Joseph’s face broke into a frown as the request he had built up all of his courage to ask for was immediately shot down. “Why not? You said you owed me a favor, right?” “I do owe you a favor. But I can’t do that. Choose something else.” “Why can’t you just teach me? You can use a sword, so teach me to use one. What’s stopping you?” Joseph was staring at Ed with wide eyes as he said this, overcome with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. Ed stared back at Joseph and sighed. “Morals. That’s what’s stopping me. Look, kid, trust me- you aren’t ready to wield a sword. Why do you want to learn anyways? I’m sure I can help you with that instead.”
Upon hearing the question Joseph turned away, as if embarrassed, but after a slight pause he ended up answering with overwhelming honesty. “I was scared when you snuck into my house and forced me to date that… curse upon me... but still, after you left I realized something important- swordsmen are cool! I want you to teach me so that I can be strong and cool, and so that I can, uh… how do I say this… pick up chicks. Women love cool guys, right? Er, all this is after you say I can stop dating Gertrude of course.” Ed’s solemn expression eased up and a muffled laugh slipped out in response to the boy’s earnestness. “So you want to be cool and ‘pick up chicks’? Not that I can’t relate, but this really isn’t the way to go about it. You’d be better off trying something else.”
Both sides were persistent, and after several minutes of bickering the argument came to a head. “Kid, you need to understand something. When you carry a sword, you’re not just carrying a sword. You’re carrying a tool made to kill. When you carry a tool made to kill, you also carry a duty to kill. If you’re a good person, then that duty to kill is probably because you’re strong and have a duty to protect others. Or maybe instead of protecting people, you’ll have to kill for… other reasons. Either way, the point is this- by carrying a sword you agree to kill and to be killed. And if you ever have to carry out that duty to kill, you have to carry the heaviest thing of all. The guilt. Sometimes you’re forced into killing and sometimes the person you killed is a piece of shit anyways. Doesn’t matter. You still have to carry the guilt of killing them along with you. At least if you want to remain human.” Ed paused his bitter speech as he glanced at Joseph, who looked much less enthused than earlier. “...Do you really think you can carry all that?”
A deathly silence filled the room, almost as if to answer Ed’s question. Joseph stared at the ground with gritted teeth. “I..” He paused for a moment, scratching his head. “I… I just wanted to be cool and strong and popular with the ladies. Like a character out of a storybook, or kind of like you. You’re good with women, right? And you’re strong, right? Just do me this favor. You said you would.” Ed saw that his speech had taken effect, but oddly enough the kid was still stubbornly insisting on learning swordsmanship. Did he really just want to be cool? Or was something else going on here? As Ed mulled over the situation, he reluctantly came to a compromise. “I told you I owe you a favor, so if you keep insisting then I can’t turn you down. Fair is fair, and since I owe you a favor I have to pay it back. But you have to use a wooden sword. Hopefully you’ll realize the reality of things and throw it away eventually. If at some point that doesn’t happen and you switch to a real sword, then… just know that sooner or later you’ll have to draw it in combat. And I don’t think you’ll be ready for that.”
Joseph’s morose expression was replaced with a grin as he bowed deeply. “Thank you!” Ed grunted in response before standing up and examining Joseph closely. “You’re built pretty well, but it’s still not enough. Go back home and make some weights that you can wear. Once you have those we can start physical conditioning. You need the proper physique before you can do anything else.” Joseph eagerly nodded and left, muttering to himself about how exactly he was going to make the weights.
The door to the temple slammed shut and Ed sat back down in the corner. “That should buy me some time.” Ed stared at the temple’s ceiling, his pipe sitting in his mouth unlit. “I was talking impulsively, but do I really need to carry the guilt? When it’s all their fault?” A few minutes passed before he stood up and exited the temple, talking to himself. “I’m complicit too. To remain human, I have to acknowledge that. Although I’d love to forget about everything, even if it was only for a while.”
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“Five more laps! Come on, don’t slow down, you’re not going to build muscle that way!” Ed yelled at Joseph, whose face was covered with sweat. He wheezed out a response best he could as he continued jogging around the temple. “Just let me rest. Then I’ll do them. I just need to rest first, this is too much weight.” “Come on, keep going, if you don’t have the muscles I can’t train you.” “Just a minute, please. I’m exhausted.” “How are things with Gertrude going? You had any dates-” “Five more laps, got it, got it.” Joseph gritted his teeth and continued jogging as Ed looked on with an annoyed expression. For the past two weeks he’d been doing his best to make Joseph give up, but no matter what intense or inane training he threw at him, Joseph persevered. This was far beyond Ed’s expectations. He would almost be impressed by the kid’s backbone if he wasn’t so annoyed by it.
As Ed contemplated how to best haze Joseph, he was interrupted by a voice inside his head. “Someone is coming to make a prayer. Leave.” “Hm? Gertrude again?” “No. Now go hide.” Ed waved over to Joseph and began to enter the temple. “Kid, it’s your lucky day. Scratch the five laps, just get in here and be quiet.” Confused and relieved by the odd show of mercy, Joseph followed Ed into the back of the temple.
The two sat there for a few minutes, Joseph catching his breath and Ed staring into space, before the voice reappeared in Ed’s head. “They’re done. You can come out now.” Ed nodded slightly before tapping Joseph on the shoulder. “Get back to laps. I’ll be with you in a bit.” Joseph slowly stumbled out of the temple, the vacant look on his face indicating that he was still coming to terms with the fact that he had to run even more laps. The short break almost made it harder to continue than before, but after a moment he got going and left Ed to his own devices.
Ed discussed the visitor with the spirit as Joseph’s determination was slowly eroded only dozens of feet away. “Two people came this time, but they don’t appear to know each other. It’s probably just a coincidence.” “Mmm. What’d they want?” “The first was a woman in her 50s named Margaret. She owns the inn. She prayed that she wouldn’t be alone next Thursday.” “So her name is Margaret. She’s a nice lady. Any reason why she wants that?” “There probably is. I’m not sure.” “Huh, so you’re less of a ‘god’ than I thought. Guess it’s a relief to know you can’t read someone’s thoughts completely.” “I was originally a god of wine, not divination.” “Interesting, interesting. The other prayer?” “It’s that girl who came with Gertrude a week ago. She said she wants chilled noodles for lunch tomorrow because it’s hot out.” “Well, that’s easy to handle at least. Leave it to me. Think I’ll have my ‘debt’ cleared up with you by the time I’m done with those two?” “Not even close. That contract took up more faith power than I’d like to admit. Ask me again in a few years.”
With the discussion over Ed went back to supervising Joseph’s exercises, and after a couple more hours of misery he was dismissed. As he dragged his weary body back to Ashford, he tried to process over the parting words Ed had left him with. The first part was about their practices being canceled for a while, which made him happy. He wanted to be strong, but he felt like he was being forced to run on empty for a while now- if this went on for much longer than it already had he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to continue. The second portion of this conversation, however, replaced all of the happiness he had been feeling with bewilderment. Ed had interrogated him over Gertrude’s friends for a few minutes before, seemingly at random, giving him a perplexing set of commands. He had to prepare chilled noodles for lunch tomorrow, make several extra portions, and then offer one to one of Gertrude’s friends who happened to be his neighbor. The other extra portion was to be given to Ed because he was “kinda in the mood for them and you’ll have to make them either way”.
The logic behind these commands was as clear as a boulder, but Joseph wasn’t inclined to ask why he had to do these things. Ed was a talented swordsman, and Joseph was glad that he was able to be trained by him, but he was beginning to think that Ed was a bit unhinged. Even ignoring the circumstances in which they met, Ed talked to himself disturbingly often and seemed to have no other hobbies besides smoking, swordsmanship, and staring at the sky. It was for the best that he didn’t understand the methods behind his teacher’s madness.