The months after Alois arrived were some of the toughest John had ever faced, far harder than anything in his first life, let alone this one. He'd always been active, but Alois's training regimen felt like it had been designed by someone who thought "exhaustion" was a warm-up. Every morning he was dragged from sleep at the first hint of dawn, when the sky was still more bruised purple than blue. Then came hours of drills: running until his legs trembled, striking until his arms burned, sparring until he could barely keep his eyes focused. By the time the swordmaster dismissed him for lunch, he was usually sweating hard enough to soak through his shirt.
Unfortunately, lunch didn't mean rest. It meant sitting down for another round of lessons, languages, history, mathematics, philosophy, anything his tutors thought a young gentleman should know. They didn't go easy on him either. Even with his near-perfect memory helping him along, the workload felt endless.
Still, John rarely complained. He'd asked for this life, after all. Being young again felt like a second chance he didn't dare squander. He'd wasted enough years the first time around; he refused to repeat that mistake. The old saying, youth is wasted on the young, echoed in his mind often, and he was determined to be the exception.
Months of this grind transformed him. Puberty hadn't arrived yet, but his body was already poised for it, all lean muscle and wiry strength. He could outrun grown men who worked fields for a living, move with the quickness of a seasoned dancer, and recite half a dozen subjects with the confidence of a royal heir.
Alois liked to joke about it.
"Keep this up, lad," he'd say while John wheezed through another set of drills,"and one day you'll be able to beat me without needing to catch your breath."
John would shoot him a glare between gasps. "One day? I was hoping for next Tuesday."
Alois only snorted and readied his sword. "Then try harder."
Despite the misery, despite the aches that clung to him from dawn to dusk, John felt something else too, something he hadn't expected. Pride. Purpose.
One quiet afternoon, John sat curled up in the sitting room with a worn copy of Meditations balanced on his knee. The sun filtered through the tall windows in gentle bands of gold, warming the carpet and filling the space with that soft, drowsy stillness that made studying almost pleasant. Across from him, his mother worked at her writing desk, quill scratching steadily as she drafted a letter. Every so often she paused to reread a line, tapping her chin, before bending back over the parchment.
John had his own work to finish, his philosophy tutor expected a short paper by Friday, and he'd only made it through a handful of Marcus Aurelius's passages. Stoicism was interesting enough, but Aurelius had a habit of sounding like he was speaking through a thick fog. Still, John forced himself to keep going, making mental notes for later.
The peaceful scene shattered in an instant.
The door slammed open with a bang that made Martha jump in her chair. William stormed in like a gust of wind, his coat flaring behind him, a grin plastered across his face so wide it was almost alarming.
"EUREKA!" he bellowed. "I HAVE DONE IT!"
John blinked at him, stunned. His mother just stared, quill frozen mid-air. For a heartbeat or two no one moved, until John finally cleared his throat.
"…Done what, exactly, Grandfather?"
William dropped his bag on a nearby table with a loud thud. "You know how I've been trying to expand the family fleet," he began, waving a hand in the air as though sweeping aside months of frustration. "All the money we made during the war, it's been sitting idle in our metaphorical war chest, doing nothing but mocking me."
"Yes, Father, I remember," Martha said, exhaling slowly. "You mentioned certain… obstacles."
"'Obstacles' is putting it kindly." He let out a huff. "The New England ships are too small for anything worthwhile. And the shipwrights in England, robbers, the lot of them. Their prices ought to be criminal." His eyes gleamed suddenly. "So I decided I'm finished with begging and bargaining. If others won't build what I need, then I'll build my own."
John straightened in his chair. "Your own ships?"
"YES!" William slapped the table for emphasis. "Exactly."
"But we don't own a shipyard," John pointed out. "Not a single dockyard to our name."
"We don't," William agreed, puffing up with the satisfaction of a man about to reveal a masterstroke. "Which is why I'm going to build one."
He pulled a large roll of paper from his bag, flicked it open, and spread it across the nearest table. The map of Philadelphia unfurled like a banner.
"There," he said, tapping a small island south of the city with the energy of a man revealing buried treasure. "League Island. I've purchased the land, quite a lot of it, in fact, and construction on the shipyard will begin within the month. Two drydocks here, additional workshops here and here…"
John leaned over the map, eyebrows rising. "That's… ambitious."
"It is," William said, grinning with barely contained triumph. "The governor wasn't thrilled, muttered something about England taking offense, but several local merchants backed the idea. With their support, I pushed the purchase through."
His eyes shone with excitement, the kind that made him look younger than his years.
John stood over the map, feeling as though someone had lifted the edge of the world and shown him what lay underneath. A private shipyard, their shipyard. The possibilities hit him all at once, tumbling over one another in a rush that left his mind buzzing.
He imagined hulls lined up along the docks, vessels built to their exact specifications instead of whatever England or New England had on hand. Warships reinforced in the right places. Sleek merchantmen designed to outrun privateers. Maybe even experimental hull shapes or rigging styles he only half-remembered from his old life. It was like staring at a blank page with a quill already dipped in ink.
So many ideas. Too many ideas.
And then the weight of the possibility and their requirements landed hard on his shoulders.
He still had essays to write, lessons to study for, training to endure. Every hour of his day was already spoken for. There wasn't room for shipbuilding dreams, not unless he carved time from other obligations.
The excitement curdled into something sharp and hostile.
His breath caught and began to have thoughts racing through his head.
He tried to steady himself on the table, but the thoughts kept piling up, deadlines, schedules, expectations, and his lungs began to forget how to work properly. His breaths came quicker, shallow and ragged. His chest tightened as though someone had looped a rope around it and pulled.
He stepped back from the table, vision blurring at the edges. The room swirled before him.
"John?" His mother's chair scraped loudly as she stood. "John, sweetheart, what's wrong?"
"I'm, I'm fine," he tried to say, but the words stumbled out in pieces. "Just, I just need,"
The room tilted.
The last thing he saw was his mother's face tightening with alarm before everything dissolved into darkness.