Brutus got back to his feet, sand dusting every inch of his body. "Dammit, only 14 left..." He mumbled. Knocking the grains off his clothes.
He began to trudge up the slope of the dune once again.
And back at the top, he suspended himself in a frail balance over the edge of the mound. And released his grip.
Body gliding down the slope, feet lightly tapping the sand, wind whispering in his ear.
This time, the sand under his foot dipped just an inch deeper than normal.
That inch was all it took.
As if the very slope had something against Brutus. His body cartwheeled through the air. Barreling down, slamming shoulder-first into the incline, ricocheting twice and grinding to a halt with his face at the bottom.
Sand filled every corner of his mouth. Again.
And Alistair held up 2 fingers this time.
Brutus punched his fist into the sand "Dammit! Why can't I figure it out?"
...
He hiked back up the dune.
And repeated it all.
Weightlessness. Hope. Disaster.
"3"
...
Another attempt. Another wipeout.
"5"
...
The dune mocked him with every grain.
"8"
...
Desperation sowed into his every step.
"13"
...
And eventually, Alistair's fingers showed. "14."
Brutus stomped his feet onto the sand, anger in each one.
"Dammit... dammit... dammit!"
He stood at the top of the slope once again. And settled his eyes on the sky, the colour of day changed to the colour of sunset, warm orange light scattered by every drop of moisture in the high cirrus clouds. The low, tall shadows cast by the dunes painted half of the desert in shadow. The further away they got, the more they blended into the horizon.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head upward. Slowly exhaling.
"I can do this..." He muttered, as he leaned over the edge, one more time.
Through clenched teeth, his muscles shot him forward; the feeling of wind caressing his face had grown to irritate him. The sense of lightness angered him. He pounded every step into the sand, rage dripping off each one, as if to get back at the sand that did him wrong— creating a rhythmic thump that shook the mound.
He growled through each stride, determined to get to the bottom.
He was the closest to it he'd ever been, a minuscule sense of hope taking root in him. But the indignation of the desert did not take Brutus's retaliation lightly. Being barely past the halfway point. The sand devilishly hid a small rock under its surface, digging into his boot and shooting him off balance.
He tumbled.
He crashed.
And slid down the rest of the way to the bottom on his back. Eyes fixed on the orange and vermilion sky.
'At least I didn't get sand in the mouth this time.' He thought, every word dipped in disappointment.
Lying there, a powerful shadow engulfed him.
"Get up," Alistair commanded. "There's still some daylight left." An unknown emotion to Brutus was engraved in his' deep blue eyes.
...
Brutus slid down the slope for the 20th and last time for the day. Darkness now reigning in the sky. He sat on the sand, facing away from the tall dune, staring into space, lost in thought.
Brutus dug his hand into the sand, clawed a handful of it out and let it spill down between his fingers.
"Hey..." Alicia spoke softly, sitting beside him.
He didn't look away from whatever it was that caught his eye so much. "Hey." He replied.
"You... ok?" She asked delicately.
"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, you're kinda just brooding and looking off into space right now, so..." She said bluntly.
"...Yeah, I guess you're right." Brutus agreed.
"So...?"
" 'So', what?"
"So? What's wrong?" She pestered.
Brutus took his eyes away from the empty space, looked down, and sighed. "It's just... I'm disappointed. In myself"
"Disappointed? Why?"
"Well, we've been here for a little over 2 weeks, and I've still not figured out how to get down this hill."
Alicia listened to him intently.
"And I just thought I would be smart enough to figure this out quickly, like when I figured out the Misaligned and the Basilisk."
This time, Alicia looked at where Brutus had initially been.
"You know... I had done this exact thing once before as well, running down this mound."
Brutus gazed at her. "Really...?"
"Really." She answered. "And you wanna know how long it took me to figure it out?"
Brutus scoffed, "Knowing you. Probably a few days?"
"No..." She flicked the sand with her finger. "It took me over a month."
Brutus blinked. "A... A month? What? How?"
She grabbed a handful of sand and lifted it with her hand, the grains dripping from it, creating a granular waterfall that rippled with the light wind.
"Because it's not just about digging one foot after another into this sand." The last grain of which slipped from her fingertips. "It's about listening to it, and letting it guide you, not you guide it."
Brutus turned to gaze at the sand, 'Letting it guide you?'
"But wait. How do I let it guide me?" He eagered.
"That's something you'll have to figure out for yourself." Her warm smile illuminating the night.
"Right... of course I have to figure it out myself." He said dryly.
Standing up and brushing the sand off her pants. "Now come." She said, reaching out with her hand, "It's late, we should get some sleep."
Grabbing it, Brutus got to his feet. "Yeah..." He grinned.
...
A sharp kick tugged him out of sleep.
"Get up."
Brutus got up with a little more energy than last time.
Like the previous day, he ran for 2 hours. Then dragged his sword behind his back to the tall slope.
He struck the metal beam for another 2 hours, Pain now getting to know his body. And then he ran down the incline.
He rolled.
He bounced.
And spat out sand.
But at the end of the day, the number of failures was reduced to 19.
Instead of the foot, Brutus sat at the peak of the mound, watching the last shred of light from the sun get pushed back by the night. 'What am I doing wrong?' He puzzled.
He recalled each of his attempts and how he tried to listen to the sand, still struggling to grasp how to listen to something that can't speak.
He remembered how, each time, the sand, as if having a deep-rooted grudge against him, had dipped, or slid, or hid something beneath it, in the aim of fumbling his footing.
He stared at the waves of sand undulating across the horizon, acting as if it were a fluid, just frozen in place. As he stared, a gentle breeze passed over the top of the mound, ruffling his onyx black hair—the sand around him shifted, not sliding down, but flowing, almost as if it were choosing its own direction.
Brutus blinked. 'Why does it move like that...?' The soft hiss of the settling sand whispered an answer he couldn't yet understand.
He continued to gaze at the sand, watching as it occasionally moved in a direction it seemed it shouldn't have moved in. He tried to make sense of its erratic movement.
"Don't try to make sense of it." A voice cut evenly behind Brutus.
Brutus looked back at him.
"It isn't something you'll figure out overnight."
Then he looked back at the waves of sand in the distance.
"Force won't bend the world; that'll only end with you bending to it."
Brutus simmered on that. "But isn't a Swordsman's 'will to cut the world,' forcing the world to bend to his will?"
"It's not forcing it to bend. It's willing it to." He turned away towards the cottage. "Questions about the will now will only hurt you. So worry about not eating sand the next time."
Brutus shot up to follow his mentor. 'Force won't bend the world...'
He trudged after Alistair, each step heavy and steady. And yet the sand didn't collapse under his weight.
Brutus's body was bruised. His throat was dry. His pride was hurt.
Yet for the first time, the pain didn't feel like failure.
It felt like direction.
He looked once more at the dune. The thing that humiliated him, battered him, mocked him.
"Tomorrow," He whispered. "I'll try again."