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Mevekia's Hook - Final Week of Training
Gusla 25th, 1125 Dom.Three and a half long weeks were spent here. Weeks, which were nine days long. Days on this beach that had fifteen hours of blazing sun. Nights that were as cold as a blizzard. Here in this hot-cold hell, my body worked beyond a point of exhaustion. Running and dodging and lifting and striking, working so hard to point that being rested felt strange in some way. As if every moment by the campfire without a crank, every moment sitting in the sand without an ache was an oddity and in some capacity sacrilegious.
The ocean was listless today, the waves murmured and the sand rolled down in silence.
“You know. You’re actually a quick learner. I’m impressed.” Sylas said. My head hung low. The knife jumped between hands, I spun it. It kept my reflexes up and my body jittery, which I’d learned was a secret. Keeping your body excited, but your muscles relaxed seemed like a contradiction. But as it was grabbed and flung and choked and tossed and cut and punched into me, you had to be relaxed and ready. That your attacks ought to be snappy. Quick. That your eyes ought to be wide open, your exhalations brief and cut short. That you never scream - because that’s for barbarians who don’t know how to fight.
You keep your eyes focused. Knees bent. Your posture uncompromised, your center of gravity as close to the ground without actually being on the ground and keep your weight shifted between front leg to back leg because you never knew which one you’d need - or lose.
Shoulders up. Hands to your cheek bones, elbows tucked in to your body.
Going to get punched? Blow out so your belly and chest expand to meet it halfway.
Don’t just dodge - cut angles. Counter. I massaged my bicep.
“You’re starting to look like a proper warrior.” Sylas said. “Are you just going to stand there or are you going to attack?”
My feet shifted the sand into a small mounded donut as I went around him. Sylas, who kept facing me in whatever direction I turned or whatever angle.
“I want more.” I said.
“More what? Pain?”
“I want you to teach me more. More than just this.”
“You haven’t even mastered the fundamentals, you haven’t even gotten close.” Sylas said. I kept quiet, my feet dragging sand. The water lulled behind me, the sun high above me and burning a spot on the top of my head.
“You’ve been asking that a lot lately.”
“I’ve gotten curious.” And more than that, I’ve taken a sample. A sample of violence. Somewhere in all that falling and slapping and punching and grabbing. Somewhere in the bloody nose and popped shoulders and the screams and the anger. Somewhere in that orchestra of violence I’d found my favorite note. I was starting to enjoy it.
I’d found pleasure. When the knife barely skims your skin, when the air shifts as a dodged punch rolls past you. When you sprawl and lay yourself on a man who tried his hardest to grab your legs. When you jog and jump and hop past wide slashes that could take your arm, somewhere in all that I’d learned to love it. And even at this moment, I hadn’t noticed I was smiling.
I had to wipe the blood off my cheek (we’d just finished sparring) and in doing so wiped the smirk off my face.
“You’re not ready for anything more.”
“I thought teachers were supposed to push their students.”
“I don’t want to feed the little monster your turning into. The world will do that just fine.”
“Little monster?” I asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean to say you’re having fun now, aren’t you?” He said. “It feels good to clash steel. To strike and dodge. Doesn’t it?”
“It’s something”
“I haven’t heard you complain about your family name or your noble life for a week now.” He said. “I’m guessing you must be having enough fun to forget the glory days.”
“These are the glory days.” I said.
His yellow teeth shined opposite to me. I rushed at him. Knife close to my chest, a quick stab forward. He tried grabbing me, I kicked his chest with my heel. He let go, blocked with shoulder. Him on the shore line, and me underneath the shade of trees. His feet making streaks in the sand where he’d been backed into.
“Getting a little cheeky, aren’t you?”
“I’ve always been cheeky.” I said.
He made a face I could only describe as glad. I think that was the first time I’d ever seen Sylas truly happy. Not smiling, but happy. To see something more than pity or shame or anger or drunken gladness. It was something I don’t think anyones given me save for Vincent, maybe, and not this close and this warm. Sylas smiled. He switched knives, his serrated blade now on his left and his straight main knife on his right.
“Teach me more.” I said.
“I’ll think about it.” Sylas said. He came at me. Both knives at wild angles, my eyes opened wide and we went at it.
I think he cut a little bit of my hair off.
“Are you spent already?” He asked. I rolled onto the dry sand underneath a bed of smooth sea shells, the knife thrown somewhere a little off from me. Wheezing, I grabbed myself. I stood. Slipped. Held onto my ribs. My forehead dug into the dirt as I coughed.
“It was just a knee. Didn’t you breath out like I taught you to?” He asked.
“Yeah.” I coughed. “I breathed out alright.”
“Three and a half weeks. We’re leaving soon and you haven’t gotten a single cut on me. Not a bruise, not a submission hold. Nothing.” He said. “You expect me to teach you the secrets of Fao Si Wan like this?”
“I’ve gotten close.”
“I noticed. But close isn’t enough on the battlefield.” He said. “At least you’ve got a little bit more confidence.”
“What does that even mean.” I rolled on my back. “What the hell is confidence, really?”
“Grace under pressure.” He said. “You’ve got a long way to go though.”
“I won’t be getting anywhere just knowing this, just learning this.” I looked at my knife somewhere further dug into the sand. “I need you to teach me more.”
“I will, as we travel, as we fight.” He said.
“No. More than that. This Fao Si Wan shit. I need more.” I said. “I can’t be better than the competition like this.”
“Better than the competition?” He stood. A wide prickly palm leaf fell to the floor some paces from us, onto the ground where it plopped into the sand.
“Yeah. You know the guys, everyone. They all laugh at me, hate me. I’ve got to be better, I’ve got to make sure that when they look at me that they ought to be afraid.”
“Some of those men have more experience hunting monsters than you have years in your life.” He said.
“Yeah? Well, I’ve got talent.” I said. “You said it yourself, right?”
“You have aptitude. That gets stunted by this big ego of yours.” He said. “Why does it matter if they laugh at you? Why do you concern yourself with their opinions?”
“Because that’s the only thing worth concerning yourself. Who cares what I think about myself. It’s what the world thinks of me, it’s what the world sees that defines who I am.” I said. “Right now I’m some black cheek shit-head who got lucky. I aim to fix that.”
“You’re not going to fix anything.” He said. “Not with your attitude, certainly not with your goals.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I mean that you are empty, Virgil.” Sylas said. My shoulders went numb, I thought it was because I pulled a muscle. “You are vapid. Without definition. You have no dreams worth fighting for. No hopes. You see yourself unto the reflection of others and know not why you act, only that by acting you are that more impressionable unto the other.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked. “Of course I have dreams. I dream of home!”
“You dream of a place you and I both know you can’t return to. To a time that is lost. To a people who never liked you in the first place.” He shook his head. “And with these burdens and weights upon you, you expect to learn anything?”
“Is this some kind of test? How am I supposed to be better than those pricks?”
“Who cares about being better against others? Of being the best? Who cares for your petty ambitions?” He asked. “Do you have any reason to learn to fight besides the fact that you desire to preserve yourself? You could easily do that by holding out in the main city. You don’t need to be learn to fight to make your own sanctuary. You can find plenty of strongholds out there, make a living, become a craftsman of sorts.”
“That’s not-” I gasped. “It’s not enough.”
My shoulders slumped. I stood with the ocean below my feet, dragging sand underneath my toes. But my planted weight was too great for it to do much but massage, I was too heavy and too tired and too weighted to fall into that ocean. Sylas turned his back.
“I think we should go back, it’s almost time to leave. You can have Kal or Obrick teach you to hunt.” He said.
“No.” I said.
“What’d you say?” Sylas asked.
“No. I can’t leave. I can’t do this again. Live like this again.” I said.
Sylas turned around. The ocean grew louder.
“Do you know what it feels like to live in shadows? Any shadow. It doesn’t matter because it makes you feel small no matter who’s. I live in your shadow. I live in Flock’s shadow.” I clenched my fist. “I lived in my father’s. For so long, always the accessory. I will not ever again.”
My arms felt weak.
“Did you know I wanted to be a philosopher? A wise man? I wanted more…” I didn’t even look at him anymore. The sun was so hot and my head spun and the beads of sweat rolled down my lips and chin. “He always called ma fool. A foolish young man turning into a foolish old man. Always. Always.”
My breathing raced.
“Always calling me stupid.”
“Relax Virgil.”
“Always a walking shadow.”
“Calm down.”
“I want to be more! I’m trying.” I said. “You don’t think it bugs me that I’m useless? Back in Lao-Lo when the basilisks attacked and all I could do was carry a barrel.” I laughed like asylum-men do. “Or when the Maelisaurs attacked and I couldn’t do much but cut some rope and strike some deals. Do you know how pissed that made me feel? How pissed it makes me feel? Just the memory makes me go red. Just the memory.” I slapped my forehead.
Sylas stood, quiet. My cheeks like two inflated red balloons. My eyes watered. My whole body felt light, like every organ had been vacuumed out and the skin and bones were collapsing onto the empty space. I fell to my knees.
“I wanted to save that boy’s mother so much. But I was just too afraid.” The tear went down my face. “I wish I was someone else. Someone who could have helped. But I’ve always been useless. Always.”
Sylas walked up to me and bent down. He held me.
“It should have been me. She was more important than me. I should have died.” I said.
The tears came down my cheeks.
“I’m so sorry.”
Somewhere in the murmur of waves I'm sure the ghosts of past sins and failures linger like mist above the water surface and they do so with such listless stares because all proper judgment is done without the heat of emotion and the will of God is not the power to smote beyond but rather the separation of humanity, so if these vacant ghosts with their quiet gavels could accept my pittance of words and if the stenographer were ready to take upon speech let it be so; To the mother of that child in that burning city, please forgive me.
I failed you.
