Heart of Dorkness

Bane Three - Training

I nodded, then took a small step forward and shifted Felix’s shoulders. “Like this,” I said. “You don’t want to hunch forward when you punch, even if it gives you a bit more range. It’ll throw your centre of gravity forwards, and then someone can sweep you off your feet or just grab your wrist and tug you towards them.”

“Oh,” Felix said. She stepped on the spot, then lowered her hips a little while her arm returned to her side. She breathed out, then punched forwards. In that same moment, a burst of air shot out past her fist and blew across the courtyard.

It wasn’t exactly a powerful blow, but I don’t think Felix was putting her all into it. “That was much better form,” I said.

“Felix learns fast,” Esme agreed.

The three of us had, after a couple of days back at the castle, found a spot to practice in. It was one of the larger balconies, a few floors above the ground level. It overlooked the ocean-side of the castle, with some of the active volcanoes to the west. It made for a nice backdrop to our training sessions.

“She does learn fast,” I agreed.

Of the three of us, Felix was probably the one that took to the more martial part of cultivation the easiest. Esme was... a very good friend, and not someone I wanted to insult by implying that she had two left feet and the coordination of a drunk butterfly. But she was very good with spellwork and could unleash huge spells with barely any focus at all.

I was somewhere between my friends. Not as good as Felix with the physical stuff--though I still had more experience and knew more counters and moves than her. And I wasn’t quite as strong as Esme with spellwork--though I had a few more tricks up my sleeve still, and Esme wasn’t very good at any magic that wasn’t surprise-based.

“Can you do it again?” I asked.

Felix nodded, reset, then ran through the simple motions of a quick straight punch. Felix was somehow really elegant when she was moving. Maybe it was the natural attunement to Joy magic that helped, or maybe it was something else entirely.

“Well done!” I said.

Felix laughed as she bounced back to a more normal stance. “Thanks! This is a lot more fun than reading.”

“Hmph,” Esme and I hmphed at the same time.

Felix’s speed with learning how to fight was inversely proportional to her speed with learning how to read.

“What’s the next trick?” Felix asked. She jumped on the spot a few times to unlimber herself some more and threw a few punches against the empty air.

“I don’t think any of us really have the basics down,” Esme said. She gestured to the side of the balcony, where a stack of books was left next to a backpack that Esme had taken to lugging around. A few of those were books about various martial arts from the library.

Most elements had an art attributed to them, one that some old sage sorts said better encapsulated the emotions and sort of thoughts one had to have to be able to use the magic associated with that martial art.

Joy magic was open and quick, so the martial art tied to it was filled with big gestures, little hops and twirls, like someone doing a happy dance, but more gracefully.

Surprise magic was sudden and fast and hit hard, so the martial art around that was the same, filled with single blows that were meant to use the artist’s entire strength in one hit.

I found that it worked on paper, but only for some emotions, and even then I thought that a lot of the weirder rituals and such tied to the martial arts were all superstitious nonsense.

Mom’s own Dark magic had a few very old martial arts tied to it. They were weird though. There weren’t a lot of punches and kicks, but instead a whole heap of moves that were made to help you get untangled or grapple someone. The only attacks were aimed at an opponent that was already subdued, like hitting the eyes, ears, throat and groin of someone that was grappled.

It was mostly a ‘run away first’ kind of martial art, which I found weird.

At least it was easy to practice. I just had to find a monster, then keep avoiding it.

“You girls seem to be coming along nicely.”

Emse and Felix both jumped and gasped before they turned, wide-eyed, towards Mom who was standing a few paces behind me.

“Hi Mom!” I cheered before running over for a hug. I hadn’t filled my daily quota of hugs (which was as many as I could get) and so I figured there was no time like the present to get more.

Mom patted my back a little awkwardly. I might have given her heck about being shy in front of my friends, but that didn’t change how embarrassed she was about showing affection in front of others. “Hello, Valeria,” she said. “You’re all hard at work today?”

“We are,” I agreed. “Felix is really getting the hang of the forms we have in the books Esme and I found, and me and Esme aren’t too bad either!”

“I see,” Mom said. “Nonetheless, I have the impression that this self-taught curriculum isn’t as effective as you might think.”

“How do you figure?” I asked. Esme was usually the one with a million and one questions, but she was still very shy around Mom, so I filled in for her. Also, I was curious too.

“While I don’t enjoy some of the more... traditional and dogmatic parts of a more formal teaching in the martial arts, there is great value in having an instructor present.”

“Could you teach us?” I asked.

“No,” Mom said. “While I keep myself in good form, I never found much joy in teaching that kind of art.”

“Aww. Did you have a teacher?”

Mom shook her head. “I learned things the other way. The path that doesn’t require books or guidance.”

“Oh! Can we do that too?” I asked.

Mom smiled, and I suddenly felt very nervous. “I was hoping you’d ask that,” she said. Her hand rose, and she snapped her fingers.

I stepped back as her shadow lengthened, then darkened until, finally, a long limb rose out of the black and landed onto the stone balcony with a sound like a bag of rice being dropped to the floor.

The monster rose and rose out of the pit that was Mom’s shadow until it disconnected itself entirely and stood a step behind and to the left of Mom. It wasn’t the biggest monster I’d ever seen, just a big lumpy fellow, with a squashed head and big bulging arms.

“Aww, who’s this cutie pie?” I asked.

“You think that thing’s cute?” Esme hissed.

I glanced back at her, then gestured to the monster. “Can’t you see it? With his big boy arms, and that squished little face?”

“That’s not cute!” Esme said.

“Anything’s cute if you want it to be!” I retorted.

“Girls,” Mom said, and that put an end to the discussion--for right then. “This is Strongel, a monster I made this morning, specifically to give you real experience against a foe.”

“Uh,” I said. “That sounds like it might hurt.”

“That’s one of the greatest ways to learn. To face adversity and challenge. You find that you need to improve, or you will fail, and failure is never an option.”

“Mom, you’re worrying me.”

Mom smiled, big and proud. “Good. Enjoy your training, girls, and do bathe before dinner. I don’t enjoy eating while smelling others. Understood, Valeria?”

I felt my cheeks warming. “Mom, that was once.”

“Yes, one time you didn’t bathe for a week.”

“Mom!”

Mom sniffed. “I will see you all soon. Good luck.” she stepped back and disappeared, sinking into the same shadow that the monster had come from.

“That was a neat trick,” I said.

Strongel roared, and I was distracted about my musing on Mom and all the magic she was hiding from me as the monster surged forwards and swung its fist at me.

I jumped away, but I wasn’t going to be fast enough!

Then Felix grabbed my arm and rolled back, pulling me out of the path of the monster’s fist. We landed on the ground with twin ‘oofs’ before both of us started climbing back to our feet.

Esme screamed, and the day got even brighter as she unleashed a huge burst of electrical fury into Strongel’s side.

The monster’s hair poofed up, but it didn’t seem to do much more than that.

“Oh boy,” I said. “Okay, okay, we can do this.”

Strongel turned towards me and grinned.

“Probably.”

“Your mom must really want us to get stronger fast,” Felix says.

“I guess so,” I said.

I had the impression that maybe Mom took my declarations of wanting to become stronger a bit more seriously than I did. Which, I figured, was really going to suck if Mom kept trying to help.

***