though I grab at the bundle of light and fur when I go down. The impact hurts so much, but I don't let go and wrestle the glowing hare to the ground underneath me. It squirms and struggles against me, but I'm strong enough to hold it down.

  Barely. This thing is almost as strong as I am, physically. That means it has a lot of mana, if I'm remembering things correctly. A normal hare would not be this strong so it would need a lot more mana than I have to be as strong as me. I could be wrong and it only has as much mana as I do but considering how much light it's generating, I doubt it.

  The hare and I wrestle for a minute before I manage to get a good grip on it, pinning it against my body with my arms and legs.

  "Mr. Fuller," I say. "I don't know what to do now, but I really don't want to let go. It might attack me again, but catching all three would be fricking amazing, too."

  "Break its neck," Mr. Fuller tells me.

  "Break it's… neck?"

  "Get a good grip on its head," he says. "And twist. Try to do it fast."

  "B-but-the-"

  This is not what I was expecting when I came out here to hunt. It's-with my own hands-but it's-how do I do it like this?

  My heart pounds in my chest as my breathing grows short as I try to readjust my grip on the hare. After managing it, I close my eyes.

  "Sorry," I mumble, then squeak a little when I snap its neck.

  The hare ceases its struggle immediately and I spend a few moments just trying to calm my breathing. I… killed it. With my hands. It died in my hands.

  "A bit different than a bow, huh?" Mr. Fuller quietly asks.

  "Y-yeah," I mumble.

  "Take a minute to calm yourself," he tells me.

  "O-okay."

  Once I calm a little, he has me pull off my shirt.

  "Rate the pain," he tells me. "One to ten, with ten being unbearable."

  "About a four," I answer. "It was definitely a seven when it hit, though."

  "Now?" He asks as he pokes my chest a little.

  "Five," I inhale sharply from the pain.

  He touches my chest in a few different spots, asking me to rate the pain each time. I think he's examining my skin, which is a deep red right now. Once he finishes the touch test, he has me inhale deeply.

  "Pain level?" He asks.

  "About a five when I'm nearly done," I answer.

  "Does it feel like you can take a full breath?" He asks. "Or does it feel like you're unable to take full breaths?"

  I take a few deep breaths, wincing each time the pain spikes.

  "I can breathe fine," I answer. "It just hurts a bit."

  "That's good," he says. "Moving your arms doesn't hurt too much, does it?"

  I move my arms around.

  "No," I answer. "It hurts a bit if I stretch them out like this, but I don't think it's too bad."

  "It doesn't seem you broke your ribs or sternum," he tells me. "We'll keep an eye on you just in case, though. Looks like you're a fairly sturdy kid even with only double normal mana capacity. That thing moved fast enough I was sure it broke something. Hunter definitely would've broken something from that impact."

  "I'm tough as golems!" I thump my chest, then wince. "Ooooow!"

  "And as dumb as a teen," he chuckles. "Come on, let's get your other hares."

  We pick up this one and walk over to the others. They weigh a decent amount, and Mr. Fuller says they probably weight about twenty to thirty pounds. Hares also have a lot of meat in relation to weight, and I can probably get about seventy to eighty percent of the hares' weight as meat.

  Which is a lot, though he says I shouldn't make it the only thing in my diet.

  "It's very lean meat," he explains. "So it doesn't have much fat, so you need to make sure to make up for that when eating it. Same with the antelope."

  "Will do!" I say.

  We carry the hares over to the dead antelope, then Mr. Fuller walks me through how to remove and deal with their guts, with gloves up. Before we do that, however, Mr. Fuller has me set the three hares in front of the antelope, then has me pose behind the antelope and hold up its head.

  "There we go," he says after snapping a few pictures with my phone. "Now you've got some pictures you can share with your friends."

  "Cool," I grin as I immediately send the best-looking one to Xander, then to the group chat.

  I hope Xander's hunt is going well. He'd mentioned while we were texting Thursday night that he wants to catch something he called an accelerelk. That's something I'll have to find out once he's texting again, I'm sure his phone is off right now.

  The hares are tied up with twine Mr. Fuller brought and he carries them, while I carry the antelope over one shoulder. It's heavy, but I'm not just durable from my mana level, I'm strong as well. On top of that, my muscles are pretty good.

  While I'm nothing extraordinary, I can still carry a lot of weight.

  We bring the catches back to the camp, where Mr. Fuller checks my chest again after we set my catches and our thermoses and weapons down. Nothing seems to be broken, so he gets to work teaching me how to skin and cut the beasts. Butchering them takes longer than I expected, nearly two hours to get all four beasts taken care of so they can fit into the coolers. We also don't fully butcher them, we're just separating them into small enough pieces they'll cool faster and fit into the coolers better.

  "It can take one person longer to do it all by himself, of course," Mr. Fuller says as we make sure the coolers are closed and secure. "But you picked it up quickly and did a good job, even if a fast one. And I've done this since I was younger than you, so I'm not too bad. All in all, a good morning for you, if a bit of a painful one."

  "Yeah," I grin. "My chest is feeling a bit better, so I don't think anything broke."

  "We'll still need to keep an eye on it just in case," he says. "But it doesn't look like we need to go to the hospital."

  "Which is a biiiiiiiig relief," I say. "I'm not sure Aunt Rachel will want me to go hunting again if she finds out I got hurt. It'd be even worse if I ended up in the hospital."

  "Yes, it is," he chuckles, then pulls out his phone. "Hunter just texted me, says he and Seph managed to catch an antelope each and are on their way back."

  "They both caught one?" I ask. "Did they shoot together, then?"

  "Maybe," he says. "I didn't want to try with you as two aiming moving around risks alerting them more than just one. They went further away and will probably take about half an hour or so before they get here. Why don't we get breakfast started? I brought the stuff to make pancakes and eggs."

  "Please tell me there's syrup."

  "There is," he chuckles. "Pull that box over, why don't you? It's got the dry foods in it."

  [Xander – 12 years]

  The beast hasn't stopped attacking me yet. It's quieted down a lot, but it still sends something at me every few minutes. I don't know what I did to deserve a beating but I wish I hadn't done it. These more recent attacks aren't even hitting me, they're just hitting the ground by me.

  Though it's been five minutes now and it hasn't attacked again. Maybe it's gone? But I can hear the little jangles of its dangling crystals when they hit each other as it moves its head around. I can also hear it walking.

  It's coming over here. Oh, no! It's gonna gouge me with its antlers and kill me for being bad! And I don't even know what I did!

  The beast reaches me and lightly nudges me with its antlers. It does this a few times. This isn't painful at all, why is it doing this? This is annoying. Also a little confusing, as I can't tell what it's doing now.

  The beast keeps nudging me about once every thirty seconds or so for some reason. This is far from beating me or trying to kill me for being a bad boy. Besides, wasn't this supposed to be a test? Why was it punishing me for being a bad boy?

  A test… I hate tests. Especially painful ones.

  Oh, right… it's supposed to be a fight. The beast wasn't beating me for being bad, it was just beating me because I'm bad at remembering I'm in a fight.

  But if I try to fight it, it'll probably get mad at me and attack me. But if I don't fight it, then I fail the test. But if I try to fight it, it'll probably kill me.

  But maybe it won't… it's supposed to fade away after I defeat it, leaving me the necklace.

  Be brave. Just try and do it. The test is still going, since I'm still here rather than back with the others.

  I start taking deep breaths to try and calm myself down and think of what I can do. Magic won't help since I can't use it right now, either. That means all I can do is just… wrestle it?

  The next time the beast nudges me with its antlers… I fail to gather the courage to grab and pull. The same happens the next time, and the time after that.

  Then I manage to brave my way into it, grabbing its antlers and pulling as quickly as I can, before I can lose my courage. I pull myself up with this and swing my body, somehow managing to land on the beast's back.

  It turns its head to look at me and I wrap my arms around its neck and begin squeezing. This should be enough to take it down, right? Or maybe not. Didn't the others say that it should be as tough as I am? But Adam's taught me how to choke out and if I cut off its oxygen supply, maybe I can kill it that way? I don't think I want to do that but it's all I can think of.

  "You can stop."

  "NHHHHHHHHH!"

  "You can stop."

  Who's that talking.

  "I'm able to directly create air in my lungs," the beast tells me. "And I don't have blood in the same sense as you, anyway. Cutting off the bloodflow won't bother me. Choking me out won't work."

  "AAAAH! IT TALKS!"

  I find myself on the ground, scrambling back, immediately after realizing this.

  "That's a little rude," it says. "I'm a 'he', and it seems Blaze was right and you can understand the spirit language."

  "Who's Blaze?"

  "An old friend," he states. "One who's probably laughing his tail off at not letting me know that you have magical perspicacity."

  This is not how I expected this to go. Not at all. Also, how does he laugh his tail off? Is he some sort of lizard?

  "How does that matter?"

  "The test is a test of courage," the beast tells me. "It's one intended for you to prove that you can be brave enough to face the dangers which might come your way. I've always liked people ever since first meeting them, some thousands of years ago. That's why I offered to allow a test of courage and my blessing."

  I have no idea where this is going or what it has to do with magical perspicacity.

  "Your blessing?"

  "Yes," he answers. "You've probably seen signs of it but didn't think anything of it. I can tell you can perceive pretty much every type of magical energy, not just mana. So long as those who complete the test of courage remain good, their work in growing crops and raising animals will be more fruitful as long as they're within my domain."

  So the bountiful crops they have isn't just from the magic in the soil but a blessing from a spirit. There's probably more to it than that but it seems like nobody tells me everything.

  "Because this is simply a test of courage," he says. "I don't normally fight them directly. I conjure an illusion for them to fight. Even the injuries themselves are mere illusions, which is why they're 'healed' when they leave here."

  "And magical perspicacity means I don't see it."

  "Correct," he says. "You probably saw the energy in the illusions, but not the illusions themselves."

  Did I? Oh, yeah, I probably did. I remember seeing the energy that fills him up in a mass and flying around. So that was him trying to give me the trial, I was just… not seeing it.

  "And this… this Blaze-" oh! We're not too far from Yellowstone, which is where the fire elemental I know lives, if I'm remembering that correctly. So that's their name? I didn't know they had a tail. "They told you about me, but not that I have magical perspicacity?"

  "Correct," the beast says. "So I was trying to give you the trial, but you weren't being affected. Took me a minute to realize, then I came here directly to issue it."

  He lowers his head.

  "I apologize for scaring you so much," he says. "Your reaction was not one I'm used to. But in the end, you managed to gather up the courage to face me."

  "I still failed, though," I say.

  "Why do you think that?"

  "Because I curled up and cried and was probably screaming," I say. "I didn't really beat you at all."

  "You did," he says.

  "But-"

  "The goal of this rite of passage is to overcome fear," he says. "To prove you can push through when afraid, to have courage in the face of danger. It took you a few hours, but you managed to do it."

  "They said it was to be able to prove you can hunt," I say. "To be able to figure out what to do in a fight like that."

  "You did, didn't you?" He asks. "Once you got through your fears, you thought of what you should do and acted on it."

  "I don't feel like I passed…" I mumble.

  "Would you like to try again?" He asks. "This time, doing your best to not freak out?"

  "I have to wait a year, don't I?"

  "That's for if you fail," he says. "You've already passed, you just don't feel like it. It's my rules, so if I say it's okay for you to try again after passing if you don't feel like you did, you may."

  I was about to ask if it's really okay, but he answered that before I could. If he's really okay with me wanting to try again, then I want to.

  "Y-yeah," I nod.

  "Then stand up," he says. "And I'll get back into position."

  As I stand, I realize that we were talking but I don't know his name. He probably knows mine because of Blaze, but it was still bad manners for me to not introduce myself. Dad will be disappointed if he finds out I was speaking with an ancient spirit but didn't introduce myself, and I understand that. It really is bad manners.

  I better introduce myself now so that it's as soon as I remember rather than waiting.

  "Um…" I say. "My name's X-Xander, by the way. I don't think anyone told me your name."

  "I've never given it to a human," he tells me. "It's in the spirit tongue, which is difficult for humans to learn."

  "But that's what we're speaking?" I ask. "I don't remember learning it."

  "Some things are passed on via bloodline," he says. "Magical talents, mana capacity, mana growth, magical perspicacity, knowledge of the spirit tongue, and a few other things."

  So it's just another thing I inherited from Grandpa Adrian.

  "Oh."

  "My name is-" the spirit gives me his name.

  Whoa. That really is hard to put into any of the human languages I know. The best way I can think of would be "Effervescent Light of the Shimmering Autumn Lair", which isn't even right. Not only is it a lot longer than his name, but it's still not a proper way of putting it into human words.

  Half of the name is just straight up magic rather than sound, too.

  "You may call me 'Fern' if that's easier for you," he says.

  "A lot."

  Fern chuckles, then walks over to where he appeared at earlier, turns, and faces me.

  "Ready?" He asks.

  "N-no," I answer. "B-but let's do this."