"Damn!" I dropped my hands to my knees and took several heavy breaths. My practice sword landed tip-down ten feet away and wobbled in the dirt.

"That was good. You're getting better!"

"Don't patronize me!" Ro-Saleh was kicking my ass, as usual, in training today. "Give it to me straight. What the hell am I doing wrong?"

"Always so diligent. I like that about you. No ego." The elf walked up to me. "You're still too stiff. You have to loosen up if you want to react faster." The lean sun elf was relaxed and barely sweating in the afternoon heat.

"How do I do that?" I stood up and started preparing myself for the next round. "I feel like all I've been doing is loosening my grip, lightening my step, relaxing my arms, lowering my shoulders. Hell, Renard even told me to untense my jaw the other day. Clenching slows us down, he said. But it hasn't changed anything."

"Think less, do more. Trust your instincts."

"Easier said than done, man. Every time I try, I get my ass beat."

He laughed. "It is." His golden eyes looked me over. "The way I see it, you have two issues. You think too much, and we both know you don't have that much space up there."

"Hey!" He wasn't wrong. I wasn't dumb, but I wasn't brilliant either. "Me big brain think good!"

That made him chuckle. "More importantly, you're always trying to put into practice everything you've learned, but it's too much. It's messing you up."

"I thought the whole point was to embody the forms and principles? Why else would you have me drilling them for a year?" It had been about twenty months since I arrived in Reial, but two years was easier to say.

"Many reasons, and you are supposed to embody them, but not all at once." He dropped into a low stance and lifted his shield, pressing it toward me. The way he angled it, most of his body was covered. "I see the way you're taking your stances. It's about like this and is good. The Rising Dawn form is strong, defensive. But it's slow." He took several slow steps forward. "You never open yourself up, but you're locked down."

"Yeah, I fight with a shield. It's what I'm supposed to do, right?"

"Yes and no." He stood up and started taking light, measured steps back and forth in a line. "You're stepping wrong." He pointed to his feet. "You're stepping strongly from heel to toe. That's from Sunfire Path." As he continued to move, he dropped low but tried to keep the same movements. Every step became stiff and jerky. "The problem is, they don't mix well. Rising Dawn wants you to stay more square and to move through the center of your feet. The other teaches you to enter and exit efficiently. They don't combine. They flow."

Seeing him put it together, I could understand the idea. "What's the point then? Why learn them at all? Couldn't we just drill the basic concepts?"

"We could. You can get really good by only sparring. Some of the best fighters only spar. But can they teach? Some yes, some no. I heard you travelers have recording devices back in your world that makes recording and sharing ideas easy, but here, we have forms, books, and some rare magics to do the same thing. We teach these forms because they're an efficient curriculum we can give to our students. Their principles become a shared language that all of us fighters speak, and each movement is a letter in that language. For example, can you perform the first five steps of Radiant Edge?"

I nodded, grabbed my sword out of the dirt, and began working through the steps. It was a circular form. With each step, I was facing the forty-five toward an imaginary center point, and the fifth step ended with me facing back the way I came. "Like that?"

He nodded. "Good. Now do it again, but low, like in Rising Dawn."

I dropped my stance and began taking the steps, but they were lurching and slow. I felt exactly like a sumo wrestler.

"You see why that doesn't work, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Good. That's what you've been doing. So, try again, but keep your step light this time. Like this." He pointed at his feet and demonstrated how to roll the feet through each movement.

I did as he asked. The movements felt more natural. Springy.

"Excellent. Much better. Now, do it again, and this time, try something." He took a back-leaning stance. "Step forward three times like the first three movements of Sunfire Path. Then, drop low and perform the box section of Rising Dawn, and end with what you just did from Radiant Edge. Think you can do that?"

"Can you demonstrate it for me?"

"Sure." He flowed through the movements effortlessly. First, he came at me with lightning-fast precision, then his step brought him low like an immovable boulder. Finally, he rotated around the center point like a vulture circling its prey, but at the end, he twisted and ended with his blade forward and inches from my face. "Can you do that?"

"I think so." Copying the steps he demonstrated, I tried to keep the principles of each form separate. Surprisingly, I moved better than I had before. Each section felt more like its own thing.

"Good. Again."

I did the steps again and again, until it became easy.

"See? You're getting it." He clapped me on the back. "You just need to slow down and take things step by step. You're always rushing and trying to do more and be more than you are today. Everything has its time and place. Trying to bullrush to the finish line isn't going to make things happen faster. You're just going to break things on the way. And, you'll miss the small moments, and those are the important things, not the big stuff."

I sighed. "I'll try."

He shook his head. "You'll do."

"Yes, teacher." I'd hated Ro's guts when I'd first started training here at Light's Hope Temple. He always seemed to be so effortlessly perfect, and I felt like I never stacked up. But now, here we were, sparring together and having a good time. It was nice.

"None of that, now. In class, sure, but we're out here as friends." He smiled at me and sat down on the grass. "Come, sit. Let's take a break."

I dropped my practice sword and shield into the grass and sat next to him. Looking east, I willed the Tower of Light's light to sink into my skin. After a few minutes of birdsong and photosynthesis, I felt my mind begin to wander. Tristan's face floated into my head, and I couldn't help but sigh.

"Want to talk about it?"

I looked over to find Ro's golden eyes sparkling in the orb's light. "You know how me and Tristan are... kinda seeing one another?"

"You mean going at it like rabbits every chance you get?"

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"That's not it at all!" I glared at him. He wasn't wrong, though. We didn't have a lot of time with our duties here at the temple, but...

He chuckled. "Don't worry, we told everyone you two have been spending the nights you're together meditating on the meaning of life with each other."

"And people believe that?"

"Ennel did, the poor kid."

"We're trying to keep things private."

"You're not doing that well." He smirked. "But, if it's any consolation, we told everyone who went to Goodfield to shut the hell up about it. Jorn's been keeping them all in line, too, so I think you're good."

"Jorn? I thought he'd be the loudest one."

"No, that's Maven. The woman couldn't keep a secret if a knife was to her throat. Jorn's more of a kiss and don't tell kind of guy. And, considering he disappeared with Greta last month, I'm guessing he did a lot of kissing, even if he doesn't remember any of it."

"I feel bad for him."

"Don't." Ro-Saleh's face twisted. "He may not remember it directly, but he's been nothing but smiles for weeks. I'm pretty sure a part of him remembers enough."

Groaning, I said, "Anyway... about Tristan."

"Yeah?"

"I don't know what's wrong with her. She's had something she hasn't wanted to tell me for a long time, and I was fine with that, but something about this whole Crimson Kingdom situation has her on edge."

His face tensed. "What would you do if you knew more? Why does it matter?"

"I don't know. I feel like I could be there for her better if she'd open up about it. Or, maybe that would make it worse? Maybe she doesn't trust me enough... I just don't know. It nags at me."

"I've known her for most of her life and can say with certainty that she trusts you completely. Don't even doubt that. She's not one to pretend how she feels, and she doesn't engage with anyone unless she wants to. I can tell you're her favorite person."

I threw my hands into the air. "It sure doesn't feel like it sometimes!" Falling back into the grass, I looked up at the thin clouds floating high above. "I feel like we have it all sometimes. It's so easy and fun. All we do is laugh and talk. We have the same goals and dreams. It's great. Then, it's like there's this impenetrable wall between us. She's weighed down by something. I just wish I knew how to get through it."

Ro fell back into the grass next to me. "If you could get through it, then the wall wouldn't be impenetrable, would it?"

I snorted. "Yeah, I guess not."

"Have you ever tried just... not?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like when you fight, it sounds like you're trying to brute force your way through your problem, but walls fall much easier when they're pulled down from the inside."

"So, should I do nothing?"

"No, not nothing. Be there for her. Lend a hand. Make yourself a safe space. She'll come around. She can be moody and strong-willed, but she's nothing if not honest. It's just something she's been carrying since she was a kid, but I know she's about ready to offload the burden."

I looked at him. "Then you know what it is?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I was there."

I wanted to ask so badly, but I knew it wasn't the right thing to do. "So, just be there for her?"

He smiled. "Yep. That's it."

"I can do that. It's kind of my favorite thing."

"You know, that's why Na-Ya and I have been calling you our edán. We're pretty sure you two are in it for the long road ahead."

Edán. That meant family in elven. It felt good knowing they thought of me that way. "Thanks, Ro. I'll do my best to live up to that."

"I know you will."

Looking back at the sky, I asked, "Why haven't you two tied the knot yet?"

It was his turn to sigh. "We've talked about it for years, but the timing hasn't been right. We have so many duties here, and we don't have time to go back to her grove. The temple's our main focus right now. And we're still young. Unlike you and Tristan, we have all the time in the world."

I realized I had no idea how old they were. "How old are you?"

"I'm 53, and she's 48."

"Uh, what is that in human years?"

"Let's see..." He counted on his fingers. "Seventeen and nineteen? Something like that."

"Holy shit, you guys are kids!"

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess we are."

A feeling of dread washed over me. "Will Tristan outlive me by a lot?"

"No. She might live a little longer than you, but siraïn, or mixed-bloods in common, usually age closer to the rate of the non-elf parent, and she's only a quarter. I doubt she'd naturally live more than a few years longer than you, and if you two gain a lot of levels, you'll both live longer. It'll mostly even out."

That was good. "I didn't realize leveling slowed our aging."

"Yeah, it's a side effect of the Goddess's favor. Every level grants another year or two of life, but most people with a lot of levels don't ever see them."

"Why is that?"

He laughed. "Adventuring is dangerous work. It's more likely you'll end up dead in a dungeon somewhere than an old man fading away in his bed."

"But people gain levels doing basic stuff, too. I met a farmer in Goodfield who was level nine. Couldn't someone get to high levels doing basic tasks?"

"Not really. Since you can only get so good at a thing, basic classes cap out at low levels, so there's a soft peak. Heroic classes cap higher, but even those don't go that high. The easiest way to get stronger is to complete the quests the Goddess gives us, but those quests are mostly granted to people who constantly put their lives on the line. Eventually, people die or retire. I chose the latter."

"I'd hardly call what you do retired, Ro."

He laughed. "I use the skills I have to help people, but compared to when I was an adventurer, my life is rather tame today, and my growth is glacial. I get a stat point here and there from training, and I did manage to level out in Copperhill's Mine since that was a dungeon, but that was the first level I've gotten since we met. It's just not the same as it was."

"Why does it matter if it's a dungeon?"

"Dungeons are places where the Depths connect to the surface. They always grant a dungeon quest since the Goddess wants us to keep them clear. When we went into Coppermine, we cleared the dungeons and all reached the bottom, so we all got a level."

"And you can keep doing that?"

"No. Once cleared, that's it for you. Time to move on to the next dungeon."

"I see." I looked at the sky. "So why stop? Why not go out and adventure again? You and Na-Ya are plenty strong."

His eyes met mine. "There are a few reasons, one, managing parties is difficult. Personality conflicts are common, and relationships drag the dynamics down. It's easiest when you're all bonded, but Na-Ya and I don't really want that. We're happy as we are."

"Bonded?"

"You know, a thing. In a relationship. Whatever you want to call it."

"Is that common?"

"Very. That level of trust and connection makes it easier to act as a team. Plus, you're often alone with your party for weeks or months at a time. Having outside relationships makes it way too hard. It's easier to keep it in the party."

"I hadn't thought of it like that."

"You will in time, I'm sure. Tristan certainly has."

"You think so?"

"Definitely. Her parents were adventurers. She grew up with her dad and two moms."

I had no idea. "She's only talked about her parents a little."

"She will in time." He sighed. "But, for Na-Ya and me, that's not the direction we want to go. More importantly, I came to some realizations a while back. I used to think I wanted to be stronger, that I wanted to save the world. But, eventually, I realized that none of that stuff mattered to me as much as I thought. I got strong enough that I could be a rock for my loved ones, and I could protect the people I cared about. That's the best use of my abilities, I think. And it's enough for me."

Made sense. "So, what then, do you just ignore your quests then?"

"No, I don't get many anymore. I think the Goddess knows when we're able and willing to take them, and I also think that sometimes we're right where she wants us to be."

"How so?"

He shrugged. "Her quests are like guides. They get people where they need to be and help them find their purpose. Once someone does both, it seems like the quests slow down. Maybe it's because people get comfortable, or maybe it's because the Goddess wants us in that place. It's hard to say. All I know is, when people follow their quests, their lives get better, at least up to a point. Once you pass that point and things start getting really hard, you have to take a serious look at things. Not everyone is meant to be a hero. Most people are meant to live their lives, have families, do their jobs, and be happy. That's the point of life. The strong make it possible for everyone else to live well. Otherwise, what would be the point?"

His words resonated with me. "I see."

With his eyes closed, he said, "I think you've got a long road ahead before you reach that decision, Alex. And when you get there, I'm sure it'll be hard. But, whatever you decide and whatever you do, know that we'll be here for you."

"Why? Why put so much faith in me?"

He opened his eyes and smiled at me. "Two reasons. One, you've done nothing but work hard and put your life on the line since you got here. You've earned our respect. And two, my mirán's cousin is in love with you, and I know you feel the same way. You care for her and protect her without hesitation or a second thought. How could I not give my support to someone like that?"

I felt my face get hot. "I try."

"We all see it." He stood up. "But, that being said, you have more training to do before we leave in two days. We need to fix those movements of yours; otherwise, people will speak poorly about your teachers, and I can't have that."

I hobbled onto my feet and shook the stiffness out of my tired limbs. "I'm ready when you are, Teach."

Ro held his practice weapons out in a ready pose, and a devilish smirk spread across his face. "I'll use more than a quarter of my strength and speed this time. You ready?"

I grabbed my weapons and faced him. "Yeah. Let's do it."

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