The days and nights blurred together as Surelin’s training continued. Gideon maintained a tenuous grasp on the passage of time as he took her through an increasingly difficult regimen of physical training and sparring. The absence of the sun during their waking hours contributed to the mild sensory deprivation, but the repetition of doing the same activities every night played a heavier role in it.

He’d already been fairly well adjusted to sleeping through the days. But for Surelin, adjusting to the new sleep schedule was difficult, despite how exhausted and sore she always seemed to be after training. She complained to him often about how uncomfortable the wooden bench in the wagon was to sleep on, and how the heat would cause her to wake up sweating in a wet bedroll. On the third day, Gideon noticed heavy bags underneath her eyes, and after some prodding she revealed that she’d barely slept at all. He’d demonstrated no sympathy for her, however, and the night’s training had been just as physically demanding as the others.

Gideon may have been having trouble keeping track of time, but Surelin seemed to have no grasp of it whatsoever. Around the eighth day, he asked her if she remembered how many days it had been since they’d started, and in response she’d simply given him a tired shrug. He had gone through the same experience—more or less—with his own initial training. His memory of that period of time was spotty, basically just a back-to-back series of morning wakeups. Constant and intense physical activity caused a unique kind of stress that blanked out large chunks of memory, and it felt strange to watch Surelin actively experiencing it. Exhaustion seemed to have become a permanent feature of her face, but despite it she always tried her best to accomplish the tasks Gideon gave her.

By the third day, the sand dunes had morphed into low, rocky hills, blanketed by scanty patches of yellow, dried-out grass. Short green trees with slender trunks also dotted the landscape, sporting dozens of branches with needle-like leaves. They grew alone or in very small clumps within the shallow valleys between the hills. The sun lost its potency as they traveled deeper into the borderlands, but the wind grew stronger, whipping harshly across the landscape and sending specks of debris into the eyes of both trainer and trainee.

The gradually changing landscape became the only evidence of a reality beyond training. Surelin changed along with the landscape, growing stronger with each passing day in spite of her ever-present tiredness and discomfort. After a full week had passed, she was able to do ten normal pushups before her muscles tired out, and the distance she could run before tiring increased. She began to get faster, and struggled less towards the end. Gideon occasionally increased the distance, and the amount of repetitions she had to do, along with adding new, harder exercises. Surelin wasn’t always strong enough to complete them, but she never failed to give them her all.

Gideon monitored her progress with a certain amount of pride, but never let it show. He was always the unmerciful taskmaster he’d decided to be on the first night, watching her closely for mistakes and punishing her strictly for them. Everywhere she went, he was there with her.

“I wish you’d leave me alone!” she’d said to him one night, only half meaning it. Gideon had simply laughed.

At around the two week mark, Surelin had finally adapted to her new lifestyle. She was finishing more runs, completing more reps, and lasting much longer during sparring sessions. There was still a great deal of work in store to get her to the proper level of fitness, but she could no longer be described as out of shape. She also complained less often about soreness, and seemed to be getting more sleep during the day.

What had truly surprised Gideon was her enormous capacity for learning. There was rarely any need for him to show her how to do something more than once. She grasped the basic concepts of swordfighting immediately, and never forgot anything Gideon showed her how to do. What she'd lacked in experience, she made up for with sheer willpower. Their sparring sessions quickly bore fruit.

By no stretch of the imagination did she ever come close to defeating Gideon, but she still demonstrated a strong sense of adaptation that left him very impressed. She favored the Plow guard for its easy transfer to the Window and Roof, but she was competent with every position he taught her. Surelin had serious talent for swordfighting, and he soon realized that if she’d received training from a younger age she might have become a prodigy. With most fighters, it was possible to tell how far their talent could take them, what their overall potential was, but when Gideon looked at Surelin all he saw was something akin to a bottomless pit. There were no real limits for her beyond her state of fitness and her willingness to keep improving.

There had been only one thing she couldn’t seem to overcome, and it had come to a head on the fifteenth day. The caravan had stopped for the night by a copse overlooking a small stream running parallel to the road, less than ten feet wide and only one or two inches deep. Gideon and Surelin had crossed the stream with their lanterns to spar in a clearing where the earth happened to be flat and even.

When they were prepped and ready, Surelin opened with the Window guard and moved in to attack. It was slow and obvious, practically lackadaisical. Their blades clashed, and he immediately countered, scoring a direct hit on her forearm.

He shook his head at her with a deep frown as she retreated, wincing. Her heart was never completely in it when she was on offense. When it was her turn to be the aggressor, the match always ended quickly with her defeat. On defense she was much better—she could occasionally pull off a draw.

Gideon sighed angrily. “For fuck's sake, how many times do we have to go over this? You can’t win by sticking only to defense! If you don’t take the initiative, they will! Get that through your fucking head already! Show me some aggression, for once!”

She bristled with anger and raised her sword again, taking up the Plow as she approached him. When she was within striking range, she lifted her sword into an overhead strike position, but did it far too slowly. Another half-hearted effort.

With an angry growl, Gideon swiftly batted away her blade, striking it with such force that she lost her grip on it. The sword fell from her hand, clattering to the ground by her feet.

“That’s it!” he shouted. “You don’t want to listen? Well, I can fix that! Do pushups!”

Surelin glared at him, but got down to obey.

“...How many?”

“Go until I tell you to stop!”

She continued to glare up at him from the ground and put all her energy into it, as if to defy him by doing the best pushups she possibly could. Even after she tired and began to struggle, the anger remained.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Once she’d done eighty, he stood her up.

“Now stay right there and hold your arms out to your sides. Do it—”

She looked aggravated as he pushed her arms out and up.

“—There! Hold your arms out like that! Don’t drop them till I tell you.”

He backed up and stood in front of her with his arms crossed. Surelin looked at herself and scoffed.

“What is this meant to do? Embarrass me?”

“Shut up. Don’t drop your arms.”

“I don’t want to fight your way! I can fight without hurting people, you just don’t want me to!”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a spoiled brat who thinks she can have everything her way if she whines enough. Now shut the fuck up.”

She glowered at him, but said nothing else. There was a mixture of annoyance and boredom on her face as they stared at each other.

They’d already done plenty of pushups that night before sparring, and with the extra eighty she’d just done Gideon knew she wouldn’t have the strength to hold the position for long. It was a punishment he’d been put through himself once during his own initial training. He couldn’t remember what he’d done to deserve it, but he’d never forgotten the pain.

A minute passed in silence. Surelin began to look almost confused, frowning slightly as if she were trying to make sense of the feeling in her arms.

Another minute. Her expression changed again, this time to a pained grimace.

“It’s burning…!” she hissed.

Another minute. Surelin gasped with pain, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to bear it. Her arms began to waver.

With a pained grunt, Surelin’s arms collapsed to her sides.

“Put your arms back up!” Gideon shouted.

She flinched, and looked hurt as she slowly raised her arms back into position.

Another minute. Surelin whimpered and moaned with pain, her arms visibly shaking.

“Why does it hurt so much!” she gasped. “ I’m j-just holding them out!”

Gideon’s voice was cold. “Your arms get no rest in that position.”

Her arms collapsed again, and once again Gideon shouted at her until she raised them back up.

For the next thirty minutes, the punishment continued. Watching her suffer was incredibly unenjoyable, but he felt there was no other way. Surelin had a dangerous idealism about her that ran very deep, and it would take a serious shock to shake her out of it.

At the end, he finally told her to relax, and she collapsed to her knees, arms hanging limply by her sides. She hung her head and took deep, shaky breaths.

Gideon crouched down in front of her. “You’re trying to ignore reality by pulling your punches. Look at yourself. We’re all this fragile and weak. Just standing in an unusual position can cause us pain.”

She looked up at him, looking bone-tired as he continued. “You understand now? People only respond to pain. If we’re not in pain, we don’t learn anything. We coast along until something painful happens to throw us off course.”

He watched as she lowered her eyes, shaking her head slowly. “...That’s horrible. I don’t believe in that.”

“Want to be stubborn? Fine.”

Gideon stood up, and headed back towards their wagon. Surelin lifted her head and watched him leave.

He returned holding his claymore in his off hand, sheathed.

“Stand up,” he barked.

She lifted herself haltingly back to her feet, without using her hands.

He held the claymore out to her. “Hold this over your head. If you drop it, we’re through with training. Forever.”

Surelin’s eyes widened, and she sounded panicky. “N-no! I can barely feel my arms, I can’t do that!”

“You take it, or we’re through right now!”

Her lower lip quivered as she stared at him, fighting back tears. She slowly lifted her arms to take it.

Surelin slowly lifted the claymore over her head with shaking arms, and Gideon stood back a few paces to watch. Once it was in position she staggered in place, trying desperately hard to keep it up.

The claymore began to sink towards her shoulders. She let out a strained grunt, trying to keep it from sinking any lower.

He wasn't sure if he'd really meant it. Mostly he'd just wanted her to get over herself and thought a serious threat might do it, but a smaller part of him was genuinely angry with her. She was intentionally wasting her talent, and his time.

Maybe this requires a different approach.

Gideon furrowed his brows at her. “When you were a slave, why didn’t you just give up?”

“...I don’t know!” she gasped.

“C’mon, there had to be a reason. What kept you going?”

She swallowed hard, staring up at the claymore.

“...I wanted to see grandmother again...!”

A sob suddenly escaped from her, and the claymore fell several inches.

Gideon nodded slowly. “Someone with a good reason to live can handle anything.”

Her eyes went wide as she swiveled her head to look at him. When she looked back up at the claymore, it began to rise.

He watched while she put everything into pushing it back up. With a shout of extreme effort, her shaking arms lifted the claymore to as high as her arms could possibly support it. Then she toppled over.

The claymore slipped out of her hands and landed on the ground beside her. Gideon ran up and knelt down next to her, turning her over. She was weeping.

“Please, I don’t want to stop training! Please don’t give up on me…!”

She sobbed loudly. Guilt made Gideon’s stomach twist itself into a hard knot.

It was necessary, he told himself. She's going to die if she can't get over this.

He pulled her to her feet, and she looked up at him with puffy, red eyes, her cheeks wet and her clothing covered in a layer of dust.

“We’ll continue. But we’re done for tonight. Go get some sleep.”

Surelin turned her face away, but not before he saw another tear leap from her eye. She trudged off, back towards the wagons.

Gideon gathered up their belongings and followed her. When he pulled himself up into their wagon, she was already asleep in her bedroll. Quietly, he set down their gear, and once it was done he impulsively pulled his whiskey bottle out of his ruck. He hopped back off the wagon, bottle in hand.

The needle-like leaves of the trees overlooking the stream made them seem very unfriendly. They wouldn’t make good drinking companions, but he sat down beside them anyway, staring down at the trickle of water flowing past.

I’m no good at this kind of thing. She shouldn't still be struggling with this. Someone else would've toughened her up more by now.

He looked down at the whiskey in his hand. There was less than one shot left. The liquid sloshed around as he shook the bottle.

Watching her suffer every night is hard. Maybe that's why I'm not doing a good enough job. I like her too much.

He uncorked the bottle, and drank its meager contents. Suddenly, footsteps crunched in the dirt behind him, and he whipped himself around to face the noise.

It was Kara. Gideon relaxed as she raised her hands to placate him.

“Whoa, big guy, it’s just me. I heard shouting. Everything okay?”

He turned back to the front, frowning. “Yep. Everything’s great.”

She sat down next to him, and peered at his face for a moment before looking away, down towards the stream.

“Surelin is someone important, isn’t she?” she asked.

The question gave him pause. A heavy silence hung in the air as Gideon wondered how to respond.

“If she was,” he said eventually, “would that change anything?”

Kara shook her head immediately. “No. She’s my friend. And you saved our asses. You’re both under my protection, as far as I’m concerned.”

“...Hm.”

They fell silent again, and the night’s ambient noise rose to fill it. Wind blew through the trees steadily, making the needle-leaves shake and hiss as they rubbed together. Water quietly burbled in the stream.

“She could use another sparring partner,” he said abruptly. “Someone who isn’t me. What do you think about sparring with her, occasionally?”

She nodded. “Sure, I wouldn’t mind doing that.”

“Good. Thanks.”

“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you?”

Gideon’s eyes widened, and when he turned to look at her she was grinning at him.

“No? No, I’m not. It’s not like that.”

Kara laughed and stood back up, brushing dirt off her backside.

“Goodnight, Gideon.”

He called out after her as she walked away.

“I’m not!”

She was still grinning when she pulled herself back up into the lead wagon.

The next night, Kara showed up to spar, and Surelin surprised him by managing to actually beat her a few times. Her attacks demonstrated a newfound aggression, though she still held herself back to a maddening degree. Gideon decided he would let it slide, at least for now, hoping she wouldn’t suffer someday for it.