They arrived in front of an enormous domed tent with its pointed tip going sky high as if it was piercing the heavens itself. It was the museum library and it sat at the heart of the tribal village, towering over the rest of the domed residential tents.

As they entered, U'tu remembered to clasp his red cape together with the student's insignia of a bronze wolf pin. "My sun prince, will you care to enlighten me about your surprise?" he asked, walking in the main atrium where the walls were covered in shelves of books from floor to ceiling. At the dead center of the library was a huge bonfire nursed by a team of elders who served drinks and food for the villagers. It was a generous celebration, bigger than anything he has ever seen before and U'tu thought it might have more to do with the ominous forthcoming of a behagthi and the descending chaos that followed rather than actually celebrating for a hero.

The sun prince peered at the left where the lively crowd of students were gathering, then, at the right where the elders sat drinking their bitter drinks while they conversed in a noisy debate. U'tu knew that look. He was accounting for everyone in the village. Once he was satisfied that every student and elder were in the room, he bent at the knees to level his gaze with the boy and whispered, "Notice how I've been giving you guidance on your studies?"

U'tu placed both hands on his hips, looking up to him and smirked, "If it's about the apprenticeship, it hardly bears asking. After all, I'm the best."

"Remind me to teach you a thing or two about humility, will you?"

Before he could answer, an elder nudged the sun prince by the elbow. "My sun prince, will you have a moment with me, if you please?"

"En'tum" he greeted the elder, then gestured to the boy "I have chosen U'tu as my new apprentice. Anything you have to say to me, you can speak in front of him."

"I highly doubt this is something an 11-year old can hear." the elder seethed, his eyes glued to the sun prince with heated impatience.

The sun prince dropped a cautionary glance to U'tu when the kid was about to retort back to En'tum. Instead, the boy mentally marked a new item on his list, one that involved pranking an elder. And it's going to taste like sweet victory.

"Tell me." said the sun prince, his voice dropping low brooking no argument about it.

U'tu wondered why tribespeople would often forget about the sun prince's divine authority. Perhaps, it was the disenchanting spell of his easy smile and caring nature. He listened well, and guided with a caring hand. He never had to rise above anyone, unless it was absolutely necessary. Making a resolve, the boy promised that when the time comes when he is prince and protector of the sun tribe, he will command with a firm hand that tolerated no opposition. He will be kind but also powerful.

En'tum continued to speak, showing his irritation. "I wish to know about the preparations being done. You do realize that another behagthi is being pulled as we speak. Considering, we already have one in this world at the snow tribe, how do you suppose to make sense of this?"

U'tu stared at En'tum with an incredulous look, wondering how he was in any way related to him. This was embarrassing. "Grandpa—" he started but he was cut down with a scathing glance from the elder.

"You will speak when you are spoken to, grandson. It's our rule. Or have you forgotten about that from gallivanting around and disrupting studies by serious students who aren't stupid as you?"

"Elder En'tum." the sun prince interjected, "U'tu is my apprentice and you will treat him fairly with respect as you will like any other in our tribe."

"He is family." he bit back with a scowl. "I will do with him as I please." Then he stormed off to the center pit where the bonfire raised strong and steady.

The sun prince murmured, "His years must be getting to him."

U'tu scoffed, "No it isn't. He's an asshole through and through. Ask anyone. For as long as I have known him, he has always been like that. If anything, age has only inspired him to move out of his shell."

A moment stretched on before the sun prince said, "Now I know why you like to talk as though you're a fully graduated scholar."

"And why is that?"

He tipped his chin up at the direction of En'tum. "You like knowing you're better than him."

Biting back a smirk, the boy said. "Not better. The best. I am the best. Simple as that. I don't know why I have to keep reminding everyone of this."

He raised a brow and said lightly, "Perhaps if you say it several more times enough, then it will actually come true."

"Gladly." he said carefully, trying to probe whether he spoke true or not. "If that is what it takes to prove myself."

At that, the sun prince gave a deep booming chuckle that made everyone in the room stop and look at him like they were seeing stars for the first time. But he paid their momentary silence with no thought, his gaze passing over the students and elders that make up the tribal village of the sun. It was a default cursory glance from him, always making sure his tribespeople were accounted for at all times.

"The sun tribe is a teaching village." he said to the boy, but as he spoke, everyone in the room returned their attention to him like he never lost it at all. The sun prince took advantage of their rapt attention and began addressing them. "Elders must teach our history. They must teach the skills honed by generations after generations. These are set in stone. It cannot be changed. But there is one finely honed skill we must learn as a necessity regardless of having no elder to teach us this. Any idea what this is?" he asked. "Tell me the skill that cannot be taught by any elder."

"Loving!" a teenage student raised his answer with a goblet of wine.

Another student supplied an answer, "Creating joy!"

"Maintaining relationships," someone slurred in the crowd.

"Forming new ideas." A teenage girl said, whose arms were crossed and her face was sober with no discernible flush of inebriation.

U'tu and the sun prince both turned to her.

At the sight of the sullen girl in the corner of the room, something unwounded inside U'tu's chest as though he was being set free. Unbounded. Which was customary when it came to her, Lei'la, because she was magic. Even if she doesn't know it yet.

"Most excellent." the sun prince nodded to her. Then continued to address the crowd. "New ideas. It is something that has never been. Innovation. We don't have an elder for this because we have two aspects of a god that already provides us with these lessons in the form of a behagthi."

At the mention of a legend, the students began to murmur amongst themselves as the elders grew sober at the reminder.

"Do not fret, a behagthi is granted to us at every turn of the century."

"But two behagthis?! At the same time? It has never happened before. What do the gods have in store for us?" a student said but nobody could make out who spoke since they must have been speaking from the back of the crowd.

"As you may well know, behagthis bring changes." he cleared his throat. "Innovation. They don't exactly adhere to the rulebooks of this universe. We can't expect to make sense on this."

"Until it's too late." a red-headed student clutched elbows with the senior boy next to her, "Why would Brumcia ever pull another one?" she asked to her boy in a hiss that is audible to everyone.

"It's the snow tribe, isn't it?" the senior boy retorted, aiming his question to the sun prince. "Those damned snakes really don't know what's good for them."

One of the students stepped out to speak, "We afford them their tribal exclusivity and this is what they give to us? Brew a chaos so strong that it spins Brumcia's madness into pulling another damned behagthi."

"It's not like they want to be exclusive," Lei'la said, uncrossing her arms "The elders can say we allowed them their privilege to be excluded to us but if any of you dickheads read a book, you'll know what really happened. What you call "exclusivity" is actually "enforced isolation". And they are suffering because of it. Can we blame them? Of course not. We can't blame a bird for hurting itself when it's trapped behind bars in a cage."

The red-headed girl rested her hand on the senior boy's shoulder, pulling closer to him and retorted at Lei'la with a shout, "They wouldn't have suffered if they weren't so sick."

Lei'la drew back in shock. "You cannot fault them for what they don't have any control over. Sicknesses are beyond us."

She practically yelled "They are snow tribespeople. What good are they for? Heck, even the Great World has forsaken them, why shouldn't we?"

Lei'la charged forward, fangs flashing.

"Enough of this." the sun prince spoke without raising his voice although his words made a cavernous echo throughout the entire atrium. And it vibrated with pulsating power.

Immediately, the sun tribespeople had their gazes snapping to the ground, their shoulders curled and pulled down with their heads canted to the side, showing their throats. It was a submissive instinct before divine powers and it can't be helped no more than breathing.

It was the first time U'tu has ever seen it happen. Usually, he was at the receiving end of the sun prince's forceful power and he would have submitted to him like many times before. But he looked at the palm of his hands and turned it over, then he dared to raise his gaze, meeting him eye to eye. He met him with as much caution as anyone would when staring straight into the sun.

Then, pinpricks of pain bloomed in the backs of his eyes, threatening to tear his skull open. "Do you hear me now?" a familiar disembodied voice reverberated inside his mind like he was hearing it from the ends of a hallway, the sound of the words trapped within his head.

He began cradling his temples with both hands, his back bowing forward and it felt like he needed to put everything he could against battling the surge of pain that followed after having a foreign entity invading his mind.

He knew the sun prince waited for an answer. But he couldn't set himself straight and he couldn't help his eyes from shutting close. The pain was too great to breathe through, instead, he nodded with the little effort he can muster.

Satisfied with the boy's reply, the sun prince returned to address the crowd with his usual tone, "Let it be known that U'tu, son of Sham'ash, grandson of En'tum, is the successor of the sun tribe guardian. Forthwith, he will become my apprentice until such a time I will deem him worthy to become prince and protector of the sun tribe."

Suddenly, it felt like a great beast roared into U'tu's chest, howling. The furious roaring shot upwards from his chest, connecting to his throat until he can hear himself-but-not-really-himself howling like a wild beast of the forest. "Help!" the boy thought as he roared because his mouth wasn't his own anymore. "Help." he repeated, resisting the foreign energy that was tearing him from inside out.

Once again in desperation, he called out for help but this time, it was spoken in a variety of ancient languages. This he cried, but it fell on deaf ears because he pleaded only in his thoughts and nobody could hear his thoughts. Save for the sun prince whose mind heard the kid's begging and desperation. Pleading and bargaining for the pain to stop cracking his mind wide open.

Every elder and every student breathed harshly, their eyes glued to the floor. There was an unmistakable pressure in the air. The presence of an invisible guardian animal that exuded dominance and demanded submission was a stifling influence inside the room and it affected everyone.

Everyone but the crowned prince of the sun who couldn't look more bored about what was happening and he knew everything from the violent power roaring through his new apprentice to the happy skybirds gliding above them outside the tent. Tipping his head, he watched how sunlight glared through stretched fabric ceiling of the tent like it had been made from the finest gold.

Everything in the sun tribe was just that. Shining wonder of gold on the outside, but terrible on the inside.

He has had to live with the guardian animal inside him ever since he was born. From the second he started crying in this world, he never stopped since then. He just learned to hide it.

This was his curse.

For a prince and protector should never project weakness but only strength and exceptional skill. Lest anyone can doubt his power.

But U'tu's cries for help gave him an unsettled feeling, leaving him to doubt himself. He realized that hearing non-stop cries of hurt was a continued balm that soothed a wound inside him. For the first time in forever, he didn't feel alone in his misery. Maybe, the curse has successfully turned him into a bigger monster than he would have liked. Because, even as U'tu begged in his hurt, a weight of heavy pressure left his body like a release. And what disturbed him the most was the thought that he would do it again.

He would cause more pain, if it meant being free.