Limits

I calmed down a bit from the excitement but when I looked further down the pass, I saw something that destroyed my calmness. Shelly was running around with the mask on and suddenly hit one of the cliff sides with its head... Hard. The moment was so funny to me, that I forgot about my excitement, the training and simply laughed.

Although Shelly would hit obstacles in the past, I always took it seriously. It seems I forgot that something so simple could bring a smile on my face. I went over to Shelly, still laughing a bit I took the mask off. Yet I couldn't squeeze out any words as I was afraid I would laugh even more. Shelly could see that I was laughing a bit and looked at me with teary eyes. I couldn't contain my laughter anymore and released it.

"Hahahaha. Shelly you should've seen yourself hitting that cliff side, it was the best!". Shelly looked like it was about to cry, no doubt it felt very wronged. I stood there laughing, when Shelly decided it had enough of it and rammed into me. We fell to the ground together and Shelly made some noises with tears in its eyes.

I picked Shelly up and got a bit surprised. I stopped my laughing and said "Oh, you gained weight, you are much more heavy than the last time I picked you up. Huh? And you seem a bit bigger too". Shelly was again left with tears in its eyes as if I was saying it was fat. I placed Shelly down and sat up. I said "Sorry, don't mind me. It was such a long time since I forgot about everything and simply laughed at something". Shelly still looked wronged so I continued while patting its head "That is a good thing, don't you think? You are growing up, shouldn't you be happy instead? I spend everyday with you and didn't notice your development".

Shelly seemed to brighten up when I said this and patted its head. I then continued "Its so easy to forget about the simple things, like how to laugh or enjoy the moment. I train my senses to be more acute and even study the behaviours of humans as well as animals, yet I can't notice something so simple. Something that is always right in front of me". Shelly didn't understand what I was talking about but it didn't have to, I was saying this for my sake. I was focused on my training too much, it was to the point I couldn't even see that Shelly has grown. My skills and arts were not the whole life, it was just the means to travel wherever I wanted and explore the life however I wanted to.

I said to Shelly "We shall leave this place and have some adventures. I can train later, there is no rush to master my skills. Instead, I want to spend some time with you, like family would. Let's go somewhere and forget about training and just enjoy ourselves for a while. Let's take some holiday away from all that training and daily regime. What do you say?". Shelly looked me in the eyes and nodded its head.

I then said "Good, let's pack up and travel somewhere. No maps, no training, just having fun and discovering new places". Shelly again nodded its head in agreement and we went back to our shelter in order to organise our stuff before moving out.

When we were done, I didn't take out my map in order to choose the direction. Besides I already knew approximate location of the areas that were written in red colour on my map, I wouldn't choose to go near them. I said to Shelly "Let us go towards north a bit, the we can go west". Shelly didn't really care, it was already happy we would just travel and layabout without any training and so on.

We moved towards the northern direction. Whenever we found something interesting or something that would make us relax, we would stop and check it out. After traveling for couple of hours with breaks for food, we encountered a group of animals that we already knew. The animals we encountered were the spiky creatures. Shelly went over to interact and play around with the animals. Due to the hard shell, the animals were not really able to hurt Shelly as long as it didn't try to touch them with its head or legs.

While Shelly interacted with the animals and had some fun, I collected some berries and fruits from the nearby areas. I wanted to gift those to the spiky animals. When the animals saw the pile of fruits and berries that I made, they converged together but were scared to take anything. I said to Shelly "Just tell them that this is food for them. They can take whatever they want".

When Shelly explained to the animals to take the food, they looked at me one more time but this time I could see gratitude in their small black eyes. The spiky animals would either roll towards the food to pick it up or approach in such a way that the fruits and berries would stick to their spikes. It was sometimes amusing looking at the spiky animals picking up fruits. Some of them would pick it up with the side spikes and due to the fruit being large, they would walk funny and lose balance in the process.

The animals were not afraid of us anymore and even allowed us to follow them back to their homes. These spiky animals lived mostly in tree trunks or in underground tunnels, that I assumed they digged themselves. The ones in tree trunks had loads of leaves or grass to make it more comfortable for them yet it also played another part. Warmth during winter was a very crucial necessity. Without it, everything would freeze.

The animals also had interesting ways of taking the fruits or berries out from the spikes on their bodies. One such method was to get the help from the other spiked creature. They would use their spikes to slowly extract the fruit or berry, that was attached on the creature who was carrying it. The other method that I saw was used by lone creatures, which didn't have anyone in their homes. The creature would rub a wall or tree trunk in order to take of the fruit or berry on its back.

I thought about it some more and the spiked creatures behaved similarly to humans. The creatures had similar community to us humans. Although we had rulers and what not but if one looked at just a simple village then yes, there was someone who would keep the law, someone who would represent and protect people. Here I saw the same thing although not just one creature held that responsibility.

There were couple of older animals who would represent the animals. I already noticed that when the animals gathered around the pile of fruits. There were couple of them standing out, closer towards the pile while others waited for them to make a move. I imagined that the ones who stood at the front would represent the whole group but perhaps also keep peace in the community and carry out law if one of the animals did something wrong.

'If that is not a similar concept to human village then I don't know what is' I thought. These creatures were interesting but I didn't want to spend couple of days just watching them, we had loads to discover and learn. I said to Shelly "It's time to leave. We should let them do what they need to do in peace". Shelly nodded and said goodbye to the creatures. We then left that place to go into unknown and try to discover something new.