A kick woke him up, and he rose with even more energy than the day before.
2 hours of running, 2 hours of striking, and then sprinting down the slope.
That day, the number was reduced to 18; each run he took, getting a little bit further down the slope than the last, before inevitably skidding down the rest of the way.
However, the anger he harboured previously had disappeared, replaced by deep concentration and dedication.
At the end of the day, Brutus once again sat at the peak of the mound and stared at the waves of sand in silence.
...
A kick, and he rose, looking almost rested.
Running, striking, and sprinting down the incline.
And once again, the number of runs was reduced to 17.
Then he sat at the top and admired the dunes.
...
He rose. And it finally looked like he got a full night's rest.
The same as yesterday.
Down to 16.
He sat at the top yet again.
...
Wake up. Run. Strike. Sprint down the slope.
However, the number of runs remained at 16.
But he wasn't shaken; he instead sat at the top and listened to the sands' indistinguishable whispers.
...
Then came the plateau.
Rise, run, strike, sprint.
16.
And listen to the sand.
...
Same as yesterday.
16. Again.
Listen to the sand.
...
16.
Try to understand it.
...
16.
Argue with it. Curse it. Plead with it.
...
16...
...
The month's end had arrived.
Then left.
And Brutus stayed at 16 runs.
For 2 weeks, that number didn't budge. His determination thinned by the day, worn down like stone under tidal waves.
Then came the morning when he rose looking like he hadn't slept at all.
He ran through the flat valley, barely breaking a sweat. He dragged his sword to the mound and struck the beam, the pain now greeting his body like an old friend. And he approached the dune's edge with hollow eyes.
He sprinted down the slope, once, twice, three times, all the way to the fourteenth.
On the fifteenth try, Brutus repeated the motions, hang his body over the cliff, drop, fly.
By now, he'd been able to consistently get about two-thirds down the incline, and on the current attempt, he got to that point... and passed it, then he passed three-quarters down the slope.
And miraculously, He's almost run down its entirety without falling. The bottom got closer and closer, only a handful of steps away. His heart finally surged.
But the mound wasn't ready to part with Brutus just yet. The sand under him, acting almost like a fluid, allowed his desperate foot to sink a little deeper. And again, the dune threw him down with familiar cruelty.
He slid down the last few feet, face-first in the sand.
Not a single drop of determination remained in him anymore.
Not even anger was left to feel.
He lay there empty, as the sun crawled beneath the horizon, leaving him in the cold.
Alicia was about to head over to Brutus, in an attempt to console him, if not for Alistair putting his arm out to stop her.
He shook his head. "The kid needs to figure it outhimself." He turned to look at him. "Now, we should just leave him and see if he does."
Alicia gazed at Brutus, her green eyes silently encouraging him. She frowned and turned away to the cottage. "You've got this..." She whispered.
Alistair stayed a split second longer, his ocean blue eyes fixed on him, the resemblance of worry hidden behind them. Until he, too, turned to leave for the cottage.
A little while later, Brutus wandered the dunes, feeling the sand drift inexplainably beneath him.
And for the first time in a while, his mind drifted back to his past: Julia, the Knight order, and his parents.
He remembered how, at the age of 8, he'd been taken in by the Knight order after his parents' death, and how the children and nobles alike looked at him with thinly veiled disgust. A stray. A bastard. A rat with no backing.
Everyone except for Julia.
For a reason he never understood, Julia had made the choice of choosing him as her knight when they both turned ten. She ignored the looks, the whispers, the nobles' quiet sneers.
And from that moment, their relationship bloomed.
They made childish promises of marriage when they matured, which eventually fell through. They made childish memories, which amounted to lies.
Brutus trained and improved himself all for her; every drop of blood he spilt, every drop of sweat, was for her. To stand beside her. To be worthy of her.
And now he wasn't even worthy of conquering a pile of sand.
He then drifted to think about whatever he remembered about his mother and father, which wasn't much. After all, they'd been killed when he was 8.
His mother was a noblewoman. Of the house Valerond, the same house that had her killed. He couldn't really remember what her status within the house was exactly; all he knew was that she was of fairly high stature.
His father was a very highly decorated knight who worked for the New Kalegorian Empire. Then eventually went on to inherit the position of knight commander.
Brutus and his father didn't have the deepest of relations; all he remembers of his father is him being a stoic, hardworking man. But when they did rarely exchange words, he never spoke about anything other than strength.
Not Kindness.
Not Patience.
Not understanding.
Just strength, raw, absolute, unforgiving strength
Brutus remembered one line that his father repeated time and time again.
"The world bends to force. If it doesn't bend, you make it."
His father's voice. Heavy. Final. Cold. Colder than even that of Alistair.
Brutus felt something twist inside him.
He had been running down the slope exactly like that. Forcing every step, attacking the sand like an enemy. Even if not meaning to.
But the sand rejected him all the same.
And a forgotten part of him, one still influenced by his past, didn't let him use anything but force.
He thought that if he pushed a little harder, focused a little more, strained a little longer, he'd finally be able to stand on even ground with Alicia.
But he wasn't even worthy of that ideal.
Brutus lay down on a small tilted mound of sand, letting the cool darkness of the desert pass over him in quiet waves. For a while, he simply breathed. The sand beneath his shoulder shifted with a soft sigh, loose, unpredictable, seemingly never shaped by force.
It never moved the way he wanted it, and neither did he.
And suddenly, something ugly twisted in his chest.
He realised that all his life he'd never been the one in control.
He forced himself to become worthy of Julia.
Forced himself to rise in the Knight order.
Forced himself to earn Alistair's approval.
Forced himself to conquer the dune.
Forced, forced, forced.
Every step he'd ever taken had been a demand. An order he carved into himself.
His eyes drifted back to it.
"Maybe... It's not the sand that moves against me. Maybe it's me pushing against myself."
The thought struck deeper than any bruise.
He began to understand. "All this time, the sand wasn't choosing its path... I was."
He swallowed.
"I kept moving the way I thought I should—never the way I wanted"
The dune suddenly felt less like a massive lump of sand.
And more like a mirror.
The sand, this whole time, was Brutus never choosing his own path.