‘Take some time to digest this,’ Lapo said, leaning forward across the conference table. His elbows settled into the polished surface, the gesture somehow both casual and deliberate, like a cat arranging itself before a pounce. ‘And in the meantime – are you ready for more training?’
The question hung in the air between them, heavy as morning fog off the harbour. Jord felt his throat constrict, a familiar tightness that reminded him of childhood swimming lessons – that moment before the plunge when fear and excitement became indistinguishable. Devil, he thought, the word rising unbidden like a prayer or curse. ‘Y-yes,’ he managed, the word catching slightly on its way out, like fabric snagging on a nail.
Something in his response made Lapo smile – not the sharp, predatory expression Jord had seen during the warehouse operation, but something softer, almost paternal. It reminded him, oddly, of the way his father used to look at him during their rare fishing trips, when Jord would insist on trying one more cast despite the gathering dark, despite the empty bucket that spoke of hours of failure.
‘See, that’s what I like,’ Lapo said, his voice taking on a warmth that seemed to fill the sterile conference room, transforming it into something more intimate, more dangerous. That grit, that determination, the ability to overcome impossible odds. His words took on a rhythmic quality, like waves against the dock. ‘The hunger for more, always bending to the world’s whims till you master it.’
The words washed over Jord like tidewater, their meaning slipping through his fingers even as their weight settled in his chest. He recognised in Lapo’s rambling monologue an echo of his parents’ late-night mutterings – those hushed, weary conversations over the kitchen table, where the future was an unshaped thing, heavy with uncertainty. It was that same intensity, the same quiet desperation to try to shape an unyielding world into something concrete, manageable. The tremor in his left hand had stilled, he noticed distantly.
‘Time awaits for no being – let’s start, then,’ Lapo said, rising from the table with a grace that seemed at odds with his weathered appearance. The words hung in the air like morning mist, both invitation and command.
The familiar exchange – ‘Track three?’ ‘Track three’ – carried the weight of ritual, as if they were priests preparing for morning devotions.
The sky lightened still, the compound around them still wrapped in that peculiar stillness that comes before shift change. The buildings stood like sleeping giants, their windows dark and waiting, while skeleton crews moved through corridors like blood through drowsy veins. Soon the skin of night would be shed, and day shift would arrive with their coffee cups and conversation, but for now, the silence held.
They began their warm-up, footfalls marking time like a metronome. The rhythm reminded Jord of early mornings at home, when he’d hear his father’s work boots on the stairs, heading out for the first shift at the mill. Elia at three years old, standing on a chair pulled up to the counter, determined to “help” make breakfast. ‘Early bird catches the worm!’ he’d chirp, parroting their mother’s words while almost toppling a box of cereal. Jord, then eleven, had always kept one hand hovering behind his baby brother’s back, ready to catch him if he fell.
‘Sorry, sir,’ Jord ventured, his breath visible in the cool air, ‘but why do we train so early?’
‘I like the coolness of the morning, and –’ He raised a hand to his ear, the gesture almost theatrical, yet somehow genuine. ‘– if you listen good enough, you can hear the heart of the city start beating up, trains roaring to life, cars racing down the street.’ His words carried the weight of long consideration, like stones polished smooth by years of turning them over. ‘It always fascinated me, this state. A state of torpor, then, that of awakening. Always made me wonder what awaits us after all this. Maybe we will awaken again, maybe not.’ He turned to Jord. ‘Do you believe, Whittaker?’
The question settled between them like morning dew. Jord thought of childhood Sundays, of wooden pews and whispered prayers, of trying to keep a squirming Elia quiet with silent games and smuggled candies while their mother’s hands stayed folded neatly in her lap and their father’s remained restless.
‘I... I don’t think so,’ he admitted, each word carefully chosen. ‘I’ve pondered sometimes. Did the functions but never with conviction, much more like a worker with his shift. You understand?’ The comparison felt right – faith and work, both requiring attendance without guaranteeing belief. ‘I... I was there, watched everything, trying it, but it never gripped me, that conviction, that solid conviction to believe that help will come regardless of one''s efforts. It’s a bit complicated, sir.’
Lapo''s huff carried neither judgment nor approval. ‘What isn’t?’
‘But... I think I liked... a bit?’ Jord added, the words falling soft as footsteps. ‘I still don’t know, sir.’
Lapo’s response was physical rather than verbal – a subtle increase in pace that transformed their walk into an easy jog. Jord matched him stride for stride, their breathing falling into rhythm with each other and the awakening city around them. In that moment, beneath the lightening sky, the track felt less like training ground and more like a path to something Jord couldn’t quite name.
Eight kilometres left their mark in sweat and burning muscles, but it was the promise of what came next that made Jord''s heart quicken. Lapo''s pace slowed to a walk, his boots scuffing against the pavement.
‘Today, no sabres,’ Lapo said, voice gentle as morning itself. ‘We''ll start with handguns. Up to the task, do you think?’
The armoury carried its own particular silence. Greg’s morning greeting hung in the air like early mist as Lapo made his request: ‘The Ciretta and the CR-8; And a box of projectiles.’
Jord watched Greg’s practised movements, the way his hands cradled each weapon and form with familiar reverence. It reminded him of how his mother would handle Elia’s first pair of glasses, cleaning them each night with careful, loving attention.
They settled at a table in the adjacent building, morning light streaming through high windows to paint patterns across the dismantled weapons. Lapo’s voice took on a different quality then, something between a teacher’s patience and a father’s concern.
‘First, you must learn how a firearm works,’ he began, his hands moving with deliberate grace. ‘Treat every firearm as loaded,’ Lapo emphasized, and Jord thought of Elia’s old chemistry set, how their mother had insisted on proper safety protocols even with harmless solutions. The memory brought a faint smile to his lips – some lessons, it seemed, carried across all sorts of boundaries.
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As Lapo began disassembling the weapons, his movements became almost meditative. ‘One must be intimately familiar with one’s tools,’ he explained, ‘if one wishes to get the most from them.’
The words reverberated inside Jord’s skull – that man’s fall, a puppet with its string cut.
Lapo snapped his fingers dragging Jord’s attention to the present. ‘Lost yourself, Whittaker?’ His voice softened, an unexpected fracture in his drillmaster demeanour. ‘I know from experience yesterday’s… events unsettle the mind. If you need a day’s grace, I’ll grant it.’
‘No. Please continue.’ Jord’s knee jogged beneath the table. ‘I – I drifted. Apologies, sir. But how…’ He swallowed, the memory pooling metallic on his tongue. ‘How can flesh – life – turn to nothing? Decades of breath and thought, erased by a trigger-squeeze. Doesn’t that render every struggle… meaningless, futile?’ His gaze held Lapo’s, defiance and desperation braided.
The older man stilled. For a heartbeat, Jord glimpsed something behind his mentor’s eyes – a shadowed corridor lined with unspoken names.
‘That…’ Lapo wet his lips, the gesture uncharacteristically hesitant. ‘…is a philosopher’s riddle. And I?’ A hollow chuckle. ‘Just a soldier.’ He leaned closer, the table’s varnish creaking beneath his palms. ‘But here’s what war taught me: life’s weight isn’t in its duration. It’s in what burns between people. Shared joys. Shared wounds.’ His calloused thumb brushed the dismantled pistol between them. ‘You want meaning? You shall Forge it. Now – ’ He lifted the firing pin, its steel glinting like a frog’s well.‘ – will you learn?’
Jord nodded.
‘Then mirror my movements.’
The firearm’s innards sprawled across the table – springs and chambers laid bare as a surgeon’s tableau. Jord’s fingers trembled, tracing the lethal geometry. Lapo’s hands moved with confessional slowness, each disassembly a lesson.
Lapo’s quiet pride warmed the air between them as Jord finally mastered the ritual – disassemble, clean, reassemble – his hands growing more confident with each cycle. Thirty-some attempts had carved the movements into muscle memory, like learning a dance where every step could mean the difference between life and death.
‘Ready to give it voice?’ Lapo asked, and Jord nodded, his throat too tight for words. ‘We’ve got an indoor range here,’ Lapo continued, his voice carrying the patient cadence of a mentor. ‘For the bigger toys – long-range work, explosives – we head outside city limits.’
The indoor range welcomed them with the sharp perfume of cordite and the rhythmic percussion of another shooter''s practice. Paper targets hung like spectral witnesses at varying distances, their silhouettes waiting in judgment up to a hundred meters away. Lapo stepped up first, his movements fluid with the ease of long familiarity. The gun sang in his hands, each shot finding home in the centre-mass of the targets until only the two furthest remained untouched – a deliberate demonstration of both skill and limitation.
When Jord’s turn came, the closest targets bore his marks like hesitant kisses, while the distant ones remained pristine, mocking his efforts with their unblemished faces. The last shell casing hit the floor with a sound like a falling tear.
‘What have you learned?’ Lapo''s question hung in the air.
‘That I’m no good at shooting?’ Jord offered, his voice small in the vastness of the range.
Lapo’s chuckle was gentle, understanding. ‘You’ll learn.’ His fingers found his eyebrow, scratching thoughtfully. ‘But think back to yesterday''s lesson with the sabre. Did nothing there give you an idea? Nothing?’
Jord shook his head.
‘A sabre,’ Lapo began, his words measured like carefully counted steps, ‘demands intimacy with intent. You can''t dance between decisions when steel meets steel – hesitation is an invitation to your own ending. Every stroke must flow from absolute clarity of purpose.’ His eyes met Jord’s, holding them with the weight of hard-won wisdom. ‘A handgun’s no different. You can spray bullets like seeds in the wind, but such desperate gardens rarely bloom.’
The words struck Jord like a physical blow, settling deep in his chest where confusion met dawning realisation. He had dismissed yesterday''s event as mere jest, a fleeting moment of insignificance, but now Lapo''s wisdom penetrated his defences. Still, understanding lurked just beyond his grasp, like a shadow he couldn''t quite catch.
‘But... how?’ The words escaped him, barely more than a whisper.
Lapo’s eyes softened with the patience of a man who had walked this path before. ‘It seems you need more intimate acquaintance with the sword. Your blindness to your own limitations is… telling’. He paused, a subtle weight of self-reproach in his voice. ‘I’ve neglected our sparring. Come, let’s backtrack.’
The ritual of retrieving weapons and completing forms carried its own quiet ceremony, each signature a promise of dedication to come. When they finally stood facing each other, the air between them hummed with anticipation.
‘En garde!’
‘En what?’ Jord''s voice carried the tremor of uncertainty. ‘Sorry, sir, I don’t understand.’
‘Follow my movements,’ Lapo’s voice gentled. ‘I’ll shape your form afterwards.’
And so began the dance of master and novice. Jord shadowed Lapo’s movements like a dutiful echo – first a basic guard, then low, then high, each position a new language his body struggled to learn. When they moved to responses and attacks, Jord’s forms dissolved at the first hint of resistance, his stance betraying every uncertainty within. Each point of contact revealed another weakness: here, where rigidity was needed there was none, there, where tension melted when it should have held firm. For two hours, they wove this pattern of instruction and correction.
When Lapo finally detected improvement – modest but noteworthy – he called for their lunch respite. Yet after their meal, as they resumed their positions, Jord’s movements had lost their earlier promise. His mind, weighted with the morning’s lessons, had become as rigid as his earliest attempts, each gesture now carved from exhaustion rather than potential.
And so the day led onward, Lapo driving Jord relentlessly towards that sacred exhaustion where mind and body find their tenuous peace. Like a sculptor chipping away at resistant stone, Lapo worked until Jord’s defences crumbled, until his thoughts – so persistently circular – finally yielded to the simple truth of movement and breath.
When Jord’s limbs could bear no more, trembling like autumn leaves in a gentle breeze, Lapo called an end to their dance. The day had slipped away unnoticed, as days often do when one walks the path of transformation. Their farewell carried the weight of shared understanding, of barriers crossed and distances shortened.
On the street, Jord lifted his weary gaze skyward, finding solace in the vast expanse above. The evening sky hung in that precious balance between day and night, still touched by the sun’s farewell kisses, yet beginning to reveal its stellar secrets. Among the first brave stars, one celestial body shone with particular brilliance, standing apart from its dimmer companions like a singular truth amidst a sea of questions. The sight tugged at something within him, a recognition just beyond his grasp, but exhaustion had softened the edges of his curiosity into a gentle wonder.
The walk home became a meditation of sorts, his tired body carrying him through familiar streets while his mind floated in that peculiar space between thought and absence. His soiled training clothes lay bundled in his backpack, each crease and stain a testament to the day''s lessons – not just in swordplay, but in the art of surrender to learning itself.
–––
Home bloomed before him like a familiar embrace, the cramped kitchen transformed into a sanctuary of ordinary magic. His family had settled into their evening ritual with the comfortable precision of long practice: Elia bent over his book, pages whispering secrets; his father navigating the newspaper’s labyrinth of puzzles; his mother orchestrating the evening meal with practised grace. Even in such close quarters, they had learned the delicate dance of coexistence, each claiming their space while remaining bound in the invisible web of family.
Elia’s head lifted at his entrance, his eyes bright with unspoken questions. ‘So, how did it go?’
‘All good’, Jord managed, the words feeling inadequate against the weight of the day’s revelations. ‘I… enquired about yesterday. It was bad chance, the commander said.’ He paused, suddenly aware of how his muscles ached with new knowledge. ‘Talk to you later, just give me a moment to change, and I’ll tell you what I can.’
The ritual of changing clothes became a quiet meditation, each movement a reminder of the day’s lessons. When he returned to the kitchen''s warmth, the simple act of setting the kettle to flame felt like a bridge between two worlds. ‘Tea?’
His mother’s decline left three cups to arrange, each placement deliberate as chess pieces on a board. The sugar bowl found its place at the centre, a silent offering of sweetness to temper whatever conversations might follow.
‘Anyone curious about anything?’ Jord’s question hung in the air like morning mist, met with a silence that seemed to hold both everything and nothing. He couldn’t decipher whether their quiet spoke of indifference or of care so profound it stole their voices.
Turning to safer ground, he sought refuge in his brother''s day. ‘So Elia, how did your day go?’
‘Pretty meh’, he offered, but his words carried the weight of untold stories. ‘Helped old man Artivi a bit. Diagnosed a couple of cars. One was a luxury model – quite nice, actually.’ He paused, something flickering behind his eyes. ‘Ah yes, helped some kids repair their bikes, too. One asked me to send their regards to you.’ His gaze held something indefinable, a question wrapped in an observation.
‘Did the kid say why?’
‘No.’
‘Huh.’ The mystery settled in Jord’s mind like a puzzle piece without a home. Why would some kids ask about me? The thought spiralled through possibilities, each one dissolving before it could fully form. Maybe an old classmate’s child? But who would... perhaps Ralpanion''s kid?
The kettle’s cry pierced his reverie, a sharp note cutting through the gentle symphony of family sounds. He moved through the familiar motions of serving tea, each pour a meditation, each ceramic cup accepting its steeping charge with quiet dignity. The tea bags unfurled like thoughts seeking their own clarity in the gathering dusk of evening.
And so the evening flowed onwards like a gentle stream, family banter weaving through the spaces between bites of their mother’s cooking – each morsel carrying the familiar comfort of home. When they finally retired to their rooms, the house settled into its nighttime whispers, creaking floorboards and distant sounds creating a lullaby of the ordinary.
But the day’s lessons pulsed behind his eyelids – Lapo’s sabre arcs transcribed into neural pathways, the handgun’s recoil etched into muscle memory. A perverse alchemy: close-quarters fury had honed his aim. Steel and trigger, two languages fused at the root. He traced the paradox in the dark, fingertips brushing the bruise on his collarbone. How had he not seen it? The kinship between blade and bullet, both demanding surrender to momentum’s cruel logic.
And in the quiet darkness of his room, a peculiar peace settled over him regarding the misdirection that had shaped his path. The thought that his journey could have unfolded differently – worse – lingered at the edges of his consciousness like shadows at twilight. Yet he found himself strangely grateful for the very deception that had led him here, as if fate had conspired to protect him from bleaker possibilities. These were waters too deep to wade into tonight, currents of what-ifs that threatened to pull him under if he dwelt too long upon them.