15th of Winter, 520 A.V.
"You've learned to move your djed in a flux from one muscle to another," Arival's words echoed in Bandin's head as he entered the Kendokan Sasaran some days later. "You learned it in the old way, through observation and study. Now it is yours to continue learning the same way."
The young smith's body was sore, bruised, and beaten. His arms especially felt almost stretched out and throbbing; his first use of the Flux had been sloppy and had left its calling card. He figured his next uses would be too; he had an uphill battle ahead of him.
Arival was gone, sent off on some mission or another with the Akalak infantry. A chance encounter had led to his meeting the man, had led to him unlocking, if only just barely, an even greater control of his own djed through observation of the warrior's unnatural movements and grace. Now, however, Bandin found himself needing more than just an unlocking of an undeveloped talent; he needed to get better.
He'd always felt a strong connection to weapons, he'd even recently felt such a strong connection as to feel on the cusp of a breakthrough, but never had he truly dedicated himself to the study of arms; even with vorilescence, he had always only been a crafter with an affinity for combat that'd never been realized. Arival had changed that, the Akalak culture had changed that. Now Bandin wanted to learn at least a little of their ways.
Mizra Aqdas towered over the young smith. His silver and onyx lakans hung, perfectly at home, by his sides. Here was a man who glared with war and moved with a step set to battle drums.
"Instructor Aqdas?" Bandin approached the massive warrior and without hesitation or shame made his ask: "I need your help."
The akalak looked down to the small, twenty year old man. His eyes narrowed. "Do you?"
The warrior approached him, saying nothing and had to shift his gaze down even further just to maintain eye contact with Bandin.
"Well," he paused, "do tell."
***
Bandin blocked the blow from the wooden halberd; Mizra wasn't necessarily as fast as the flux-powered Arival had been, but he almost seemed to be at the same time. His movements were near perfectly fluid, close to the pinnacle of expertise certainly. Each individual strike was able to be dealt with, but Bandin feared what the master of the Kendoka could do if he hadn't been holding back, if he chained those strikes.
Once again a practice glaive filled Bandin's hands. His arms were especially sore today, even so after taking a few days off; the sheer stress of his consecutive week of sparring with Arival had left him near bedridden, barely able to make it into the shop, after their final bout.
The Flux hadn't helped. He'd used it wrong and for the first time too. He'd done too much; as far as he could figure he'd directed a greater amount of energy than he should've from way too many places. It was more than he could handle and he'd passed out cold afterwards.
Now, he was doing his best to work his way back up.
His djed flowed in and out of his glaive, as always, an interchange of information and something else he still couldn't put his finger on. The practice glaive hadn't felt the same as his own had, not at first, but now it was beginning to. It was a forming familiarity, as far as he could tell, of some kind.
There.
Bandin accelerated the djed in his arms, almost imagining a vacuum of sort that started in his knuckles and pulled slight amounts of power towards his fist. The djed was dispersed across the entirety of both limbs, as he lacked fine control, and he did his best to draw on only a little. He tied the flow to his breath, remembering to limit his focusing on the energy to only a breath's length; he didn't want to overdo it again.
His arms moved much quicker for a split second as he tried to capitalize on the opening that he'd thought he'd seen Mizra leave. The akalak twisted his torso to create space and caught the younger warrior's glaive against his halberd.
Bandin exhaled and allowed his focusing on the djed vacuum within his fists to dull.
Wordcount: 736 Words