The council's recognition didn't change our bodies or our ages — we were still small, still clumsy, still more bone than muscle.
But it did change how the tribe saw us.
Before, we were just children.
After the report, we became useful.
Useful people were fed first.
Useful people were protected.
Useful people were kept alive through winter.
That was the first quiet privilege of purpose.
Training Becomes Doctrine
Baba Voss didn't waste the council's decision.
The very next morning, he woke us before the sun broke the ridge.
"Up," he said.
No greeting. No softness.
He handed us each a strip of dried meat and a wooden staff half our height.
"Eat while you walk."
We did.
We followed him into the woods north of the village — not east, where the Payan caravan had passed, not south toward the valley throat, but north, into the rougher terrain hunters rarely took children.
"Why north?" Haniwa asked.
Baba tapped the air with his staff. "Because north hates you. North will teach you faster."
And north did.
The ground there was uneven, the wind sharper, the moss thicker, the trees older. Sight helped, but not much. Here, sound ruled.
"Scouts listen before they look," Baba said. "You see what happens. You listen to what will happen."
He wasn't teaching us how to identify animals or track prey.
He was teaching us prediction.
Tullen stood still, head tilted, eyes closed, mouth shut.
Wind brushed through needles. A raven croaked. Something small scurried through leaves.
"What is it?" Baba asked.
"Mouse," Tullen said.
"Direction?"
Tullen turned his head a fraction. "Downhill. Fast."
"Why fast?"
"Fox," Tullen answered without hesitation.
Talli frowned. "Where fox?"
Baba pointed to a fallen branch ten paces away just as a thin shape slipped past it, silent as breath.
The System chimed:
Cohort Skill Advanced: Predictive Listening (Lv.1)
Military Applicability: Reconnaissance
Then Baba looked at me.
"You hear with eyes," he said. "Good. But you must learn to hear with ears too. Sight can be taken. Hearing keeps you alive."
He blindfolded me again.
I did not resist.
Sight as a Secret
That night, the elder from the council waited near our hut. Her white hair braided into loops that rattled with bone charms.
Baba saw her and bowed his head slightly — respect without submission.
She spoke quietly so others wouldn't hear.
"You train the children to hear," she said.
"Yes," Baba replied.
"You train them to move."
"Yes."
"You train them to hunt things that are not animals."
He didn't answer.
She turned her face slightly toward me.
"You train them for men."
It wasn't accusation. It was observation.
Baba finally said, "Children who know men are harder to take."
The elder tapped her cane once on the dirt. "Good answer."
She began to turn away, but then added:
"Keep their secret. The council does not fear hunters. The council fears miracles."
She left before Baba could answer.
My System chimed:
Threat Insight: Internal Fear > External Fear
Sovereign Note: Tribal politics revolve around the management of the anomalous.
Empires feared outsiders.
Tribes feared change.
The Lesson of Borders
Three days later the training changed again.
Baba took a long rope from the storage hut. We followed him to a clearing where rain had softened the ground.
He staked one end of the rope into the earth and stretched it taut in a circle about twenty paces across.
"What is this?" Ren asked.
"Border," Baba said.
"What does it keep out?" Haniwa asked.
"Nothing. It keeps you in."
He pointed at us and then the circle.
"A scout who does not know where home ends is a scout who will not come home."
We practiced ranging from the circle and returning by sound, by smell, by memory, and by instinct.
Then Baba rubbed his chin and said, "Too easy."
He took off the rope.
"Now find border without border."
We failed the first dozen times. And the next dozen. But eventually, patterns emerged.
Tulli tasted sap on her fingers and marked trees.
Talli used pebbles and counted her steps.
Ren hummed and listened to echo.
Tullen memorized ground softness.
I used sight, then forced myself not to.
The System chimed:
Concept Acquired: Border Recognition (Primitive Politics)
Civilizational Note: Borders precede property, property precedes law, law precedes statehood.
States do not begin with kings.
States begin with borders.
Smoke Without Fire
Four days after the Payan sighting, the second scout event happened.
We smelled smoke.
Not from the east — from the south.
We stood at the riverbank, gathering clay for more tablets, when the wind shifted.
Talli froze first. "Fire."
"Not our fire," Tullen added.
Haniwa sniffed. "Too far. Too big. Too many trees burning."
The System confirmed:
Environmental Event: Wildfire (Small)
Risk to Tribal Territory: Low → Moderate
Baba arrived minutes later, drawn by the same scent trail.
He listened to the wind, face unreadable.
"Not storm," he said. "Men."
"Payan?" Haniwa asked.
Baba shook his head. "No horses. No iron. Too much wood burned. Wasteful. Angry."
That narrowed it to three possibilities:
Slavers
Rogues (tribeless)
Desperate hunters
All three were dangerous for different reasons.
Slavers took people.
Rogues killed for nothing.
Desperate hunters broke taboos.
Baba spat into the dirt. "We will watch."
He turned to us and spoke the sentence that made the System stir:
"You will come with me."
The cohort stared.
Children did not go toward unknown fires.
But scouts did.
Assignment
That night as the tribe slept, Baba carved six tiny marks into a clay tablet by firelight:
○ = Haniwa
□ = Tullen
∆ = Talli
╳ = Ren
⋄ = Tulli
★ = Kofun
He pushed it toward me.
"Scouts track. Scouts report. Scouts live."
A simple creed.
Then he added a seventh mark — a vertical line.
"That is border," he said. "The world beyond does not care who your tribe is."
Then another mark — a second symbol, angled, broken.
"And that is enemy."
I traced it with my finger.
Enemy.
A word we would need often.
The System chimed.
Lexicon Entry Added: Enemy (External)
Sociopolitical Note: Recognition of "enemy" precedes diplomacy.
Baba pointed at the clay tablet again.
"In spring, a scout finds enemy. In winter, a scout keeps enemy from finding us."
A year ago, I was an infant drinking goat milk from a carved horn.
Now I was being groomed for reconnaissance and statecraft in a blind world.
This was how kingdoms began — not with crowns, but with logistics and intelligence.