When we got back from dinner, I tried asking my mother about the infusions. It took me a while to get the point across as my mouth somehow refused to form phrases that were more than a few words long without fumbling, but, after some trial and error, I managed to and she got to explaining.

She told me that the infusions were necessary for us to grow strong and survive up in the mountains and confirmed my speculation on the number of infusions. There was an infusion for each of the five spirit animals of the tribe: elk, wolf, eagle, tiger, bear. The fifth would bring a child to the point where she'd be strong enough to go out hunting with the other members of the tribe and this was important, as there was a sixth and final infusion that would change from individual to individual and would use the blood of a beast one had to hunt herself, although it was usually done in a small group so that stronger monsters could be used and infuse more people.

When I asked about the dangers of the infusion, she explained, with a smile on her face, that they also served to remove the weak members from the tribe. She probably saw how shocked I was from the revelation as she quickly tried to calm me by saying that she was one of the strongest hunters of the tribe and she had taken down a roc with her companions for her last infusion, and that, on top of that, the one who gave her seed to make me, as apparently there was no real concept of father in the tribe, was the chief himself, who had taken down a storm giant in his youth. Since my line, as she called it, was so strong, as long as I trained well, I would be sure to survive through the infusions.

Her speech didn't really convince me on the safety of the infusions but it certainly convinced me about one thing, if I had to go through those ceremonies, I had to be prepared for them. Thus, starting the next day, I put my all into training my chubby toddler body.

From then on, I spent my days doing only three things, training, eating, and sleeping. My uncertain walking soon became an awkward run, and I would run around the tent and race my mother to the hall and back before and after dinner. Inside the tent I'd train by kicking the ball around as strong as I could, by hanging from my mother's hands trying to lift myself up, by rolling around on the furs that made the floor of the tent, or by jumping around like a spring. Despite the reason that had made me start on my intense toddler training, I had to admit that I was actually having fun playing around all day like that.

After little more than a week of my solo training, my mother decided that I was ready enough to join the other kids in what was practically the tribe's version of daycare, which was a tent larger than ours full of toys to play with. Inga, the old woman who looked after the kids my age, complained when my mother brought me there the first time, saying that I was too young, but my mother insisted that I was ready for it. Inga conceded pretty quickly, probably thanks to the standing of my mother in the tribe, and I was allowed to join the other kids.

The daycare was honestly pretty fun. The other kids still didn't really grasp the concept of playing together, so I soon stopped bothering with them and just played by myself. The daycare tent offered more ways to exercise than my tent, in particular I spent a lot of time climbing on a series of what were practically inclined ladders that became steeper and steeper until the last one that was completely vertical. Of course, under said ladders there was a mattress of furs and pine needles to soften the fall in case something went wrong.

Another thing I really came to appreciate about the daycare was that the best behaved children, which meant the ones who trained or played the most and didn't spend their time picking their nose or crying, got a handful of pine nuts twice a day as reward. Thanks to the fact that I spent all the time there jumping around like a frog or climbing on the ladders, I was always one of the children rewarded with the sweet treat. If I was determined on training before, being given something to eat that wasn't breast milk or unseasoned boiled meat really made my determination jump through the roof.

I didn't spend all day in the daycare though, around noon my mother would come pick me up and we would race to our tent where she'd feed me and make me sleep for a bit, before bringing me back to the tent where I would stay for a couple of hours until dinner time. Apparently her and the other women who had children so young took care of various duties inside the camp or would go out for only a few hours to pick berries and herbs instead of going on a hunt.

So I spent my days practically living the responsibility-free dream of many adults, while my body got stronger and stronger. Certainly, there were bad moments, like when my other teeth decided to come out and I practically had to keep a piece of leather to chew in my mouth all the time for weeks to keep the pain away as they made their way through my gums, but I was certainly living quite the carefree life.

A shower of cold water came to snuff out the fire of my joy at the beginning of summer, when the snow had just barely melted away, and a hunting group came back to the village bringing with them an eagle the size of a small car.