--- TAASEN ---

In the opposite direction of ‘halfway across the world’ but just as far, on a lonely continent that had little to no contact with any that you might be familiar with, there was a simple training room.

For some people, there are things that never get old no matter how hard or how many times you throw yourself at them. For these people it’s not a quest of novelty that keeps them going, it’s more the opposite; a hard drive to experience that moment of peace a thing gives you. It comes to the point where it’s no longer a thing, it’s your thing. Most people in Divaria have this drive, it’s present in their magics and the way they tell stories.

Being one of these people, Taasen took every opportunity to experience his thing.

The air flew by as almost an afterthought as he moved like a leaf in the windless training room. It was like Taasen was playing an instrument with the blade as it whirled around him with grace and precision, striking at imaginary foes and into invisible weak spots, taking them down with almost beautiful brutality. The laws of physics in those moments were a mere suggestion at which Taasen completely neglected to adhere to.

The kata came to an end after far too soon and his master examined his ending form with a frown. “Taasen, are you trying to bludgeon with a slicing sword?”

He tilted his head, thinking back on the dance, “Only if the opponent dies that way.”

Lew sighed and took one of the other practice blades, holding it differently to show Taasen, “If you do it like this, it’s more likely to do something effective.”

“And my enemies will perish?”

“Your enemies will probably perish. There’s never a guarantee even with the most practiced swordsman.”

Taasen experimentally moved the practice sword in a cutting motion, his master was already out of reach, having learned early on that Taasen might literally start attacking at a moment’s notice. He’d never won any of those spontaneous fights, but he’d come closer than frostbite one time. “Can it cut through bone like this?”

Lew examined his stance and showed him the way to hold it again, “With practice eventually you could even cut through a metal construct.”

Taasen brightened and was immediately on board, why bruise the enemy so hard they couldn’t walk when he could simply decapitate them? “I like this idea, why is the kata you taught me easier when you whack them with the flat of the blade?”

“You looked impressive, but you were doing it wrong.”

“My enemies will bow before me if I make it look interesting.”

He sighed, “That’s your problem then, you’re so focused on making it look cooler that you aren’t doing the motions right.”

Taasen pouted and moved the sword again, “I think maybe I should just use a sword meant for hitting them.”

“But how will you decapitate your enemies that way?”

Taasen glared at him and pulled up his mental shields, frosting musicians… “Stop reading my mind!”

“That took you too long to notice, a real enemy wouldn’t clue you in that it was happening. They would beat you to a pulp having expected all your moves.”

Taasen sighed, remembering countless times with this same argument, “But then the fight isn’t fair.”

Lew shook his head slowly, “No one claimed that battles were ever fair. If you could win by tricking your enemy, wouldn’t you?”

“That defeats the entire purpose though! How can I know if I’m stronger than my enemies unless I decapitate them fair and square?!” Honestly, the fact that more people didn’t have the right things straight was a common sort of annoyance to Taasen. Why would you manipulate someone when you could just explain why you needed them to do something? The world would be far more simple if people were just straight with each other.

The swordmaster sighed, “Taasen, we both know this is a topic you’re passionate about.”

He glared at him and pulled his mental defenses higher.

“But Taasen, isn’t that exactly the point? You don’t know when or if someone will turn on you. You don’t know if someone is secretly a liar, so you need to be prepared to deal with those who are.”

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Taasen brightened slightly, “I can deal with—”

“Killing them is not as much of a solution as you seem to think it is.”

He furrowed his brow, “Well I know that; there will always be people searching for revenge if I kill everyone who’s a liar. But frost above, can’t I just punch them a little bit? Convince myself that they’re rabbits?”

The instructor adopted a slightly haunted look at the mention of rabbits, no doubt remembering the time Taasen had turned an entire class of younger students—whom he’d been meant to critique—into rabbits, claiming they were too slow and this would fix the problem.

Taasen would have no doubt turned the swordmaster into something by now if Lew wasn’t constantly reminding him that he was human and therefore completely immune to Taasen’s type of rabbit-making.

After a moment’s pause, the instructor shook his head dimly, “Well, that didn’t work well in the past and you shouldn’t expect that to change.”

“I don’t expect it to change, I just want to know why it’s like that in the first place.” Taasen, it should be noted, would have fit right in with junior philosophers if he could refrain from turning them into rabbits long enough to teach them something.

The master held up his practice sword, “You aren’t going to learn why until you realize that that’s a fundamentally stupid question. We’re human,” Frostbite there was the reminder again, no turning into rabbits today… “Life is just filled with liars and people looking to manipulate you for their own gains.”

With that he attacked, Taasen eagerly blocked the strike with his own practice sword.

It should also be noted that Taasen learns by doing. He really should have expected it, but when he felt the sting of grit as it entered his eyes, all he could conceive to feel besides pain in his freaking eyes, was a seething hatred for the nature of deceptions. “Gah— That’s not fair!”

“So?” Lew asked as Taasen felt a sharp strike against his ribs, “Would an enemy refrain from taking advantage of their environment?”

Taasen hissed as another strike came for his back, he kept blinking at first, getting flashes of where Lew was, but that frosting grit was still in his eyes and he couldn’t focus long enough to do anything except weakly dodge the next attack. “An enemy should refrain from that, what’s the point?!”

“To win.” He said calmly, smacking the practice sword against the back of one of Taasen’s knees. He stayed up though, his stance holding.

“There’s no point in winning!”

“There is when it’s life and death.” Lew hit the back of Taasen’s knee again even as he tried to move away, the timing was exactly wrong and he tumbled to the practice grounds.

Taasen could barely begin to express his thoughts on that, all he knew was that he was only here for the contest, he wasn’t here to beat people, he was here to see if he could beat people. “Maybe it shouldn’t be for that then!” Taasen opened one eye, glaring at the form above him that held out a hand to assist.

His master would have pointed out here that Taasen was quite a bloodthirsty person, but he’d tried that another time and it hadn’t worked. “Well for other people it is, so you need to figure out how to deal with them when they get desperate.”

Taasen didn’t take his hand, instead he lunged at him from the ground, his legs taking him high enough that Taasen could tap Lew on the shoulder with his exposed elbow while making a distracting attack with his other arm.

“I am faster than this…” Taasen muttered, “Stronger than this.”

And so he was.

Even though Lew knew to expect this from Taasen, the swordmaster reeled, turning to strike at one side, but that was all Taasen needed to ram the practice sword point first into his stomach.

Taasen landed, remembering belatedly that gravity existed. “There, you seem to have perished, that means I’m right.”

Lew blinked in disorientation at the energetic student, putting a hand to his head, “If we’re counting that then you would have lost a leg earlier, you couldn’t have jumped nearly as well with only one.”

“A lost leg will not prevent me from slaying my enemies.”

“That’s what you think until you lose one.”

Taasen nodded slowly, backing away a decent bit and rubbing his eyes to dislodge the sand, “I believe that I will…think about how to properly deal with surprises. I must admit that you do have a bit of a point.”

“You did deceive me though.”

Taasen looked at him sharply, “When?”

“When you were on the ground, I assumed the fight was over, especially with the sand in your eyes. I assumed I had the upper hand because I was ‘cheating.’”

He brightened, “So I didn’t deceive you, you deceived yourself with your deceit! I hope you’ve learned your lesson now, never deceive, it simply makes you look stupider than a mucician in the winter!”

“Yeah, we’ll go with that.”

Taasen gleefully spun back into his kata, after all, it was still the subject he was meant to study today.

The wind whipped about him, created by his movements, each thrust and stab in perfect harmony—

“Taasen, you're just stabbing now, it’s supposed to be a slicing sword.”

Taasen glared at his master, “Perhaps my victory by means of impaling you has left me with better views on the stabs of combat.”

Lew picked up his own again, holding it in exactly the same stance as before, fingers just the right width, shoulders flexed for combat. “Or maybe you weren’t listening on the right way to hold a sword?”

Taasen examined the stance with a frown, “Perhaps if I decapitate something I’ll feel more in the mood for slicing swords?”