---Sword---

---Victor's perspective---

I stand in the violently orange wooden room, my feet together on the floor while I watch the edge of a curved sword whip towards my head.

Barely adjusting my footing, I shoot my left forearm out to smack against the flat of the blade, breaking the attack's momentum and sending it harmlessly away to my left.

My attacker quickly recovers and aims a slice directly at my midsection, like he's trying to cut me in half.

I lazily spin out of the way of the slash before stopping, facing him.

I see none of the rage or fear that he showed the last time he attacked me.

This time his face only shows focus.

My opponent closes the distance back up and aims seven whippy slashes at me in the space of about five seconds.

I dodge or parry all of them easily.

He backs off to catch his breath but keeps his sword pointing at me.

This style of fencing is a lot more nimble than I took it for, just looking at the swords!

I assumed it'd be a bit more, kind of, brutal with committed slashes and stabs aimed at dismemberment or disembowelment and the like!

Instead, it's got much more of a swishy, dancy quality to it!

"How bout you stop trynna hit me and hit me, kid(!)" I goad, playfully.

Irritation flashes across his face as the holo in my breastpocket turns the tease into his language for him.

He lunges again and growls and shrieks as I dodge his more ferocious attacks.

"Pawel!" scolds the stern voice of Leszek 'Chopper' Błąkała, the kid's moustachioed, Nowo Pomorzanin karabela instructor (which it did slightly break my brain to find out is pronounced 'Leshek Bwonkawa', having seen it written down first(!)), his own imported wooden sword resting on his shoulder "Discipline is your friend! Control is your friend! Anger is not! Your opponent's taunts are words and nothing more! Do not let them rile you!"

"Tak, Mistrz Błąkała!" barks the boy (translated as 'Yes, Master Błąkała!' for me a second later) as he visibly calms himself down, slipping back into that focus he had before and aiming three controlled strikes at me, one after another.

His stance is unbalanced and, if he keeps going like that, he'll knock himself over.

"Footwork, Pawel! Remember your footwork!" corrects the blue eyed brunet.

"Tak, Mistrz Błąkała!" Pawel says with the same tone I said '好, 师父!' in while training under Níng and Yuán.

He doesn't have the ability to split his focus properly between his upper and lower bodies as his footing gets better but his guard suffers for it!

He's still only at the conscious competence stage right now (where he can do it but not without thinking about it!)

He's a long way off of unconscious competence (where all of the movements are so ingrained that they feel completely natural and don't require any conscious direction, freeing up his consciousness to strategise and direct.)

Even still, he's already good enough that I'd say, if he ever enlists in the military at his current skill level, he'd have solid grounds to apply for a custom plasmakarabela instead of the standard issue model!

He's definitely not the same boy I met a little more than 2 years ago!

He's put on more than 20cm, for one thing, and he looks a lot less scrawny too!

His face has also lost a lot of its babyfat, giving him a much more adult appearance, even if he is still only 13 and maybe a single centimetre taller than Thran (if I'm being generous(!))

Adding to the impression of maturity, his haircut also looks like the kind of thing he might've chosen himself where, before, he had a sort of grown out bowlcut that I reckon might've just been the easiest style for his mum to maintain on him(!)

I was pretty sure, when he said he wanted to be as strong as me, that it was all talk! That he'd give it up when he realised just how much work it was going to be but… well… he's on track so far to actually do it!

Panting heavily, the boy finally faulters, speaking words I don't understand until my holo spits them out as "I…*huff*… can't keep…*huff*… going!"

"Then you may stop." allows the instructor.

The boy collapses to the orange floor, his Earth oak training sword rattling as he drops it next to him.

He lies there on his back, heaving for breath and covered in sweat.

With cool confidence, the average height man with neat brown hair strides up to me and, speaking Nowo Mazurski despite being an English speaker and Polish presumably being his first language, asks "So, Mr Taylor? How would you rate my pupil's progress since you first met him?"

"Leaps and bounds!" I beam broadly down at the panting boy on the floor.

The translator app struggles for a moment (my guess is, starting out translating that as something like 'jumps and hops' before catching the idiom there) but manages to spit my words out in Nowo Mazurski.

Pawel turns his brown eyes up to look at me and scowls "What're you talking about!? There was no improvement at all! I still couldn't even touch you!" still out of breath but not panting anymore.

I chuckle "Yeah, Pawel… If I thought there was any chance of you actually hittin' me, I wouldn't've agreed to this setup! I'd've changed clothes at least(!)" pointing to my tartan shirt, my green vest and my red chinos, none of it exactly combat gear "You're still a ways off that point but you can't write off all the progress you've made so far either!"

"Like I said, what progress!?" he answers, frustratedly.

I squat down to bring myself closer to his level and ask "You remember the second time we met, Pawel? You remember takin' that swing at me? You remember how I caught it?"

I mime the action on the empty air.

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"I remember…" he sulks.

"You notice how I didn't do that this time?" I smile.

"Yeah, it was a 'sword'!" he dismisses, tapping a finger on the wooden weapon "If you'd caught it like that, that would've been a hit!"

I shake my head, even though what he's said is part of the truth "If I'd tried to catch any of those swings like that, Pawel, you'd've broken my hand!"

His eyes widen as he props himself partway up to ask "Wait, for real!?"

"Oh, unquestionably." backs up Błąkała, matter-of-factly, from my side "For that reason, I would not have allowed a match such as this to occur at all for anyone without Mr Taylor's considerable martial pedigree. Even with such, I never would have allowed it without being here to oversee. Your strength has improved greatly since you began training with me, Pawel. I am glad Mr Taylor agrees."

A doofy grin breaks over Pawel's mouth as I extend a hand to him to hoist us both back to standing and do a bàoquán which he answers with a little sabre salute.

I turn and step over to the narrow sill where I left my engagement ring (soon to become a wedding ring) so it didn't get damaged and slip it back onto my left ringfinger.

"Are you satisfied now that you have had this match of yours with Mr Taylor, Pawel?" asks the Pomorzanin, pointing his hand over to me.

"I am, Master Błąkała."

"Good." acknowledges the man, simply "In that case, Pawel, you may leave. I have a younger class shortly and I would like to prepare for them." turning away.

"Wait!" Pawel blurts, voice hopeful.

His teacher turns back to him with a cocked eyebrow.

The boy joins me and reaches up to the level of my chest to take down an oak messer that's not a bad match to my plasmafalchion.

He holds the training sabre out to me and asks "Victor, you use a sword like this one, don't you? Don't you two want to try fighting eachother? I think it would be a very interesting exhibition!" barely hiding the hopeful excitement on his face.

Awkwardly, I start "Pawel, that's a bit-"

"Completely inappropriate." interrupts the instructor, firm but not angry, bringing the flat of his blade to the top of the one Pawel's offering me to push it down, explaining "Pawel, I understand that all you mean by this request is that you wish to see the impressive display of swordsmanship that would undoubtedly result from Mr Taylor and I crossing blades but please spare some thought to the position in which you have just placed the two of us!"

The man the best part of a head shorter than me steps to my side, facing his slightly ashamed looking student.

He keeps going with his stern correction "This man is the one who first inspired you to take up martial arts. I am your teacher. Neither one of us wishes to humiliate the other in your eyes. Neither one of us wishes to easily defeat the other and risk undermining the legitimacy of either your initial inspiration or your ongoing tuition… Even if we found ourselves an even match, we would still have lost your respect by allowing you to pit us against one another in this way. We truly have nothing to gain and much to lose by fighting one another. Now, Pawel, there is only one person I ever wish to see you measuring my skills against again and that is yourself… Do I make myself understood?"

"Yes, Master Błąkała. I'm sorry, Master Błąkała." says the boy, looking at the floor, cheeks red.

"Good. Run on home, Pawel." dismisses the man, his tone a bit softer now.

Pawel turns and both of us stride across the room to step out of the (at most) 2 year old gym building.

We come out into a Malbork that's completely transformed from the last time I was here!

Back then, except for the four hundred year old rotting colony ship in the middle of town (being transformed into a museum, right now, while still being the seat of the town council and the residence of about 10% of the population), the whole place looked absolutely medieval!

Now though, modern fabs and prefabs are absolutely everywhere, standing between the old thatched, wattle-and-daub buildings that, for whatever reason, haven't been demolished yet.

People wearing sleek nanoforged outfits walk side by side with ones wearing what look like period costumes!

I'd say it looked like a movie set except that I can't really see anywhere you could point a camera and only get the old stuff and none of the new!

Where, before, every single face in town belonged to the same ethnically homogenised group of descendants of the Pilecki's passengers, now, the roughly third of the population who're here as development workers include many faces you can tell weren't born here.

The main road through town that, last year, was just a muddy trail is now paved with locally quarried stone.

At the end of it, I can see the top of the Swift Claw poking out over the wooden stake wall, parked on the new shuttleport where there was once farmland.

I look down at the boy walking next to me and ask "How're you findin' it?" waving a hand over his unrecognisable hometown.

"It's…" he hesitates "…good?"

I smile and shake my head "I ain't gonna be offended by you sayin' things you don't like 'bout all of it, Pawel(!) I'm guessin' it's a big adjustment, right?"

He sighs "Yes… it is… There are lots of things I like… I like the fact that it's been so long since I've been properly hungry that I don't really remember what it feels like anymore! I like all the lights there are everywhere now and that none of them need firewood! I like the fact that I can get new clothes and shoes and stuff any time I want them and never have to worry about how much it will cost! I like the films I can watch, the songs I can listen to, the books I can read! I like the clean water on tap! I like all the sweets and delicious food from other worlds! I like the roads! I like the hospital! I like the zmora repulsion ring around town! I like training with Master Błąkała!… But there are some things I don't like so much, too…"

"Liiiiike?" I prod.

He frowns "I don't like how much of my time I need to spend in school now… and I know that's ungrateful! I was so excited by it when it first opened but, after a little while, I was like, 'Hey… wait? I just have to come here for hours, four days a week, most weeks a year and keep doing that until I'm 18 when, maybe, I'll go to university and keep doing it somewhere else?!'"

I chuckle "Yeah… Don't think your alone in that(!) Amazing as mandatory education is, it does feel very unfair when you're a kid on the receivin' end of it! Anythin' else?"

"Yes! I hate how all my favourite places keep getting torn down to make room for new ones, even though I like most of the new ones! I don't like how noisy it is now even if I know privacy fields will make that better eventually! I don't like a lot of the new smells there are around town! I miss Witold and hate that he won't be back for nearly another year! I hate the aid workers making me feel like a useless kid every time I offer to help with anything, telling me to 'Just let us take care of it'! And I hate the fact that they keep trying to smuggle zmora pups into town!!!"

"Yeah… all valid!" I grant "Progress ain't a straight line and changes like this are gonna come with some teethin' problems!… On balance though, would you rather go back to how it was before you and I met, Pawel?" using that therapist tone of Ally's where she asks what would sound like an accusing question just right to get across that she actually wants to hear your answer.

"Nooo…" he frowns, turning off the main road and down the one he lives on "…I'm not stupid. I know Malbork has gained a lot more than we've lost from the Ratunek. I just wish I could keep a few more of the good bits from before, you know?"

"Ain't unreasonable!" I nod simply.

Here, I get line of sight on his house which, apart from the electric lights shining through the windows, looks identical to how it did 2 and a bit years ago.

Pawel strides past a mass of four eyed local chicken analogues (pressed against his garden fence and making a pretty ridiculous noise) to open his front door.

I bend down to come in behind him and stay bent down below the ceiling that's about 10cm too short for me.

Pawel's mum is cooking something on an electric stove that stands next to her old firepit.

She turns to her son, showing a much healthier looking face than she had the first time I met her, and smiles "Puszek! How did it go? Did you win?" with what age allows me to see is mum-humour instead of the complete ignorance of how anything works that I took it for when Maia and Ruby did that kind of thing to me as a child(!)

"I couldn't hit him but he said I did a lot better than last time." Pawel shrugs.

"Well that's good, isn't it! Will you be staying for dinner, Mr Victor?"

I smile and shake my head "'Preciate the offer, Zuzana, but my crew're waitin' for me on the shuttle. I'll just get Fluffy and go if that's alright?"

"*Ha*! You'll need to fight off Stefania, Lukas and about half the kids in the neighbourhood, I'm afraid(!)" she quips.

"Oh no(!) I ain't half as brave as I'd need to be for that(!) Could I ask for an assist, Zuzana?"

She chuckles and puts down the stirring spoon.

She leads me to the back of her house where an 8 year old pneumonia survivor, a not quite 2 year old boy and about half a dozen other kids (one of which has got to be an aid worker's kid) lie on and around a lazing mirkbeast.

Even with her eyes shut, I can tell Fluffy's awake by the swishing of her tail as some parts of her are stroked, others are cuddled, the nearly 2 year old makes biscuits on the flesh of her belly with his tiny hands and two of the girls make plaits from the fur on her back.

"Alright kids! Mr Victor needs his pet back now so everyone say goodbye to Fluffy!"

Seven faces fall in dismay as an utter cacophony of "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!"s are raised in objection!

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