The morning frost clung to Darwin's eyelashes as he stepped outside the cabin. The snow crunched under his boots—uneven, brittle, unpredictable. Just like him.
Gajisk stood with a mug of steaming tea, staring at Darwin's stance like a blacksmith inspecting a flawed blade.
"Feet apart," the old man muttered. "Left foot forward. No—forward, not dragged."
Darwin tried. His left foot rolled inward, knee sinking. Everything felt… wrong.
He clicked his tongue in frustration. "Why does my body never match the stance?"
"Because this stance wasn't made for you," Gajisk replied bluntly. "It was made for complete bodies, steady mana flow, balanced energy. You have none of that."
Darwin froze.
He hated when the truth hit too hard, too fast.
"But that's why you're going to start from the ground," Gajisk continued. "Quite literally. We're rebuilding you from your feet up."
Darwin lowered himself into a stance again. The cold burned the soles of his boots. His left leg trembled.
"I don't understand," he muttered. "How can footwork matter so much?"
"Because footwork **is** swordsmanship," Gajisk answered. "Hands follow the blade. The blade follows the body. The body follows the legs. And the legs follow—"
"—balance," Darwin finished, breath steaming in the air.
But his balance was broken.
Always had been.
Gajisk tossed a wooden stick at him. "Walk."
Darwin raised an eyebrow. "Walk?"
"On this."
Gajisk pointed toward a narrow log placed across the snow—about the width of a forearm, slick with frost.
"You expect me to—"
"Walk."
Darwin stepped onto it.
His left foot wobbled instantly.
His center of gravity tilted.
He flailed for balance, arms shaking, breath catching—
He fell off.
The snow cushioned him, but humiliation stung deepest.
Gajisk shrugged. "Again."
Darwin climbed back.
Failed.
Again.
Failed.
Again—
Until he stopped falling because his body learned where to place weight before his mind did.
"Good," Gajisk said. "You're improving."
"It feels… different."
"How?"
Darwin inhaled, chest rising and falling with cold air.
"My right side… tries to compensate. But there's nothing to compensate with."
"So your left side—"
"—has to do the job of both."
Gajisk nodded. "That's the beginning of your style."
Darwin paused.
*My style…?*
No. He shook the thought away. He wasn't ready. Not yet.
"We're far from calling it anything," Gajisk said, reading his expression. "Right now you're just trying to walk straight."
They trained until noon.
Darwin walked the log forward, backward, sideways.
He swung lightly, testing how shifts in weight altered his swing arc.
He learned how his missing right arm forced his body to twist more to compensate.
Every movement was wrong.
But in that wrongness, tiny fragments of possibility formed.
At sunset, he collapsed onto the snowbank, chest heaving, legs spasming.
"You're not weak," Gajisk said quietly. "You're… differently built."
Darwin stared at his left hand.
"If that's true," he whispered, "then I have to learn to fight differently."
Gajisk did not speak.
He didn't have to.
Darwin tightened his grip around the wooden sword.
Today was the first step.
A broken step, but a step forward.