Strength
At first, everything was quiet. Slowly, sounds began to permeate the silence. First, his guts, then his heartbeat, followed by the rest of his internals ensuring him of their presence. Finally, a gust of cool, fresh air larger than the ones before it confirmed his set path. An ever so gentle push from the realm of dreams that drove him to the waking world, albeit slowly and with a great deal of control and care. It was a gift to wake up like this, well deserved after everything he had gone through. Ori hadn't quite slept this well since he was away from the village, however long ago that was, and while his thoughts weren't quite up to full coherence yet, he swore he wasn't going to take restful sleep for granted, at least for the next little bit. A soft crackling sound started the next step, giving him a reason to leave the oddly comforting warmth hugging his very being despite a lack of any ability to recall why he shouldn't be outside in the snow. As his eyes opened to observe the oddity, he quickly noticed he wasn't the only source of light around this time. A crackling fire ("The source of the noise!" he thought) cast its red-orange light in a wide radius, alongside a tall, broadly built spirit sitting next to it. Even without knowing who he was, the mere presence of another of his own kind was more than enough to bring him comfort after going without it for so long.
"Hello there, little one," greeted the stranger in a deep, calming voice. "You're lucky you made it out of there alive. I almost mistook you for one of those ghost spirits." Ori sat up from his lying position, it would be rude to show such indifference to one he owed so much. "Yes, I couldn't possibly overstate how grateful I am for your help. I both don't know nor want to know what could have happened if you had passed me by," he said with utmost seriousness. "I wish to repay you for what you've done for me." But to his surprise, the stranger brushed him off! Instead, he was met with a wide, friendly grin and jovial tone completely belying the stranger's strong appearance. "Eh, you don't need to do anything, my friend! When I see someone in danger, I help them. Especially if they're one of my own kind!" "I… see. Well, my thanks again, regardless," Ori replied. "No problem pal! You seem quite tough," the stranger chuckled. "What's your name? A strong warrior's name, I might ask?"
Now, by this point thin strands of doubt had begun to color Ori's opinion of just how safe he was. Why was the stranger so positive and upbeat? Was he so dense and oblivious as to actually miss what had happened to the forest while they were literally sitting in who knows how deep snow covering the landscape as far as the eye could see? "Or maybe," a more pessimistic thought came forward, "this is all he's ever known it to be." Just how long had he been under the snow? Was anyone he knew previously even still alive? It was no time to go off track though, and so rather than stand in awkward silence he responded, "Oh, my name is Ori." He hoped the stranger wouldn't notice his nervous chuckle at the end, the only crack into his internal panic. Either the stranger didn't notice, or was too kind to comment, because he was already on with his boisterous laughter. "Ori! Truly a warrior's name! Actually…" The stranger paused for a moment to think. "Ori… That name does ring a bell, I'm sure I've heard it somewhere before, but it was a while ago… Well, doesn't matter!" Ori's eyes unfocused. "Nice to meet you, Ori. I am Tsui." The taller spirit held out his paw. Rather than take it, though, Ori rushed Tsui and hugged him tightly. The spirit, while his news had imparted rather bleak conclusions, was clearly a friend, a light in the darkness that Ori could focus on and drag himself from all his what-ifs. One he sorely needed. "Thank you, Tsui, for saving me. I'm not certain I could ever tell you just how much it means to me." Tsui chuckled lightly. "Well, everything for a spirit in need, little buddy. You have quite the hug there. Much like a true warrior." Ori stayed for a while, but eventually he had to let go. Plopping himself back down into the cold snow again, the snow was infinitely more comfortable in front of Tsui.
"Well, now that introductions are out of the way, I've gotta say I've been dying to ask ya about it. It's pretty strange for me to be seeing winter coming so early in the year. Back from where I was from, it was the middle of the summer, but when I arrived here it was freezing cold! Are the seasons here different than from those back on my homeland?" Tsui asked. "Wait," Ori was suddenly confused. "You arrived here? You're not from Niwen?" Tsui shook his head. "No, I come from another island, right in that direction." He stretched out his muscular arm and pointed with a single finger to one specific quarter of the view. As he raised his voice to speak again, Ori had never felt such a familiar attachment to a word he could have swore he'd also never heard before.
"It's called Nibel."
Why was that? An image of the sorrowful, cold scene of a treetop, its branches shaping a spherical vessel much like the Spirit Tree of Niwen. But, much unlike the tree he knew, it was empty. No glowing orb sat in the middle. Ori couldn't discern anything else about the landscape, but he knew that was important somehow. He needed more information. "Hmm," he asked the air, lost in his own thoughts. "Why do I feel I've heard of that place before?" Tsui was quick to offer his own guess. "Well, it's possible you were there once. We spirits do tend to visit other islands sometimes to expand our horizon and see something new." That didn't help Ori, he'd never left Niwen, even if the insight into his own kinds' culture was mildly interesting. He knew Mori would be struggling to contain himself, the moki would have done nearly anything to interview an adult spirit. "Though," Tsui continued, breaking Ori out of his thoughts, "I just remembered where I heard the name Ori." He raised his head until a soft, but confident grin made its way onto his face. "Yeah, if I just think about it right, there was indeed someone with your name, a spirit, also named Ori." The smaller spirit tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. Now he was curious, this could actually help him. "Are you absolutely certain?" he questioned. "Yes, he lived a few meadows away from the rest of us in a cave beside a large tree. He was older than the rest of us, and yet there was a day when I could've sworn I saw them flying in the air on the back of a little owl." He ended his sentence with a soft chuckle of amusement, something Ori was quickly noticing as somewhat of a character trait of his.
"A little owl?" That had to be Ku! He had never heard of any other owls, anyway, and Tsui seemed reliable on the subject. It fell in with the "two lives" theory he had going, but if that owl had really been Ku then he must've been born many, many years after whatever he could consider his first life. While the new nugget of information on his probable past was valuable, other thoughts began to fill his mind too, each with their own, more immediate importance.
"Hmm," Ori mused before changing the subject to one of them. "And switching back to more worldly concerns, you said earlier that it was quite early for winter to have came? When did you arrive here, and what season were you having when you left Nibel?" he asked, turning toward Tsui again. "Ah, I was wondering when you'd ask that. It's a good question, pal. When I left Nibel, it was the height of summer… Wait." Tsui stopped for a moment, his expression rapidly changing from his normal carefree, friendly one to an expression that harbored a great deal of concern, with a twinge of growing horror. "Don't tell me…" Ori's eyes widened at the realization, but he had to confirm it.
"I'm sorry to say it, Tsui, but last I remember, we were in the middle of summer too."
The tall spirit scratched his head, trying in vain to find a probable cause to such a strange occurrence in the weather. "Maybe," he started, his voice holding no confidence, "it's just a freak cold wave that the wind brought over to your island? Happens all the time on Nibel as well, much to the annoyance of my more heat-acclimatized fellows. I'm sure you're… familiar… with similar phenomena?" he provided, trying to keep a little hope alive.
Now, polite as Ori was, the look he gave Tsui and the air he gave off slammed home the message "Seriously?" more firmly than words ever could. Tsui had to admit defeat. "Of course, I've barely heard of a summer cold snap that required more than a blanket, so the likelihood it shifts to temperatures colder than I've ever seen or heard of in the darkest of winters, even accounting for the inevitable differences between here and home is not… good." Ori nodded. "You'd be right that we experience cold snaps, same as everyone else apparently, but never anything to this extent, nor for this duration. There is nothing normal about this weather," he sighed, both concerned and relieved. While now his worries over his deep, unconscious slumber under the snow hadn't been some terrible one-way fling through time that separated him from everything he ever knew, he potentially had a worse problem in that rather than social and emotional trauma of being separated from the old and having to adapt to the new, his family and friends having perished in their old age without ever knowing where he had gone, their lives (and his) were all under threat at a much younger age from more physical obstacles. And still without knowing where he had gone! Moreover, with his luck, while some some accident or environmental disaster could have been that which had thrown everything off, the idea that some malicious all-powerful actor existed and had actually gone and done all this deliberately seemed more likely with every passing second. The length of time he had spent unaware was still unclear at best, and he had no idea what had happened to his body while he was underneath, but the best case scenario of only having been under for a few days was now far more likely. Assuming no magical oddities looking to affect him specifically had come along, (and he had no evidence to suggest they had) he would have died a mundane death due to dehydration. And after all, his light was still shining as brightly as it ever had, with no evidence it had ever gone out. Those who visited the Grim Reaper once entered his realm of death for eternity, never to leave; he knew that. "Except for all your evidence you may have already done just that," his ever-helpful mind provided.
"Hey buddy, what are you thinking about? Whatever it is, it looks like you're having a difficult time at it. Maybe I can help you?" Tsui offered, noticing Ori's face contorting into a rather painful-looking position. "You'll get a stiff neck if you keep staring up at the sky like that." Ori shook his head ever so slightly in response. "No…," he refused. "It's nothing important." "And definitely not something you want to try to explain anyway," he thought. Before Tsui could insist, however, the little spirit's little stomach joined the conversation and rapidly changed the topic with a hungry grumble. The grumble was quite loud, and it startled Ori just a little bit. The tiny fruit from earlier hadn't been enough to satisfy him, it seemed.
Tsui, for his part, couldn't hide a wide grin. "I know what's wrong now," he laughed. "You're hungry!" A somewhat humble and slightly ashamed look met his eyes below him, while the child focused on trying to hide those sounds before giving up and nodding. "I… I've barely had anything to eat for days," Ori agreed quietly, much to Tsui's sudden fright. "Oh no, you poor thing. You need to eat properly, kid. It's important for you to grow." Ori's view only dipped lower. "I know, I know," he said. "It's just so hard to find anything in this frozen wasteland of an environment. I barely even recognize my own home like this. Everything is so bald and dead. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was a whole new world, ruled by the cold itself." Tsui shook his head in both disappointment and compassion. Without a word, he walked over to a nearby tree and delivered several quick punches to its base. Even though it hadn't seemed like it had taken much effort from him at all, the loud, powerful thuds disturbing the regular silence and the violent shaking of the tree betrayed just how strong the spirit was. "You know," he started, "I've only seen these frozen—" Just then, interrupting his sentence, a fruit, seemingly hopelessly frozen, dropped right into his enormous right paw. Without skipping a beat, Tsui continued right along. "—fruits here. They barely—" Tsui smashed the frozen thing with incredible force against the same tree, shattering the ice instantaneously into many thousands of pieces and freeing the fruit right away. "—sate us spirits. Even you, little thing, need to eat more than this." Tsui slung the small ball forward to Ori's waiting arms. The smaller spirit took a humble bite from the fruit, and while it was still harder than any fruit he had ever eaten, it was blessedly edible. "Thank you," was all he said, the message was clear in the way he ravenously ate the fruit without pause. While he did, the taller one cleared his throat to grab his counterpart's attention. "Well, while you're clearly hungrier than I am, that doesn't mean I don't want to eat too. As I don't know this place very well, I'm thinking that since you do, you might be able to lead us to a spot where we can both sate our hunger? What do you think?" Ori had just finished his fruit, and he got up with a smile and a feeling that he might actually be useful. "I, uh, don't recognize the forest as clearly as I once did, but if I had to guess, there would be more of them up there," he pointed into the treetops. The trees here were still densely packed with leaves, and regardless of their living state, the canopy was completely opaque. Without waiting for an answer, he immediately jumped at the bark of the nearest tree. Like before, however, the attempt almost instantly failed as he slid down the tree, completely unable to gain any traction on the ice with his hooves. "Uh… maybe over here?" he said before trying his luck at another spot. Again, both the attempt and Ori were fruitless. "Little one," Tsui started, but Ori was too stubborn to stop now and flung himself at another spot that revealed itself to be just as stubborn as he was. "Hey, Ori!" The little spirit shook his head, "Wait, I have to climb up a little bit before we can even really start." Tsui scoffed. "You're never going to get up there like that, but I think I have a better idea. Come here." Trusting his offer, Ori cautiously approached him only to be rapidly grabbed with a strong grasp around his pelvis and lower torso. "What—" was all he could get out before he was swirled around and found himself sailing through the air. "Hey!" he yelled angrily, feeling more than a little violated and endangered before suddenly realizing what he needed to do. "There you go!" he could hear Tsui yelling from the ground, but it was surprisingly faded, an indicator of just how high up he was, and just how much he didn't want to mess up. Instinctively, his paws shot out and grabbed the first branch he passed as he rounded the curve and began falling back down. He struggled up and stood on the dark wood safely. Luckily for them both, it really did house a great deal of those frozen fruits. Habitually, he began to attempt to gather them like he always had for his family, but he quickly ran into the problem that a single shake was not nearly enough to free them. He quickly improvised by jumping on the branch several times until the frozen fruits broke whatever connections they had and fell. After his many hours of training, he had more than enough balance to do it without falling himself.
"That's probably enough!" Tsui yelled up at Ori. "There's more down here than the two of us could eat all day!" Shaking one last fruit off for good measure, Ori acknowledged his success with a warning to the spirit below him. "Watch out, I'm coming down!" With a graceful leap from the tree, Ori landed in the powdery snow completely unharmed. "Hey, thank you pal!" said Tsui gratefully. Ori nodded with a small smile. "Wouldn't have been possible without your help." With a mighty clap of his paws, Tsui denied any further credit. "Ah, not a problem, kid. We should note, however, that this supply will only last us for two days, maybe three if we're thrifty enough. And," he raised his finger, "I have a small issue that's plagued me all my life. You see, unlike nearly everything else in nature, I eat the most during mid-winter. I made the fire big and next to a pond for a reason." With that, the two returned to the fire, while Ori tried to figure out the other's reasoning. Upon getting there, Tsui raised his leg and smashed it into the icy surface nearby, shattering the covering into pieces and freeing the frigid water beneath. Wasting no time, his paw dove into the water and returned with a small fish. It wasn't hard to make the connection now, and Ori's eyes widened to a worried expression as he guessed his new friend's favorite food. "Living beings?" he asked shakily. "A-Are we really allowed to eat those?" The larger spirit was confused by the question. Ori guessed it must've been custom for the foreign spirit to eat fish, and while Ori was not one to judge others based on what they ate, that didn't mean he wanted to eat some slimy living fish! "Of course," said Tsui, "I mean, in winter you can't really rely on something like fruit for sustenance." Ori nodded and admitted he had a point. "You're right… but that doesn't mean I'll take a life just for an easy meal." Tsui's smile faded, and he nodded once. "I understand. I hope you find an alternative, or you'll really be in for it. And you need to stay strong. Not only is winter dangerous, but after all, if you want to get back to that dark, evil place, you'll need to be at your best. You have something you need to take care of there, right?" he asked.
"Well, in any case, take this." he said as he smashed one of the frozen fruits against a nearby tree. Ori took the fruit gratefully, shoving it into his mouth without a second thought. He finished half of it before realizing that Tsui was still looking at him expectantly, and remembered his question. "Mmm, mhm!" he swallowed. "Someone called me for help there, somebody important. Also, I need to find my father. If anybody can explain the sudden cold, it's him." "Ah," replied Tsui. "Well, if it were my guess, something disturbingly evil wants to see him too. The air is already unnaturally cold, and it only gets denser and more dangerous as you approach him. Not to mention the lack of any color at all in that general direction. You seem to have some strange competition, friend."
Ori was listening to Tsui's words as his heart sank and realization of just how bad his situation was kicked in when suddenly, the outside world faded and the larger spirit's words along with it. Something else, some pressure inside his head had caught all his attention. A wind? It sounded like howling air, the beginnings of a large storm, almost ear-numbing and most definitely off-putting. He couldn't he Tsui's words clearly despite knowing he could have touched him had he tried, and instead another voice came to prominence, manifesting itself from the storm inside his head. A very familiar one. It came as a whisper.
Help us Ori
The storm vanished as fast as it came. A word came from deep within, so alien, yet so familiar. "Seir." The outside world came back into being. "Seir?" Tsui was asking. "Who is Seir?" The taller spirit had noticed the littler one's mental adventure. "Well," began Ori humbly, "I'm very concerned about my family, you see. I saved a new friend of mine from a horde of these… ghost spirits, you called them. His name is Mori. But to save him, we had to separate, and I don't know if he got home safely, or even really escaped. Nor do I know whether Naru, Gumo, or Aria are okay, or where they might have gone. Raiki as well. I don't even know if my father is alright, and he's supposed to be omnipotent and all-powerful in the forest. The uncertainty tortures me every second I don't know, and I have no idea how I might solve it. The worst part, though, is that the order of my actions might matter, too! If I go to help my father, will it be too late to help my family? And if I help them first, do I doom the forest by doing so? Is it right to risk the safety of the forest for my friends? And what if everyone's already… beyond help?" he complained. "I see. And this Seir is also a friend of yours?" asked Tsui, still curious. The smaller spirit nodded humbly again, unwilling to make eye contact. Tsui closed the distance and placed his paw on Ori's tiny shoulder. "I think I can help you with that, Ori."
Finishing up the fish sticks while Ori turned away, Tsui threw the remaining wooden sticks carefully into the fire before sinking down to sit beside Ori on the snowy ground. Smashing another frozen fruit and tossing it to Ori, he began to plan. "Come little one, I need to tell you something."
…
"Now, I promise that we are going back to that dark place together. However, if you want even a slim chance of reaching your father, you need to learn how to use your light properly, and keeping your full strength for when you need it." said Tsui. "But…," Ori immediately protested, "I don't have time for training! We need to make sure everyone is alright, without my help, they might starve! I know we're on a time limit, but they're what I care about most. Plus, I'm nearly sure I know the way now. Making the presumption that the topography of the forest hasn't been wildly changed recently, something I wouldn't regularly even think of but is still probably still a pretty safe guess, then we should already be very close to father. From him, I know all the directions to the village. We really don't have any time to lose, let's go!" He said all this in one breath, and was still panting by the time Tsui laid his paw softly on his shoulder, an act that, for as little that he knew of the larger spirit, was still immensely comforting. "Ori, my little friend, I know you want to head out right away. When I was your age, I wouldn't have stopped either. Even now, I fully understand your concerns and fears. But you were immensely lucky to have survived the first time, and if you try again like you are now, you won't pull it off again. Even if we were to somehow avoid meeting any of the ghost spirits or I somehow fended them all off, you would just be fed to whatever mysterious dark power lies in wait there. There might even be more than one. Look at this from an outsider's standpoint: If you just die and solve nothing in your hasty panic, you won't be doing anyone any good. But if you get stronger and come at this with a plan to actually accomplish something, everyone, not the least of which being you, is infinitely better off than if you had gone immediately." warned Tsui. "And," he said, his expression turning into a smile, "you still need this. Come here." And with that, his strong arms deftly hugged Ori with the warmth of a friend, drawing him back to the present. Calm washed over his thoughts and doubts, and Ori remained like this for nearly half a minute. Finally, he said, "I… I trust you. I'll wait to see how this plays out." Tsui hugged him tighter. "You were in a very weakened state, when I found you. Once I realized you weren't one of the ghost spirits and you passed out, I was horrified that I had gone back to being the only fully sapient being in the forest again. I don't think I'll ever be able to describe to you exactly what it was like, but it will never happen again. Step two of that process is showing you how to keep your light inside you, so you can avoid losing too much of it. This isn't just useful when you're bleeding out or starving, either, but when something else is actively trying to absorb it. You've already learned how to manifest your light into a solid object, now it's time to take it a step further. I will teach you how to focus it into a single point. Tomorrow."
The two spent the final hour of evening by the fire together, in nearly pure silence, before darkness claimed the sky and they fell asleep.
…
By the next morning, the wind had died down and the cloud cover had largely disappeared, letting the sun shine down with very welcome warmth. The undisturbed snow served as a perfect mirror, reflecting the sunbeams with a soft glitter. Overall, it was a beautiful sight, if the viewer disregarded the overwhelming sense of stillness and death that everything else seemed to follow. One of the beams passed directly over Tsui's eyes and woke him.
His morning routine was somewhat awkward to those who had never seen it, but Tsui had quickly learned after leaving Nibel the value of a good set of invigorating morning stretches and a routine overview of your environment after a night out in the wilderness. Those who forgot or brushed off the need were often caught unaware and unprepared, and their journeys often ended prematurely and unpleasantly. Winter made the physical exercise all the more important, cold limbs were slow limbs after all. Though, now he thought about it, he was to get plenty of that today. It was time to wake the sleeping figure behind him.
One poke. Two. He had to resort to a rapid staccato before it worked, though. "Good morning, sleepyhead!" Tsui chuckled. "Did you sleep well, little one?" Ori's hesitant reaction and defiant rollover earned him another poke, and the glare afterwards earned him two, but it was a fine confirmation. "I'll wait a few minutes by the lake for you to prepare yourself for today's training. Go drink something and pee...you know, finish any other business you have up here, we'll have breakfast later." Ori shot up and nodded, and Tsui headed back to the lake to wait for him, wondering if he'd make it there at his walking pace before his pupil.
The lake was calm, and with the dying down of the wind overnight, silent. Fish beneath the ice strove for food around the few openings to air above before they too closed. Beside the lake stood two spirits across from each other, one taller and one shorter. The shorter one's eyes were shut, and was clearly concentrating hard. "Focus your attention inside yourself, Ori. Feel everything working, moving inside to sustain yourself. Your lungs, taking fresh air in and stale air out. Your stomach, awaiting breakfast. Your guts, processing food from yesterday. Go deeper. Feel your warm blood flow though every organ in your body. Take a deep breath, and go even deeper." The student did as he was told, paying particular attention to how his lungs sank deep into his chest as he breathed out. "Now, do you feel it? Do you feel the pure power of your light within? Drop everything else, and focus on it alone. Your light flows through you even more than does your blood, opening pathways to strength unknown. Now, focus all of it into your chest, where your heart beats. Don't let it leave." The student's chest began to glow brighter than it usually did, until a strange sphere of power and light surrounded him. "That's it. Hold it for as long as you can."
To anyone watching, the exercise didn't look difficult. Ori's sphere was stable, his stance wasn't an uncomfortable one, and there was no obvious physical exertion. The two spirits knew better. Ori was stable against an onslaught of irregular waves of growing power, and the concentration required was absolute. Tsui had planned on this exercise taking all day to learn, and was skeptical of the ease Ori seemed to display in picking up the form. Nearly two hours passed before he gave up on the student's form breaking, but eventually he too was convinced. "And… cease." Ori gratefully broke his concentration. The last hour of the exercise had been a constant barrage of thoughts attempting to break his concentration, he had not expected Tsui to hold him so long. "I'm impressed, Ori. The sun has traveled many degrees through the sky, and you are still able to hold your light. While I can hardly believe that you haven't tried this before, I must admit that, new or not, you are more than ready for the next exercise." He bent his knees, drawing back his right paw for a strike. "Because seeing is believing, I will demonstrate it to you first." A fraction of a second after he finished, Tsui's paw zoomed forward while his fist cut the air in front of him with a loud clap. The student blinked, a flinching behavior to something moving that fast in front of him, before opening them to a cloud of snow falling right before him. His expression alone was enough to show just how fascinated Ori was, as he immediately ran through the possibilities such speed would enable him, even if it only came in short bursts. "Now, it's your turn!" Tsui's voice echoed through the field and trees.
Although Ori was unable to see, much less follow along and understand what exactly his teacher had just done, some strange instinct told him to look at his right paw and focus his light inside. Within a couple of seconds, it began to glow like his chest before, and it definitely felt as though all his strength had taken new residence inside the single paw. Drawing it back for a punch, he closed his eyes and unleashed everything forward with a warrior's cry. The display was much less impressive than Tsui's, and only a small cloud of snow was flung into the sky. Disappointment was clear to be seen, writ large across his face. Tsui, however, was more than pleased with his new student's skills. "Very good, Ori! You're a natural talent. Cheer up, this is one of the most difficult techniques for us spirits to master. We call it 'Ri,' which means light in the ancient language." Ori swirled around. "What ancient language?" he asked curiously, this might help him understand what he had seen! "I will tell you later about that too. It's all about focus and practice. Come on, little one, it's time for breakfast."
…
"I'll be frank with you, Ori. There are some fruits left to eat, but with the way things are going they are sure to be gone soon. You better hope we'll have found an alternative by then, or keeping your strength up will be a lofty goal, little one." Ori stared contemplatively at the fruit in his paws, his brain unwilling to cope with the fact that there were not many of them left. "I," he began before pausing, "I hope, I really hope that my family has enough to eat too," he mumbled. Raising his voice again, he said, "I looked around a bit today, but this tree looks like it's the only one that still has any worthwhile number of edibles in this area." Hesitating to take what he knew might be one of the last bites of fruit he would have for a while, he continued, "But I can't… I refuse to eat something that was once alive like me. Taking a life just to satisfy my own doesn't feel right." No argument against the topic he could come up with really shaped his opinion, and he looked back to Tsui. "I fully understand what you're feeling there, buddy. It's not an uncommon position for spirits to take. But your health is what's important here. What if you were lost on some tiny island in the middle of the sea with no fruit, but plenty of nutritious fish? What would you do then?" Tsui asked. A long, awkward silence was Ori's only reply. He had no answer, and had never thought of the question before, despite its relevance to his current situation. Was it worth it to extinguish thousands of lives just to keep his own candle lit? Was it right to determine the lives of fish as lesser to his own? "You don't have to answer the question, Ori. We both already know the answer. If you had no other option, you would take a life just for your own sake, you will. Every living being has a self-preservation instinct, including spirits. You know how it feels to starve?" Ori nodded. The silent confirmation caught Tsui off guard, startled by the feeling of doom the nod gave. He hid thought, and tried to forget he asked. "A terrible feeling, I assure you. Your stomach begins to eat itself from the inside out, and the acid feels like its trying to melt you down from within. I will tell you a my own little story."
"Back when I was born, when the Spirit Tree of Nibel got its old strength back, I became a part of the spirit tribe living there. We lived as a family together, sustaining ourselves on all kinds of fruits and vegetables that the forest had to offer. However, when our first winter, a natural one, came to our land, I knew I was made for the cold. Spring and summer were always to hot for me, and I had from nearly the beginning worn a hat made from leaves to protect my head from the heat. So, when the pleasurable coolness of fall gave way to the cold temperatures of winter, I decided I would stay outside in the nice cold rather than deal with the uncomfortable warmth of the little house my family stayed inside. At first, I returned at night, going out during the day to restock our meager supplies with fresh foods. This went on for a while, until one day, when the fire was particularly hot and annoying, I decided to extend the length of my trip. I said goodbye to my family and went out into the cold darkness of the night instructing them I would return 'sometime soon, probably.' It was even better than the day, like a cool hug from nature itself, when I was out there alone. I didn't even have any problems with sleeping in the snow. The only times I ever lit a fire was to melt down snow for something to drink, as even I can't drink snow. However, it was the hunger that really started getting to me. As my family, much like you, lived off only fruits, the traditional way was to spend most of wintertime sleeping to save energy, eating only when necessary from the always dangerously low stock of food stores. I had shunned this rule, and by living an active lifestyle out in the cold I had to spend a very, very long time to find anything remotely edible. When it went from simply hunger to an unbearable torturous starvation, I knew I had to do something, anything to stop it. It was then, when I resolved that, that I was near a lake. Hundreds of little fish, lazily swimming in disorienting patterns beneath the ice. I remembered what I had been taught before. Eating meat stopped a spirit's natural metabolism, dooming the cursed individual who ate it to carry it forever. The traditional story centered on a spirit, much like me at the time, lost in the woods and on the verge of starving to death. They had no other choice but to eat meat, and they did. The food was stuck in their belly forever. Poor thing, really, and I give my deepest condolences to them. They never did find a way of getting rid of it." He paused, letting out a sorrowful sigh and a shudder. "I don't want to even imagine what that must have felt like…" said Ori, compassion and fear driving his response. While the threat of having food stuck forever in one's belly was gross and terrifying, he equally felt sorry for the poor spirit forced to go through that kind of torture. "And now…" Tsui continued, resuming his story, "I was in that very same situation. I had no choice but to eat something I knew would normally make me sick, and doom me to the cursed life of the spirit in the story. However, I had an epiphany." Ori fixated on Tsui's words, this was where the useful part was! "Back when my family and me were little, I experimented with all kinds of things, as little ones do. The most infamous of experiments performed would be the one where you shoved anything that wasn't food into your mouth to see if it were edible. While for most, the experiments results are predicable, I found something special. A very strange berry that I still remember the exact shape and appearance of. A deep purple bulb, not very large, with a blood red center. When I ate it, it took mere moments before I realized its unusual symptoms. The process of digestion inside me sped up drastically, like a thunderstorm unleashed right in my belly. I had to go to the bathroom more than six times that day, and was so thirsty I couldn't drink enough water to quench it, even with the unlimited supply we had. While I had designated the berry as something not to be eaten since, I realized its use when it came to my situation, starving with the fishes. Luckily for me, I knew exactly where I could find some right nearby, and they grew during the winter. My idea worked perfectly, and fish never made me sick so long as I took it in combination with these berries. Even better, I felt stronger than I had before!"
Ori tilted his head in disbelief, he didn't know how that would work. "What?" he asked. "Why would you get stronger from something like fish?" Tsui laughed. "Look, I will tell you something, Ori. When we spirits eat, we digest our food like any other living being. Food for energy, life, and what isn't needed, well, you know what happens there. But unlike other species, we are gifted with light energy, and have another use for food. We convert it not only to muscles and nutrients to sustain ourselves, but pure light energy. And if we use that energy properly, we can reach a level of strength nothing could ever achieve with just mere muscles. It's the reason I eat fish in winter, and all other seasons too. The fish house the pure essence of power." The smaller spirit scratched his head, still skeptical. "Well, I'm still leery on eating fish. Maybe I'll try it out if there really is no other option left, but I'll be sure to find a berry first." His position final, Tsui relented. "Okay. Let me know when you change your mind. Then, I will teach you how to fish."
"Thanks for the story, it was enlightening," said Ori, getting up from the snow. "Where are you going?" asked Tsui. "Are you finished with that?" Ori nodded. "I want to continue my training. I need to know if the Wellspring Village is alright."
…
A moki paw plodded through the deep snow, accompanied by another on the way to a cave. The moki's scarf waved in the ice cold wind. Arriving at his shelter, he knocked off the remains of the weather from his dark brown fur. "It's not much, but it will keep me alive for now," he sighed weakly, letting go a pawful of fruits onto the cave's ground. "At least I'm safe from the fierce weather outside. I hope Ori is okay."
The cave was cramped and ugly, its only decoration being that of a black smudge of what used to be a campfire to help keep the cold out. The moki let his bag drop to the floor before he himself did, letting loose every muscle he could in exhaustion. Lying there by the black coals of his fire, he took off his incredibly useful scarf to use it as a soft pillow. His eyes stared at it for a short while, grateful for everything it had done. "I wonder what other powers reside within you…," he whispered, thinking over the events of just a few hours ago.
There he was, him and a thin brittle stick against dozens of evil beings from all sides. The naked, dismal creatures crawled slowly, but never away from him, edging his comfort zone. "I'm warning you, don't come any closer!" he yelled, desperately trying to keep his voice together. His situation was abysmal, and while he was getting used to such scenarios as of late, one such as him never really got used to the prospect of his life ending within the next minute or two, if not sooner. Long, clearly unnatural spikes protruded out of his captors' skins, before shooting off into the sky and flying back down towards their prey. Mori swung his weak wooden stick, hurling it around with a scream of confidence and more than a hint of desperation. It worked, but the stick gave its life for his own, and a quiet crack symbolized the death of his last tool with which to defend himself. Saved and yet still doomed, he took a second to think, before grabbing his scarf and holding it between him and the sky. The cloth would never deflect such sharp spines, but he was banking on anything here, really. "I don't fear you. Back off!" he shouted again, as loud as he could. His efforts didn't seem to have much impact on his situation, however, and the creatures were either too stupid to realize his shield or too smart for his cloth defenses, almost certainly the former. "Go away already!" His paws tightly clutched one end of the scarf as he swung it through the air like a wet rag. They nearly dropped it, however, when the article of clothing flashed with a strong blast of light and a ray of light took the form of a whip, striking his enemies with abandon and delivering deadly blows with each and every hit. Hope renewed, Mori swirled his new weapon around in glee. He had no idea how many lashes he might get, and so he saved the lashes for any opponents who dared enter his comfort zone, and shortly thereafter the danger was over and he was left staring disbelievingly at the scarf in his paws, eyes pinned on the item he held to be completely mundane until now. It had surely saved his life. "I can't believe it," he started. "It's so… intriguing. Why?"
The past was the past, however, and his worries were of the present. Right now, however, he had nothing. "I have no other option than to stay here for the night and fight hunger and thirst. I wonder if he's nearby, somewhere? In the white landscape, I might just miss him." Staring longingly at the cold coals in front of him, his face grew sad and bored. "I wish I had my book. At least then I could write about my experiences," he sighed. "Well, that's not an option for now, and another incentive on top of all the others to find Ori. I've got to find him."
I'm sorry to keep you waiting, but there are always things that come into an authors way. Just know that I will never stop or cancel this project. It will continue until it's done, even when writing another chapter takes quite a while in the moment.