Fedal

I am really fucking depressed, and I hate myself for being depressed.

It was strange. This was a feeling that hadn’t really come to me in a really long time in this world, and even back on Earth it wasn’t very intense. But today, it had hit me like a truck and I hated it. I have friends who care about me. I’m just starting to become the guy I always wanted to—I…I did pretty well in that fight. Why am I more depressed now than I was before?

There was plenty to be sad about, to be sure. Duartes being gone and turned into Carter, for one. My powers having been stolen by Johan, for another. The death of all stats, the unleashing of monsters upon the world. My meeting with Martim. The unicorn growing ever closer. Isabella’s own depression that I could do nothing to help. But it wasn’t even those thoughts that were keeping me in bed that morning. It wasn’t anything. I just didn’t want to move that morning, and the less I moved the more my own mind turned against me.

I didn’t do so well last fight. I just got lucky…they were nice to me, but they could have won without me. No, no—that’s not true, they wouldn’t lie to me. They needed me to win. They—they said that. But while I knew that was true, while I believed in it at the moment, it was so much harder for it to ring true when I was alone in my room.

I like being alone, but I sure suck at it, I thought.

We had talked about practicing early in the morning, but that didn’t feel like it was happening. A thousand excuses ran through my head, and I discarded them all. I feel tired—I should let myself rest. I shouldn’t overdo it. Truth was, my body was fine. But for some reason, it was just one of those days and I didn’t want to get out of bed. I don’t think I was depressed. I don't think I was depressed. Not really. But that just made my guilt worse. If I was actually depressed I'd have a reason for feeling like this. Instead, I was just...annoyed at myself. Carr is going to be disappointed in me for skipping practice, I thought. Couldn’t blame him. I’m disappointed in myself too.

But disappointment wasn’t enough to will myself to move. I know I will feel better when I’m up and about, doing things, and that staying here is going to feel worse…so then why the fuck does my brain think this is more appealing? It was maddening to know those things and still be unable to truly feel them. How can I—

My door slammed open.

I heard it before I saw it, and when I looked at it, Carr stood at the doorway, not wearing a shirt for some reason, leg still raised from a kick, and the door weakly swinging back and forth against a wall, lock shattered and some wooden splinters laying across the floor.

“Dude, it wasn’t even locked,” I said. For some reason, it was the first thing I could say, followed by, “Also, why aren’t you wearing a shirt?”

“I was working out, waiting for you. Then you didn’t show up, so I assumed you overslept. Come here, you lazy fuck.” Carr stepped into my room and started searching through the closet. “Where the hell are your workout clothes?”

“We literally just got here, I barely have—look man, I—”

“Okay, fine, fuck shirts then.” He found a pair of pants and tossed them at me. Somehow, he managed to hit my face with them. “Just put those on and let’s go.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re going to sweat anyway you don’t need a shirt.”

“I—I can’t—” I felt myself clutching my bedsheets and couldn’t explain why I felt so embarrassed at the idea. I’m going to look silly. I can’t—shit. That’s going to sound even lamer than—

Confused thoughts were stopped when Carr’s imminent march forced me to put on pants in a panic, and he pulled me up to my feet. “Come on. Let’s go work out, lazy fuck.” He grabbed me by my arm and pulled me out of bed—if I hadn’t stood up when he did, I was afraid that would have dislocated my arm.

“I—”

Carr eyed me up and down and I felt myself freeze, awaiting an insulting comment. “Hey man, looking in good shape, eh? Been keeping up with the routine I told you?”

“Uh?” That surprised me. “Yeah. It’s not too hard.”

“Guess that means I have to up your next workout routine. Come on, put on some shoes and let’s go.”

You would think those words implied he would give me time to put the aforementioned footwear, yet Carr was pulling me by my arm and appeared most confused when I shouted, “Fuckface, I need time to put on my shoes!”

“Fine, fine!” Carr replied, laughing. Then, a second later, the humor dropped from his voice. “You seem in a bad mood today, my man. Anything happen?”

I hesitated. How the hell am I supposed to answer that? No, but I still feel like shit? “Not really.”

Carr put a hand to his chin and appeared to consider it all for a moment. “Hmm. You are in a bad mood, though.”

“I mean…yeah? Just don’t ask me why. You don’t want to open that door.”

“I do, though. You’re the one who doesn’t.” That was a fair point, so I just grunted and put on my shoes while he continued on. “Listen man…I don’t necessarily get you. But I care about you. So, I understand if you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong today, but tell me what you’d like me to do.”

“Part of me wants you to get the fuck away and leave me alone,” I replied, more harshly than I intended. Carr didn’t appear to take offense, though. “And the other part?”

I really want to stay in bed and do nothing…but… “Force me to get out of bed and do something productive.”

“On it,” Carr said, grinning. “Come on, put on those shoes and let’s get some workout and training done. We have to get stronger to beat Johan now.”

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Carr

Warming up and stretching is somewhat of an art, somewhat of a science. At first, you are tempted to ignore your coach’s words and skip them—then, upon falling to such a temptation, you find yourself unpunished and therefore uncertain as to why anyone would care about it. But time is unrelenting. This doesn’t just mean that older people need to warm up and stretch more—although that too is certainly true—but that when you are engaged in intense training on a somewhat frequent basis, you are going to get injured.

It’s a matter of wear and tear. Your body just gives up after a certain point.

When I met Celle, guess I started to ignore warming up a little. Figured she could just make it better if I overextended myself, I thought, as I leaned my extended right leg to the side and rested my weight on my left in a stretching motion, that was naive, eh? Guess even I got spoiled by those stupid numbers in some way. “You following me, Fedal?”

“Sorta,” Fedal grunted, repeating the stretch with some difficulty. “I always hated gym class.”

He looked decently flexible, though. For all his self-loathing, I had come to notice the man was more athletic than he gave himself credit for. “Doesn’t look like you lazed out on exercises, though.”

Fedal laughed bitterly. “I mean, when I actually went to gym class I did everything I had to. But it sucked, so I skipped it a lot.”

“Doesn’t look like you skipped working out entirely, though,” I said, looking intently at his form. It wasn’t perfect, but it seemed almost practiced. “This doesn’t seem super alien to you.”

“Just…just a little. I worked out at home. Followed some dumb online routine for a bit, then gave up because that’s how I rolled back then.” This made me happy to hear. Back then, huh? I wonder if there is a way to let Fedal know how proud I am of him without it coming across as sarcastic. “Think I probably had terrible form and settled in some horrible habits like this. Remember what you told me about the way I learned to fight? Yeah, same thing.”

“Eh, it’s not that bad.” I brought my feet together to snap myself into balance and walked over to him. He made it as if he meant to stand up as well, but I crouched down and gave the universal coach head shake that indicates he should remain in position. Fedal, to his credit, did not move and was only mildly startled when I grabbed his leg. “You got some bad habits, but it did some good for your flexibility. Let’s call it a net positive.”

“Funny, I remember you saying that what I did with the sword training was a net negative,” Fedal replied, grunting as I forced his leg to stretch more to the side. “How is that different?”

“There is different amounts of fucking up. When it comes to exercising, the biggest issue is injuring yourself. You made it okay, so hey at least you got something out of it. And it’s not like I think you were completely in the wrong for trying your best back then with your magical skill thing. It just…didn’t work out the way you wanted to.”

“Yeah…it didn’t.”

An awkward silence followed, as it always did when the topic of our first meeting came up. Neither of us handled it particularly well back then. He was ignorant of a lot of things, and I was too emotionally raw at the time to react decently to it. Let’s not mince words…I was a mess after the Blood Moon, seeing everyone die and everything. I took Fedal’s words as an attack against Danner and I blew up. Fedal might have been rude, but that didn’t excuse me for being a raging asshole. We had both apologized to each other enough times about it that it would be almost comical to do it again, but the strange air still remained.

Fedal obviously felt the same. “It wasn’t your fault, you know?” he said, after a pause. “I was a shithead back then.”

“It was my fault too,” I said, before drawing a deep breath. Are we going to do this song and dance again?

“It was my fault more,” Fedal insisted stubbornly.

I knew it wasn’t as simple as wanting to be the one at fault. Sure, part of it was that Fedal was used to taking the blame for things and had a low opinion of himself…but another part of that was that the man had changed a lot, and it helped him to judge himself harshly. Maybe it was better to help him along those lines. “Well, you were a bit of a shithead back then,” I said, laughing. If he calls me a shithead back, we’re good. If not…

“You’re right about that,” Fedal agreed. He laughed, but it was weak. “I certainly was.” He seemed a little sad at the thought, but unwilling to dispute it.

It’s fine if you need a bit of a push, buddy. “And who would have thought that the coward crybaby from back then would have turned out to be our big damn hero?” I asked, slapping his back rather harshly and producing a thunderous sound. Fedal nearly fell out of his stretch, then looked at me as though upset—but curiosity superseded his anger and he awaited for me to elaborate. “We couldn’t have won the team match without you,” I told him honestly. “Don’t forget that.”

“I—you would have managed without me,” Fedal said. “You always manage to win even when the odds are against you. If I hadn’t given you that opening, you would still have—”

“I would have lost miserably,” I told him firmly. More firmly than either of us had expected it. For that moment, that old man who cursed me and taught so much appeared to have taken over me. I understand you a bit better now, coach. “This isn’t me trying to hype you up. This is me speaking as your fencing coach. I need you to be objective about things so that you can improve. Negativity can be as bad as arrogance, and you don’t want to be the same shithead you were back then, do you?”

Fedal shook his head quickly. This was good, but I felt guilty using his insecurity to force himself to accept how good he was. Still, it was a tactic coaches often used when dealing with athletes with low self confidence. To rely on that low opinion they had of themselves so that they couldn’t contradict your words, even to themselves—and if they could, well, that meant they were starting to believe in themselves a bit more and it was a win all around.

“Carter was better than me,” I said frankly. “But the better fencer isn’t the one who wins. The one who scores the last point is the one who wins. And the only reason I managed to win was”—here I tapped his forehead and forced him to look me in the eye—“because you got me the lead. It completely changed the pace of the match. I needed you to do that, and you did. You were our goddamn hero, and I need you to remember that.”

“Thank you. I—I mean it. Thank you.” Fedal looked me in the eye for a moment, but he looked away after a pause. “I will do my best to keep that in mind. It’s just hard to really believe that after…you know. My whole life.”

“I know. But I need you to believe that…and not just because I am your friend.” Fedal perked up at the word friend, and I gestured at him to switch legs in the stretch. He always likes to hear that word…I have to remember to say it more often. I wasn’t the kind of guy who stopped to think about others often, but lately it had come to mind that…Fedal had a bit of a tough life until now. And he was the kind of guy who just needed a hand before he would start excelling. But I didn’t really know how to talk to people like him. Everyone I was friends with was the kind of person dripping with self-confidence to the point of toxicity. Even Danner, the sickly child, believed in himself more than anyone else. Even Jack, who was a bit lacking in the talent department, still acted very sure of himself. And let’s not get started on Valle.

Did I know anyone who was good at talking to someone with a low opinion of themselves? Ah. Yeah. My coach. “I need you to believe that because we are going to need you. Now more than ever. You’ve grown into a damn fine swordsman, and we are going to need you to defeat Johan.”

“See, I like hearing that, but now I feel pressure,” Fedal replied, laughing. “I’m not used to people expecting anything from me.”

“Start getting used to it,” I told him, grinning. “Because that’s what happens when you start getting as good as you are.”

We smiled at each other for a bit after that. It’s not easy to change from who you have been. But you just have to keep trying, little by little. “Makes me want to go back to sucking,” Fedal said. It was a joke and it made me smile to see it wasn’t self-deprecating. “But I guess that’s not a luxury I have anymore.”

“It’s not.”

“So—that’s enough warmup. Let’s get to training, captain.”

“Damn straight.”

We had to become stronger. We would have no magical healing or magical swordsmanship to help us from now on. But we had each other and our friends. Sometimes, that felt like it was more than enough.