“Wow,” Sam said as he stepped into the room, “consider all of my expectations subverted. This place is fucking pristine.”

“He may be a slob,” Yvessa said as she pushed past him, “but he’s an honest slob. And he’s good at keeping his promises. Nice job, Felix.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Felix answered with a sour face, closing the door behind the three of them. “No need to gloat.”

“Now would that be gloating about her triumph over you?” Sam asked. “Or about you having to clean your room because of said triumph. I need to know because I won’t be comfortable making fun of you if it’s the former.”

“Why thank you so much for you consideration.”

“He didn’t answer me,” Sam leaned in to whisper to Sarah.

She shrugged before asking Felix’s permission to use the bathroom, leaving everyone else to get dinner ready. “So I’m guessing by the fact that Sarah hasn’t screamed that you’ve thoroughly cleaned the bathroom as well.” Yvessa snickered.

“My bathroom was always clean. What reason would there be for it to be dirty?”

“That’s gotta be the dumbest question I’ve ever heard,” Sam said. “Need I count on my fingers the types of bodily wastes for which the bathroom is, usually, the room where the expulsion is being carried out? Also, insert a joke about gay sex at your own leisure.”

“I don’t have sex in the bathroom.”

“Yeah, we know. You’ve made that abundantly clear.”

“That was only once… twice. What, you’re the only one who’s allowed to complain about unrealistic fiction? Also, I just want to make this point very clear. My room is, was messy, but it wasn’t dirty. I clean it regularly. Not as regularly as some other folks”—he made a show of gesturing with his head at Yvessa—“but regularly enough. And my bathroom was neither. Alright? I don’t want you guys putting any rumors out there about my room being a shithole.”

Sam chuckled, and Felix gave him a narrow-eyed glare. “I didn’t say anything.” Sam held up his hands.

“Whatever the state of your room is usually,” Yvessa said, “you have to admit that it looks way better now. So would it really pain you so much to keep it like this all the time?”

“Yes, obviously.” Felix shrugged in confusion. “If it didn’t, then I would have done it already, no? But since keeping it tidy all the time is just a huge waste without any positives, why would I bother so much with it if I didn’t have to?”

“You realize that you will have to in two years, right?” Sarah asked as she joined them on the floor. “They’re not going to let you get away with your usual behavior in Military Training.”

“First of all, that’s in two and a half years. And second of all, yeah, I know, so what? I can keep my room tidy and my stuff orderly. I just choose not. When I’ll have to keep it a certain way, I will. And once we finish our training… I probably never will again.”

“Man…” Sam chuckled. “It’d be so funny if, for your first deployment, you and Yvessa end up being assigned not only to the same unit but also to the same room.”

“It won’t be,” Yvessa said, while at the same time Felix shook his head.

“No… it definitely will be funny. Won’t be fun, yes. But funny. Well, I’ll laugh.”

“And what about you, then? Who will you be sharing a room with?”

“I don’t know. I imagine that my personal connections will get me out of such a base state of living.”

“And how was your meeting with Farris, by the way?” Sarah asked. “What’d you end up talking about?”

“Can we talk about that after we start eating?” Felix moaned. “The food’s getting cold.”

“We can’t start eating before we have a toast,” Yvessa declared. “Everyone grab a glass and let’s cheer for Felix finally cleaning his room.”

“Again, the room was already clean. I just tidied it up. And don’t think that I don’t see what you’re trying to do. Acting all high and mighty by not having us cheer for you winning the tournament.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’re here to celebrate the both of us reaching the finals in the tournament. Who cares who came first and who came second?”

“The both of you,” Sam said. “The question is, who cares the most? And ordinarily, I would have gone with Felix, but with how smug you’re acting, Yvessa… I don’t know.”

“Smug?”

“In a good way.”

“What good way is there to act smug?” Felix asked.

“Oh please. If you would’ve won, you’d be jumping up and down in Yvessa’s room right now, making a show of touching everything.”

“Sure, no doubt. And I would be the first one to admit that said behavior is not good in any sense of the word.”

“Well it would be funny, and I, for one, consider humor to generally be good. The problem is that you’re usually a smug asshole, so it’s much more funny to see Yvessa acting as one than it would’ve been to see you.”

“Guys,” Sarah interjected, “we’re here to celebrate, remember?”

“Celebrate what?” Yvessa innocently asked.

“C’mon Yvessa, not you too.”

“Her too what?” Felix asked. “Because I resent the implication that I have been behaving improperly for the occasion before, and Yvessa only started just now.”

“That’s a fair point,” Sam agreed and turned to Sarah. “They both have been behaving like children all night already. It wouldn’t be fair to single only one of them out.”

Yvessa laughed and handed Felix a drink. “C’mon, then. You make the toast. Before the food gets cold.”

Felix grumbled but took the drink from her hand, mulling over his words for a moment. He eventually said, “Alright. A toast to me and Yvessa proving we’re the best fighters in our year. And for my room being tidy, whatever the reason for that might be.”

“Cheers!”

“To two of the three brightest young Terran jewels,” Sam called.

“Who’s the third?” Yvessa asked, as they started eating.

“Sarah, of course.”

“Of course,” Sarah deadpanned, “and here I was thinking that you were talking about first years. So where do you count yourself?”

“Well, for one, I’m not so young, so I can’t be counted on the same list as you three.”

“Three years.” Felix held up three fingers.

“And secondly—you’ll like this one, Sarah—I do not count myself as a Terran jewel, but rather as one which belongs to the entire Web. I’m the one of best all around, not just in New Terra.”

“Yeah, but you’re still a Terran. So you would have to be counted amongst us anyway.”

“I don’t have to be counted as anything. What do you think this is? The census?”

Sarah held up her hand to stop him. “As long as that’s your reason for not counting yourself among our numbers, I’ll allow it. If, that really is the reason…”

“What else would the reason be?” Sam feigned innocence. “Me and Farris spoke about my gem-like qualities at length today. And as my mentor’s student, I cannot allow a shining example of excellence like myself to be claimed by just the one national entity. The whole five, six even, will just have to share.”

“And what else did you and your mentor talk about today?”

“Nah, before that, I want to hear from these two finally.” Sam jerked a thumb towards the mid-bite Felix.

“Hear what?” Yvessa asked, in lieu of her speech-blocked compatriot.

“Your fight yesterday. The whole tournament at large, really. We didn’t get any information out of either of you besides saying that you made it to the next round and then, yesterday, that you beat Felix in the final. Give us some details! Share in the gossip! Did you have to go up against that Chafi guy that you told me about?”

“Afi. And yes. We both did. He came fourth place.”

“He got lucky,” Felix muttered.

“Wait, you lost to him?” Sam asked.

“No, of course not. I meant that got lucky coming fourth. I beat his ass handily in the second round. Yvessa beat him in the last. I can count at least three other people who gave me more trouble that he did, not counting Yvessa.”

“And how much trouble did Yvessa give you?”

Felix tsked. “I lost didn’t I?”

“Sure. But how close was it? What did your fight look like? That’s what I want to know.”

“What do you care?”

Sam shrugged. “That’s what you’re supposed to do with the other people in your sport, isn’t it? Watch their games or fights or whatever, and make comments about how great they are and how much you learned from watching them compete. And that’s just the real world. Don’t get me started on fiction.”

“So you don’t actually care, then?”

“I mean, I care so much as it relates to your interpersonal relationship, the social aspect of it and whatever. But no, I don’t really care about what techniques you used, and what strategies you employed. I mean, what can I really learn from watching anyone fight at this point in my career?”

“You’d be surprised. I’m willing to bet that if I showed you a video of two complete idiots fighting, you’d get plenty out of it. You’re good enough by now to recognize bad form and technique for what they are, which can help you better understand what not to do.”

“Did your fight have any bad form or technique?”

“Well there was the time I tried to pivot from a parry to throwing my spear and rushing at her, but that obviously ended up in abject failure.”

“To be fair,” Yvessa said, “you only tried that because I had you up against the wall. And it might’ve worked if you hadn’t telegraphed it so much. It doesn’t matter, because I think the honor for the biggest slip up of our fight goes to me.”

“I mean yeah, but that’s because you forgot that it wasn’t allowed, not because it was, necessarily, a bad move to make.”

“What move was that?” Sarah asked.

“She grabbed my spear.”

“I see.”

“What? Why?” Sam asked. “She didn’t grab it by the point, right? So what’s illegal about it?”

“It has to do with how magical combat works; as in tracing through weapons. Suffice to say that touching an opponent’s weapon is not a habit that the academy wants to encourage amongst its pupils, so in our official physical combat rules, it’s disallowed. But it is allowed in magical combat sparring, where the intricacies resulting from your action can be apparent.”

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

“But it’s also allowed in Sarechi physical combat competitions,” Yvessa said. “Which is what I reverted to in the heat of the fight. Still, I’m not arguing against it. Rules are rules. And I won regardless.”

“Yes, rub it in. Why don’t you?” Felix sulked.

“So was her illegal move also spurred on by being pushed to the wall like your foolish one was?” Sam asked.

“I thought you weren’t interested in the ins and outs of the fight.”

“I’m not. I just want to know how close the fight was in order to better ascertain the social ramifications of it.”

“It wasn’t,” Yvessa said. “Just saw an opportunity to score and forgot that it wasn’t allowed.”

“Interesting… And by what difference did you say you won, again?”

“I didn’t.”

“It was only by a couple of points,” Felix said. “So it was relatively close. Could’ve gone either way at times.”

“Alright, alright.” Sam held up his hands. “No need to get defensive. I was just wondering. So does that mean you’re going back to your old regimen of spear-training, now that the tournament’s over?”

“As opposed to keeping to the new one because I wasn’t good enough and lost?”

“God. Silver medals are insufferable. If you lost, then where does that place the rest of the student body?”

“They also lost. Just more badly than me.”

“I’m betting if we pick up third place and ask them what they think about their results, they wouldn’t say that.”

“Obviously. Everyone knows that people that come in third are happier than people that come in second.”

“Are you going back or not?”

“I am. The last weeks were just a concentrated effort for the tournament.”

“Proving Lin right? Or wrong? I wonder.”

Felix shrugged and turned to Yvessa. “Did you feel yourself improving throughout the tournament?”

“No. Did you?”

“Not during it. But that’s understandable. I already fought a bunch of times against everyone who posed somewhat of a challenge to me in the tournament. I mean, you and I already spar with each other all the time. So obviously there’s not really a whole lot we can learn from fighting each other in a tournament. But, I’m sure even if I haven’t improved as a result of the increased training before the tournament, that plenty of other people did. And that if we were fighting against people who we’ve never met before, then we would definitely have had a lot to learn from them and thus improve during the tournament.”

Sam laid the back of his hand against his head and, with a sigh, reclined backwards. “That is too much information, are you trying to fry my imagination? Sum up your conclusion for me, please. Nice and orderly, as though I was an eight-grade teacher rating your essay about how to correctly write essays.”

“Lin is wrong.”

“Hm… that reminds me: I forgot to ask Farris where he stands on the whole tournament debate. I’d write him an email… but I don’t care about it all that much.”

“Did you ask him about teaching me spearfighting?”

“No, I forgot about that as well.”

“Again?”

“It’s not my fault, alright? We had much more important stuff to talk about. Your time will come.”

“So what did you talk about?” Sarah asked.

Sam gulped. “Oh… all sorts of things, really. The journey ahead of me... What Farris’ role in it will be… A bunch of other things. All on topic stuff, and pertaining to my development as an individual combatant, I assure you.”

“That doesn’t sound like either of you,” Yvessa remarked.

“Well I don’t know what to tell you. And unlike my lesson with Lin, our conversation wasn’t recorded, so you’ll just have to take me at my word.”

“Did he really force someone to watch your training and report to him?” Sarah asked.

Sam nodded. “Two pensioners. Which I suppose makes it a little better.”

“Makes what better?” Yvessa asked. “What’s wrong with having someone watching your combat training and reporting to him on it? People get paid much less for work that is just as boring but much more meaningless.”

“That’s a very capitalistic view of the matter. What about the importance of human dignity? The equality of all living persons? The intrinsic value in each one of us which give to society? And the alienation created in individuals when they get treated as you are suggesting?”

“What about them?”

“Eh… nothing much really. I was going to say that all these considerations are included in the free market. My only worry was that the military isn’t necessarily such a free-market environment, but we can leave that debate well aside because the two pensioners are civilian contractors. The best of both worlds. God, I love the modern military-industrial complex.”

“What do you know about the modern military-industrial complex?” Felix asked.

“Not much yet, regrettably. But I do know that I will brook no complaint or criticism against it. Indeed, as no rational person should, for it is the sole bulwark standing before us and oblivion.”

“What about criticizing it for not doing enough?”

“Oh that’s always allowed. It’s not like you guys invented justified hawkishness. Si vis pacem para bellum, and all that jazz. Incidentally, we don’t actually learn about the industrial side of the complex here, right?”

“It depends what you consider industrial,” Sarah said.

“Planes, trains and MBTs, artillery and rods from G. You know, things that go boom or make other things go boom and cost a lot to make.”

“So Terran Armaments, then?”

“Yes. I believe that is the naming convention most of these awesome weapons and combat inducers and enhancers have been relegated to.”

Sarah laughed. “You already know that’s what they’re called. You just refuse to call them that.”

“Hey! If Felix is allowed one flaw in his personality in the form of believing all Terrans are inherently superior to every other race—”

“I most certainly don’t believe that.”

“than I’m allowed to have this one tiny flaw of believing the weapons our forefathers slaved to invent and build are inherently cooler than any other form of weaponry there is. And that they should not be left at the wayside just because something more ‘efficient’ and ‘good at killing’ came along.”

“That’s literally what happened in all of human history,” Felix said. “A new weapon comes along and makes the old one obsolete and those that don’t adapt sink under the march of progress.”

“Hey! You leave the Yamato out of this! She died so that the United States could have more aircraft carries than all other nations in the world combined! And where are those aircraft carriers now, tell me? Where is the naval arm of God’s most specially provisioned nation? Oh, just because we don’t need a navy to fight the Epiraks means that we shouldn’t have one? And don’t get me started on the lamentable loss of the airforce.”

“I think you’ve forgotten about your question in the midst of all this moaning and or making a joke.”

Sam squinted in thought. “Hm… fair enough. We’ll save moaning about the great artillery guns falling silent and the tanks stopping still to another day.”

“OK, so you obviously know about the formations imprinted on the artillery,” Yvessa said.

“Yeah, I read about that. I looked up Terran Armaments on Wikipedia one evening. Didn’t make the end of the page, though.”

“Did you reach the part about artillery not being completely silent, but just silent enough to prevent brain damage?”

“Yeah… so? Obviously I’m not pro brain-damage. I’m just saying that if we could’ve had the noise without the brain-damage… that there’s a discussion to be had there.”

“You hate noise,” Sarah said.

“Oh, undoubtedly. But I’m not talking as Sam the would be combatant on the front lines. I’m talking as Sam who still sees war as something that happens to other people and likes cool things like explosions and a shiny aerodynamic amalgamation of expensive material. So just to be clear, we don’t get to study about those during the academy, right?”

Felix snickered. “Oh? You finally brought us back.”

“Someone had to do it. None of you were up to the task.”

“We don’t study the use of Terran Armaments, no,” Yvessa said. “With the exception of rifles, I guess, which do have an elective of sorts. Although, it’s pretty much just a shooting range. There are electives about the tactics of using Terran Armaments in combat, two I think. But Dan is definitely not going to offer any of them to you.”

“There’s also the elective about logistics,” Felix added. “It’s for third-years only. It’s a year long. And Dan is definitely not going to let you study it.”

“Are any of you going?” Sam asked.

“Hell no. When we reach a high enough position that we need to care about logistics, we’ll have a junior staff to do that job for us.”

“Really starting to feel like we shouldn’t be leaving this school as officers.”

“We don’t. We only become officers after half a year of Military Training.”

“That doesn’t make it much better.”

“Relax, you’re not going to be in command of anybody for a long time. Or ever. Just because you’re an officer doesn’t mean that you’ll be in charge of anyone. Plenty of strong combatants, who aren’t suited for command, serve under people weaker than them.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard it all before. But the truth of it is that if we climb high enough, we will have to end up in command. If, say, I end up the first and only Terran Chosen in a couple of years, then there’s no way I’m not given some form of majority control over the Terran military. And by that point, I’d probably really appreciate it if the academy would’ve taught me more about the fine art of waging war.”

“That’s a fair point, Sam.” Yvessa nodded. “I always thought that either the academy or the Military Training ought to be a year longer in order to touch more upon these aspects.”

“Well,” Felix came to the defense of the republic’s military establishment, “we do learn all sorts of ‘officer’ stuff here. And we learn a bunch more during Military Training.”

“Not enough in my opinion.”

“Sure, but we’re not really training to be officers. We’re training to be combatants. Becoming better fighters is the most important part of our education. Besides, the military does have plenty more education for people continuing down the road of command.”

“Yeah and how many of our Rulers partook in all facets of that extra education? Despite the fact that all of them are, at the very least, Lieutenant Generals? If the actual officer’s training was universal across all academies and held to a minimum standard, we would still have the same number of powerful individuals, but there’s a chance that those of them that end up in charge would be better suited for their new role.”

“Do you know what sort of education did Farris receive on the subject?” Sarah asked Sam.

“You’re asking me?” Sam chuckled. “Our understanding and knowledge of each other only extends one way, I’m afraid. Still, as I understand it, he was basically slated for his position from birth. So he it’s most likely that he received some education for his current role. Although, he also told me that even if he were completely inept as a commander, he would still hold his position by virtue of his strength and birth. So I don’t know if we should really seek to emulate his ‘success.’”

“Of course we should,” Yvessa said. “First, because Farris is far from an inept commander, so obviously, the education he received was worthwhile. And second, because it is the direct solution to the problem we are talking about: strong combatants being given high position without the appropriate training for it. Let’s say that Farris got his education due to his birth, and his position because of his strength and birth. We only judge on strength, so we have to find some other way to decide who gets the appropriate education. So let’s switch birth with, say, the talent a person displays at the age of eighteen. Do we really reach a bad method with which to evaluate whether we should train said person to be a commander as well as a combatant?

“Take you, for example, Sam. How much difference is there between you now and Farris and twelve? You’re already being treated rather similarly, after all. With plenty of educational resources being spent on you. If we equate between your natural talent and Farris’, we must reach the conclusion that our overall expectations for where you’ll end up, military ladder-wise, are pretty much the same. If you’re the most probable person to become the first Terran Chosen, or let’s just say the strongest Terran Ruler, wouldn’t that mean that you’d most likely end up in as much in charge of the Terran military, as Farris is of the elven one?”

Sam nodded. “Yes… I think I understand your point.”

“You do?” Felix asked. “It didn’t make a lick of sense to me.”

“Think about it just from the perspective of combat potential. If we know the person who has the most potential when they’re our age, then we also know the person most likely to be the strongest Terran combatant in… I don’t know, a couple of years, right?”

“Sure. I guess.”

“And if we assume that the strongest Terran combatant will also receive an applicable high-ranking position because of his strength, then it’s reasonable to assume that if they’re so much stronger than any other Terran, that they would end up the highest ranking person in the Terran military. If that’s the case, then we should be treating that person the same way the elves treated Farris. Not just training them up for personal strength, but also for being a military leader. So extrapolating from that logic, Yvessa’s point is that we should be treating every cadet as such a person, because they all have the potential to end up the strongest Terran.”

“That’s some extrapolation.”

“Is it, though?” Yvessa shrugged. “We can sit here and speak about talents and potential all day long and act as self assured about ourselves as humanely possible. But at the end of the day, what we can’t claim is that there will be no one who currently seems ‘less talented’ than us, and could one day overcome us and end up as the strongest Terran. If that’s the case, oughtn't we treat every cadet as though they might end up in charge of the entire military, and teach them accordingly? Besides, as long as you accept my point that we four should be taught as Farris was, you must conclude the same for the general student body. After all, the academy can’t just focus its officers’ teachings on us ‘talented’ kids. We’re all supposed to be receiving equal education here.”

“OK, let’s say I agree with most of your claims so far,” Felix said, “but I still don’t agree with your conclusion. What about cadets who don’t want to be officers at all? Or people who are wholly unsuited, for whatever reasons? We’re going to have the academy reject them because of that, no matter what their combat potential might be? We could, of course, create two paths in the academy, following your suggestion, Yvessa. The regular path, and the extra year path that teaches more about being an officer. But, how are we going to determine who gets into which path? Because remember, you said that combat potential is the most important factor for becoming a leader in the future thus and needing that extra education. Which means that we return to the first problem I mentioned.”

“I don’t think it’s a problem,” Yvessa said. “Our education isn’t built to suit our needs and wants but the military’s. We already study all sorts of stuff that we wouldn’t necessarily want to if given the choice; you complain incessantly about some of the courses we have to take. And it’s not like we’re introducing a brand new subject. Both the academy and the Military Training have a certain amount of their education dedicated to an officer’s education. All I’m suggesting is that we increase that amount.

“Think about it this way. You might not like all the ‘extra’ stuff you’re forced to learn here, and you might not retain even a tenth of it. But think how important could that tenth be if the person holding that knowledge is in a high enough position. And it’s the undebatable truth that even the least tactically inclined and worst to command Rulers will still have some sort of power over decisions of that nature. Do you really think that we wouldn’t have been better off if all of our Rulers had that extra year of education?”

“Provided they still managed to become Rulers after it,” Felix said.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“I don’t know. But you’re adding an extra year to people’s development. Who’s to say they’ll still come out as strong as they are now? For me, it’s mostly a question of costs and benefits, which you’ve just hand waved away. You can’t be sure that having that extra year will make our Rulers better commanders while still just as strong. Or that it wouldn’t have a detrimental effect on our military capabilities. You’re basically adding another year to when the military starts getting some actual value out of us. And these are all the problems that still exist after, and if, we agree with your assumption that teaching cadets more about being an officer is something we should be doing.”

Sam leaned in to whisper to Sarah. “You see? This is what happens when I don’t have a strong enough opinion on the subject the dictate the flow of the argument and decide upon its conclusion. Utter chaos. No one in agreement whatsoever.”

“Are you saying we ought to thank you for your ‘sacrifice’ of trying to have an opinion on everything?” Sarah whispered back.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Look at what they’ve been reduced to.” He gestured towards Felix and Yvessa. “Acting the argumentative idiots.”

Felix rolled his eyes. “And here comes the joke about us taking Sam’s job or whatever.”

“Please. As if I would ever be so predictable.”