“What was that?” the cadet accompanying Dominicus asked, as soon as they were clear enough of the crowds of the class. It was a jolly enough inquiry, and he half-laughed, only to fall silent when Brahn whirled on him.
“Shut it, you flea,” but he half-stumbled in his walk as he whipped his head back around to watch the path ahead. The next words he tossed over his shoulder as casually as he could without further unsteadying himself.
“It was illegal, is what it was.”
The cadet escorting Brahn, the top of whose head only reached Brahn’s shoulder, let out a breath in undisguised relief he wouldn’t be actually called upon to restrain his charge.
The cadet with Dominicus scoffed, albeit very quietly, and glanced sidelong at Dominicus as if he understood entirely what the Ainjir was thinking, which Dominicus patently did not. As he was not eager to get his ass kicked – safely outside the view of the ollamh – by Brahn, Dominicus felt he understood the other escort better.
“Shall we…” the other escort asked, looking back at Dominicus’ escort with naked pleading.
Technically, they could stop by the infirmary on their way to the Quartermaster’s offices, but it wasn’t necessary. Both, however, were in the nebulously shared area where the Second Years were apt to offer challenges to First Years’ right to exist – no matter how bureaucratically and logistically important their ability to traverse such spaces was – so Dominicus’ escort shrugged. Safety in numbers, even if the most impressive of their number was apt to be a bit wobbly from having his air cut off so recently.
They traversed the grounds in silence, but for the occasional stomping, coming through the longer grass, up to the short part nearer the main buildings, where stomping gave way to carefully considered picking as they avoided piles of sheep shit – a result of how recently it had been trimmed, and a frequent cause of roommate disputes if tracked into the dorms (and warden punishments, if left uncleaned). They entered the great stone blocks that were the main cluster of buildings through one of the seemingly infinite, tactically disastrous side doors, this one cut around the curve of a corner tower, yet somehow without giving access to the actual tower. Many such pocketed doors decorated the main buildings, most apparently built or cut as an afterthought for facilitating access as the cluster of buildings were completed, connected, and densified over the decades of the Academy’s existence.
The medical wing had some of the newest buildings-out, though it, itself, was like so many spaces a rededicated and re-divided set of old classrooms. Poorly constructed for such a purpose, that they might be equally poorly constructed to contribute to the health and healing of their occupants seemed to have been a secondary consideration to how they facilitated the constant warring of the medical officers. With only the tiniest of spaces within left enclosed, and thus most prudently used for storage, the wide open inner space of the building made for an excellent battlefield. As medical officers came and went, so too did the plains of battle shift, strewn with ever-changing neutral zones, no-man’s-lands, and fiercely contested and conquered sickbeds.
If the medical wing itself was ‘new’ – being only a few decades, perhaps merely half a century or so, old – the corps of medical officers was still in its infancy. Enough of the oldest Academy officers and ollamh could remember when the barber-surgeons had been good enough for the multitudinous injuries cadets could be expected to endure during their training, and grumbled accordingly about the new upstarts and their confusing role in the hierarchy. (It had yet to be satisfactorily settled whether a medical officer could countermand an ollamh, much less an ollamh also of officer class – the whole thing was stupid, but cadets had mostly stopped dying in the fray, so it simmered unattended on the stovetop of Academy politics). A few close-packed rounds of plagues had been enough to ensure the medical corps was there to stay, at least as long as memory served to remind everyone of their usefulness in spite of the hassle they produced.
Dominicus was only dimly aware of this history, part of it picked up through the occasional overheard story, and part of it gleaned from his history readings (that fifty or so years was long enough ago to count as ‘history’ was a sign of Ainjir’s relative infancy, he thought, the Prophet having lived a thousand years ago, a thousand years into the history of his people. This confused him enough he felt an urge – as yet unexplored – to actually learn the history of Ainjir, for they certainly behaved as if they were a thousand years a nation, despite acknowledging the contrary). He mistrusted Ainjir doctors, but perhaps this was only because he mistrusted Ainjir, as he had to admit that going to a priest, a butcher, and a herb-and-oil-woman, depending on the severity and type of illness, seemed less efficient than having one person study all aspects of the health of the body.
He still wouldn’t have enjoyed having an Ainjir poking at any injuries he might have, and had, Prophet be thanked for this among many blessings, so far avoided the necessity. Nonetheless, it was good to know where the medical wing was, just in case, and he was pleased to have the opportunity to be guided there without having dire need or having to ask for such assistance.
They did not pass the Tower, once inside, but cut sharply left and up a hallway leading past the Long Hall, curling around some oddly placed internal rooms of mysterious purpose before exiting into a semi-cavernous space – it would have been cavernous, had not the opposite wall from the entrance been so close, the door having let them in the middle of the long side of the rectangular building. There were also distinct areas carved out by temporary and some temporary-turned-permanent wooden separators, tent-pole raised cloths of truly excessively fabulous colors and designs serving as internal roofs, leaving the great beams of the actual ceiling seeming somewhat offensively neglected in their purpose. Many beds and chairs and instruments that seemed mixtures between beds, chairs, and pot-bellied stoves, filled the floors, accompanied by glass orbs, variously-sized bladders, and firepits strewn up and down the walls. Off-set from the doors they entered through, sat a square desk, the hacked off bit of another square desk extending it to be not-so-square in another clearly long-standing ‘temporary’ extension.
Dominicus hoped he never had cause to be treated here. He would take the butcher, the priest, and the herb-and-oil woman.
At this desk sat a tall, thin man, in the usual grey uniform with an apron tied over his front, while two other men lounged, one sitting on the desk, another sitting on something that wasn’t exactly a chair – or was a chair of some… medicinal design – in front of the desk. Their grey uniforms featured green piping, a sign that they belonged to the Quartermaster’s office.
“Oh, that’s lucky,” Dominicus’ escort said to him, but Doinicus failed to see how it was lucky, unless whatever punishment he was facing would necessitate immediate medical attention. Revising his wishes, he did not want to be either in front of a Quartermaster’s Officer or in the medical wing, much less both. It seemed a bad combination.
“Yeah,” Brahn said, giving Dominicus a vicious look, “This will be lucky. We’ll see what the doctors have to say, and what the Quartermaster thinks of that.”
Dominicus’ escort scoffed (when sure he would not be seen or heard doing so. Brahn’s escort only seemed concerned he not ever fall under Brahn’s gaze at all).
A loud argument was going on down at one end of the room, between two men in overlong, elaborate aprons. The three officers at the desk, however, had ceased all conversation and were staring – with weighty indifference – at the four cadets.
Brahn seemed to feel it inappropriate to not be announced, so he seized his little escort and shoved him forward, other hand massaging his throat dramatically. Dominicus’ escort was disinclined to interfere.
After failing to speak for several seconds, the first syllable out of the little escort’s mouth was cut off by the Quartermaster’s officer who was sitting down snapping as he raised a finger to point it at Dominicus.
“Oh, you’re the…” he didn’t finish, but rather than it seeming like he didn’t know what to call him, he knit his brows and looked away, issuing another half-thought. “We were suppos’ta…”
“What,” said the one sitting on the desk, the broadness of his accent making Dominicus jump; he sounded very nearly like one of the Ainjir villagers from home.
Dominicus also now realized that he wasn’t sitting jauntily, hiding his leg from view, but rather had no leg there at all. His face reflected the fact that he had also very nearly only had one eye, but instead both looked suddenly at the cadets, the one twisted by scars looking over-wet, underneath it slightly moist.
Both the little escort and Brahn recoiled. Brahn – surely not doing himself any favors – letting out a “Sweet Peace.”
“What exactly seems to be the problem?” the sitting officer said, and Dominicus felt his chest loosen as he recognized the accent was a little too broad – he didn’t quite slip in the extra syllables in the usual places, so he must not be from quite the same area.
The sitting officer had an ink tray in his hand, and was thoughtfully rotating it against the desktop so its corners clunked down softly on the wood.
“Nobody’s bleeding,” the man in the apron said.
“Nothink broken?” said the officer in the chair – he truly sounded strange to Dominicus. Not the accent from home, like the officer on the desk, but some almost entirely foreign one.
“We’re, uh…” said the little escort, briefly jerking a thumb at each of them, as if it were especially necessary to indicate they had all come together, “we’re, uh…”
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
“Well, I’m bloody injured,” Brahn said, finally losing patience, “because he’s a bloody savage, so you two can birch him and you can treat me.”
Brahn, too, was a fan of pointing. The officers, with disconcerting coordination, remained gazing steadily at the cadets as if he hadn’t pointed at all. The officer on the desk used his free hand to tug free a handkerchief and dab it under his twisted eye.
“Why would we be doing that?”
“He injured me,” Brahn reiterated, at least realizing he should try to be pleasant, if he could not manage polite.
“Nobody’s bleeding,” the man in the apron said again, in almost exactly the same intonation.
“Is somefink bracken?” said the officer in the chair, heaving himself up out that chair to peer curiously at Brahn.
“He nearly choked me to death!” Brahn said.
“Don’t look nearly dead,” said the man in the apron.
The officer on the desk set down the ink tray and held up a hand to his companions to silence them. “Is that what happened?”
He looked at each of the escorts. The little escort looked at Dominicus’ escort, who seemed marvellously unconcerned with the entire proceeding. Having turned back to face the officers, something must have shown on the little escort’s face, because the officer on the desk indicated he should move towards Dominicus and his escort, then indicated Brahn should step forward, and then indicated the officer in the apron should come around the desk to look Brahn over. It wasn’t exactly the uncanny ability to issue wordless commands the Tactics ollamhs described breathlessly as the way of legendary Generals, but it must be close.
The officer in the apron, as if it made no difference to him either way, did as he was told, and at Brahn’s prompting started to feel at his neck.
One of the officers in the elaborate aprons at the other end of the room shouted ‘worms’ at the top of his lungs several times, punctuating each iteration – differing in intonation, increasing in volume, always on the spectrum of incredulous to dismissive – with overly theatrical mocking laughter.
“So what happened?” The officer on the desk asked the escorts, then, more sharply, “Don’t look at him. Look at me. Tell me what happened. That’s what you’re here for, and don’t worry about them, because if you lie to me, I’ll beat you raw, and they know that.”
He now looked at both Dominicus and Brahn. “And if they don’t know that, now they do, and if I find out they did anything to make you lie to me, I’ll make sure they regret it the rest of their live-long days here. If they’re dumb enough to try it, they’re too dumb to stay very long, but I can make even a short time feel like a lot of days.”
“…like a lot of days,” the officer-no-longer-in-the-chair echoed.
“Uh, well…” said the little escort, but Dominicus’ escort was ready.
“It was Groups. They had a bout. We’re supposed to be practicing certain grapples, real to life as we can, not just as form practice. Galen,” he tilted his head in Dominicus’ direction, “won, but he won because he got Innrachtig in a choke. Nobody tapped, the ollamh broke it up, here we are.”
The Quartermaster’s officers exchanged a glance.
“Don’t seem lick worth sending them t’us.”
“Did your ollamh give you any instructions?” the officer on the desk asked.
Dominicus’ escort shook his head. The two officers exchanged another glance. Brahn had reached a point of irritation that he was now slapping away the probing hands of the officer in the apron who was equally unmoved by this fussing as he had been by everything so far.
“He could have killed me,” Brahn broke in. “We haven’t learned any chokes, and they’re certainly not allowed in practices.”
He said like he knew, but Dominicus was almost certain no such general announcement to that effect had been made.
But before he could say so, the no-longer-sitting officer said, “Still.”
“Still,” the officer on the desk agreed. He dabbed under his eye again. “What kind of choke was it?”
They all looked at Dominicus. Dominicus, who had only recently learned that such things could have names (his sisters certainly didn’t seem to have names for them, unless ‘die, scum, die’ was the name of a whole lot of them), had no idea, so he shrugged.
Brahn just said, “It was an illegal one, whatever it was.”
The officers then refocused on the escorts. The little escort awkwardly tried to demonstrate on himself, which meant he started to pull one arm over his own throat with his other arm.
“No,” Dominicus’ escort mumbled, “it was like…” and he stepped forward, but adding in two more arms only confused the matter even more.
“Stahp,” the formerly-sitting officer said. “You two did it – you two show us.”
“What? No,” Brahn objected, lip curled in disgust, “absolutely not. He nearly killed me, I’m not letting that animal try again. Just beat him, and treat me, and let’s get on with it.”
Patient though he was, aware of the figures of authority about thought he was, Dominicus was also almost ready to fulfil Brahn’s prediction and use the opportunity to choke him out, for real this time. What was a little beating? He could take a beating (well, he still didn’t know what beatings were like here, but he might be willing to withstand one as an experiment if he got to slam Brahn’s face into the ground a few times on the way to it. He would be richer by the gain of two experiences for one extremely satisfying action).
“Well, now, there’s the problem,” said the formerly-sitting officer, putting some effort into cleaning up his accent – or maybe Dominicus was just getting used to it. “Right now, there’s no reason to beat him.”
“No reason to treat you,” the officer in the apron added, unhelpfully.
“But mostly no reason to beat him.”
“The ollamh said take him to the Quartermaster. He must deserve a beating.”
“Not really,” the officer on the desk said.
“Yeah, sometimes we’re just supposed to scare the shit out of you little gristle-bits so you stop endangering yourselves and others.”
“This seems like one of those times.”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Brahn said. “That’s ridiculous. What he did was dangerous. The ollamh wouldn’t waste three cadets time with that.”
“There’s four of you,” the officer in the apron said.
“He’s obviously doesn’t count,” Brahn said.
“Seems to count,” the officer in the apron said, but the one on the desk waved him away.
“Well, those are your options, if what you want is to see him beaten.”
Brahn watched the officer in the apron wind his way around the desk and plop himself back in his chair. Brahn’s fists clenched at his sides in fury.
“Fine! Kneeler!” Brahn pointed furiously at Dominicus, only to have the formerly-sitting officer gently push his pointing finger down.
“Watch your language with fellow cadets,” he said quietly.
Brahn didn’t look at the officer, keeping his gaze fixed on Dominicus, as if to assure him that, regardless, he didn’t see Dominicus as a fellow cadet.
That… prickled, but Dominicus shoved it down. Why should such a thing matter to him? He had no aspiration to be an ideal Ainjir cadet. Why should it matter if that was what Brahn thought, even more so?
But he felt it, at his middle, like food improperly swallowed, only hurting when he moved just so.
“Show them what you did,” Brahn said, then again awkwardly started to put his own arm around his own throat.
Dominicus approached, and briefly both glowered, neither particularly eager to get close to one another again. There was, however no real way to do it otherwise. Dutifully, Dominicus stood behind Brahn, arm slung over Brahn’s shoulder so that both his and Brahn’s own arm crossed his throat. This was made even more ridiculous by Brahn’s refusal to so much as stoop, meaning Dominicus was on his toes just to get his arm near-ish the right position.
“That don’t look reight.”
“It was on the ground,” said the little escort. He issued a delicate pointing finger for emphasis.
The Quartermaster’s officers exchanged a glance, then stared at Dominicus and Brahn.
“Oh, fu-” but Brahn stopped himself in time, “uuu-ine. Fine.”
Again, dutifully, though slowly, Brahn got to his knees, keeping a disrespectful eye on Dominicus. Dominicus tried as much as he could to convey that he hated this as much as Brahn did, possibly more.
Dominicus had not been strategizing anything in particular other than his survival and his enemy’s incapacity when he performed this manoeuvre, meaning he had an imprecise memory of what exactly he had done. Brahn, in turn, was reluctant to recall precisely. Equally embarrassing, perhaps, was the fact that Dominicus had also ended up sitting on him, not only humiliating, but also a distinctly uncomfortable position to get into deliberately, much less hold for the inspection of the Quartermaster’s officers.
“I dunno’f that clarifies.”
“Is that where your arm was?”
So they shifted, very quietly cursing one another.
“Doesn’t seem plausible.”
“How’d you get that limb there?”
Slightly more loudly cursing each other, Doninicus and Brahn shifted positions – but this wouldn’t do. It was all wrong, as Brahn swore and sniped and Dominicus growled and protested. They parted, Brahn stood, and they started over from the beginning.
“Are you sure…”
“What’s happening there…”
So they parted, and started further back in their fight, over which there was much to contend.
They did this perhaps four times, before they realized all was not as it seemed. It was probably that their escorts had joined in with their critiques, both insisting things had looked very different from their sides of the circle. Whatever signal had brought them in to the joke had obviously passed while he was trying not to get his face shoved in Brahn’s armpit by accident, or possibly while rolling his eyes at Brahn’s descriptions of punches that “didn’t hurt that much,” and grips that were “not very strong, really.”
“What the fuck!” Brahn roared, tossing Domninicus off his back and struggling to his feet. “You can’t be serious?!”
Doninicus rolled away, tempted to roar to his feet as well, only to see quite how silly Brahn looked in all his fury, utterly impotent in the face of the Quartermaster’s officers. And, if he was honest with himself, it was rather funny – anyway, it was better than whatever beating Brahn had been attempting to get laid upon him. Instead, he looked sort of stupid, and had to spend more time than he wanted – than he could conceive on anyone wanting – close to Brahn.
Well, as he stood, he didn’t feel like laughing, but it was funny. And it reemphasized to him how poorly planned his moves had been, successful though they were. He could look a fool for such a lesson and be grateful for it.
And everything indicated – as far as Dominicus could tell, untrusting as he was of his ability to read Ainjir faces – that could be it. Valuable as the knowledge might prove in making future decisions, Dominicus wasn’t going to go looking for a beating. He didn’t plan to be an ideal cadet but he wasn’t a fucking idiot.
The officers were smiling (except the officer in the apron, who though he seemed somehow amused had a face like opaque glass, thick and impenetrable) but only to each other. As they turned to the cadets, they resumed their serious demeanours.
Brahn didn’t seem to notice, or at least, didn’t seem willing to take the hint. He fumed, a mixture of wordless seething, fierce gestures restoring his appearance, and the occasional, passive-aggressively muttered curse-strewn opinion shared with some unseen audience who apparently sympathized with his plight (the current visible audience, without being ostentatious about it, did not).
“All right, all right,” one said to Brahn, “let that be your lesson for the day.”
“What the fuck kind of lesson was that?” Brahn shouted – and maybe it was just his nature, or perhaps something about the unmistakeably country accents – though Dominicus could only roughly place the one, he was certain, by now, that he had simply grown used to the other – made him particularly foolhardy.
Either way, it was a Damned stupid thing to say.
“Do you think you’re ollamh? With the right to teach? What right have you to give lessons?”
One-legged though he was, the officer slid off the desk without hesitation, put one hand on his partner’s shoulder to steady himself, and laid the other across Brahn’s face in an echoing slap. Brahn looked up, his whole head having been directed towards the floor, mouth agape. Apparently, the outrage on his face was also incompatible with the lesson being taught, because the officer slapped him again. Blood scattered down Brahn’s uniform, and he raised his head – the officer raised his hand, and Brahn ducked away.
“You do learn,” the officer said, “regardless.”
“The lesson today,” his partner said, facing the cadets generally while remaining a still and steady brace for his partner, “is twofold. Do not endanger your fellow cadets unnecessarily. If certain moves are forbidden, they are forbidden for a reason. Don’t use them, even to win, especially in practice. If you are found at fault for this, you will wish you were born without back skin. Appended to this is the second lesson, which is to not be so proud you injure yourself, or others. Pride is nothing, and if it were, you would have none, until we give it to you. When you are beaten, recognize you are beaten, tap out. There will be times to test your limits, and practices aren’t those times. Pride leading to injury is as bad as injury from ignorance.”
“There might be a third lesson,” the one-legged officer said, “which is that if there is any adjudication to happen, any punishment to be measured out, it is the job of the Quartermaster’s officers to adjudicate and measure it out. Your ollamh make suggestions; we make decisions. Everyone in this place obeys that rule, from officers to ollamh on down. And you are very far down. You certainly obey it. And I’ll be long dead by the time you’re able to question it.”
They paused to let this sink in, blood dripping from somewhere on Brahn’s face to the floor certainly adding enough weight to the lessons for them to do so.
“Git,” said the other officer to Dominicus and the escorts. He gestured back at the man in the apron who, sighing, stood up to cross around the desk and check on Brahn’s face.
Not having to be told twice, Dominicus and the escorts left the medical wing, and it was only after they were well out of ear shot the formerly-sitting officer – having resumed sitting – slapped his knee, wincing with his whole body, “Aw, fuck, we were supposed to get the Oak when we saw him.”
“Next time,” his partner said, dabbing under his eye with his handkerchief.
“There’ll definitely be a next time.”
“I fucking hate First Years,” the man in the apron said, as he pushed with both thumbs on Brahn’s nose to see that it was still firmly in place.
“So, you gonna tell me what that was?” Dominicus’ escort asked, once they had safely traversed the uncertainly neutral land of the buildings and exited onto the fields again. Picking their way through sheep shit, again.
“Whatever it is you’re not supposed to do it,” the other escort said. “Mercy’s Nipples I thought we were all going to get skinned.”
“We weren’t in trouble,” Dominicus’ escort said.
“You think Brahn was going to support us if we had to defend ourselves to the Quartermasters?”
His escort only shrugged, but Dominicus objected. “I would defend you.”
“Please,” snorted the little escort, “we’re cooked if you’re defending us. Who’ll believe you over a Prep cadet?”
Dominicus stopped and turned to face the cadet – maybe the only cadet shorter than him – who blanched. His escort stepped forward, put a hand on the smaller cadet’s forehead and shoved him away.
“Get lost, little pip.”
The smaller cadet stumbled, but didn’t fall – that hadn’t been his escort’s goal – and took a wide path to get around them and head back towards their Groups class.
“He’ll get it eventually,” Dominicus’ escort said with a crooked smile.
Dominicus was unsure what ‘it’ was, and was too generally suspicious of Ainjir to fully trust the feeling of relief rising in his gut. He had been ready to squash that little cadet. Even he had limits regarding how much shit he was willing to take in a single day, and from whom (Prophet forgive him, Father forgive him, God grant him patience like unto that he granted his Saints, who surely endured harder trials gracefully but also Doninicus was just a regular person, not a direct companion or Midras, so maybe He could Ease Up on things and/or gift more patience, whatever sounded best to Him).
“I’m Halmadóir Aoirigh, but you may call me Hal. Everyone seems to like that better so far.”
Hal stuck out his arm, much the way Ruaridh had when they first met; recalling that, Dominicus hoped he aimed right in clasping it.
“Dominicus Galen.”
Hal waited a moment, as they both turned and took a few steps before cocking his head. “And nobody has tried to shorten that yet, have they?”
“No,” Dominicus said, at once feeling offended at the thought someone would try, and attempting to recognize that it was perhaps a normal thing for the Ainjir to do. They could do whatever they wanted with their own silly names.
Hal chuckled. “Let me be there when that happens, then. Anyway – I want to know where you’re learning your moves.”
“I’m not learning my moves,” Dominicus said. “I learn the same place you learn.”
“Oh, surely not,” Hal said. “You handed Brahn his ass.”
“He was not expecting to be handed his ass,” Dominicus said. “His fault.”
Hal seemed to think on this.
“Well, that’s not going to work for long.”
Dominicus looked at him sharply, but had to admit that he was right. And if Dominicus had spent any time thinking on it, it wouldn’t have shocked him to hear it. He knew surprise was his only advantage, and it had the lifespan of a fly. So far, he had surprised Brahn at least twice; unlike Teä, who matched but did not beat him, Brahn was genuinely more skilled, and more adaptable. Dominicus had, thus far, been very lucky.
“Still, I think we should spar,” Hal said into the silence.
Dominicus looked at him, ready to pull his hands up.
Though he stopped and backed up, Hal also laughed. “Not now – I mean, after seeing you take down Brahn I figured you must have some secret teacher or hidden lessons I wanted in on, but even if it’s just surprise, you still took him down. I don’t know if you saw…”
Hal raised his chin, pointing to long, fat, burgundy oval under his chin, almost lined up with his jawbone but not quite. The wound was healing well, but was still something to see.
“Yeah, Brahn and his buddies decided that they didn’t like the way I practiced throws on them, and decided between their uniform sleeves and the ground was the best place to put my face. Buncha assholes.”
“I can’t beat a group of them,” Dominicus said. He winced just looking at the burn, and a matching cut through Hal’s eyebrow that must have some from a pretty severe impact.
“Yeah, well, you beat one of them, and that’s better than I’ve done. And it pisses me off, anyway. Prep makes these fucks creative with how they hurt you, you know? Until they busted my face open the ollamh didn’t even realize what was going on. If they don’t draw screams or blood it’s hard to tell and that bled like a son of a bitch.”
Hal pointed to his brow.
Dominicus grunted, sympathies aroused, but…
“I don’t want grudges,” he said.
“They’ve got a grudge with you.”
“Yeah, but I did not ask for it. And I am not interested in keeping it up.”
“Sure,” Hal said, nodding, hands stuffed in his pockets as they cleared the bit where they had to be careful of shit. He gave Dominicus an irritatingly knowing sideways look. “They’re going to keep it up well enough, I think.”
“Well, I do not need more of it.” Dominicus said. “I am not looking for fights.”
“Hm,” Hal grunted, looking thoughtfully up at the sky. They walked in silence for several paces.
“Well, how about this,” Hal said. “I’m sure there’s something I’m good at that you could use more practice with, right?” When Dominicus looked at him – a perfectly innocent look, he thought, merely inquiring – Hal put his shoulders up defensively and laughed.
“I’m not implying anything – I don’t want to know, I’m not probing for weaknesses, you don’t have to like, line it up, but that’s what we’re all here for. I’ll bet there’s something I could be helpful with. And that’s all I’m really asking. Just some sparring every now and then. A bunch of other cadets are already doing it – especially the Prep cadets. So let’s spar. You help me with Grappling, I help you with… whatever. We both prosper. See?”
Dominicus watched the ground pass under his feet, the longer grass inching upward every step as they closed in on their Groups class, until it would swallow his knees, only to cut off sharply once they passed into the class area. He wasn’t sure what it was stirring in his chest; it seemed stupid to think maybe Hal could help him figure out what was wrong with how he did his work for Ancient Languages. He was sure that wasn’t what Hal was interested in, anyway. All of these Ainjir wanted to fight, and only wanted to fight, and he wanted no part of it. This was a school, yes, and one that aimed to train warriors, but he was a scholar (or would be). As long as it was still a school, there was still something for him to get out of it.
“And if it just so happens along the way that we throw Brahn’s face into the ground slightly more than he throws our faces into the ground, so be it. I’ll take that. No grudges here.”
Hal was being casual, watching the sky, the grass, the trees off in the distance, but as he waited for an answer, he watched Dominicus’ face. Dominicus wondered if it was as hard to read his face for Ainjir as Ainjir’s faces occasionally were for him.
That was silly, though – they often read his intentions just fine. It was their way to make their expressions illogical. A cultural commitment to dissembling. Or maybe he just still wasn’t used to seeing so many Ainjir faces, and having to depend so closely on what was going on behind them. He felt the distance between them more sharply than ever, even as he put his arm forward, Ainjir-style, for their agreement, and tried to trust Hal’s smile.