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More training. Fuck the day.
The fist struck me across the face. My hands floundered up. My thighs got kicked in wards, my knees bent. I leaned forward, into a knee.
Then the boot came, strong and heavy on my stomach.
I rolled onto the dirt, my body going down the slope leading towards the ocean waters. They crashed over me, one after another, dragging me further into the white foamed water. Effervescent ocean drool seeped into my shoes as I stood and walked back to shore with the knife pinched in my limp hand. All of me, limp.
“What was your life before this?” Sylas asked.
I spat seaweed from my mouth.
“Why do we keep talking about myself?” I asked. “How about you, huh? What’s your deal? Why are you so secretive?”
“Every man makes mistakes and therefore every man is secretive.”
“Then you must have made plenty of mistakes.” I wiped my face of sweat.
“And you’d be right, youngblood.” He said. “Tell me about your other life - what was it, earth? The Oo-knighted steaks?”
I shook my head.
“I had a better life.” I removed a boot and dangled it. Seaweed came out of the soles and jumped out like a snake caught in its hole. A hog tie from the ocean drawing me closer to the waters. “I had women. Money. Fame. I was dating actresses, you know? Ever heard of Scarlett Johanson? Yeah, we talked.”
“What a great life that must have been.” He twirled his knife.
“Amazing. The best food, the best sex, the best everything.” I laughed. “That’s what other people said at least.”
“Were you loved? Did you have family and friends?” He asked.
“What do you think? Everyone has a mom.” I said.
“Were you loved?” He said.
“Mom loved me. Pops liked me.” I said. “I had some friends. Jacob, met him in middle school. Joffrey…high school. I had people all around me, ever heard of Skrillex? Huh? Janet Jackson? Those are the types of people who kept me company.”
“And were they friends? Did you ever have any friends?” He asked. Like my answer had just slipped past him, wrapped around his slick skin but never could quite stick. I looked around, as if the conversation was even worth the effort in secrecy. But there was no one here but me and him and the crabs and the birds.
It was midday. The ocean crashed behind me.
“I-I had friends, of course.” I said.
“You must miss them a lot.” Sylas said. “Along with your parents.”
“Of course.”
He lowered his stance, put both blades in front of himself and ran at me. I couldn’t even react, the sand left behind his feet looked like a damn smoke screen as he rushed towards me. Our blades clashed, one for one. But his second one - the hidden one - came from underneath and the metal was cold against my neck. If this was a fight I would have died ten times by now.
“Do you just miss comfort?” Sylas said.
“I miss everything.”
His leg hooked my own, then he moved and I tripped. Before I knew it, both blades were on top of me and Sylas stood there, over my body.
“Don’t lie to me.” He said. “You can lie to yourself but not to me.”
He walked away. Some paces, before he was back near the treeline and me again alone on the shore. The water struck my scalp.
“You’re not my fucking shrink.” I said. “Now I’d agree that I was worthless then and am worthless now, but at least I was comfortable before. That’s something that was lost. You don’t have the least idea of that, of having wealth and losing it.”
“No. I don’t know what it feels like to lose wealth. But I know what it feels like to be lonely.” He said.
“Lonely? I’m not fucking lonely.” I stood. “What’s all this got to do with fighting, anyway? Ever since yesterday. All you’ve done is cut me up a little and knock me down a whole lot and not a single word has been spoken on how to fight. Not a single word on how to move or on how to cut correctly. Just criticism left and right with you, but no actual teaching. It’s just…talking.”
“I am teaching you how I was taught.” Sylas said.
“What’d they teach you, how to run your mouth until someone kills themselves?” I laughed. He didn’t. I straighted myself upright, he sat. The water struck my calves, it made me trip over and my knife slipped and fell and dragged into the ocean. I jumped for it and me-myself got dragged into the ocean. What a sight it was, my third-running and third-leaping and third-swimming as I looked for the knife in the ocean vomit.
I swear, each time I found it, it slipped from me. By the time I finally grabbed it, I was wasted. I slapped the knife on the band of my waist and crawled to shore. It’d been a whole another day of talking-fighting. Never quite getting far in either, too.
My legs hurt like no other, you see. The type of pain that begins at your soles and ends at your jaw, where moving your shoulders up or flexing your butt sends the prickling shock through you. Pain so deep that you can’t quite tell which muscles ache more; because all of them do. The pain that lasts weeks.
I came to slow crawl towards Sylas. I slumped - fell knees first into the sand. A fire waited for me there, the night had come again and another day felt wasted. My body huddled around the camp, the embers snapped and cracked. Sylas stuck his hands and moved lit embers and I’m not quite sure whether he just didn’t feel in his hands or he just didn’t care, but he dug out some blacked sticks and replaced them. Then he tossed a shelled critter and moved another. It was quick, a few minutes only, before he reached in again and took out one of the bugs.
It was burned to a crisp, blacked across its shell.
He passed it to me. I cupped it.
“Fuck!” I dropped it fast, the steam came off the shell fast up to my face. “Warn me before you do that.”
“Oh. It’s hot.” He said with that smug nonchalant voice that made me wish I was just good enough to punch him in the face. “Don’t get any sand onto the meat. It’ll ruin it.”
I looked at the crab in front of me in the sand. Each time prodding to see where it was at. Each time, picking a little at its white flesh. It was sweet, flaky. It reminded me more of briny fish than crab but I wouldn’t say it was bad.
“What are you teaching me?” I asked. “It feels like I’m just stuttering like an idiot.”
“You are. But that’s part of learning.” He said.
“Alright…so what am I learning?”
“Fao Si Wan.” He said.
“What the fuck is that?”
“The art of the four winds.” He said. “It’s not really a martial arts but a combination of it all. Grappling, blade-work, boxing.”
He looked deep into the fire.
“Stealth and assassination, too.”
“Did you learn to be fast with this uh Fa shin wa stuff?” I asked.
“Fao Si Wan. Fa-c-one.” He looked at me deadpan like. “What makes Fao Si Wan so dangerous is how often it adapts. It’s a never ending art. Whatever new form emerges in the nations across gets incorporated, and thus it keeps itself thriving. Adaptation is the only way you survive, after all.”
“Is that right?” I stuck my fingers deeper into the shell. I hit something slimy. “Doesn’t seem like this Fao Sin Wok is so great if it’s just copying everything else.”
“It copies the best. But yes.” Sylas smiled. “What would be a martial arts if it didn’t have it’s own secret techniques?”
“That’s more like it!” I said. “So’s what do you guys have? A tiger palm strike? A five point exploding heart technique? What’s there to For Si Won?”
“Fao. Si. Wan.” Sylas said.
“Fao Si Wan.” I aped.
“There is no point in teaching you the techniques. You wouldn’t learn them in a month. The basics are more important, we can grow from there. A strong foundation will help you build.”
“Oh come on.” I blew out air. My shoulders rounded and fell back. I stuck my fingers out of the crab again. There was slime in there and taking my hands out, it was green and stuck to my fingers. I wiped against my pants.
“What we’ll focus on is breathing. Efficient movement. Footwork. Getting your punches and your cuts just right. Submissions and a bit of wrestling too.” He said.
“How am I supposed to be a student of Fao Si Wang if I’m just learning the beginner stuff?” I asked.
“The beginner stuff is also the intermediary stuff as well as the advanced stuff.” He said. “You never stop perfecting your fundamentals.”
“So…I won’t be blowing up peoples hearts?”
“Virgil, what makes you think you’re even a student of Fao Si Wan? I’m just teaching you how to hold your own so Gabralto doesn’t pop you in the face by surprise again.”
My cheeks flushed.
“So how are you useful then? What’s the difference between you and any other swordsman teacher?” I asked.
“I don’t charge.” He said.
“And it shows.”
“You really are a prick, you know that?”
“I’m special.” I smiled.
“Yes. Yes you are a special child, aren’t you?” And he smiled. “I hope you’re ready for grappling tomorrow. Have you ever landed on your spine?”
And I frowned.
