Impressive, but also scary. That was the only way Fedrahn could describe what the boy achieved in only one week.

He could read. Sure, he couldn't write worth a dime, and he had trouble focusing on anything not to do with the dances but still. He learnt to read.

He did that on top of his daily duties, including waking Fedrahn up every morning. He also had to train to be a normal warrior.

If only he could teach him to dance, but Fedrahn only had theoretical knowledge he'd just verified over a few weeks, he wasn't qualified.

The light masters had studied the other still existing dances on the planet. A few had outright disappeared, and it was said information on those only existed on the mystical isle of Maeve. It was also a floating island, at least according to rumours. Few had seen it though, and even fewer been able to stand on its shores. Fedrahn wondered then, how they knew that its library contained the most important knowledge in the world.

Anyway, Fedrahn had started to instruct the boy in normal combat. Of course the first few weeks were meant for conditioning. Somehow the boy managed to get through all the hours of physical activity without complaint. That small body carried quite a lot of power. Fedrahn had started him off light, as befit a young child.

Somehow in only one week he'd gotten fit enough that Fedrahn would have thought he'd been training for a month. He was doing well in his studies as well. Only one week. Either the boy was the descendant of a god, or time worked differently on that island.

Fedrahn decided to try and find out what was going on.

That morning the boy woke him up as usual. Fedrahn studied his appearance. The eyes were still pale, but clear. His posture was much more improved, and there was an eagerness with which he did his chores now.

That was until he started to read, and like any child Fedrahn knew, he was soon bored of it. For the first time in a week, Fedrahn let the boy borrow his bow.

After lunch he had him reading again, and then he had him do physicals for three hours. This time they were a bit heavier than usual, but the boy didn't complain. He might have been five, but he looked three and had the energy of a ten year old. His whole existence didn't make sense.

At night he started to read again, trying to write a few words Fedrahn dictated for him. He failed to write any one of them correctly, but he was pretty close. He went to sleep first. This time Fedrahn only waited a few minutes before he went to sleep as well. He left his door opened a crack.

Sure enough, the boy snuck out some time after Fedrahn had gone in. Fedrahn snuck out after him. What he saw left him flabbergasted. Without his supervision, the boy was doing the same exercises Fedrahn had set for him, but this time he was doing them with a lot more intensity.

When he'd jog around the perimeter, it was at a full out sprint. When he'd pull himself up by the metal bar Fed had placed for him, it was with bags of sand tied onto his legs. And he went on like that for hours.

Then when his hands were putty, he grabbed the bow and started to practice. He pulled the string with shaking hands, and yet even if he didn't hit the bullseye, he was very close. When he started to yawn, Fedrahn knew he'd outstayed his welcome.

The next morning he was out of sorts. He felt like he'd only slept two hours at most. And yet the boy seemed as refreshed as someone who'd slept a whole week. Fedrahn frowned.

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"Can I ask you something, child?" he found himself saying. "Why do you try so hard? You should know you're doing great already."

The boy's expression fell, something Fedrahn had noticed happened whenever they talked about certain topics.

"The arch master, he…” he started stilitingly. “..he said I couldn't dance, because of my condition. And the friar, the leader of the arch masters agreed, and everyone on the island heard.

"And then in the woods, a few days before you came to the island, there were three of them. They made fan of me for it. And I just wanted them dead, but they are already apprentices, and they moved faster than my eyes could track once I'd finished ranting about how everyone knew they were so untalented, that they'd stayed in the intermediate training group for three whole years."

"So you're doing this for revenge?"

"No. I could never beat a dancer. I'm doing it because you said It'd strengthen my body a bit. That day, those boys broke both my legs."

"They broke both your legs a few days before I got here? And you were already working for me a few days later," Fedrahn couldn't contain his incredulity.

The boy shrugged. "That's why I diligently used the walking stick those days. Healing from two broken bones must be hard. And it wasn't the first time someone's broken me too. They enjoy it, because I'm small and my bones are soft."

Fedrahn just stared at the boy. Somehow, he knew the boy wasn't exaggerating. Somehow the boy wasn't completely human. Not that that meant a thing in a world as filled with monsters as theirs. Still, this boy might just be more of a monster than Fedrahn had first suspected.

And with his dedication, perhaps Fedrahn had gone about it the wrong way. After all, they were on an island filled with dancers. The best way to train the boy was to exploit their environment.

And then maybe the grateful boy would collect a few juicy details here and there about how the island worked. And when the time came for his escape, Fedrahn would take his little monster with him. The boy might prove to be a useful tool for Alaric's future plots.

First, he had to get the boy ready, both mentally and physically, and then he'd get the arch master to rescind his order.

"Listen, child, I know you've never seen anything except this island, but the world is a large place indeed. Let me teach you a bit of geography today."

******

A few months after the fishing incident, young Garin couldn't believe his luck. Sure, he still couldn't learn how to dance, according to his hero, the arch master's words, but he'd learned how to fight, how to use almost every weapon Fedrahn had brought with him.

He still couldn't compare with a dancer, but in a few years when he mastered it, he would be able to defend himself at least.

Fedrahn had recently started sending him deeper into the island. Sometimes he'd send him to collect wood from the heart wood, or he'd send him to get medicines from the market.

Garin couldn't help but keep his eyes wide open as Fedrahn was teaching him to these days. He'd look around, try to memorise as many things as he could. He'd even pay attention to the lessons going on in the sparring rings without seeming to listen.

It was this game they played, where Fedrahn would ask him if he'd learned anything interesting in the town. Today he'd learned a lot, and he was eager to keep learning it still.

"You're back already? Did you learn anything good this time?" Fedrahn asked.

"I watched a master demonstrate the dance induction warmup for the latest bunch of entrants. I think he's going to be teaching them for the next month or so."

"Show me," Fedrahn instructed even as he searched for the manual that instructed beginner dancers how to perform the induction.

It was a kind of conditioning exercise, a kind of relaxation technique that let young bodies learn what to expect from the dances. They would do it for months until they were ready to learn their elementary techniques.

It was a similar variation as all dances used, so learning it was a great development.

"That's good, but you've made quite a few mistakes. This isn't something you can learn just by seeing it once."

"I know," Garin sighed.

"And if you go to the same place everyday, they'll suspect you."

"So I can go as long as I'm not caught?"

Fedrahn nodded, tussling the little boy's straggly hair.

"Here, I'll teach you something too. Do you see this black powder?" he got a handful of it from a pouch, making sure the boy had seen where he hid it and many other things almost in plain sight.

"Never put it in a fire. Even a few specks could burn a whole building down. Watch," and he put a single speck onto the candle, and a conflagration lit the room.

Garin watched the whole display with baited breath, eyes wide as saucers. He had learned a lot in the last few months. He couldn't wait to leave the island, which he now saw as nothing more than a gilded prison.