While Noan pauses to figure out where they’re going next, Til negotiates the surrender of his horse. Although it ultimately ends in a draw, the girl refuses to get off the horse, likely as an act of dominance. Which left Til struggling to get on with crushing her, or the babe, whom he was forced to settle on his hip like a sack of coins. Fortunately, her weight, in addition to the burden of his weight and armor, didn’t seem to be too much for Stoney.
Not that Noan noticed the situation, doing his strange meditation-like trick, focusing on something that the rest of them couldn’t see or possibly even recognise. Quickly mounting his horse and leading them once again without a word.
Til follows, the girl sits silently against his front, seeming to be disinclined to move much or speak now that they were actually underway.
The babe seems happy enough to sway on his side as they get underway. And once Til chances a look at him a little later, he finds the babe has fallen asleep. Rocked by the somewhat steady sway of his own weight against Stoney’s slow but ground-eating stride.
With a small smile, twitching his lip, Til supposed it’s better than being sickened by the movement.
As they leave the town, Noan starts telling the girl all about wizard training. Til would think it’s to entice the girl into sticking around once they get back to the capital, but he thinks it’s more likely that the man is trying to fill the silence that had settled over the three—well, four, but the baby couldn’t talk yet, so he didn’t really count—over them.
The girl, though, seems at best indifferent to his attempts at conversation.
She barely looks at Noan as he talks, and to Til, she seems more focused on just staying on the horse. He doesn’t comment on it, though he’s confident that she’s never been on one before, or at least not for this long.
He admits it only to himself that it’s pretty brave, though admittedly also foolhardy, how she leans over to nick the dagger he keeps in his boot, letting him drag her back up, both of them pretending she’d simply slipped off the horse.
They pass more towns, not stopping in any of them, and when the sun starts to fade from the sky, they’re forced to stop along the side of the path, too far from the last town to head back, and without certainty of where the next one lies, they couldn’t risk carrying on further. Not without risking the horses with all the holes in the road.
Til hadn’t questioned the Wizard when they hadn’t stopped in any of the towns, even with sunset looming over them.
It was probably safer to stay in a populated area, but Til saw something in the other man’s eyes that made him stay his questions, watching, waiting to see what he chose.
Even though they’re losing daylight, Til settles the baby before searching for firewood, piling it carefully by their camp. When he opens his saddlebag to search for the tools to light it, though, Noan uses the opportunity to show off and light it with magic. Obviously, with his attempt to interest the girl in learning magic, he never might have known what her skill would be.
It certainly seems to catch her attention, which Til will consider a point in the Wizard’s favor, though he only halfheartedly listens to the grandiose speech about the power of magic and how it flows through her.
Til’s focus is on stoking the fire so he can cook over it before setting up a pot and preparing some of the rations into something resembling a stew base.
Even from here, he can see that the girl’s not interested in finding “the one thing she’s attuned to” and “building up her repertoire,” instead, she rebuffs Noan’s attempts to get her interested in the—even to Til—boring drag of figuring out what magic a person could do.
Cleaning off the instruments he’d used to cook, Til knows exactly what she wants to learn.
There’s time while they wait for their dinner to cook.
Til stands, observing the dirty little girl and tries to figure out where she’s stashed the dagger.
She matches his gaze, now ignoring Noan completely.
“Would you like to learn how to wield that dagger you’ve stolen, or would you prefer to keep it hidden and pretend like I wouldn’t notice?” Til asks.
Noan looks at the two of them with confusion, apparently he’d missed it happening.
“How’d you know?” The girl asks, “I haven’t flashed it or anything!”
“A well-trained knight, Honored or otherwise, knows every inch of their armor and weapons.” Til tells her, a little pride coloring his voice, then with a little [EMOTION] coloring his voice, “And you weren’t subtle at all when you snuck it out of my boot earlier. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you grabbing it while I was keeping you from falling off the horse?”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
She doesn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed at being called out, “So what happens if I accept?”
“You learn a new skill, and I’ll let you keep the dagger.”
“Deal.”
Til leads her a little closer to the road and away from Noan and the fire, wanting to keep both out of her line of fire and to avoid her landing on either.
Til stands with the baby still in the bag on his chest, before settling on teaching her some basic forms first.
He has her watch as he moves through the forms slowly and carefully, thinking back to how he’d been taught what seemed like a lifetime ago. When she seems to think she understands, he has her repeat the forms again and again, correcting her as she goes until she’s doing nearly every movement right.
Circling her, Til thinks that she’s the youngest he’d trained, but she’s picking up the early forms faster than anyone else he’s had. Whether it’s because she has a natural aptitude or because she’s the only one he’s focusing on, it's impossible to tell, but he thinks she’ll improve quickly, whatever the case might be.
Mere minutes pass of her repeating the forms before she stops, facing Til, “Are you really not going to fight me?”
Til thinks for a moment, “Fighting you isn’t the best way for you to learn.”
“Come on, this is boring.” The girl frowns, and Til considers that he really should ask her name at some point, “When are you actually going to teach me something?”
“I am teaching you.” Til answers, refusing to rise to the baiting.
“But when are you actually going to fight me?” She looks as if she is only a small way from stopping her foot in irritation or frustration. “Come on, I gotta be able to put this stuff to practice.”
“That’s the point of practicing the forms,” Til tells her, keeping his voice as level as he can.
“But this is so boring!” Ah, the truth came out, that’s why she’d stopped.
“It’s part of the training.”
“Is being bored part of the training?” She snaps.
Yes, he thought. Was he actually going to tell her that, though? Also, yes, actually.
“Yes, actually. And if you think this is boring, then traditional knight training would probably bore you to tears.”
“Why?”
“Because we spent around a year practicing forms before we were allowed to face another person.”
He’s not sure, but he thinks her face pales when he says that.
“You’re not going to make me wait that long, are you?”
“No,” Til says, and she immediately relaxes. “You’re coming into this without any training, and you’re shaping up pretty quickly. When I started my training, I had many bad habits that I had to unlearn before I could learn the right things. Before I could even think of fighting anyone without hurting myself or them, without meaning to. You don’t have any habits, which will make this a lot easier on you, but you still need to practice the forms before you fight anyone.”
“Oh come on!” She says, all but bouncing in place, “I bet I’ll learn better if I’m fighting someone.”
“You won’t. You’ll just hurt yourself, or someone else, in an accident.”
“You said it yourself, I’m ‘shaping up quickly,’” She does a terrible impression of him that makes Noan laugh from across the camp, moving into one of the forms and jabs far to the side of him before turning on the puppy-dog eyes, “Come on! Just fight me!”
Rolling his eyes, Til sighed. Apparently, she’s learn another lesson today. He’d been able to avoid this particular lesson when he was learning, but he’d also had at least some practical experience before he started training. No, this was a lesson most trainees learned at some point or another, and it would be just as painful to deliver as it had been to watch over, and over, and over.
Til walks to where Noan is sitting, watching the gently bubbling pot of their dinner, and hands off the babe.
“No, no, no, I’m cooking!” Noan complains.
“You’re not. I prepared it. And you can hold the little goblin while I teach the bigger one.”
The girl’s excited squeal makes Til wince, as if the sound somehow echoed in his helmet. “You’re really going to fight me?”
“No. I’m going to give you a lesson. Now, form one.”
“Aw, come on…” She groans, throwing herself around a bit.
Til settles into the form himself, “You wanted to fight. Now, form one.”
She groans, a loud, exaggerated noise to show her discontent, yet, in spite of it, she still gets into the first position.
Til watches her without a word, already categorizing the ways that she’s opened herself up. Only a few minutes before, she’d had the form nearly perfect. Well, that was likely the reason the instructors had everyone repeat the forms so frequently.
Til doesn’t even get into the stance himself before instructing her to start.
She’s on butt before she could blink.
“What!” She yells, already scrabbling to stand once more, “How did you do that?”
“You tried to be fast,” Til explains, “You got out of form, and left yourself unbalanced.”
He offers her a hand, but she ignores it.
“So I was able to knock you over without even pulling my weapon.”
“I wasn’t ready! That’s not fair!”
Although it might be a bit cruel, Til thinks this might be a lesson left repeated for better impact. “Then let’s try again. Remember to use your forms, and attack when you’re ready.”
The girl attacks again, without even pretending to try to get into a form, and Til drops her again just as fast.
“You’ve really got to stay in the forms,” Til tells her again. “You’re trying to be dast, and leaving yourself off-balanced and open to attack. If I did have a weapon, I could have gone for multiple vital points, and you wouldn’t have been able to stop me.”
“Then teach me how to do it right!” She spits from the ground, now not even trying to get up.
“That’s why I teach you the forms. Learn the moves slowly, learn how to do them right, and you’ll soon be doing them fast. Even if it doesn’t feel like it now.’
The girl huffs, not saying anything.
Til offers her his hand once more, “Now, up and back to the first form, and we’ll get you fast in no time.”
here!
Twitch Sundays and Mondays.
Ko-fi or monthly on !
