The cold morning wind sliced across the clearing as Darwin tightened his coat and stepped onto the packed snow. His arms and legs still throbbed from previous training, but the lingering pain had begun to feel familiar—almost necessary.
Grajisk was already there, leaning his back against a tree and chewing on something that looked suspiciously like burnt meat.
"Morning," Darwin said quietly.
Grajisk raised a brow. "You're early."
Darwin shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."
"Good. Maybe exhaustion will teach you something today."
Darwin didn't know whether that was encouragement or an insult.
"Today," Grajisk said, pushing off the tree, "you learn timing. Or at least you'll try."
Darwin blinked. "Timing?"
"Blade movement. Step rhythm. Reading something before it hits your face. Survival basics."
Darwin nodded slowly. He had heard knights talk about timing before, but they always explained it with long terms he didn't understand. Grajisk was simpler. Blunt. Brutally practical.
"Hold your sword," Grajisk said.
Darwin lifted the wooden blade. His stance settled into its crooked, natural shape—left foot bearing more weight, torso tilted slightly to the side.
Grajisk nodded. "That's your posture now. Ugly, but stable. Let's see if you can make it useful."
He walked to the workshop door and picked up a small leather pouch. Darwin tensed as he recognized the sound of stones shifting inside.
Grajisk returned, smacking the pouch into his palm. "This drill's simple. I throw. You dodge."
Darwin swallowed.
"Dodge what?"
A stone shot through the air and hit him squarely in the forehead.
"Ow—!"
"That."
Darwin rubbed his brow, glaring. "You didn't warn me!"
"That's the point."
Grajisk tossed another stone. Darwin flinched back late, and it grazed his cheek.
"Too slow," Grajisk said.
"Because you're throwing without counting!"
"Life doesn't count for you either."
Darwin clenched his teeth.
Grajisk flicked another stone, faster this time. Darwin dodged—barely.
"Better," the old man said. "Don't think too much. Thinking gets you killed."
Another stone flew.
Darwin shifted his left foot and leaned—his tilted stance absorbing the movement naturally.
The stone passed beside his ear.
Grajisk nodded. "Good. Lean left with your instinct. Your body knows what to do before you decide."
Darwin breathed out a shaky breath. "That felt… cleaner."
"Then trust that feeling."
Another stone came—faster, at a low angle.
Darwin didn't react with his arm or his sword.
He let his body tilt—left again—his weight shifting as if pulled by gravity.
The stone missed him completely.
Grajisk grunted. "Now you're learning."
Darwin wiped sweat from his brow. "This is different from stance training."
"Of course," Grajisk replied. "Stance keeps you alive when you're still. Timing keeps you alive when things are trying to kill you."
Darwin nodded slowly.
---
After thirty minutes of stone-dodging (and many bruises), Grajisk set the pouch down and pointed to the snow.
"Now we run."
Darwin's shoulders tensed. "Run… how?"
"In circles around me. Don't fall."
Darwin began running, his feet sinking lightly into the snow. At first he tried to move in a normal pattern—straight strides, clean steps.
He slipped almost immediately.
Grajisk huffed. "Stop forcing normal steps. Use the footwork you learned."
Darwin restarted, leaning left on instinct.
His strides curved. His body dipped slightly with every turn. The path he carved around Grajisk was uneven, shaped like a bent circle.
But he didn't fall.
Not once.
Grajisk nodded, watching the strange pattern form. "That's your rhythm. See it?"
Darwin looked down at the ground. The footprints formed a pattern—left leaning, heavy on one side, never symmetrical.
"…It looks wrong," Darwin muttered.
"Wrong for others," Grajisk said. "Right for you."
Darwin kept running until his legs burned so fiercely he couldn't feel the cold anymore.
Eventually he slowed, panting hard.
Grajisk tossed him a cup of warm water. "Drink. Then we start again."
Darwin groaned but drank it anyway.
---
Grajisk placed a long branch on the snow.
"Hit this."
Darwin raised the wooden sword, focusing on the branch.
He swung in a clean downward strike.
The blade bounced off snow, completely missing the target.
Grajisk sighed. "You're using a normal swing again."
Darwin protested, "I thought that was the right way—"
"For someone with perfect balance? Maybe. For you? Absolutely not."
Grajisk pointed. "Try again. But let your body pull itself."
Darwin exhaled and reset.
This time—
He dipped his shoulder left.
Shifted weight.
Bent his knee.
And swung through the pull of imbalance.
The curved arc of his swing sliced the branch cleanly.
Snow scattered like dust.
Darwin blinked.
"That felt… easier," he whispered.
Grajisk nodded. "That's your natural angle of attack. Remember it."
Darwin swung again.
Another clean hit.
His movements were loose, crooked, uneven—
But they flowed.
Grajisk watched carefully. "Your blade doesn't move straight. It curves. That's rare."
"Is that a bad thing?" Darwin asked.
"No," Grajisk said. "It means your sword isn't going where others expect."
Darwin froze.
Something about that sentence hit deeper than it should.
"Most fighters expect predictable movements," Grajisk continued. "Straight lines. Balanced forms. You don't have that."
Darwin's grip tightened.
"So I'm… weaker?"
"No," Grajisk said firmly. "You're unpredictable. That's a nightmare for anyone who fights you."
Darwin's breath caught.
He'd never thought of it that way. Not once.
---
As they continued the drills, Darwin became more aware of the way his body moved—how his imbalance guided the blade, how his weight shifted differently from other fighters.
By late afternoon, he was exhausted.
But a thought had begun forming.
A tiny one.
Not yet fully shaped.
But there.
In the rhythm of his footsteps.
In the curved arc of his swing.
In the way his stance felt natural when it leaned left.
He didn't speak it.
Not yet.
But inside, he felt something stirring—
a quiet acknowledgment:
*There's a way I'm meant to fight…
and it's not the way others taught me.*
---
As they wrapped up the day's training, a distant howl echoed from the deeper forest.
A sound that wasn't normal.
Darwin froze. "What was that?"
Grajisk didn't answer immediately.
His eyes narrowed toward the treeline.
"…A reminder," he said quietly, "that someday soon, you won't be swinging at branches or dodging stones."
Darwin swallowed.
"You'll face something real," Grajisk added. "And when that day comes, your own movement is the only thing that will save you."
Darwin looked at his uneven footprints, half buried already by falling snow.
A thought came but he soon abandoned it.