“I think it’s perfectly clear what I’m doing wrong here,” Sam said as the video of his last spar with Yvessa played on Felix’s phone for the third time. “I’m too in my head. It makes me react slowly.”

  “See, I don’t think that’s it,” Felix said. “Obviously you are too much in your own head, but that’s where you need to be at this point in your training. I think it’s your reflexes simply not being developed enough.”

  “What do you think?” Sam asked Yvessa.

  “I agree with Felix, but that’s also only half the answer. We, you, need to figure out why your reflexes aren’t where you want them to be.”

  Sam shook his head. “Isn’t it obvious? Again, I’m too much in my own head. Instead of acting on my instincts, I second-guess them.”

  Felix twirled his spear. “It’s not as simple as you make it out to be, Sam. Trust me on this. Sure, you hesitate too much, but, like I said, that’s where you should currently be. If you started blindly trusting your instincts after only half a year of training, you’d be an egotistical idiot. Your problem is, in my opinion, more about the fact that your instincts are actually too good—not good enough, obviously, but better than they ought to be. And, more importantly, better than your reflexes are. In a sense, your brain is faster than your body.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time I had this problem.” Sam nodded to himself. “Do you agree with him?” he asked Yvessa.

  She grimaced. “Hm… I don’t know. Maybe. But the underlying reason isn’t that important. The important part is for you to figure out how not to freeze in similar situations in the future, not why you froze.”

  “Wouldn’t knowing the latter help me with the former?”

  “Maybe. Or it could be a waste of time. At the end of the day, you’re still at the early stages of your training. Everything you do and think is being reworked and rewritten on a daily basis. You’re going to go through a dozen more changes in your physical and mental conditioning before you settle on a mode of fighting that remains stable long enough for you to analyze.”

  “Never too early to start, is what I think,” Felix said.

  “Since when you were of the opinion that you need to delve deep into the whys and hows of how you fight?”

  “I’m just trying to fit the method to the person. You got to admit, Sam is the kind of guy who would benefit from all of this self-introspective and detailed mechanics of combat shit.”

  Sam chuckled. “What a glowing review of both me as a person and the methods of training I’ve been following.”

  “Just because something is shit for me, doesn’t make it shit for anyone else.”

  “And,” Yvessa said, “just because you claim something’s shit for you, it doesn’t mean that it’s actually shit for you, or that you fully distance yourself from it.”

  “Let’s agree to disagree on that point.”

  “Let’s agree to get back on track, shall we?” Sam said, getting up after picking up his spear. “Let’s go again.” He beckoned to Felix.

  “Already? You sure you don’t need a couple more minutes for introspection? We haven’t figured out why you lost that round yet.”

  “Sure we did. I’m not as good a fighter as you are. Anything else is rudimentary. Let’s go.”

  Yvessa laughed. “I’m next, then.”

  Sam gave her a thumbs up and adopted a crouch opposite Felix. “You start,” he said.

  Felix gave no sign that he heard Sam, holding a distracted smile while keeping his body in a loose position. He threw his spear from one hand to the other, catching it each time with seemingly no effort or even notice that he was doing it. After a few seconds, while the spear was midway from his left hand to his right, he grabbed it in the air, rushing forward into a half-lunge at Sam’s left side. A completely nonsensical move which would’ve seen him chewed out by any half-decent instructor and possibly killed if done it actual combat, but with the gap between their abilities still a great gulf, it wasn’t the fatal idiocy that it should’ve been.

  Sam sidestepped to the right, bringing the butt of his spear to block Felix’s approach, and, hopefully, to knock his spear off balance. Felix’s immediate pivot to follow him rendered the latter impossible as he drew his spear in a wide arc above Sam’s, missing Sam’s shoulder by only the length of the spearhead. Which was more than enough for Sam’s step in, and, reversing the drive of his own spear, to slash at Felix’s midsection.

  Quicker than both Sam and Sam’s spear, Felix took two steps back and brought his own spear to meet Sam’s. The clash reverberated all the way to Sam’s shoulder as he quickly drew back his spear into a defensive posture—his initial advantage now gone. Two more quick exchanges followed, both starring Felix on a half-hearted offensive and Sam completely on the reactive and defensive, only aiming a strike at Felix once he felt the momentum of his offensive faltering.

  A minute later, as Felix once again stepped back to regain his balance and adopt a neutral position, Sam decided to take a gamble. After all, what else were these sessions for? And while relying on his Sight to try to read Felix’s next move was off the table—because of both practical constraints and, more important, that using magic was not allowed—he could try and read Felix’s mind using his own.

  And what Sam’s mind told him was that Felix was taking it easy—that much was obvious. But it also told him how he could take advantage of that. Their current bouts counted three offensives from Felix’s side and none from Sam. If prior experiences could be relied on, Felix’s next move would be to wait for Sam to mount an offensive of his own (unless Sam took too long, in which case, Felix was likely to mount a final, fatal offensive).

  Usually, the fact that your opponent was expecting you to attack and expecting your attack should’ve proved disadvantageous—as it indeed had in numerous previous spars. But Sam counted on the fact that Felix would be expecting a certain kind of attack: half-committed, like Felix’s prior three. Attacks meant to prolong the spar in order for it to serve as an educational tool, not to actually end it.

  Sam gripped his spear tightly, drawing his right foot backwards in half a circle. He then used the momentum from bringing that foot forwards in a small jump to rush Felix’s right side. Bringing his spear up, he slashed with its butt to distract Felix, and, as Felix adjusted his own spear to deflect Sam’s, reversed its position back to parallel with his arms. Felix, caught off-guard, quickly tried to step to the side and back, but Sam was too close now to allow him to dodge. Finishing his lunge, Sam thrust his spear right below Felix’s, hitting his sternum and netting him the first point of the match.

  “Fucking hell!” Felix said with a wide smile as he lowered his spear and rubbed the spot where Sam had hit him. “Where did that come from?”

  “I bet it all on you fighting like you usually do.”

  “Damn… I’m gonna have to start changing up my style. Take it more seriously.”

  “You should’ve already been doing that,” Yvessa said.

  “Shush you. Fuck, this really hurts, man. Couldn’t have gone a little easier on me? Pulled back at the last second?”

  Sam shrugged. “That wasn’t the deal. You guys told me to go all out while you were going to pull your punches to save me from bruising too badly. I’m still not at a point where I can change the strength of my attacks and not risk them missing or getting deflected.”

  “Still…” Felix made puppy eyes and let out a small whimper. “You didn’t have to go so hard, you know? I’m only a young man. A boy, really.” He rubbed the point of contact again.

  “Get your revenge by winning all the next points, then.”

  “Can I make it painful?”

  “No you cannot.”

  “This system blows…” Felix sighed and, in the same moment, turned into a crouch and levied his spear towards Sam before charging. Sam managed to get out of the way just in time, but, off-balance, couldn’t protect himself against the oncoming flurry of attacks. Felix won the point this time by repeatedly wakening Sam’s spear positioning with constant attacks and feints. Leaving Sam completely open to a direct strike at his shoulders—a fact that he only realized after Felix’s attack had almost landed.

  “One one.” Felix raised a finger from each hand.

  “Remember what we’re here for,” Yvessa said.”

  “Getting revenge? Meaningless pride?”

  Yvessa gave him a blank stare as Sam laughed. “No, it’s alright,” he said. “I need these sorts of spars as well. Getting your ass handed to you is an important lesson on the road of handing other people’s asses to them.”

  “Well said!” Felix thumped his chest. “Now let’s see how many asses I can end up handing in the next five minutes.”

  The answer was seven, although Felix’s overzealous attack—and possibly, a little weariness from his constant offensives—resulted in a fatal mistake in the last point, which Sam managed to capitalize on to end the spar only five points behind.

  “Now that was also a lesson.” Felix said between heavy breaths. “Don’t let your emotions overrun your common sense.”

  “Thank you for the completely intentional and informative demonstration.” Sam gave a mock bow.

  “Think nothing of it.” Felix waved him off.

  “I think we’re all doing that when it comes to you already,” Yvessa said before turning to Sam. “Ready to go?”

  Sam held his finger. “Just let me grab a quick drink.”

  Yvessa’s five minutes weren’t as hectic as Felix’s had been; she mostly kept to trading blows with Sam and trying to prolong each exchange as much as possible. Despite the fact that he was still not as good at fighting against a sword as a spear (or anything else that wasn’t a spear really) Sam did manage to score one point to her three.

  Quite the opposite of the first point he had against Felix, Sam began by luring Yvessa’s attacks deeper and deeper until he felt that she was going to over-commit. Then, he feinted an opening that would have let her out of her predicament by either retreating or landing a hit on him, guessing that she would choose to retreat. When the guess proved correct, Sam aimed a stab at her right hand which she quickly deflected but which also left her open for him to rush into close quarters and brings his spear down in a slash that would’ve hit her on the head if he hadn’t stopped it in time.

  “Don’t think I didn’t notice you pulling back on that last point,” Felix said as they got ready to leave.

  “It was a completely different situation from yours,” Sam said.

  “I’m not saying it wasn’t. Just wondering out loud if it wouldn’t be better to start practicing the finer aspects of motor and weapon control. If you do it sometimes, why not do it always?”

  “Because training to pull my punches isn’t really a goal in it of itself. It’s a bonus you get from getting better by doing all the other training.”

  “And couldn’t you get a bonus in all the other training by doing this?”

  “Wow… I don’t know. What do you think?”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Felix cupped his chin. “I say it’s worth a shot.”

  Sam punched in the shoulder. “Here, how was that?”

  “Great…” Felix said hoarsely, suppressing a mock whimper. “Barely felt it.”

  After a quick shower, they left the gym in the direction of the mess hall. “Erianna said that she and Sarah grabbed us a table.” Yvessa put her phone back in her pocket.

  “I can’t be the only one who thinks it’s weird that Erianna now wants to get into combat healing, right?” Felix asked.

  “Why are you asking me?” Sam said.

  “No reason…” Felix started whistling innocently. “So?” He turned to Yvessa.

  “Nope. She’s always been like that. Trying to grasp at whatever she feels will make her stronger. Trying to see whether this magic or that technique will suit her. If she has a hidden talent or inclination for something she’s never tried before.”

  “Really? So she attended this random lecture, which deals with rather specialized topics, thinking that she might also be a prodigy in healing?”

  “Pretty much. This is like taking a break for her.”

  “Once upon of time, that wouldn’t have made any sense to me.” He gave Sam a dirty look.

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “Nothing. Just wondering whether that logic makes sense to you.”

  “Sure, yeah. It’s like taking a break from working on an essay by reading the Wikipedia entry for Ferdinand Lassalle.”

  “Sure…” Felix smacked his lips. “That makes sense. Also making sense, is the fact that you’ve brought up a completely random person, who I’m assuming is real, out of the blue as an example.”

  “Well it happened to me.”

  “Yeah… we need new friends,” Felix told Yvessa.

  “I thought you already had plenty of other friends,” she said.

  “I do. But I also need new ones to replace the weirdos who I currently spend all of my time with.”

  Sam gave a disbelieving shrug. “What, just because I can remember taking a break from writing about the Franco-Prussian war by reading about some German socialist with democratic tenancies and Erianna likes to spend her Saturdays going to lectures for subjects for which she cares nothing about, that makes us weirdos?”

  “Yeah. Mainly because of that. Also, none of you will come out with me on the weekends.”

  “Come on now, you haven’t asked Erianna, have you? Don’t assume the worst just because you’ve been disappointed again and again.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s a good idea. We could have the bar all to ourselves. Me, Erianna, and her two dozen bodyguards.”

  “I don’t see the problem.”

  Two minutes later, they sat down to join Sarah and Erianna for lunch. “So how was the lecture?” Yvessa asked.

  “Really interesting,” Sarah said. “Not very practical, but she postulated some very exciting developments that could become widespread in the next two decades.”

  “Two decades?!” Sam exclaimed. “Wow, that’s practically yesterday.”

  “You can’t rush science, Sam.”

  “Back in my day, they made medical and scientific advancements in a year of wartime that would’ve taken five years of peacetime.”

  “No they didn’t… did they?”

  “Sometimes. Especially if you factor in the Cold War and the space race. Anyway, we still haven’t heard from your plus one…” He turned to Erianna.

  “Hm… What’d you say?” Erianna looked up.

  “He asked, how was the mind-numbingly boring lecture?” Felix said, after which Sarah promptly elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Oh, right… Yeah, it was fine.”

  The three latecomers exchanged looks as Sarah rolled her eyes with a grunt. “I didn’t force anyone to come,” she said.

  Erianna seemed to break out of her reverie as she gave a laugh. “Don’t worry about it, Sarah. I was just distracted. It was fine. I had a good time. Wouldn’t go to another one anytime soon, but I’m not too sorry about going today.”

  “Not ‘too’ sorry?”

  “Well, I meant that…”

  “Awkward…” Felix said.

  “Shut up. I meant that since I didn’t have anything better to do today, I’m happy that that’s what I did.”

  “Wow. What a glowing recommendation.”

  “What crawled up your ass today?” Sarah flicked his ear.

  “Sam got the first point in our last match of the day.”

  “Really now?” Her voice rose two octaves higher.

  “Was that you not being able to control your gleeful pride, or was that a crude attempt at mockery?”

  Sarah hid her face by focusing on her plate. “Just surprised. That’s all.”

  “I got it on video if you want to watch,” Yvessa said.

  “N-no…. That’s fine.”

  “Wasn’t anything that impressive, anyway,” Sam said. “And it’s not like we were using magic.”

  “Not using magic is a better measurement of skill,” Yvessa said.

  “Sure yeah. But you know what it doesn’t measure? Actual combat value. I’ll take being so shit with a spear so that I can only perform a stab if that stab can create a magical tornado or something, thank you very much.”

  “What sort of magic is that?” Felix asked.

  “The cool kind. The kind we don’t get. No, the only thing we get is physical modification and magical energy as the invisible and lazy killer.”

  “Why lazy?”

  “Because you can only use it if you made a special path for it to reach your opponent,” Erianna answered in Sam’s stead.

  “But that’s cool, surely?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t look at me, I agree with you.”

  “Really…?” Felix turned to Sam. “A chink in the otherwise impermeable armor of nauseous similarity? How quaint.”

  “Eh.” Sam shrugged. “Maybe I’ll change my mind after I start training in magical combat.”

  “Oh right,” Yvessa said. “That’s next week, yes?”

  “Yeah, Lin is starting me on practicing with a dummy artifact next Tuesday. But it’s still a long time until we get to… you know, actual realistic magical combat.”

  “Well, obviously.” Felix chuckled. “You don’t have any patterns yet.”

  “I have th—”

  “Besides the one for long-term recovery. Not really going to help you in combat, now is it?”

  “It could if it’s a very, very long fight,” Erianna said.

  Sam nodded and pointed at her. “Exactly.”

  Felix gave a stupefied look. “What kind of fight lasts that long?”

  “You get those. You know, the protagonist faces down a horde of monsters or demons that just keeps coming for three days and three nights.”

  “Ah, of course. How could’ve forgotten to take into account your delusions? In all seriousness, though, fighting with an artifact is fun, you’ll see. I bet you’ll change your mind.”

  “That presupposes that I already enjoy fighting in some capacity so that adding another measure of complexity will enrich the experience.”

  “You looked like you were having fun today,” Yvessa said.

  “And you’ve certainly been much less vocal in complaining about fighting than in the past,” Sarah added.

  Sam’s face turned sour. “Wow, aren’t we all experts on Sam’s likes and dislikes?”

  “I mean,” Felix started, “with the amount of personal information you dump on us… yeah?”

  Sam rubbed his nose. “You know what? That’s fair.”

  “Also,” Erianna said, “you’ve already admitted a couple of times that you enjoy fighting.”

  “Yeah, but since when do guys pay attention to what I’m say—No never mind, that doesn’t work. But I’ll tell you what I’m really excited about. My first foray into the proper educational channels…” When they all gave him a (fake, presumably) blank look, Sam said, “The first time I take part in the regular school curriculum?” He sighed. “Joining Felix and Yvessa’s physical combat class on Wednesday.”

  “Does that even count as the regular school curriculum?” Felix said. “It’s not really a lesson per se.”

  “Yes it is. Shut up.”

  “It’s not mandatory from the second trimester on.”

  “We’re not in the second trimester yet, are we?”

  “Just saying…” Felix shrugged. “Also, I feel like the fact that you’ve taken and finished courses where there are plenty of students who just study by themselves and don’t go to the lessons makes it so that you’ve already taken part in the official curriculum.

  “Yeah, but I wasn’t tested as part of the official, regular process.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Yvessa asked.

  “No. But becoming good enough at something so that I could join the general student public is why I’m excited. You don’t need any prerequisite level of knowledge to start learning elven history.”

  “I see what you mean,” Felix said. “So joining our class is like a sign that you’ve gotten good enough with spear-fighting.”

  “Good enough so that I won’t be a hindrance to myself or anyone else. Or, at the very least, to myself. I’m not deluding myself into thinking I’m near good enough to be in your class.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Yvessa muttered.

  “Well I was thinking about the aesthetic good, not the moral one. But hey, now you’ll have me in your corner, yeah? How about that? And it’s not like I’m turning my nose at the opportunity to meet some new people, you know?”

  “You don’t?” Sarah asked.

  "What the hell is that supposed to mean? I’m a friendly guy, aren’t I? I want to meet with people outside of you four. Get to know them. Make some minor friendships. My unique curriculum has pretty much excluded me from fitting in and meeting any of my fellow students.”

  “Since when do you care about making friends outside of us… four?”

  “Yeah.” Felix nodded. “And when has your unique situation actually prevented you from making minor friendships or talking to random people if your gremlin-coded mind decided that’s what it wanted to do? Just last week you spent literally all of our Monday workout chatting to that first-year kid.”

  Sam raised a finger. “First of all, you can’t call someone who’s only a year younger than you a kid, that’s ridiculous. They have to be at least two years younger.” He winked. “And second of all, it’s not my fault all of you are uncultured boors who’ve never heard of good comedy. The guy, who has a name by the way—”

  “What was his name?”

  “…Hm. Desmond, yeah, that was it. Desmond. Anyway, it’s not my fault that Desmond had actually heard of podcast comedy legend Conan O’Brien and even liked him. I had to talk to the guy. You know how hard it is to find people who can stand that beady-eyed Irish lesbian? Very hard.”

  “Hey!” Sarah objected. “I watched some of the videos you sent me. I liked him.”

  “Bah. You don’t count. You’ll just end up forcing yourself to like whatever it is that I like. You’re too nice like that.”

  “That’s… idiotically untrue.”

  “Oh yeah? Prove me wrong.”

  “I’m not that big on video games.”

  “Ah… yeah, right.” Sam nodded. “Anyway, I am looking forward to starting to mingle with the rest of my fellows. In a pedagogic capacity, you know? As just another one of the herd.”

  Erianna laughed. “Something tells me that you’re not going to be acting ‘as just another one of the herd.’ Matter of fact, I bet you’ll do the opposite.”

  “Psh… Probably, yeah. But that’s beside the point. I always tried, or ended up, acting as an outlier of sorts in most social groups I found myself in. The important thing is that I’ll be part of a regular social group. Can’t keep myself insulated in the comfy incubator of our fellowship, yes? My social skills might start to wither and give way to the return of my social anxiety.”

  “You keep saying that you have social anxiety—” Felix said.

  “Had.”

  “Eh… You also use it in the present tense.”

  Sam shrugged. “What’s your point?”

  “Well, it’s just my observation, but… You don’t have any fucking social anxiety, mate.”

  “How would you know?”

  “By watching you?”

  Sam exchanged mocking looks with the rest of the table. They didn’t reciprocate, although Erianna did shake her head and Sarah pursed her lips in disagreement. “Watching is all fair and well, but haven’t you ever seen one of those adverts about how to recognize people who have depression? Spoiler, they all look happy, and after two minutes it ends abruptly by telling you that they all committed suicide. You can’t judge people’s insides based on what’s on the outside.”

  “So you’re saying that you do have social anxiety and you just hide it really well?”

  Sam smacked his lips and gave a resigned nod. “Well, I did have twenty-odd years to train at it, you know? But hey, don’t get me wrong, of the periods in my life in which I had social anxiety—or at the very least, of the periods of which I was aware of it—this is definitely the lowest it has ever been. The same goes for pretty much all of my… how to say, professionally attributed, slash, diagnosed mental affectations.

  “Well, except general anxiety, maybe. I did get very good at managing and living with and around it, but one might argue that it is a greater daily presence than ever before. And depression, obviously. But both of those are a little different from how they were before. A lot more mental-psychological instead of a combination of the former and neurological-biochemical. Obsessiveness, though, I’m way better at that. Look at my fingernails!”

  “What am I looking at?” Felix asked as he and Yvessa leaned in.

  “Exactly. They look normal. Not mutilated and half missing.”

  “Wasn’t your thing with your nails due to anxiety, though?” Sarah asked.

  “It was definitely part of it. Maybe the establishment of the bad habit was due to anxiety. But after… well, I just had to get rid of those jagged edges, you know?”

  “Yikes.” Felix leaned back. “Whatever, as long as you’re happy and healthy. That’s the important part.”

  “Don’t forget rich.”

  “Do you actually care about being rich?” Erianna asked.

  “Not really. Not anymore, at least. Now that money doesn’t have any use for me.”

  “Because you have however much of it you could ever want.” Felix laughed.

  Sam gave a fake nod as he quickly suppressed his grimace and tried to smile. “Exactly… All this money, and nothing I can do with it right now.” Nothing at all.