“Shit!” Dassah exclaimed, slamming the butt end of her staff on the floor to keep herself from falling. While there was a lot of pent-up frustration she was more than happy to take out, this was actually making things worse.

“You almost had it,” the instructor told her in his sassy, amused voice. “You know, if you practice like this for another hundred hours, you just might stop tripping over your own two feet!”

“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Sensei,” she growled.

He shrugged. “Keep in mind I never supported this in the first place,” he told her, stroking his small triangular beard. “What you really need is to learn to crawl before you try to walk. You may understand the concepts, but your body doesn’t. You need to take a step back and build yourself up before jumping headfirst into... well, anything. My words are words to live by.”

Breathing heavily, Dassah looked at herself in the dojo’s mirror. Beads of sweat mingled with her hair, making her forehead shimmer in the bright lights. The moisture made her brown hair look black as it stuck to her skin. You can do this, Dassah, she told herself, closing her eyes and focusing on her breathing. In, out. In, out. Keep your rhythm.

“Again!” Dassah said in a loud voice, standing back at the base position. She set the bottom of her staff at her foot and tucked it against her armpit. The instructor clapped once, and she began, settling herself into one stance after another. Horse. Cat. Horse. Bow. Spi- Shit!

Spinning too fast, she lost her balance, and the room echoed with a snap! again as she used her staff to break her fall. Damn it! Why is this so hard? I can do it in the game...

It wasn’t hard for her to recognize that the fact she could do things so easily in TheirWorld was serving more as a detriment to her now than a help. The VRMMORPG may have been looked on favorably by the combat teams as a tool for mental training, but the nay-sayers were right, too; the lack of physical component attached to the game itself increased the chances that some stupid idiot would push themselves beyond their limits.

“Take a break,” the instructor said, waving over to a table by the window. “We can try again in a few.”

Sighing, Dassah walked over to her bag and pulled out her water bottle. Tired hands fumbling to undo the cap, she looked at the lavender sky outside the window and wondered why she was even there. Am I really putting myself through this shit just to get better at a video game? She scoffed at herself, staring out over the city’s hex blocks as they floated like lily pads on a golden sea. This place was more like a game than TheirWorld was. Who was she kidding? She was just a human in an alien world.

As she leaned back against the table, her eyes flickered around the dojo, filled with creatures of all shapes and sizes. A jikak doing yoga. A tivarys grappling with an earar. And then there were the garule. Dassah felt the hair on the back of her neck rise as she watched them fight, their muscles rippling as they moved. Their claws and teeth were exposed and at the ready as they circled one another.

Her eyes lingered a moment on one of them, standing off to the side. It was a familiar face to her now, but still intimidating: Sathuren. With watchful golden-orange eyes, he surveyed the room himself.

It’s been more of a shock than it should have been; the fact that they had seen each other so often on the monorail indicated that they probably lived in the same ward—or at least, traveled there often enough. The real problem was that Dassah couldn’t tell if she was happy to see the man or not.

Biting at the skin around her fingernails, she wondered what the chances were that she would end up at the same dojo as he did. Worse, it seemed he was an instructor. Not hers, thankfully, but it was still a presence that made her uneasy. She had already made a fool of herself multiple times in front of him—but now, not only did she probably come off as a stalker, she might as well be advertising herself as extra stupid and weak.

Her thoughts drifted to the dream she had woken up to that morning. The dream had been of TheirWorld and the complex tutorial that made her question herself numerous times—even until the end, and something about the dragon reminded her of garule. Why dream of dying by a dragon, stupid subconscious? She didn’t need any more reasons to fear them.

I should just leave, Dassah thought, gripping her staff tight. For all the confidence she tried to put up, the feeling that she was intruding on someone else’s territory crept through her bones, eating away at her. How stupid, a more mature, logical version of her inner voice growled at her. You never learn, do you?

Dassah bowed as the instructor walked over. “Ishida Sensei.”

The instructor looked her over. “Your face tells me that you are ready to give up and try it my way?” His voice sounded hopeful, if not convinced. Dassah leveled her eyes at him and hesitated. Her gaze flickered back over to the garule. Would she surrender? No, that inner voice decided. Do not settle for being ‘prey.’

“I’m ready to try again,” she told him, taking the staff and spinning it over the back of her hand a couple of times. “Show me again.”

Ishida Sensei sighed and said, “Fine. Watch.” The instructor performed a set of movements again, and Dassah watched on carefully. When he was finished, Dassah stepped out and took a deep, focused on her breath. With her staff in hand, she attempted—once again—to repeat his movements.

And again, she failed.

She looked at herself in the mirror as her legs gave out with her motivation. Why was she doing this to herself? Give up, Dassah, a different, more timid-sounding voice told her. You don’t need to do this. You’ll probably just abandon it by next week anyway.

“Your flow is wrong. Your stances need work.”

“Huh?” Thoughts interrupted, Dassah started to look up, then shrank back as her eyes caught the sight of sharp, translucent claws attached to grey feathered feet. Standing tall with his long neck arching, the garuli man looked at her expectantly, but Dassah could only gape at him stupidly.

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“Your Horse Stance. It’s sloppy,” Sathuren told her.

“What?”

“The Pretty Little Lady there is saying that the way you stand is shit,” the instructor informed her, crossing his arms. The garuli man gave him a sideways glance and, with his long serpentine tail whipping out, tripped him.

“Your stance is shit too, dumbass,” he told him in his thick, parrot-like accent as his tail wrapped up around his own shoulder. “Call me that again. I dare you.”

“I deserved that,” Ishida Sensei said, rubbing his butt. “But, I’ve been telling her all along...”

Tilting his feathered head as he looked Dassah over, the garule asked, “You do know what a Horse Stance is, right?”

“Oh, she knows,” the instructor pointed out and chuckled. “I’m pretty sure her blank stare has nothing to do with the question. Look how small she’s managed to make herself!”

The garule held out her clawed hand. Dassah eyed it wearily, following it as it moved around, right to left, and then in a circle. “Hmm,” she heard him go as he retracted it. “I see.”

At her words, Dassah turned back to her reflection in the mirror. It was pitiful. Deep shame washed over her as she stood and looked down. “S-Sorry,” she murmured. “W-What do you mean?”

“...And this is the girl who so blatantly asked me what a sutak was,” the garuli sighed, looking her over. “I’m guessing you haven’t figured that out yet, either, have you?”

Dassah could only stand there, the remains of her confidence washing away like a sand castle built too close to the waves.

Ishida Sensei, on the other hand, was not so quiet. “She did what?” he laughed. “Oh boy, are you barking up the wrong tree, kid.”

“Nevermind,” Sathuren scowled. “Get into Horse Stance.” Dassah looked at her in mild shock as he took Ishida Sensei’s staff away and tripped him with it. “You,” Sathuren said, pointing to Dassah as the instructor on the ground cursed. “Horse Stance.”

Dassah positioned her legs and staff, but even she could tell it was off. She tried to fix it, but nothing she did seemed to work.

The garule circled her. “Spread your feet further apart and point both of them forward to start—no, too far; there,” he instructed. “Your thighs should be parallel to the floor; try to keep your weight towards your toes...” With the staff, she pushed Dassah’s legs down. “Lower... Lower... Don’t lean forward— ” she prodded Dassah’s shoulders, pushing them back. “Keep your back arched; maintain your center of balance—there! Remember how this feels.” Dassah looked at her form in the mirror and closed her eyes, trying to absorb how it felt in her real body compared to her virtual one.

Ishida sighed, “Do you have to encourage her?”

“She’d only hurt herself if she kept the way she was going,” the garule said. “You should know better, Ishida.”

“I was trying to get her to go back to the basics,” the instructor whined. Dassah heard Sathuren growl again, and looked up just in time to see him jab the back of the instructor’s knee, causing him to fall to the ground. Dassah stifled a laugh as he exclaimed, “Ahh! Why do you keep bullying me?”

Snorting at him, the garule turned her attention back to Dassah. “Good. Now, shift into Bow Stance. Keep your center of balance and your body steady.” Dassah did as she was instructed. “Now, practice the turn—slowly. It’s less of a free spin and more of a controlled, calculated turn. Take it step by step,” the garule instructed. “Hmm,” she went. “Stop. Ishida, demonstrate—slowly.”

Ishida Sensei didn’t question the garuli’s order—probably, Dassah snickered because he didn’t want to end up on the ground again.

“Now, together,” the garuli instructed. Dassah watched the instructor in the mirror as she moved. “Good. Now. Try your little routine again. Watch yourself.”

Starting at attention and moving from one stance to another, she thrust her staff and pulled it back at the appropriate times; her heart started beating with excitement. With her turn, she finished and returned her staff to a resting position.

“Yes!” Dassah shouted and jumped with a laugh. The others in the room who had been watching the lesson laughed and clapped with her. Blushing, Dassah bowed to the room a couple of times before they went back to their activities.

Sathuren clapped, his tail loosely wrapped around her feet. “Good job,” he said. “Now tell me. What have you learned?”

Dassah blinked at her and looked down. “Stances are important?”

“Stances are tools,” the garuli told her. “Fundamentals. You cannot read without properly learning letters, and you cannot correctly perform any martial art without properly learning the stances and pillars it’s based on. On the other hand, if you master those fundamentals well, you can apply them to any number of things—not just to a single art, as it appears you have in mind.”

The instructor whistled. “Pretty Little Lady, you are the best!” he said, giving her a thumbs up.

“You like the ground, don’t you?”

“Please don’t hurt me, Master.”

The garuli only grunted in response.

Feeling both proud and ashamed of herself at once, Dassah nodded. “I suppose I may have... underestimated things a bit.”

“Is it because of TheirWorld?” Ishida asked, sounding bored. “Oh, don’t think you’re the first to come here demanding to be taught one style or another. People are so desperate to be ‘heroes’ in a video game. It’s amazing, really.”

“T-That’s not really...” Dassah started, but she had no better answer to it, either. She may not have desired to be a hero, but her motivations to learn weren’t exactly... good.

“It doesn’t matter what those people came for,” Sathuren said. “People have different reasons for learning things; and people find different things when they learn. It is the way of life.”

The instructor gave him a distasteful look. “How... You.”

Sathuren eyed him in annoyance as Dassah bowed. “Thank you,” she said and stood straight. “...Before... I am sorry if I offended you.”

The instructor pointed at his face in confusion, but Sathuren answered: “It’s nothing. Just remember why you’re here. Or, the reason you should be here,” he said. “This is not a place for you to bumble about waiting for answers. This is a place where you must seek answers to your questions on your own. Coming here was a choice you made in order to learn; for that, you were rewarded for that effort with being taught. I hope you will make similar decisions in the future. I suppose, then, I shall see you tomorrow.” With that, Sathuren returned to the instructor his staff, and went off with a curt nod.

“...We aren’t open on Fridays?” Ishida Sensei said, confused.

“I am assuming he’s going to see his sister tomorrow,” Dassah said. “She’s my roommate.”

“Oh. Well. That explains a lot,” he said, looking at his watch. “It seems our lesson is over?”

Dassah nodded. “Thank you for your help,” she said with a smile. “I guess next time, we will try things your way?”

Smiling, Ishida Sensei nodded. “I’ll look forward to it!”

As she handed him her staff, Dassah spared a look for the grey garule. She distrusted the species in general, but there was something about him that made her feel a little more... at ease. Maybe it’s because their interactions had been largely positive—and maybe living with Bahena was helping, too. Maybe I can overcome my fear of them after all, she thought to herself as she gathered her things.

“See you!” she waved to the instructor.

“Otsukare.”

Leaving the building with a grin, she found herself ready to return to a world where she was infinitely more capable.