The season of lean days had come.
Fruits hung higher in the canopy. Game moved deeper into the jungle. Even the birds sang less. The wind carried only the sound of dripping leaves and distant cries. Ma'kua stood at the edge of the forest clearing, his hand resting on the shaft of his long spear. Beside him, Arã waited.
Not with childish eagerness, but with stillness.
"This is not a child's game," Ma'kua said, his voice quiet but firm.
"I know," Arã replied.
"You will not take the lead. You will not speak unless spoken to. You will watch. You will learn."
Arã nodded.
The hunting party assembled — five warriors clad in bark-woven cloaks, their faces painted with streaks of ash and ochre. They greeted Ma'kua with a single nod. No words. Silence was part of the hunt.
The jungle waited.
The trail began near the old salt pits where footprints of a heavy creature had been found. Tapir — thick-bodied, slow, but sharp-nosed. Arã followed behind, matching the step and rhythm of the adults. Every movement, every pause, he mirrored.
They passed a broken nest of ants, a patch of chewed leaves. Signs.
Ma'kua crouched, brushed aside some damp earth. "Still warm," he whispered.
A warrior, Kori, pointed to the trail ahead. The group shifted direction.
As they moved deeper into the shade of larger trees, the air thickened. Bugs buzzed. The breath of the jungle seemed to throb with unseen life. Arã could feel it pressing in. Watching.
A horned owl flew past them. An omen of either fortune or warning.
None reacted.
Hours passed.
The tapir's prints became clearer. It had moved through a thin creekbed, shaking off insects in the mud. Arã knelt beside a half-submerged hoofprint and traced its edges.
"It limps," he said.
Ma'kua's glance was approving.
Then the forest shifted.
A distant call — not animal, not human. A low, echoing note, like wind across a hollow log.
Kori looked back. "The southern path is near."
Ma'kua gave a nod. "We split here. Toka, Reni — arc left. Kori and I will hold the ridge. Arã, follow me."
This was unexpected. Arã was rarely directly included in formation.
But he said nothing. He obeyed.
They moved across the ridge. The undergrowth was thick, the ground damp with rot. Each step sank just slightly — the sound absorbed by moss and leaf.
Arã paused near a termite mound. Something about its shape caught his eye — hollow, like a basin, and marked with scratch lines. Not claw marks, but dragging grooves.
He pressed his palm against it. Still warm.
The tapir had paused here.
Ahead, Ma'kua gave the signal to hold.
From a higher vantage, the clearing was visible.
It drank at a hidden pool, unbothered.
Ma'kua turned to Arã.
"This," he whispered, "is where the storm forgets its own name. Every step beyond this is chosen. Remember that."
Arã blinked. He did not speak. But in his bones, something answered — not in words, but in weight.
The hunt had truly begun.
The stillness broke like thin ice.
The moment Ma'kua shifted his stance to signal the strike, a gust of wind swept from the western ridge. It carried with it a sharp scent — human breath, sweat. Enough.
The tapir's ears twitched. It froze, muscles tensed, then bolted.
Kori lunged too soon. His foot slipped on the soft moss, and he tumbled down the slope with a thud that broke the quiet like lightning splits a sky. His spear clattered, his body bounced once before settling in the underbrush.
Ma'kua hissed a signal — halt. The tapir had vanished. The warriors regrouped in seconds, but the moment was gone.
Kori groaned. Ma'kua dropped beside him, inspecting the leg. "Broken?"
"No," Kori grimaced. "Sprained."
Ma'kua nodded. He turned to Arã.
"You saw where it fled?"
"Yes."
"Go. Follow. Mark the trail. You are the only eyes now."
Arã gave no salute, no word. He vanished into the green.
The jungle greeted him like an old rival. Branches leaned close. Roots rose to trip. But Arã moved with the grace of instinct. He followed the signs — bruised leaves, a snapped vine, disturbed soil.
The heat pressed close, wet and heavy.
He crossed a creek. Bent to examine the edge. Saw blood.
Not the tapir's.
Something else.
A rustle.
He froze.
From the bushes emerged three forest dogs — skinny, ribs showing, eyes wild. One limped, the others fanned out.
They had caught the same trail.
One barked sharply.
Arã didn't move. He reached slowly into his pouch. Dried cassava.
He broke it. Dropped half. Tossed the other gently toward the limper.
The dog flinched, then sniffed. It took the offering.
The others backed away.
Arã rose. Quiet. Calm.
He found a sharp stone, scored a mark into a trunk — a cross with two lines beneath.
Hunter's code: prey passed, not pursued.
And then he turned, following a slow, curved path back to the group.
Ma'kua waited alone now, crouched by Kori.
"You did not pursue?" he asked without looking.
"It would have scattered the pack," Arã said. "And drawn blood where none was needed."
Ma'kua nodded once.
"You returned with empty hands."
"But not empty eyes."
The chief's jaw tightened — not with anger, but something older.
"Then tonight, you eat with the warriors."
And so Arã sat not among boys that night, but beside firelight and silence, where stories passed between glances.
No meat. But something heavier.
Respect.
The light had faded from the trees when Arã stepped once more into the edge of the clearing. The mist of evening clung low to the undergrowth, softening even the warrior shapes as he approached. No one spoke as he arrived—his footfalls were too measured, his eyes too clear.
He carried no prize, no blood, no fang or hide. But there was something in the way he moved, in the silence that followed him, that made the others pause.
Kori sat propped against a tree, his ankle bound in a poultice of ground leaf and clay. He looked up at Arã and nodded once, a mark of both apology and thanks.
Ma'kua rose from beside the fire.
"You did not return quickly."
"I took the trail past the ridge," Arã answered. "It curved wide."
"And the prey?"
"Gone. But I left a mark."
"Describe it."
"A cross. Two lines beneath. Pack in pursuit. Let pass."
The warriors exchanged glances. That was a code few had used in seasons.
"Not every boy knows to write in bark," said one of the elders, his voice gravelly.
"Not every boy listens to the forest," said another.
Ma'kua studied his son. "You chose not to strike."
Arã met his father's gaze. "The prey was not mine. The jungle had already chosen."
Silence followed. Then a slow, deliberate gesture from Ma'kua—a half-turn of the hand, palm upward. An offering of place.
That night, by the fire of the warriors, Arã sat cross-legged beside his father. No stories were told of great kills or wild victories. Only a single sentence passed from mouth to mouth:
"The storm learns by waiting."
And above the flames, the smoke rose straight and unbroken into the night.