Vespera had always fought as if the world were too flexible for rules.
So far, that had worked.
The elven guild master made it clear from the start that that day would not be comfortable for her. There was no warm-up. No long explanation. Just an instruction far too simple for someone like Vespera.
"Today, you do not improvise."
She smiled immediately. "Then today I don't fight."
"Today you learn," he replied.
Vespera walked to the center of the field with light, almost lazy steps. Her relaxed posture contrasted with her attentive gaze. Elara watched in silence. Liriel looked clearly suspicious.
"She never follows any plan," Liriel commented. "How is this going to work?"
"It won't," the master replied. "At first."
The exercise was straightforward. A course with fixed and moving targets. Precise attacks. No variation. No adaptation. Always the same movement, at the same timing.
Vespera hit the first target easily. The second as well. On the third, she missed on purpose, diverting the strike at the last second.
"Restart," the master said.
"I hit two," she replied.
"You failed the exercise."
She shrugged and returned to the start.
On the second attempt, she hit them all. But the timing was wrong.
"Again."
On the third, she tried to speed up too much.
"Again."
Her face slowly began to lose its smile.
"This is stupid," Vespera said. "In a real fight, I would have finished all this already."
"In a real fight, you would die trying to be too creative," the master replied.
She advanced again, now visibly irritated. The mistake came quickly. One step out of rhythm. One poorly calculated strike.
"You rely on chaos," he said. "But chaos without direction is not an advantage."
Vespera took a deep breath. "Chaos is my nature."
"Then refine it."
The training got worse. The master began to change small variables. One target shifted position slightly. Another delayed by a second. Vespera reacted on instinct and failed whenever she improvised.
"She hates this," Elara murmured.
"She hates failing," I replied.
After several frustrated attempts, Vespera stopped in the middle of the field.
"This makes no sense," she said. "I fight better when I don't think."
"Exactly," the master replied. "And that's why you don't notice when you make mistakes."
She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, there was something different there. Not anger. Forced concentration.
She tried again. Slower. More restrained. She hit everything.
But her body trembled.
"She's holding back too much," Liriel commented.
"She's learning," Elara corrected.
In the next exercise, Vespera had to repeat the same sequence dozens of times. No variation. No shortcuts. Every mistake reset everything.
The fatigue came quickly. Not physical. Mental.
"This is worse than getting beaten," Vespera said, panting.
"Because you can't run away from yourself," the master replied.
At a critical moment, Vespera tried to break the rule. She advanced out of rhythm, using an unexpected maneuver. It worked. She hit all the targets.
She smiled.
The master did not.
"You survived," he said. "You did not learn."
She fell silent.
In the final exercise, she had to fight an illusory opponent that did not react to chaos. It simply executed perfect patterns. Vespera tried to improvise. Failed. Tried to confuse it. Failed again.
When she finally accepted the imposed rhythm, she managed to win.
She collapsed into a seated position afterward, breathing deeply.
"I hate this," she said.
"But it worked," I replied.
She looked at me. "I don't want to become someone predictable."
"Control is not predictability," Elara said. "It's choice."
Liriel nodded. "Even chaos needs limits."
That night, Vespera was restless. She paced, stopped, repeated movements in the air, always the same pattern.
"You'll go crazy if you keep this up," I said.
"Maybe," she replied. "But for the first time, I know exactly where I mess up."
That day's training did not take chaos away from Vespera.
It gave it form.
And that, for someone like her, was the hardest part.