Today I woke up at 5 in the morning the anticipation of finally beginning my training with father led to me waking up an hour earlier than I should have. Since I’ve got nothing to do I might as well see eat some breakfast and see if father’s awake. Getting off my bed I walk to the kitchen to get some toast with some dried meat, as soon as I finish my breakfast I head outside to see if my father’s there and as it turns out the first thing I see is him doing some stretching I decide to imitate some of what he’s doing before anything else and end up stretching my legs the same as he does before he notices me.
“Hello son, I see you’ve decided to follow what I’m doing.” He says while moving to a more complicated stretch that requires me to exert some extra effort to follow.
“*Grunting* Yes father, I was excited to start training so I woke up a little earlier than when you told me to wake up, I also had a light breakfast.” I say struggling to follow the more complicated stretches feeling a light burning sensation.
“First lesson son, you’re probably feeling some burning, but that’s natural you just have to build up your flexibility steadily the same you would with your strength. Every morning we’ll be doing stretching exercises to get you loose for the more intensive exercises, any questions?” he says before moving to an entirely new position which ends up being more difficult than the last two.
“None” I say before I notice my father starts to get up and I do the same waiting for him to start.
“Good, now come here so I can get a good look at you. Hmm, let’s see you’re eight this year and you’re about a foot and a half shorter than me so you should be around 5 feet tall, not bad at this rate you’ll grow to be taller than your old man. Ok, you need to build a good base before I consider even training you in the sword so everyday we’re going to run around the town increasing the amount we go around the town until you can easily run for an extended amount of time without being winded. You’ll also be working with me in my shop as an apprentice smith five days a week to build your strength and endurance and so you can learn how to craft and maintain your own equipment. Once I’ve decided that you’ve got a good base I’ll help you forge a weapon you’ll use to train with and you’ll truly begin gaining the strength you so desire.” He says while kneeling down and looking me straight in the eyes.
“I understand father, but what about magic, do you use it and if so can you teach it to me?” I ask hopeful that he’ll know and is willing to teach me that too.
“I do, however I’m no mage and all I know is body strengthening magic which means you’ll be infusing your magic into your very being to strengthen yourself. Eventually though, I’ll be sending you to an academy that some of my old comrades teach at so that you can advance further and so that they can fill in what I’m unable to teach you.” My father says while dusting himself off and he starts to walk away.
I begin to follow him, but he abruptly stops after walking a few feet and turns around to look me in the eyes with a look I’ve never seen before, it felt like I was staring into the cold eyes of death itself. “Ragnor, I will teach you and help you grow stronger, however I must let you know that while I don’t expect you to be some great hero who devotes himself to doing good I will not have someone I’ve taught resort to doing evil and going around murdering the innocent. If I find out you’ve used the strength I helped you achieve to do any vile acts then I won’t sit idly by, I’ll be the one who hunts you down and stops you for good, no second chances son, you deserve to know that.” As he finishes speaking and turns around to continue forward I noticed my legs were shaking and I had held my breath afraid to even breathe fearing my father’s wrath, I vowed to myself that I would never stray from my path, no matter what.
We continued for a while in silence until my father stopped and said “This is where we’ll begin to run, boy. Don’t stop until I tell you to stop, I’m going to push you hard today so that you get a glimpse of how much you’ll have to suffer and go through to acquire strength.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Ok, I’ll give it all of my effort!” I say when he starts to turn around I notice a small smile on his face which has always been a rare thing to see ever since mother passed. As we begin to run it doesn’t feel too bad since I would always run around outside and play with the other kids, at least before they all stopped talking to me a few weeks back, when I decided to ask father why they stopped talking and playing with me he looked shocked then angry and finally sad before he told me “I’m sorry son, but their parents found out that you’re part giant from my side of the family and they became afraid so they told their children to stop playing with you. Eventually they’ll come around son, you just have to stick through it.” While I had been shocked about being part giant it had made sense since father and I were always bigger and stronger than the people around us; that was when I had told father that I didn’t need those other kids as friends if they didn’t want to be my friend just because of my race, once I had told him this he had a big smile on his face which I hadn’t seen in a long while before he pat me on my head and told me to go play.
While I was thinking about what had happened my father finally told me to stop and as soon as he did I had collapsed on the ground struggling to breather and feeling as if my legs were made of fire. When my father saw my state he offered me water and told me “Not bad, not bad at all boy. After you get some time to rest up we’ll be going to get some lunch at home before heading to my forge so we can start your training.” After gulping down the cool water that felt like it was the only water I had ever drank in my life and waiting 10 minutes I finally got up and we walked to our house to eat before heading to my father’s forge passing a few small houses in our little village.
When we entered my father instructed me on how to work the bellows so that we could start to heat up the forge. Once we got the forge heated up my father told me “Ok boy, I’m going to start by showing you how to make a nail, this is just so that you learn what to hit and when and so that you can become accustomed to swinging a heavy hammer all day.” As he says that he looks through his tools to find a spare hammer and once he finds one he gives it to me so I can feel its weight.
Once I have the hammer in my hand I realize it’s heavier than it looks, a lot heavier, no wonder my father looks like a mountain of muscle, swinging around this heavy hammer all day I start to get excited even though I struggle a bit to hold it steady my father begins instructing me on how hard I should hit and where I should hit. Once he gives me a chance to forge a nail of my own I start to notice that it requires more than just strength and knowing where to hit the nail as my father sees the realization dawn on my face he smirks and tells me what I was thinking “I see you’ve finally figured it out, blacksmithing lets you build up more than just your strength and endurance, it helps to build your dexterity as well as your hand eye coordination which are all needed when following the path of a warrior.”
As I finish forging my first nail I give it to my father to inspect and he tells me “Not bad son, now keep going at it, we’ll be here for a few hours.” Happy with my father’s approval I continue forging nails, but after a few more nails it gets harder and harder to hold up the hammer when my father notices telling me this is where endurance will start to build and to take a break before continuing again.
We spent a few more hours like that before my father closed up the forge and with my arms dangling uselessly at my side we headed home and had dinner that was mostly meat which served to revitalize me for the next day’s activities. Once we finished dinner my father told me that we’d start training my magic tomorrow which I happily agreed to before laying down and falling asleep almost instantly.