Deep within the forest, where the trees were closely knitted, connected around the treetops, several shabby, crudely built treehouses hung around their trunks. The whole vilge, if it could even be called that, was full of loud, screeching voices as young chimpanzees were swinging around the trees, chasing each other or py-fighting. The females mostly just sat on the branches or in the 'houses,' zing around, watching the children, while some young males were down on the ground, holding cubs, crude spears, and whatnot, guarding their community.

  One of them almost fell asleep when a loud, banging noise shook everything up, scaring the younglings to flee in any direction they could. Even the zy females screamed as they rushed downwards, as one of the shacks almost fell apart, releasing thick, bck smoke.

  "Cough, cough…" came out one older-looking, hunchbacked ape, wearing coat-like clothing made from some beast's rough skin that was now dripping with some kind of smelly, sticky fluid, stuck between the already graying fur of his "Damn it…." He coughed again, wiping his face, which was marked with scars all around. "Get up here, you zy bastards! Clean up this shit, so you have some worth!" He roared down to the scared chimps as he wobbled away, climbing upwards to another poorly built shack on the neighboring tree while the young males could do nothing else but grumble, going up to clean what remained of the boratory of the old, strange, but very much feared Shaman.

  The females, meanwhile, tried to calm the children, gathering them around themselves, feeding them, and making them fall silent, as they knew that when something went wrong, their Shaman had an especially bad temper for the next few hours, until he calmed down. Not once did he grab and beat up some arrogant and harsh young male or female who disrupted his thinking, ruining his experiments, in a way nobody but he could understand. Yet he was never punished by the tribe's leader... He was untouchable.

  "No, the liver was the problem… mhm…" Shaman mumbled to himself, "But it should be sliced up more, and I should add less to the concoction to avoid the same reaction…."

  Grumbling, he entered his other shack, which was filled with many strange tools, made by himself or stolen from humans and repurposed, wholly looking like a mad scientist's boratory from any other fairy tales. Scribbles and rough sketches, written with charcoal on rough paper or animal skins, littered the floor or were nailed onto the walls, letting out crunching noises as he stepped on them, just like dried leaves would.

  "Where did I put it?" He threw another stack of papers onto the ground, sweeping it off from the shabby, almost colpsing shelf of his "No, not here… huh? What's this?" He picked up one old, yellowed book, and because the glue holding it together had long since lost its adhesive properties, the pages just fell out as he caught some of it in mid-air, "Oh, I remember; this is hers!" He said, flipping through it, "I should get a good price for this if I sell it to a human! Maybe I should. Now, where are the missing pages?" He looked around in the garbage field he stood in. "I need to find them, and when Niji comes back, ask him to go and sell them. I need modern instruments; the old rusty shit from the ruins doesn't cut it anymore. Not precise enough… mmm…. Maybe I should try remaking them from those idiots' bones? They are good for nothing, screeching, autistic, brainless monkeys anyway! They are not even able to learn to read; what worth do they have, then? They should be happy to be tools for science!" He ughed maniacally as he searched for the missing pages, slowly putting the book back together.

  His loud, ughing voice, echoing through the forest, instinctively struck fear in the other apes, who shivered from top to bottom, throwing any desire to compin out the window, as even some females joined the young males in helping to clean up the shabby house around the thickest tree.

  In times like this, obedience was the only thing that could save them...

  …….…..

  "We will camp here," Niji said as he stood next to a three or four-meter-wide, fast-flowing river.

  "You sure? It's still only early evening. We could advance a bit more." Poli said, arriving next to him as the others slowly caught up.

  "We need to cross this river." Niji expined, "The nearest and narrowest part of it is up north, about half an hour of travel time… but it's the owls' territory. Going there, especially by nightfall, would not be a good idea."

  "Why?" Ren asked curiously while Leinor and Zern started clearing the campsite, not arguing. Ren was fine with camping down early, so they asked no questions.

  "We have an agreement to pass through." Niji sighed, shaking his head, "But if I bring you to their territory when they are awake… You don't have the same agreement with them... And fighting them is a pain in the ass."

  "Are they, though?" Poli asked, his curiosity already piqued.

  "Mmm… more like… tricky?" Niji thought before answering, "They can see in the dark like we can in daylight, and they can fly silently. They ambush you and harass you until you either die or leave their territory. They aren't big, though. The biggest one I saw was as tall as Ren."

  "Hey..." She grimaced.

  "Still!" Neji continued, ignoring her, "They are annoying, and their talons are razor-sharp. It's best to stay and move on tomorrow when they are asleep."

  "So they are like Ren." Isha grinned.

  "HEY!" Ren repeated herself.

  "Why not cross here?" Isha asked, ignoring her protest, as she looked at the flowing water.

  "You can try." Niji grinned.

  "The water is filled with… fish?" Feynor, who was watching the slightly muddy river, commented, "I can sense a lot of different lifeforce in it."

  "Watch!" Niji said as he threw a stone into it, and as soon as it nded, spshing sounds resounded as fish, about the size of a human foot, jumped around where it nded, their jaws filled with grotesque rows of teeth. "They would eat you clean in minutes. You all may be strong, but they are numerous, and they sap you of energy with every bite. The blood flowing out would also attract more from downstream... I saw one of ours being thrown in once. He was dead in a minute. After another five minutes, not even his bones remained."

  "Damn… and here I thought I could take a bath…." Isha sighed, shaking his head.

  "Rex. You will." Anya, who had just stood by until then, smiled before going to the riverbank, and the water silently flowed out, condensing into a giant ball that floated in the air, held up by her one hand. "Make a pce where I can put it, then we can have a bath! Don't worry. The boys can have a go at it too." She smiled serenely. "Separately, of course." She added, gncing at her daughter, who was already opening her mouth.

  When night came, and the girls had their bath, Ren rexedly sat in Anya's p at the campfire, enjoying the dinner as her mother hand-fed her.

  "Look at you; you act like a spoiled brat." Isha poked fun at her.

  "I am being spoiled! If you are jealous, you can sit on Zern's p. He would do the same, I bet!"

  "Khm." Zern scratched his throat, not saying anything or protesting, only gncing slightly at Isha before returning to enjoy his roasted meat.

  "I may just do that." Isha harrumphed before standing up, then, without reservation, plopped down into Zern's p, leaning back at him, while the young man instantly froze up. "Feed me~!" She moaned sweetly, blinking her eyes like a spoiled kitten, opening her mouth, while Leinor only sighed, trying to ignore the girls.

  "Acting like this doesn't match you… You may fool others, but we know how you are, really." He still commented in the end.

  "Yeah, sure you do, boytoy!" Isha answered, rolling her eyes while stealing a bite off Zern's skewered, roasted meat.

  "I need to get a girlfriend soon, too! Man, I'm the only one who is left out!" Poli whimpered, munching on his portion, while Anya ignored them, enjoying the closeness with her daughter. It was a serene feeling she missed very much, mainly because Ren was usually acting all grown-up and all... "Feynor, can you introduce me to one?"

  "Mmm…" The soon-to-be Aerthus X thought for a moment, "I may, but I can't guarantee anything."

  "No problem!" Poli yelped, like a little puppy, "Man, you are the best! Being a Master's apprentice, honestly, comes with some awesome perks! Long live the Emperor!"

  "Idiot." Ren, Isha, and Leinor commented simultaneously, but Poli only gave a cheeky ugh, now in a much better mood.

  "Your group of humans is more open than the ones I grew up with," Niji suddenly spoke up, reminiscing about his childhood when he was still a little chimpanzee, unaware of the real world.

  "Did they beat you?" Poli asked, throwing a new piece of wood into the fire.

  "Sometimes." Niji nodded as the light from the fmes danced around them, mirroring within his bck eyes as he watched it. He almost heard the sve trader's whips cracking in the distance in his own mind. "Usually, if I did something wrong. At first, I was kept in a cage, then in my own little… room. Or cell, if you will. I was fed, kept warm, and examined week after week. The kids in our tribe… They are hard to tell apart from normal chimpanzees; it only shows in our ability to adapt, learn, and comprehend. I quickly learned the human tongue, body nguage, and basic communication, and then I was educated. I even had my own clothes."

  "Oh? Then why are you naked now? Are you some kind of pervert?" Ren giggled, receiving a knock on her head from her mother, "Ouch... Mom…”

  "Heh, no." Niji snorted, "We don't wear them because where could we make them? Mmm? Or should I wear leaves? Nobody out here knows how to make quality clothing… and I won't wear coarse animal skin!" He shivered, grimacing, "I get rashes and other annoying reactions from my sensitive body! So I choose to adapt; as I said, we are good at it. I reverted to accepting the comfort of my own body and fur. Believe it or not, it's a pretty good feeling being free like this."

  "So you ARE a nudist!" Isha ughed, receiving a calm gaze from Niji.

  "And you ARE a pervert if you find a monkey arousing." He shot her down quickly, "But hey, the legend says we are somewhat cousins, no? I can see some of you may have weird kinks."

  "Who said I am aroused or have kinks?!" Isha snorted while Ren stifled a ugh, prompting her thumb towards Niji.

  "Rex. Come, try this!" Zern whispered, immediately calming her down, stuffing another piece of meat into her mouth, and silencing Isha.

  "It wasn't all that bad. I learned a lot." Niji continued, "I spent more than two decades with a noble family within a city called Rozex, built on a pteau." The moment he said that, Ren could feel her mother's arm flinch, and she knew it was the Naulin's own city. "I was the… The pet of the young Miss of the house, also her guard. Mind you, they were only nobles in the city, not... cultivators. So, I was more effective than anything else, as it proved time and time again. That's how I learned how to fight. It was fun! She was kind enough to let me free when she became an adult."

  "You didn't hesitate?" Ren asked, looking at him, searching for his eyes to look into them, to see if he was honest or not.

  "I did. For the whole following three years, I remained there." Niji admitted, "But in the end... I left... When she died... Too early..." He muttered, shaking his head, "It took me ten years to find my way back and make contact with this tribe, and another twenty hard years to be accepted into their ranks and rise to a somewhat trusted level! After another five years…? I was even allowed to voice my own ideas. It was hard, and I cursed myself that I left pretty often, but I had a dream, an ambition, if you will."

  "Still have it?" Ren asked, smiling at him.

  "Stronger than ever." He replied instantly, looking at Ren.

  "Good. You can trust me even if you don't trust other humans. What I said to you back home is true."

  "Hope so," Niji answered, stretching and lying on his back, no longer talking to them, just listening to the nightly opera presented by the forest and its countless critters.

  …….…..

  It was near dawn when Ren woke up and wobbled out to relieve herself in a nearby bush, and as she came out, she saw Niji sitting at the riverbank.

  "You up?"

  "It's almost morning." Niji nodded, "Usually, I wake up early. You guys are rexed, sleeping like this out in the wild."

  "My Mom is here; she has superior perception! Also, she id down traps around the camp. We would be alerted if anything tried to sneak in." She stretched, accompanied by a big yawn.

  "And if I went wild?"

  "Yeah, sure, stop with the act. You are more human than a monkey. Admit it! That's why you ran at the first sight of trouble. You are just as opportunistic as any ambitious human; in this case, it is to your advantage. That's why I can guess what you would do, and that is why we can work together."

  "The others were savage and unable to be educated." He chuckled, "You are right; I think like a human, but here, until now, it hasn't brought me any advantage. It was the opposite! At least now the biggest hurdle was removed."

  "This is why your luck just turned." Ren winked at him, "It will be your time to shine! What about the Shaman back at the tribe? Will he be a problem?"

  "No. He is old. More than a thousand years old."

  "What?" Ren blinked her violet eyes, surprised by the new information.

  "I didn't believe it at first either. Still don't, if I'm honest. But he knows the old history and the locations of the ruins that nobody else does! Also, he has a big collection of ancient artifacts. He concocts a lot of medicine that the tribe uses..."

  "Then why didn't he lead the others?"

  "Because he looks down on them, I think…" Niji muttered, shivering a little, "And the others think he is mad but useful with his concoctions. As long as you let him do his science, he doesn't bother with what the tribe does or who leads them, who mates with the females, etc. He rarely interacts with the others. Only I had permission to help him most of the time, and at least with me, he was friendly. I always felt he was raised, or at least spent time with humans. That's why, in the end, the tribe accepted me as a connection. You will see… it's just…."

  "Just?"

  "Be prepared."

  "For what?" Ren asked, her eyes fshing with excitement.

  "He is unpredictable… and don't mess with his stuff! Once, he killed six of us because one of the idiots used his notes as toilet paper."

  "Understandable." Ren nodded with a sympathetic expression. "Now I really look forward to meeting him. Does he have a name?"

  "We only call him Shaman, and he is fine with that. I also don't know if he has one."

  "I see. It will do... Hmmm, now I'm thrilled that I came! I can't wait to meet him!"

  "I just hope you will keep the same opinion tomorrow...." Niji sighed, shaking his head as the others slowly woke up and continued their journey.