27 Another five years
I did as Elder Irvin asked as soon as I returned home. My mother was quite amused by my story, but in the end, she did not promise not to hit Irvin again. I really wonder why...
As soon as my probation ended I would be training again, often with my mother and often enough without her. Her training did take a turn, though. She tried to pull out my angry side in order for me to learn and focus that anger into something more constructive destructive. I did try and persuade her, but in the end, I think she might be right. If I have an anger problem it is best to learn how to control it without hurting the wrong people, although I really doubt, that I would be able to hurt them... much. And we have Elder Irvin to heal!
I also asked her about her blessing, but in the end, there was no new information. All she would say is that she is stronger now compared to before and she is able to take more punches and so on... really nothing new...
My experimentations with my bow crafting went less than well. I made numerous mistakes. One of them was that I forgot to dry the wood before using it, so my first bow was pretty much useless after a few tries. Secondly, I am far stronger now than in my former life and so I misjudged how thick the bow had to be. I also often made errors in balancing the two bow arms. They need to be in perfect balance and that is far harder than I ever would have imagined and if I shave off too much the bow would then turn thin once again. In the past five years, I didn´t manage to create a bow that I could use for long... Partially my growth also meant that my strength and my height increased and I needed to craft new bows. I managed to get a more or less working bow, but it worked less well than I hoped... perhaps I shouldn´t try and compare myself and my bow to Legolas...
Once a week I had my little sessions with Elder Irvin and he thought me the style of writing from our village. It was a crude script that consisted of simple lines similar to german runes. It isn´t exactly made for the purpose of fast writing, but better than having nothing at all. To my questions why we had to keep the writing a secret... It is dumb! Apparently, the script was a present from the gods... and so it was a holy thing and only meant to describe the tales of the gods... I would have laughed, but that was just too sad! Better try and change that as soon as I become a Seansceal and Elder Irvin is dead... May he live long... It´s not good to wish for somebody to die and also he is the only one within our village who is able to heal. Gatekeeping the script... Now I really have seen and heard it all...
Luckily my position within the village increased a bit. During the tournaments, I avoid placing last and my continued winning streak against Zawis, who is only losing to me and no one else is perplexing the other villagers and giving me some respect. Also, even though Irvin tried to keep it a secret, people soon found out, that I might be the next Seansceal and that improved my standing a bit more. It is similar to how in school nobody wants to be the class rep and so you treat the one unfortunate guy a bit better so that he won´t quit. So there would be no danger of yourself becoming the class rep after a new election. Both sides are winning!
Sadly I did not have time to socialize with my own age group and the problem with Athala wasn´t solved. We did not have the time to talk with each other that much, but I did spot her quite a few times watching me and mother train.
By the way, I think I am becoming more and more aware of who is sneaking around me. My mother had a nice way of teaching me that. She called it the hunting game and it is basically tag... in a dangerous area. Basically, mother wouldn´t chase away the dangerous animals and I had to avoid both them and her. I lose when she needs to rescue me and I lose if she manages to catch me. It is a very difficult game and it was frustrating the first dozen times or so I had to play it because I simply got rescued all the time or when through some sort of miracle I managed to avoid the animals' mother was never far behind me. She went easy on me I am sure... But in the end, I do have better awareness now... I think.
Now I am almost ten years old and my blessing ceremony will start in a few days. I am still quite unsure if I should take the blessing, but on the other hand Elder Irvin indirectly explained to me that if I want to stay in this village... in any of the villages I need a blessing. It is kind of the ritual for really joining the village more or less. It might be comparable to the baptism... You know you go to church and pray, but only after the baptism, you are allowed to take part in the real life of the church. In the younger days of Christianity baptism was necessary in order to take part in the mess and it wasn´t just a bit of water and a few words, but the preparation time was about three years. That changed during the middle ages I believe, when the fear of dying before the baptism was so great, that they started to skip the preparation and baptized infants since without the baptism one was not part of the church and did not have a part in the salvation...
As if the humans had any saying in who is going to get saved... Baptism for infants is dumb. Let them grow first, teach them what it means to be a christ - since many people seem to not know nowadays - and then let them decide if they want to be a part of it or not.
I am ranting again, aren´t I? I don´t know why this keeps bothering me, since this world might not even have Christianity...
Anyway, I need a blessing, so I went sometimes and stared into the spring not far from the village in the forest. It was relaxing at least, but I don´t think I understood more than before. The ritual is in a few days' time and my nerves seem to become less and less stable. That day will decide, if I stay or if I need to butter up to the enemies of my home. Since I probably won´t be able to survive on my own...
It will be fine... it will be fine... I hope.