Between Ya-Shuur's protected lands and the rest of Li'Kalla's island to the east there was a great cave. This cave started outside of Ya-Shuur's lands but it extended underground into it. Ya-Shuur went inside this cave and looked around it and thought it was beautiful and he wanted to leave something there to let those who slept in it who came from outside his lands know that they were under his protection here and that everything in the cave was under his protection as well. He thought he would mark the walls of the cave and he goat charcoal for this. But he thought that maybe charcoal would go away and he wanted something that would stay and in the end he cut himself and he used some of his blood on the charcoal to make it red and then he marked the walls of the cave with many different pictures.
The first picture was a simple one of a red blob with many tentacles and a smaller humanoid form. The blob's tentacles were extended towards the humanoid form. Above them floated a smaller thing that was also slightly humanoid. The second picture was of that same blob with tentacles except that now the humanoid figure was gone and replaced with a fearsome creature that had something coming out of its mouth. The smaller form was now below them and bright red strands were falling down on it.
The next image was of a humanoid form with hair and beard but there was no detail of its eyes. It looked to be undressed but there were no details and its arms were held aloft and extended outwards. Then the next picture was of that same figure except this time he had small horned creature next to him and he had a stick in his hands and they were both facing a great dark cloud. Behind the big dark cloud was a fearsome bear standing on its feet.
The next picture that Ya-Shuur drew was of that same man now dressed. He had a goat one side of him and what appeared to be a wolf on the other. Then he drew another picture of the man facing off against a terribly big creature. And the next was of two great creatures. One a giant wolf and then that same terrible creature and around them were other little creatures. Then the next one was a very big picture of the same man and he had two horns in his hands and they were extended in a dramatic way and all around him there were goats and wolves and there was a big wolf to his left and six of the little creatures now grown up to his right. Around his head there were some rays and he looked like a powerful figure. The next picture was similar except that the horns were now on his head and he was stood on what seemed to be a cliff overlooking a great land with many different animals. Some looked like donkeys and some looked like cows and there were dogs and other creatures. He had a staff in his hand and his other hand was extended up where some birds were flying near him.
Ya-Shuur drew more pictures. Some of them were of little butterfly creatures. These were the iceflies. He also drew the crows that followed him everywhere. He drew bears and he drew the spirits that guarded some parts of the island and never left them. He drew frogs and cats and he drew the sea and rivers and water-goats. He drew Li'Kalla's manor and drew the goddess in it and put great rays around her head and he drew a small humanoid figure floating around her feet. He drew spires of mud. He drew many small humanoid creatures going towards a great fire and all of them screaming in pain. He drew an ice woman playing the snow. He drew fishes and he drew the humanoid figure helping a dolphin back into the sea.
When this was all done Ya-Shuur looked around the cave and all the drawings he had done and he was very satisfied. Anyone who came here would know of him and would know that this was his land and they would see his good works and know that he was good and would have no fear. They would see that he was powerful and would know that they should not do evil things otherwise it would make him angry with their actions. And they would also know things about his life and things he had seen. Very satisfied Ya-Shuur left the cave and went back to his underground house to lie down and meditate.
Ya-Shuur makes a big drawing in a big cave in the east of his lands. The cave starts outside his lands but it goes underground into his lands. The drawing is of the many things he has done and seen. Happy with it he goes back to his house to meditate.
With his stick in his hand Ya-Shuur climbed out of his house and looked around. The crows were up in the trees staring at him as usual and Behr-Aat and Jul-Urr were laying down not far from his hidden house. When he climbed out they stirred immediately and came to him. He climbed on to Behr-Aat and they went through the jungle. When they came near the herd Ya-Shuur noticed that there was some commotion and when he went near he found a very small animal surrounded by some of the wolves. It was a tiny creature with a long tail. It was growling in a low tone and hissing and its lips were peeled back to reveal very sharp small teeth. Its claws were also out. The wolves seemed to find this small creature curious and were keeping it away from a very young and small goat it had clearly been trying to hunt.
Whenever one of the wolves approached the creature struck out with lightning speed and was very vicious even latching onto the wolf's snout and biting. A few of the wolves were bleeding but they did not seem to be taking the small creature too seriously. Ya-Shuur approached and made the wolves disperse and he spoke softly to the feline creature. "Now now. There there." It hissed at him in warning but he calmed it down with some soft words and brought his hand to its head to stroke it. It did not strike at him because of his ability with animals but it did not let him touch it either. He got up and walked towards one of the larger goats and brought it near and then he spurted some of its milk into his hand and gestured for the cat to come near. It cocked its head curiously but did not move. Ya-Shuur wiped his hand clean of the milk and looked around. He went out into the woodlands and found a fallen branch. He broke a thick bit off and began kneading it with his hands and cutting away at it with his strong and long nails. With his powers he was able to carve it until it was a wooden bowl and then he went back to the goat and put some milk into it and put it out for the feline creature. It approached the bowl and sniffed at the milk and then it began lapping it up. While it did that Ya-Shuur went out to the stream and caught some fishes for the creature and put them next to the bowl and it was happy to dig into them. When it had eaten what it could it took one of the fishes and ran off into the forest and then it came back for the other. On the third time it nudged the bowl towards Ya-Shuur and he filled it up with milk again and then it ran off into the woodland and looked back at him. It waited till he had come after it and then led him to where a a litter of seven of its children lay meowing and he put the bowl near them and they drank. She watched him carefully as he put the bowl down and then stood in front of him in a confrontational way so he left.
It kept coming back and forth from the forest and Ya-Shuur was happy to feed it. Sometimes when he wasn't around it attacked a baby goat and dragged it off to the forest. The molves would watch it impassively as it did this and do nothing because they had seen it so many times with Ya-Shuur. When Ya-Shuur spotted it doing this he would shoo it off. But even then it was still a wild animal and did not learn so quickly so it continued eating some of the babies just like the wolves ate some of the goats sometimes because their hunter instinct was so great. This creature that Ya-Shuur called a cat would took to him so well that one day he returned to his house and found it there. When he opened the door to go inside it leapt inside and he was surprised when it came back out with a small rodent in its mouth. He stroked its head and praised its great hunting skill and speed. When he closed his eyes it was lying next to him and would sometimes even sit on his chest and he would stroke its head or back affectionately.
When he opened his eyes again she had disappeared. Her children were all big enough to look after themselves now and he had seen them going and coming from the herd and drinking from the milk bowls he left out (which the wolves and molves sometimes drank from as well). As he washed his hands in a stream he looked up and saw a water-goat eating some grass on the side of the stream. It was a truly big creature and its water environment allowed its head to be twice the size of a land goat. Ya-Shuur thought they would be very useful creatures to ride in the water the same way he rode the molves on land and in the air. He approached the water-goat but the moment it noticed him it turned around and fled into the water. He tried again with a few others that he saw feeding on banks of rivers or streams but they were very cautious animals and did not approach even when he offered them food.
He thought he would give up and leave them in piece but then a part of him rebelled and he decided he would not rest until he had tamed a few. So he dug a large hole big enough for two water-goats but too deep for them to be able to climb out of and he lay in wait for them. When one came out that he recognized as a male he leapt on it and wrestled with it. It was a powerful creature and a few times it seemed like it would slip from him and escape but at last he caught its horns and dragged it until he reached the pit and then threw it in there. It bleated in terror and tried to climb the sides but it was trapped. He then caught a female and did the same to it.
He continued bringing food to them and ensuring they were well-fed and healthy and in time they produced two litters of three. When the first litter was produced he took the babes to rear them and he did the same to the second litter. At this point 300 days had passed but because he had not interacted with the two adults a lot they were still wild and returned easily to the wild. He reared their goats to be tame around him and when they were old enough he released them into a lake and visited them continuously. If he left them for long periods without visiting some of them became feral again and the new litters that were produced had to be personally broken in so that they were tame. When he was confident enough he began trying to ride them but this did not work with the adults so he started doing it to the young ones as soon as they were capable so they grew used to it quickly. This worked much better thought he had no way of keeping them above water when he was riding them. He experimented with a few things but eventually found that steering them from their horns was a good way. By pulling their horns backwards slightly he could keep them from diving and also be steering them right and left he could tell them what direction to go. Kicking their side also made them speed up and pulling their horns back not only stopped them from diving but also made them slow down.
For the next period Ya-Shuur continued travelling around the island and taming many animals he came across. He tamed foxes, cows, ducks, horses, buffalos, birds like gemstone gardeners and pigeons and even hawks, reindeers, and asses. This required him to make space around his house so he set about clearing areas and putting up enclosures to protect his domesticated animals from predators. When he was finished a sizeable part of the jungle had become enclosed and protected land that was often patrolled by him or his molves.
Ya-Shuur goes on a domestication spree. He domesticates: cats, water-goats, foxes, cows, ducks, horses, buffalos, birds like gemstone gardeners and pigeons and even hawks, reindeers, and asses. This domestication spree costs 1 might point to buy the ability to domesticate animals. He then builds up an area around his secret house that is enclosed to protect his domesticated animals. The red place on this map is where his house is and the darker green area is the enclosed areas. The lake with the water-goats is also inside this area.
Ya-Shuur didn't go in the end and he stayed on his home island. He went into the forest and got a strong sharp stick and started to turn the ground in a place that was clear of trees but was covered so the rain didn't fall through. He dug a great amount and started shaping the place to be a bit like a room in Li'Kalla's manor. He covered the room-sized hole in wet mud and then waited for to dry so it all had a smooth surface without any bumps or holes and also so that the earth didn't stick to his feet when he was inside. Then he brought big logs and covered the room he had dug into the ground and he brought lots of grass and covered the logs. Then he brought earth and covered the grass. The entrance was a hole in the ground leading down some earth steps. He covered it in a cover made from twigs tied together and covered in grass and when a person looked at the house it looked like there was nothing there except earth and grass. (He does it like the first place in this video).
Ya-Shuur was satisfied with this because he now had his own home just like Li'Kalla. It was a good sign because it made him different from other creatures that were always outside. He had made one part of the room slightly raised like a bed like he saw in Li'Kalla's house where she used to close her eyes for a long time. He lay on it like she used to and closed his eyes for a few hours. He moved around every now and then as he thought about things. Then when he felt enough time had passed he opened his eyes and got out of the house.
He remembered that he had thrown his stick away when he got angry and now he wanted to find it again. So he retraced his footsteps with the help of the two molves with them him and eventually found it. It had become all soggy from the rain so he took it back to his home and put it inside and watched it until it became dry. When it became dry he picked it up and inspected it then he lay down again on his bed.
It was only now that he had started to notice how alone he was even though the island was full of different kinds of life and the strange sensation made him frown. On his bed in his dark cosy home he closed his eyes again to meditate like he used to see Li'Kalla doing. He felt weak for now but when he opened his eyes again he would be stronger and he would do something about this loneliness.
Ya-Shuur builds a secret underground house for himself and then he goes and gets back his stikc that he threw when he was angry. Then goes back to his house and stays there and he decides that when he becomes stronger he would do something to make the island less lonely.
Ya-Shuur stayed in the ruined manor brooding for a few days. He had sought to rebuild Li'Kalla's home for her because it had been destroyed unjustly. But he had not been able to rebuild it despite the fact that justice demanded it. It demanded it of Vakk specifically this was true but it demanded it generally as well and of anybody willing and able to carry it out and Ya-Shuur was willing but not able it seemed. What did that mean for justice if someone was willing but not able? Did that mean that one was unjust? It was this question that had been on Ya-Shuur's mind for the last few days and at last he thought he had an acceptable answer. He hefted his stick and wrote in the debris. "Every soul is to be allotted its due. It is a general duty on all who can. It is a specific duty on whosoever takes what is due another without good reason. Those who do not fulfill this general duty though they can are shamed. Those who do not fulfill this specific duty are to be hurt until it is fulfilled. This is Justice."
He left it there and went to Behr-Aat and climbed on to her back and they went away. They travelled until the reached the sea and walked along the beach for a few days. Then one day they came across a gray creature that had washed up on the beach. It had a rather long snout and was clicking and whistling. Ya-Shuur could immediately tell that it was distressed and could see that it was trying to get back to the water without success. He went to it and spoke softly to it to calm it down. Then he focused his power and caused the creature to levitate. Then he moved it towards the sea and placed it in the shallows where it was able to swim again. It rose above the waves and clicked and whistled happily before disappearing in the depths.
Ya-Shuur had seen fish before but never up close like that and the ones he had seen were also different from that one because they never whistled or clicked and did not seem as intelligent. When he returned to his herd he sat down with some of the goats by a stream and encouraged them to jump in. They swam about for a while. They were good swimmers but not like a fish. He thought that maybe he could make them better. Maybe when they jump in water they could become more like fish. The idea was interesting and he looked at his goats and wondered how to do it. He brought one goat near and sat in shallow water and he caught a big salmon with his powers and brought it close as well. He inspected the salmon for some minutes before releasing it and he also remembered how that grey intelligent fish had looked and then he started mutating the goat so it was able to swim like a fish and breathe in the water. He released it and it swam around and then rose above the water and bleated. He did this to a few more of them but then noticed that they had begun to swim away. Worried by this he ran along the stream after them. Some stayed in the river but others swam all the way down and disappeared into the sea.
He had wanted it to be so they could jump out of the water and become normal goats again but he now realized that if they were very good swimmers like this they could wander off and he would not know what happened to them so he decided against doing that to more goats. He hoped these water-goats that he had made would be okay in the rivers and the sea.
At that moment Ya-Shuur suddenly felt a jolt of sadness felt by a sudden short-lived anger. He sensed that something terrible had happened. It was an awful injustice of some kind. Not too long after he felt that jolt of sadness again but far greater than before and what came after it was a fury that caused him to throw his stick and hold his head with trembling hands. Something terrible was happening. Crimes and injustice unlike anything before. He got up and ran away suddenly. His goats looked up and bleated in confusion and two his herder-wolves followed after him and so did the crows because the crows were always following. He saw a magpie and it started talking to him but he had heard its story so many times now that he could recite it off by heart and he wasn't feeling in the mood to listen to it so he walked on by it. A bear lumbered by and stared at him but he fixed it with such a look of fury that it mewled fearfully and turned around and went away.
As he went he came across one of the areas protected by those spirit beings. Usually they were friendly to him but this one seemed to sense the anger in him and assaulted him straight away. Ya-Shuur shouted out in surprise and ran until he was out of its area. It sent a few hissing and crackling sounds after him and returned to its area. His fury now gone and replaced with a deep melancholy he continued until he came to a great cliff overlooking the sea and sat down. The two herder-wolves that had followed him were Behr-Aat and Jul-Urr. Jul-Urr was not mottled like Behr-Aat but entirely white and he was slightly bigger. They sat down to either side of him and he placed a hand on their heads and watched the sea sadly. Somewhere (he didn't know where or how) a great injustice had happened and he was not able to stop it just like the last time. He looked at his companions and then looked out at the sea. "I... we could go. We could go and find out and we can make it right." He said to himself.
Ya-Shuur makes a new maxim that is: "Every soul is to be allotted its due. It is a general duty on all who can. It is a specific duty on whosoever takes what is due another without good reason. Those who do not fulfill this general duty though they can are shamed. Those who do not fulfill this specific duty are to be hurt until it is fulfilled. This is Justice." He leaves Li'Kalla's ruined manor and comes across a dolphin that is stranded on land and he helps it. He thinks that it would be good to make his goats better swimmers and makes water-goats but they are not domesticated like goats and some of them run free in the rivers and others go to the sea. They are just normal animals so they are not intelligent and are not extraordinary they are herbivores like goats and can breathe in the air and in the water so maybe sometimes they can come on land if they see grass. I am not sure if they should cost free points or might points because they are not extraordinary and they are not intelligent. Then Ya-Shuur feels the murders that the selka are doing but he doesn't know what they are only that big crimes and injustice are happening and it makes him sad and angry and he goes away. A home-spirit attacks him because it feels his anger and he runs away from it until he comes to a cliff. He has two of his herder-wolves with them and he thinks to himself that maybe he could fly and go see what happened and try to make it right.
Ya-Shuur had taken the mottled black and white herder-wolf that was called Behr-Aat with him. Before him now was the destroyed manor of Li'Kalla. It was pouring with rain and fog was everywhere. Phantasmal crows shifted here and there in the mist and it seemed to Ya-Shuur that even through the fog he could see their coal-black eyes watching him.
He had come here because he wished to be near the place where he received a physical form and look further into his powers by rebuilding the home of Li'Kalla. It was all destroyed and broken and that made him sad. But he believed that he could rebuild it with the powers he discovered he had. He jumped from Behr-Aat's back and walked towards the manor. Li'Kalla was not here and neither was the monster. He closed his eyes and remembered how the manor had looked and then he raised his hands and opened his eyes. "Return!" He commanded with a strong voice. But nothing happened and he frowned. "Arise house!" He shouted. A few rocks from the ruined manor bounced around and he felt a spark of energy jolt through him. But the manor did not return.
He walked nearer to the ruins and Behr-Aat approached it too. She pawed some of broken stones from the ruined manor. Ya-Shuur focused and looked around. He saw the door of the manor and he saw broken glass and wood. He saw bits of Li'Kalla's bed and things from the kitchen. Everything was here but just needed to be assembled in the right way. It was just a matter of moving things and bonding them just like he had done with his horns. He inhaled and tried to fill himself with power and he raised his hands again. His horns seemed to tremble. The earth shook slightly beneath him and Behr-Aat barked. Ya-Shuur groaned and there was sudden movement. Behr-Aat barked again louder.
Everywhere around Ya-Shuur debris and bits and pieces of Li'Kalla's home were in the air. He strained and willed them be shaped according to the vision in his memory. A door rose and all around it broken stones came together to form bricks. Windows were restored and broken grass jumped back into its place. The broken bed stirred and leapt back into itself and the wardrobe and all the furniture. The utensils from the kitchen shook themselves free of the earth and cleaned themselves in the lake and then went back to the kitchen but Ya-Shuur was not able to restore the food as that had mostly become rotten especially because of the incessant raining. His hands were still extended and he looked happily at his success. He lowered his hands and moved towards the door but then Behr-Aat barked loudly and her tail whipped around Ya-Shuur and wrenched him into the air as the herder-wolf took flight. Ya-Shuur was confused but understood when he saw the manor collapsing on itself. He went limp and a bit of gloom overcame him. This was not lightened even when he realized that this was his first time flying.
Behr-Aat placed him gently on her back and he held on to two of her bony protrusions to stop himself from falling. "Go back Behr-Aat." He said as rain and wind whipped his face. The herder-wolf turned around in the mist and darkness and swiftly returned to where the manor finished collapsing. Because everything was wet there was no dust cloud but a lot of mud had been thrown everywhere. Ya-Shuur sighed and walked through the debris and sat on the once again broken and soggy bed and sat brooding there.
Ya-Shuur has come to where Li'Kalla's manor is with one of his herder-wolves called Behr-Aat. He is being followed by shadows crows. He tries to rebuild Li'Kalla's manor with his powers but fails to do it. Behr-Aat saves him from being caught in the collapsing building and he flies for the first time with her. He then goes back and sits on the broken soggy bed of Li'Kalla and broods.
The winter-spirits that Ya-Shuur called iceflies were taking a lot of interest in Ya-Shuur's herder-wolves this cold season. Swarms of the little ice insects were swarming them. This caused some of the herder-wolves to bark and roar. Their barks were extremely loud and were usually enough to scare off predators. But the iceflies did not seem to register them. Now and again a herder-wolf would whips its tail around and accidentally hit a few of them or snap its jaws swiftly and destroy others because they were very aggressive towards anything foreign and unfamiliar and this was the first time they had seen iceflies. There were also a lot around the big she-wolf and around Ya-Shuur. They flew around his horns and some of them sat on it and started making little sculptures on them. Ya-Shuur looked at them. They were made of snow and ice and had wings of ice crystals with a span of one foot and they flew very easily. They looked around from two spindly protrusions on their heads and walked around on small legs that looked a bit like icicles. Some of them had two wings and some had four and some had more but they were always and even number. It was the same with their legs and with their eyes as well. They had made a lot of little sculptures around the landscape of flowers and grass and sometimes little creatures.
In the trees there were some crows with eyes of glowing coal that watched Ya-Shuur and his herd. They followed them everywhere. They had followed them down to the south when they went into the Forestlands and then again when they visited the Mud Spires. And they had kept following them when they went again to the Lakelands. And they had come with them again here to the Snow-Lowlands. Ya-Shuur had grown used to them but found them very strange as they didn't really have any reason to be following them. They did not need him for protection and they did not eat from him. They just followed him and his herd everywhere. It didn't help that there was something odd about their shape. They seemed almost like shadows and not real.
His herder-wolves were now all grown up. They were huge creatures and Ya-Shuur was easily able to ride one. From snout to tail-tip they were 8.8 metres long and 2 metres tall on average. Some were entirely white and some were entirely black and some where mottled. Their skin was very hard and difficult to cut and their bones were strong. None of them had ever broken a bone even though some of them had leapt from huge heights. But maybe that was also because they could fly and that had something to do with it. They were very good trackers and had tracked lost goats across the island. They were also very fast both when running and when flying though they were much faster when flying. Their bite and teeth were very strong like their sire's and they could open their jaws far wider than was normal for a wolf. They were digitigrade and their claws were also thick like their sire's. Unlike wolves their huge claws were protractible and their paws were more versatile. Most importantly though they were very obedient to Ya-Shuur and very intelligent. So with good training they had become brilliant herding animals though Ya-Shuur was sure that they would excel in other things if they were reared to do them instead. On the other side to their absolute loyalty was their suspicion and hostility to anything foreign. Anything other than Ya-Shuur, the goats, and the fellow wolves immediately received hostile attention from the herder-wolves. Because Ya-Shuur had trained them not to kill but scare off potential predators they knew not to attack immediately. But their natural suspicion set in if a stranger did not go away after being warned in which case they became lethal. They were strong on their own but were even more effective together because they were natural pack animals because of their wolf ancestry. Like wolves they were monogamous unless their partner died in which case they got another partner.
Ya-Shuur was now able to leave the herd completely unwatched for weeks and know that his herder-wolves would be able to take care of them.
Ya-Shuur sees some winter-spirits which he calls iceflies. He also sees some shadow crows. The herder-wolves are now grown up and are good herders and their abilities are described in more detail.
By now Ya-Shuur could see how useful this beast’s skills were in protecting the herd. It could fly. It was huge. It was very obedient. It was extremely fast so it alone could protect a huge herd. But he had an odd feeling that it would not be staying with him for long. The fact that it was already tame and understood commands meant it had another master. It would obviously have to return to him at some point. He also saw it staring off into the distance a lot. It was as if there was something it had to go and do. So Ya-Shuur was thinking to himself that he could try breeding it with another animal to get a more efficient herder than the wolves so that he did not lose its skill. He decided that this was wise and began trying to do it.
The first problem was that the beast didn’t seem to have any way to reproduce. The second problem was that he did not know what it was exactly. If he could find a creature similar enough to it then he could breed them. He thought back to how Li’Kalla had been able to make things just with her will alone. He had never tried but he thought maybe he should. He started with something simple first. He found the two horns that the beast had torn on its arrival and he focused on them. After a few moments, he released them and found that they were floating. With his will he made them fly towards his head. His hair parted and made space for them. He thought it would hurt but the bonding of the two horn to his head did not hurt at all. For an hour or so afterward his head felt weird and heavy but then he got used to the extra weight and he felt happy that he looked more like the goats he loved. Now that name of Goat Defying the Darkness felt more right.
Now that he knew he had power just like Li’Kalla he went to the beast and stroked its head. Then he focused and tried to give it reproductive organs that were like a male wolf’s. When this was done he inspected his creation to make sure he had done it right. He could not be sure until he saw the results. So he went to the wolves and picked out a strong female. He brought her and inspected her. First, she would need to be bigger to handle the stress of mating with the beast. So he strengthened her and made her bigger. Then he focused hard and tried to make it so she could safely bear children from an exceptional creature like the beast. When this was done he led her to the beast and stared at them. They stared back at him. “Uh. Um. We-well go on.” He said. But they just stared at him. “Uh. I’ll leave you two alone then.” He turned away and left them hoping that they would be able to work it out. Surely the female’s mutations would make her identify a suitable mate? He would wait and see.
Soon enough, the two had returned to Ya-Shuur with the back of the female’s slightly rougher than how it was before but overall the two were fine. The beast looked down upon the demigod before it laid down on its side. He flipped onto his back and looked at the Shepard expectantly, despite its massive size over the young master. His tail went back and forth slightly as it awaited some form of reward. Ya-Shuur rubbed its huge stomach and praised it and he told it that as a reward it could go hunt and play around the island for the rest of the day. When it had leaped into the air and cannoned away he turned to the big she-wolf. She was lying down calmly. When he approached she got up suddenly and began moving away.
Ya-Shuur glanced at the herd and then followed after her. He found her trying to go into a den but she was not big enough. He patted her and gently told her to follow him. Because he had traveled the area a lot now he knew of a good place she could stay and he took her to the cave. It was big enough for her and deep. She settled down and curled up. Everyday Ya-Shuur brought her a goat and he also brought the beast with him to teach him how to be a good mate. Eventually, the beast was taking animals it caught to the pregnant she-wolf every day. She gave birth nearly seventy days later. The creatures were as big as grown wolves even though they were still newborns. They looked a lot like a wolf but their tails were long and had a sharp protrusion for bludgeoning like the beast's. They had a longer face like a wolf but their mouths could open really wide like the beast. They didn't have teeth yet but Ya-Shuur could see that their teeth were going to be something in between their mother and father. They had sharp bones protruding at various parts of their body like the beast. They were deaf and blind for now like wolf cubs when they were born.
Because she trusted Ya-Shuur the she-wolf let him stroke them. They sniffed him and became familiar with him. Every now and then one of them might sneeze and accidentally launch themselves into the air because they could fly like the beast. When they did they their mother gently brought them back down because they could not control their flight yet. Ya-Shuur also watched how the beast interacted with the litter of six.
The beast, upon being introduced to the litter, sniffed the pups and cocked his head curiously at them before he turned away from them. He walked away from them a few steps before laying on his stomach and gaze into the air, seemingly sniffing for something that was not there. It seemed that the beast was distracted before it let out a whimper and laid its head onto the ground. Ya-Shuur found this behaviour odd. He had noticed the beast staring off into the distance as though searching for something many times before. Only his voice seemed to bring it back to doing as he told. But now it seemed disinterested in its own children and that was strange. He walked towards it and stroked its head. “Are you ok? What’s wrong?” He could feel that it was anxious and a bit conflicted.
The beast only let out another whimper looking out to the sky in a very clear distraction. It’s muscles tensed up as it held a clear desire to be on the move, yet it would not move from its position next to Ya-Shuur. Such was it’s prerogative to remain close the kin of its master, even if Ya-Shuur knew not who the beast had come from. However, it did move forwards a little bit, crawling a few insignificant motions before it stopped again. The animal’s actions would confused anyone else. But because Ya-Shuur had become more attuned to animals ever since he discovered the name of Goat Defying the Darkness he understood that the animal wanted to go but that it now felt tied to him. He smiled and encouraged it to go. “Don’t worry. Go on. But visit me when you can.”
Its massive head jerked upwards and turned towards Ya-Shuur, almost as a look of shock before it jumped up to its feet to lick the young demi-god. After the licking, the beast pressed the top of its head against Ya-Shuur as one last symbol of fair before it turned and bounced into the sky. After a while it looked back to the young demi-god and its mate before howling a final goodbye as it quickly began to run away. The she-wolf came out of her den and looked at where her mate was disappearing. She paused somberly for a few moments. Then she howled at the sky. Ya-Shuur left her to be sad and went in to the den with the litter. He thought about the beast and how it had developed a bond and duties towards him. But it also had other duties too. It was a dutiful beast. He had taught a lot about justice but it had also taught him. He looked at the cubs and stroked them and then he spoke. “The fulfillment of duty is laudable. Those who forego their duty are to be shunned. Those who do not forego but are unable to fulfill their duty do no wrong. This is Justice.”
Ya-Shuur reasons that the beast will leave one day. So he decides to breed it with a she-wolf to create better animals to protect and herd his flock. He tests his powers by putting two goat horns on his head and making them part of his head. This is for free and doesn’t cost any might or free points. He gives the beast the ability to reproduce for 1 free point. He transforms a she-wolf into a bigger wolf and gives the ability to mate with creatures of phenomenal power safely. This costs 2 FP because she is a phenomenal beast herself now. They mate and a litter of six cubs is born. This costs 3 might points to create a species of phenomenal power that is also tame and this contributes 3 might points to the Animal Domestication portfolio. (I will write about their abilities more in my next post when they are more grown up). Then the beast sees its children but it seems conflicted and Ya-Shuur tells it that it can go but it should visit him. It is very happy and it goes. And Ya-Shuur makes a new maxim because he learned about duty from the beast. The new maxim is that: “The fulfillment of duty is laudable. Those who forego their duty are to be shunned. Those who do not forego but are unable to fulfill their duty do no wrong. This is Justice.”
Ya-Shuur had now managed to dress himself better. It had happened by accident when he was inspecting a goat's carcass and noticed that its bones and muscles were kept together with very strong sinew. As he was digging around in the carcass (which was very disgusting) he realized that it was quite easy to pull the hide off. Excited by this he began wrestling with it and trying to get the hide off but it was hard to get it off the feet. He tried ripping it. It took a while but eventually he was able to. He thought that if he could find some way to cut it rather than rip it then things would be much easier. He looked at the goat's horn and felt it. It was not very sharp but its point could be used to cut things. He tried to break one off but it was too thick and strong so he gave up on that.
He washed the goat's hide in a stream and got rid of all the blood and gore. Then he left it to dry. Over the next few days he did the same with four more goats until he had five goat pelts. He also had sinew he had managed to remove and dry at hand. He used some thorns to make tiny holes in the hides and then tied them together using the sinew strands. It was a difficult and lengthy process but by the end of it he had a long poncho made of goat hide. He wore it so that the goat hair was against his skin. This kept him warm and also meant that the waterproof side protected him from the rain. Ya-Shuur was extremely happy at his success and showed his new clothes off to the goats. They bleated curiously. One of them stared at him angrily and he felt a bit guilty.
Ya-Shuur had now begun to recognize some of the wolves. One pack in particular stalked him and his herd but never attacked. Instead it waited on him to come out with a few goats. Sometimes he had even seen members of this pack chasing off bears and other wolves trying to attack his herd. Ya-Shuur found this very interesting. Whenever he saw them doing this he praised them with words. Sometimes he even took a goat to the specific wolves right after they guarded his flock.
As his herd grew Ya-Shuur had realized that he would not be able to protect them all the time. Goats were very curious and were prone to wandering off. Sometimes large groups wandered off and it was many days before he could find them. Sometimes he only found their bones because one predator or another had eaten them. The wolves had been watching him and just like he did they had started running at goats or yelping at them when they saw them running off. But wolves were wolves and they sometimes got over-excited and attacked the escaping goats. Ya-Shuur punished the ones who did this and did not feed them for some time.
One day a large group of goats broke off and Ya-Shuur began to head towards them with the rest of the herd. He shouted to get their attention and bring them back. But they were not listening and were off. After some time he was surprised to find them running back with three wolves yelping and barking at them. Ya-Shuur was extremely pleased and walked towards the wolves. They looked at him with caution as he approached. He brought his hand close to one of them and it snarled. But he spoke gently and eventually managed to pat it on its back. "Well done. You did very well. Well done."
As he sat one a rock one day watching the wolves protecting and herding his goats for him Ya-Shuur could not help but smile. He took his stick and wrote in the snow: "Kindness is done to to whoever does kindness. Those who reward kindness with unkindness are to undo their unkindness. If they do not do this then kindness is to be withheld from them. It shall be withheld until they repent and undo their unkindness. This is Justice."
Ya-Shuur learns how to use a goat's hide. He also learns about how to use sinew. He makes a poncho for himself from goat hide. A relationship develops between Ya-Shuur and a pack of wolves. He feeds them and they protect him and his herd. It is not perfect because the instinct of some of the wolves sometimes make them attack the goats. It is slowly working though. Ya-Shuur learns a new maxim from this: "Kindness is done to to whoever does kindness. Those who reward kindness with unkindness are to undo their unkindness. If they do not do this then kindness is to be withheld from them. It shall be withheld until they repent and undo their unkindness. This is Justice."
Ya-Shuur spoke softly to the pregnant goat as she bleated. He rubbed her back and massaged her stomach as slowly her baby emerged into the world. He gripped the small creature's head and guided its passage into the world. This had been weird for him to do the first few times, but he had grown used to it now. In fact he was proud of every time he helped a goat give birth with success. He was able to take care of his flock and protect them.
In his travels around Li'Kalla's island he had discoverd that he occupied the south. This area was full of cold forest and was where Li'Kalla's manor was. It was also where he had run away from when he got out of her sphere. So there was a lot of forest in this area. The goats liked the abundance of food here and the easy shelter from the rain. They didn't like the abundance of predators though and Ya-Shuur had to keep running bears and other predators off so that they didn't eat any of his flock. As he travelled with his flock to the east he found that the forest disappeared. They gave way to huge spires made of clay and mud that left small valleys between each other. This area was damp and muddy but there was plenty of grass for his goats to graze in the valleys. The rain was unceasing and they could not find any shelter from it. The goats looked miserable and wet despite all the fresh grass. So he took them back to the forest where they stayed for some time and were safe from the rain.
After that Ya-Shuur wished to explore more so they headed west. Here there were ponds covered in beautiful strange flowers and moss. The area was inhabited by frogs, ladybugs, butterflies, dragonflies, and other seemingly harmless insects. The goats seemed to enjoy the new place bereft of dangerous predators and full of greenery and water. But like the east there was nowhere to take shelter from the rain here either and after some time Ya-Shuur led them back to the forests where they wandered around for some time and Ya-Shuur chased off some bears that took an interest in the goats. By this time there were now many goats and Ya-Shuur noticed with worry that they were eating everything. Because he kept them safe none were being eaten. But they were eating everything. There was now an imbalance. This worried Ya-Shuur but he put off thinking about it too much for now. He took the herd north this time. Here they found a mix of snowy forest and a sprawling network of canyons filled with seawater. The goats took to the snow very happily. They ran here and there and played with one another and seemed very happy that they had found a place without rain. Ya-Shuur found it very cold though with nothing but his poor excuse for a loincloth.
He sat thinking one day as he watched the goats prancing in the snow chasing strange butterflies that had wings that were one foot in length. One such butterfly flew right up to him and observed him. He was hunched up with a frown on his face because of all of his thinking and the cold. The herd had now gotten enormous and he knew that the bigger it became the worse things would be for the environment here. He had to find a way to balance things out. Many animals needed goats to survive. Him protecting them meant those animals had lost their food. This saddened Ya-Shuur especially because he knew that the goats were not in danger of being killed completely if some of them were eaten. And it would be better for the balance of the island overall.
He thought about this. His goats were alive. They desired to continue living. There was no reason to take away their lives. His maxim covered this: “Hurting others for no good reason is evil.” This raised the question of what was good reason when it came to hurting his goats. The first was the reason the bear had. The bear hunted goats to subsist. The bear also desired to live, just like the goat. To live it had to eat. To eat it had to kill. If it did not do so it would die. So subsistence seemed like a good reason that was covered by the maxim to Ya-Shuur. In the same way the goat had to eat. To eat it destroyed plants. If it kept eating without anyone to hunt it then it could destroy life on the island entirely. So there had to be a balance. The bear ate the goat to live, so he hurt it with good reason. Then the goat ate the plant so it could live, hurting it within reason for good reason. That made sense to Ya-Shuur.
There was also another reason in his mind why hurting a goat could be considered to be for good reason. Too many goats could end up eating too much and destroying what Li'Kalla had created on the island. So it would be justice for him to kill some goats to prevent them from destroying life on the island. This destruction would even affect the goats eventually if no one intervened to create a balance. So it was right for the bear to kill so it could eat. And it was also right that the bear should kill to preserve the natural balance of the island.
Ya-Shuur held his stick and placed it in the snow. How could he word these into a maxim? “The desire for subsistence is natural. Those who hurt within reason so as to subsist do no wrong. Those who transgress beyond necessity have done evil. They must undo what they have done. If they do not do this then they are to be hurt. This is Justice.” He looked at this maxim and was satisfied. Then he placed the butt of his stick elsewhere and wrote another maxim. “The maintenance of harmony is good. Intentionally hurting some to preserve the well-being of the whole is a necessary evil. It leads to good for all. It is to be done. This is Justice.” He looked at this third maxim for a long time. He knew that he would have to return to it and think about it more. For now though he would hold to it.
The next day Ya-Shuur gathered ten of his goats and led them to the forest. He left them there for the bear and the wolf.
Ya-Shuur explores Li'Kalla's island. In the north there is snow and the goats seem to like this place best of all. There are now many goats and this worries Ya-Shuur because it has created an imbalance. He sees some winter-spirits and one of them comes near him and watches him as thinks. He thinks a great deal and comes out with two new maxims: “The desire for subsistence is natural. Those who hurt within reason so as to subsist do no wrong. Those who transgress beyond necessity have done evil. They must undo what they have done. If they do not do this then they are to be hurt. This is Justice.” “The maintenance of harmony is good. Intentionally hurting some to preserve the well-being of the whole is a necessary evil. It leads to good for all. It is to be done. This is Justice.”
