Time passed like the wind across the canopy — unnoticed until the leaves had shifted.
Arã was no longer a swaddled infant. By his second year, he had legs strong enough to chase chickens through the village and fingers quick enough to steal smoked fish from the drying racks. His laughter came rarely, but when it did, it burst out like a sudden crack of dry-season lightning — unexpected, short, and sharp.
The tribe began to take notice.
He followed the warriors. Not with noise or clumsiness like the other boys, but in quiet mimicry. When they sparred with hardwood clubs, he raised a stick and copied their stances. When they ran drills, he stood to the side, still and watching. Never interfering. Always watching.
Iwame saw it first — the way his eyes did not wander. The way his hands learned by watching, not asking.
One day, Ma'kua watched from the threshold of the longhouse as Arã sat beneath the weapons rack. The warriors had left their gear after returning from a hunt: feathered arrows, coiled cords, obsidian-tipped spears. The boy did not touch. He only stared.
Ma'kua grunted. "He sees before he acts."
Iwame, weaving by the fire, nodded. "He is your son."
In those early years, there was peace.
The forest yielded its gifts. The rains came when they should. No tribes challenged Ayruam's borders. And the boy grew.
The elders told him stories — not soft tales for sleep, but sharp ones. Of the Great Tree that swallowed a village. Of the Snake-Spirit that watches men from the rivers. Of the old chief who walked into the storm and never came back.
He listened. Never flinching.
One dusk, Arã sat beside the ash of a fire, alone. The adults spoke in a circle nearby. Smoke curled upward, slow and lazy.
He picked up a coal — still warm, but not burning. He traced its soot across a flat stone.
He drew a bird.
Then a storm.
Then, with the care of someone far older than his years, he added a figure: small, standing alone beneath the cloud.
The drawing remained untouched for days.
When the rain came again, it washed the stone clean.
But Ma'kua had seen it.
And he said nothing.
When Arã turned four, Ma'kua took him into the forest.
It was not a walk. It was a trial.
They left before dawn, carrying nothing but two gourds of water and a small woven pouch of dried cassava. Arã did not complain. He walked in silence behind his father.
They traveled far — past the charcoal trees, past the old hunting grounds, until even the birds grew quiet.
Ma'kua stopped at a clearing where vines hung thick and low. He crouched.
"Here," he said, handing Arã a carved piece of bone. "Dig."
Arã looked at him, wide-eyed.
"Roots," Ma'kua said. "You eat tonight only what you find."
Then he turned and disappeared into the trees.
Alone, Arã stared at the soil. The bone tool felt strange in his hand.
Hours passed. The sun rose high. He dug. He found nothing.
He cried once, then stopped.
When the shadows lengthened, Ma'kua returned. Arã sat on the edge of the clearing, clutching a single yam covered in dirt.
He had not eaten.
Ma'kua said nothing. He cleaned the yam with a knife and roasted it over a small flame. When it was ready, he broke it in half and gave it to his son.
"Tomorrow," he said, "you dig deeper."
And Arã, chewing slowly, nodded.
Back in the village, the elders began to whisper.
"He does not laugh like the others," said one.
"He does not fight like a child," said another. "He watches. Like something older."
Takarê, listening beside the sacred pool, spoke only once:
"The sky teaches in silence."
That night, Arã dreamed.
Not of spirits. Not of gods.
Of a fire without smoke.
Of a voice without sound.
And of a path through the trees, straight and dark, where no roots grew and no birds sang.
He woke with his fingers clenched into fists.
The storm, for now, still slept.
But it would not sleep forever.
Later that week, during play among the children, an older boy named Maê threw a stick that struck Arã across the shoulder. The laughter that followed was short-lived.
Arã did not cry.
He picked up the stick, stared at Maê, then walked away without a word.
The next morning, Maê's sleeping mat was found at the edge of the longhouse, woven through with vines and mud. Harmless. But deliberate. Symbolic.
The elders saw. They said nothing. But they began to watch him more closely.
Akaru, too, was watching.
He stood near the weaving circle with arms crossed, eyes following Arã's every movement.
"To be so quiet is not natural," he said aloud, though not to anyone in particular.
Takarê, passing nearby, replied, "It is not silence that is unnatural. It is fear of it."
Akaru frowned.
In the dusk of the season's first dry day, Ma'kua gathered the warriors. Arã watched from behind the firewood pile, crouched low.
"We train," Ma'kua said. "For peace is the season of rust."
That evening, the clearing rang with the sound of wood striking wood. Clubs met in arcs of force. Spears spun. Bodies moved in practiced rhythm.
And Arã, alone, copied it all in shadow.
Not yet strong enough to swing a club.
But already remembering.
The storm, for now, still slept.
But it was learning how to walk.
A few moons later, during a hunting festival, the village filled with drumming and smoke. Arã was allowed to sit among the young boys near the elders' fire, where tales of past victories and fallen heroes were told in rhythm with the beat of the drums.
Takarê, the old shaman, leaned forward that night with a tale unfamiliar to the others.
"There was once a child born under no stars," he said, voice dry as bark. "The sky gave no sign, the forest no whisper. Yet he grew — quiet, sharp, and strong. And when the rivers boiled and the chiefs fell, it was he who led the lost ones to safety. Not with words. But with will."
The boys listened, wide-eyed.
Arã said nothing. But he stared into the fire, as if it might answer something only he had asked.
Not long after, a jaguar was spotted near the outer forest. The warriors prepared to track it, as the beast had taken a dog the night before.
Without permission, Arã followed.
He crept behind the hunting party for half a day, avoiding dry twigs, moving like shadow. It was only when Akaru turned to relieve himself that he spotted the boy.
"What are you doing here?" he hissed.
Arã didn't answer.
The others gathered. Some chuckled. Some scowled.
Ma'kua looked at his son, then at the jungle.
"You followed without orders."
Arã nodded.
"You will return alone."
There were gasps. The jungle was still wild with threat.
But Arã did not protest. He turned, quietly, and vanished back into the trees.
He did not return that night.
By morning, some feared the worst. Ma'kua prepared to track him himself.
But just as the first spear was lifted, Arã emerged from the southern trail.
His feet were muddy. His hands scratched.
But over his shoulders hung the tail of a caiman — proof of his survival, and courage.
He said only one thing: "I saw where the jaguar drank."
The warriors nodded.
Akaru said nothing. But his lips were thin.
That evening, the drumming paused when Arã entered the circle.
And no one called him just a child again.