Captured; Entry Two

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August 14th, 1703

Mikkah came back yesterday - looking exactly the same as he did previously. However, something about him has been changed, his mentality above all. Occasionally he comes out with morals and teaching that he wouldn't even have understood before these trials. His explanations of the days had been fairly brief, but enough to satisfy me.

"All I remember clearly from the morning we were taken was awakening to my parents hushed, urgent conversations. As soon as I entered the main room, they ceased and shot me gleaming smiles. Both proud looking I suppose, yet in my mother's, I could have sworn that I saw a hint of apprehension. I was correct of course, but then I just brushed it away. The bowls of breakfast were already set on the mat, an unusually large portion of fruit in mine. Again, I disregarded that fact and ate quickly to avoid having to put up with the two terrors when they woke up. I think my mind was too pre-occupied with thinking about the day I'd planned ahead to register the obvious clues pointing to what was wrong, different. As usual, I head out to check the goats for my Dad before I would meet you. It was lucky I went when I did actually, as Sakii was having trouble keeping the cheetahs away - they were only infants too! None of the herd were harmed luckily, I made sure of it. And then they took me..."

"Like a kidnap?!" I'd asked, horrified. How could men from the same tribe forcefully take boys away?! It was against everything that we had been taught as children and young adults. Trust was one of the most important things each tribe possessed.

"Yes, I suppose so." He began his explanations again. "Although their intentions were good ones. They slipped a rough, woven bag over my head that hung all the way down to my chest and, ignoring my burst of struggles, led me across the plains. I could not provide you with an exact location, it was all more secretive than you would imagine. When I saw the light of day again we were in a clearing, sectioned off by logs with sharpened tips stood up on their ends. There were around ten other boys in there with me. I'd seen them all before of course, around the village, but Sakii was the only one I had ever spoken to properly. The elders were there - the Chief and all the rest. They spoke to use for hours on end and yet no one became bored and uninterested in their teachings. Everything, respect, hunting, fighting, tactics, strength, intelligence, protection, the future in our tribe, was all explained by them. We wrestled not only using brute force but also the strength of the mind to take apart the opponents strategies. We hunted birds and boar, not only using a spear, but our eyes and ears and minds just as much. They made me a man, through words, actions and agony. I'm ready for life now..."

I had come up with no answer to that. The word 'agony' hung in my mind silencing anything I would have said to him.

We hunted later in the day, coming back with quadruple what we would have usually collected due to his new skills. I wasn't sure if I liked the new Mikkah. He seemed too confident, too wise, to be the same boy I knew before.

Not much else happened, yesterday or today. Apart from several men heading out to look for three boys who never returned from the trials. You would think as teenagers they would know their way about the plains!

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