8. Ursa Totemic

Rhythmically tapping my claws on the only table in our house, I struggled to keep the saliva in my mouth; unlike a human mouth, a muzzle and its dentition were hardly ideal for keeping saliva from flowing.

Still, I endured the smell of honeyed salmon, tauntingly feasted on by the little shits that were my siblings, which served only as a distraction. The last gulp of the glowing water in an empty glass bottle did little to alleviate my hunger.

I was growing tired of this water; it was the only substance I was allowed to consume for nearly two weeks. Yet, I resisted the urge to vomit the sweet, electrifying liquid. Its supernatural properties came into effect immediately, energizing my body and quenching my thirst by pumping mana into my system. A drop more in an ocean from all that I drank since this began...

The hunger remained, however.

It wasn't for fun or some kind of experiment that I was drinking myself sick. It was to purge my body and soak my metabolism in mana—a necessary preparatory step for the ritual to come. It was a necessity, and I had chosen this. So, I bit the bullet and didn't complain too much. It was very unpleasant.

Evidently, it wasn't just any random liquid; it was magical water made by infusing my mana into pure water with a few other ingredients. And thank Ursol and Ursoc, it came to an end tonight. In fact, the one sent to take me just arrived. I could feel her life force behind the door.

Halting my rhythmic tapping, I stood up before my parents could react and opened the door to Fara, one of the younger shamans around and somehow one of the strictest.

There werent many notable distinctions between male and female furbolgs when it came to sexual dimorphism, aside from size and genitalia. The rest was quite imperceptible to those with mediocre senses of smell or those unable to interpret the meaning of our ornaments.

"I come to escort you, Ohto," she said curtly, her focus shifting from me to my mother, then to my father, and back again as they approached.

She noticed their worries, among other emotions, and while they fully trusted whatever the shamans told them, it wasn't a mystery that the process of becoming an ursa totemic was unpleasant. I had plenty of worried questions about my well-being.

It was why, among other things, it was a prestigious position, equal to that of shamans, yet did not play any major role in the day-to-day life of the tribe aside from their role as protectors. At least, that was the norm, but there was always an exception. From the training to the planned events of today, it wasn't a path open to all, nor a safe one.

Nonetheless, parental emotions, especially, tend to ignore rationality. It wasn't unpleasant as I was given a hug, nuzzles, and licks of good luck—actions, aside from the first, that I would have once classified as 'animalistic' or 'feral' as a human but now were part of my existence.

"Trust him, the ancestors' wisdom, and the spirits of the wild. His past feats prove him worthy and ready to thread upon this path," were Fara's words of comfort as we walked away. I waved a paw with a nervous smile at my parents before I caught up to the female shaman, my shorter legs forcing me to quicken my pace until we suddenly stopped at the edge of the village.

"I see that the time has come, Fara." A massive chestnut-furred furbolg dressed more colorfully than the average said to my escort, who smiled almost bashfully. Interesting… Heh.

"Indeed, Chieftain Murgut. Young, he is, eight communions, and that is of age for the ancestors. He has proven worthy by his temperament and abilities." She explained, and he nodded, nuzzling her shortly before crouching to my level.

I would think he was an ursa totemic if I didn't know better. But no, he was just that big and one of the best warriors. He was the son of a female ursa totemic and a normal if less than sane male furbolg, explaining his bulk, but that was hardly comparable.

He could have been one if not for being chosen by the spirits to lead our tribe. However, being physically big wasn't the only requirement. Being a minimum smart was in the same boat if the result desired was not a rabid animal incapable of higher thought processes.

And there was the fact that there couldn't be an infinite number of ursa totemics from the get-go. They were massive creatures with equally massive appetites. It's evident what an excess of apex predators would do to an ecosystem. Ergo, destroy it.

"Hello," I spoke, staring into his brown eyes. I never talked to him properly, but with what I had to deal with daily, getting nervous was impossible here, "What is the matter?"

"Oh, I have come to wish you the best for the trials ahead. May Ursoc bless you with a resilient body and Ursol with a calm mind, young Ohto. You are the pillar for the future of the Greenweald." He chuckled, patting my shoulder with his big paws, almost causing me to stumble.

'Well, thank you very much; no pressure with the newly added expectation placed on my shoulders, Chieftain,' was my sarcastic thought. It was nothing new, but it reminded me of how I was perceived as important. And I would like to say it wasn't of my own doing, but that would be a big fat lie. With power comes great responsibility or some other nonsense, and I was working towards that. I didn't want to die or get corrupted; the same was true for the tribe.

After this little pause, we continued forward uninterrupted until we arrived at a small clearing with a flat stump laid among bear totems, Ursine runes adorning everything and thrumming with power—the moonlight of the twin moons breached shily through the thick canopy adding to the otherworldly air.

The first to notice my pretense as Fara left me to help was an ursa totemic I didn't know; his silent, quick, and purposeful step betrayed his mass as he approached me. His fur was a light brown, almost goldish yellow in tint, if the reflection was correct.

"Ah, your little disciple is here, Miel!" I stared at him as he sniffed me briefly and grinned wildly, showing gleaming fangs, "Fresh meat indeed, but he smells of blood. Excellent! Good, cub! And tested, too!"

"And you are?" I titled my head and asked without feeling it necessary to present myself after he said. It was a drag to present myself. And his presence, while it did make me tense up, was only to a healthy level; instincts were like that.

"This lazy oaf is Nalle." Coming into view from behind a tree, Miel commented humorously with a shake of his head while said lazy oaf growled in faux outrage.

"I'm not lazy. I use my time optimally! By Ursoc's furry balls, it's not complicated to understand!" Nalle defended himself with fervent righteousness. His swearing earned a brief glare from the surrounding shamans, which he ignored or didn't notice. I bet on the former.

"To gorge yourself in honey and sleep only, yes. It's not complicated. That's your only desire in life." Miel rebuked in a bored voice, and it seemed to be the coup de grace for the goldish bear, who abandoned immediately and began grumbling nonsense. I kept a snort of amusement at the scene from coming out.

I mean, lazing around was nice and all, but that stopped here, not that I was going to play the moral high ground on that front. I was a pretty slothful person myself.

If not for the real possibility of death and destruction of myself and all I loved, I wouldn't work that hard. It was an alien behavior, almost, even if what I was doing was mostly studying and doing magic, and I loved it. I never put this much effort and hard work in those past few years to grow as I did in my entire human life.

"You two go back to your station and follow me, young cub. We can begin." My heart rate increased at the call from one of the shamans, all the calm I had until now seemingly puffing into smoke. But I advanced nonetheless.

"Don't scream too loud, cub." Miel 'emphatically' exclaimed, my head snapping behind with a measured glower, and he chuckled, "It's not that bad."

"Say the one who cried the loudest like a doe in heat." The other ursa totemic shot back, and I zoned their bickering out. I wasn't in the mood for that. Taking a deep breath to settle down, I put myself in position on the stump, back facing the sky, and claws in the right place.

"You two brats, be silent, or I will force you to." The stern voice of Oakpaw broke the rhythmic beat of my heart in my ears, making me aware of the shuffling around.

"We will begin soon enough, Ohto." The Elder Shaman informed me, "Make your left paw face the sky."

And with a nod, I did just then from the sheath around his belt. He took the handle of something, a crystalline blade, an athame. My breath hitched in preparation as he gently brought it down on the earlier mentioned paws and diagonally cut in the central pads to draw my scarlet mana-infused blood, painful but far from anything I wasn't unused to.

I just frowned, jaws tensing, but otherwise, I remained still.

Then, fourteen marks were drawn with a brush made of my fur using my blood as paint, which took almost half an hour. Once done, I didn't panic or fight back as roots locked my body in place; the paw cut was healed and placed like the others against the stump.

A second later, the mana in the air became denser, indicating the beginning.

"Spirits of the ancestors, be witness to the path taken by this young one, the hardest and noble path of Ursoc. May he embody the Bear of Might ferocity and strength!" The shamans spoke in a chorus, the runes shining brightly as ancestral presence descended, their many voices echoing faintly and loudly as they chanted with the shamans and spoke.

~Let it be so.~

~May honor guide this cub path.~

~He is ready.~

These were among the most coherent sentences I could hear from them; some weren't even properly speaking and, in fact, far more animalistic, primal even. It was raw, ancient, and wanting, hungry and eager to share it with me... counted I was worthy.

And I was! Snarling right back to the ancestral spirits delighted bestial rage.

But in truth, my focus was split. I was mentally preparing myself for the main course of pain to come.

Alas, there wasn't much else to do but grit my teeth as a blade cut through my skin, the mana I had ingested shifting as the Totemic Ritual came in full bloody swing. The first cut of the athame was nothing compared to now; the knife was moved methodically across my back as mana-infused blood oozed from my wound as I growled.

Yet, contrary to what one might expect, it didn't soak my fur in blood. I couldn't see it, but I sensed it was kept afloat while further scarring of my body composed of entire chunks of pelt and skin were taken. Blood poured into the air from those wounds. It was only superficial, little else but scratches compared to injuries I got in the past years, but it was on multiple points, shoulders first for the largest, followed by my head. It was in the same location I had been 'drawn' on.

I would like to say I didn't whimper or that I soldiered on impassively, but the reality of the matter was not so. My claws dug deep into the trunk as I gnashed my teeth, a constant pitiful yowl coming out. But I remained relatively silent and perfectly still, not even as the crystalline blade dug below my eyes along my muzzle.

I wasn't aware of how much time passed, but I knew the purpose of the runes on my body. I had been part of the process of adapting them for my body. The Totemic Ritual was as unique as the individual, but nothing drastically differed in each iteration. It was retrofitted to each furbolg from a standard blueprint of complexity far beyond anything I had ever seen.

Admittedly, there was not much to go by, but that didn't diminish the fact that it was a gift from Ursoc and Ursol to explore our ancient ancestry with our minds and intellect intact.

It was essentially adaptive magical tattoos made from a mix of blood, Life, and Nature magic, pumping growth hormones and steroids, along with countless other substances, into my body by using myself as a focus.

If I understand right, the part about blood was quite interesting, sacrificing my mana-infused blood to anchor the ritual to my flesh and more, no matter its state of existence. And it wasn't an instant transformation, well, not truly. It was like a pseudo puberty with a better effect the younger it's done.

My 'uniqueness' regarding my vermillion-colored mana among the sea of green hadn't been ignored in that. I couldn't hide it; it was how I was so good at healing, the best in the tribe. It could do so much more in theory. For example, it let me ignore steps requiring taking the life force from the environment to heal wounds or grow plants when, otherwise, up from a certain point, it became obligatory. It wasn't a small advantage when it came to that. I was a source of life and the guide of its nature.

The shamans judged it as a non-factor in the success of the Totemic Ritual. They saw it as a blessing of the spirits, and I trusted them on that matter, the success rate, that is, even with the innate risk of it all going down to shit. They tended to attach unrelated happenings to the Bear Lords and our ancestors. By virtue of common sense, I took everything they said in that regard with a few grains of salt.

Unconscious biases were a sin to which all were susceptible. Not even the mightiest of gods could say otherwise without lying.

Afterward, it remained unknown, but I needed power. In the end, it was a worthy risk-gghfuck! Shit! Urso-fuck!

My train of thought to divert my focus from the pain reached a halt and shattered into incoherent fragments that viciously and repeatedly stabbed my brain.

'Fuck!' I couldn't scream, but my pitiful growls reached a new level as the pain increased immensely, my bones cracked, my flesh twisted, and my blood boiled as energy overflowed my body. The fourteen scars burned like hot metal as new skin and fur regenerated, my mana coursing through them, amplifying the pain as they transformed their surroundings.

Then all the pain went away, vanishing from my system like it never existed, leaving me exhausted, panting, and staring blankly at my snout. Two glyphs glowing a soft greenish-white for proof of the ritual success, but I couldn't do anything or care to do anything.

My limbs were so heavy, thinking made my head throb, my thoughts were sluggish and hard to understand, and the place was comfy. By the ancestors, I was so sleepy… I wanted to take a nap… a little one…

"You have done well. May the Twin Bears watch over your rightful rest, young ursa totemic." I heard someone, and all went black as my eyelids, by the will of gravity, closed soon, followed by my last shred of awakeness.

I woke up two days later, and after a feast to my success, they made me do a series of tests to explore the change under shamans' careful gazes and see if everything went well.

There weren't many. It was akin to activating a set of genes, and time was necessary for them to take effect to any meaningful degree. So, no big–well bigger–muscles and metal claws for now; it was why it was done within puberty, which I was entering, to my displeasure—I could already feel some of the change, lust for once even if it was tame… for now.

Anyway.

The greatest changes outside of my new awesome white glowing fur markings were related to my senses, at the forefront being my olfactory.

It was stronger than before, nothing mind-bogglingly, but it was here. It wasn't unique to my nose, too. My sight didn't change, but my hearing and ability to perceive mana were marginally better. Again, it wasn't my jump from human to furbolg, but there was a notable improvement.

It made me think back to a random thought. Cities are going to be a nightmare.

Imagining an uncomfortably confined space, with noisy crowds of potentially scared small bipedal creatures and a horrendous smell, makes me shudder. It would be interesting… but it wasn't for now, and the Totemic Ritual hardly affected only my senses. But the latter parts would become apparent with time.

It affected most of everything. Nothing that would dramatically alter my personality, but that was essentially a super puberty.

*

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