He grabbed the handle and pushed the door open.
The corridor stretched before him. The light had changed, and he hadn't even realized it. It was afternoon.
Afternoon in Rimefell had a mind of its own. Sunlight tried to push through the sky's stubborn gray, spilling gold in thin lines. Dust floated in the shafts, trembling.
He hesitantly stepped out.
The door clicked shut behind him with a soft click. Alekke's boots tapped on the flagstones. Too loud. Everyone could hear. Scary.
Servants hurried past with baskets of linen and buckets of water, their steps quick and purposeful. A pair of guards strode by, armor clinking, muttering about the southern emissaries who would arrive "in a few months' time, gods willing."
His heart thumped; he knew what they meant. Steelford Academy. Aric Vaelor. Knights.
He faintly smirked.
The expression felt kind of illegal on his face; it probably looked very odd.
He straightened, instinctively and unsuccessfully, trying to arrange his apologetic posture into something less apologetic.
He still felt miserable.
More servants and guards walked past him, glancing at him slightly concerned.
Alekke's throat tightened. He already felt like turning back.
Alekke halted. The thought of retreat filled his head like warm bathwater, reasonable, familiar, a habit as old as his bones. He'd done this a million times. He just wanted to fold into his bed, into sleep, into nothing—let the misery drift past, let it forget him.
Both hands hit his cheeks. Wake up. Wake up. He'd risen, sort of.
The sound echoed embarrassingly loud in the corridor.
Servants behind him carrying folded sheets blinked at him, then hurried on.
Alekke inhaled sharply through his nose and headed forward.
He quickly stepped to the stairwell.
The railing was warm beneath his palm, polished smooth.
He stepped down, every joint stiff, his eyes still a little stingy, and every nerve whispering one single command: hold the sword. Grip it hard. Make it real. Make it real.
The stairwell stared at him, confused. Why was he back?
It had watched him slink up these steps a hundred times, defeated, crying, and embarrassed. It had not expected a return. Not today. Not ever.
Alekke scoffed and quickly descended the stairs.
Quickly, but not gracefully. His legs didn't know grace. They only knew collapsing in an empty room and endlessly spiraling in his stupid, stupid sadness.
The stairwell was screaming questions at the gods. He was doing it. He was going to do it. Someone should stop him. Someone really, really should stop him. It pleaded with the gods to stop him.
Alekke kept descending; each step felt like a small act of disobedience against his own nature. His boots scuffed the stone. His breath started to fog in thin, cheap wisps. His heart thumped louder and faster.
Turn back. Turn back! Abort! What is he doing? Is he out of his mind?! TURN BACK! ABORT!!
Do not turn back. He said He'd rise. Do NOT TURN BACK!
A sword is waiting for his hands; it is lonely and cold, and it needs a hand to comfort it. To warm it. Turning back means treachery.
Alekke swallowed.
He reached the bottom of the stairs.
They opened into the archway overlooking the training yard. Afternoon light spilled across the mud outside, turning it into a battlefield of gold, brown, and slushy snow. There wasn't any noise, no clangs of practice swords, no grunts, no yelps.
Silence… other than the crows cawing.
Alekke blinked.
The training yard, usually a chaos of shouts and clashing wood, lay still. Mud, trampled this morning, had begun to dry in cracked patterns like old scars. The practice dummies stood in a crooked line, straw spilling from their stitched bellies, their burlap faces sagging in the afternoon light; they looked like they'd been abandoned mid-execution.
He looked around and listened; it was completely empty.
The wind brushed across the yard, carrying the faint smell of iron and trampled grass. A banner flapped weakly against its pole. The crows perched along the fence, acting as his audience.
He stepped forward onto the mud.
It sucked his boots, trying to suck him back down into the earth and be lost forever. The slush soaked through the seams of his boots, numbing his toes.
How Brynn and Haldren move so fast and quickly on the mud, he does not know.
They could dance across it like it was stone, like it respected them enough to stay firm beneath their feet. The mud didn't care a single bit when it came to Alekke.
Alekke walked to the nearest practice dummy. Its burlap face sagged in the afternoon light, one button eye dangling by a thread. It looked exhausted.
Alekke kind of related to this dummy; he thought it looked like him.
Sagging. Lopsided. One eye hanging on by a thread.
They were two pathetic soldiers of misfortune.
But the dummy at least had an excuse; it was built to be hit.
Alekke exhaled shakily.
He crouched down, mud squelching under his boots, and looked at the ground beside the dummy.
There it was.
A wooden practice sword, half-buried and forgotten.
It looked miserable; it was perfect for him.
Alekke wrapped his hand around the hilt.
His eyes burned bright, stupidly bright, full of things he didn't trust yet. He couldn't believe it. He absolutely couldn't.
He was touching a sword, a real sword!
Wooden, of course. There were steps to these things, and this is step one.
But it felt wrong immediately.
It was too heavy; he was pretty weak—very weak.
And it was too long.
He lifted anyway, getting the mud on his hands.
The blade wobbled, and his wrist wobbled.
This is pathetic. A wooden sword—not even pretending to be a real one—and he could barely pick it up without collapsing.
The crows laughed, or maybe they just cawed. But it felt like laughter.
Alekke tightened his grip on the sword.
It didn't help. The sword still wobbled like it was trying to escape his hand.
He tried to adjust his stance, copying what he'd seen Brynn, Haldren, or even the knights from the stories do a thousand times. Feet apart. Knees bent. Shoulders squared. Deep breath.
He swung.
"Ahh!" A weak, floppy arc through the air, and he nearly fell into the mud because of it.
He took another deep breath.
Another limp swing.
Another.
Another.
He swung again and again, until his arms burned, his wrists trembled, and time became a blur. How many swings? Minutes? Hours? He couldn't tell.
But playing around with the sword was embarrassing and fun, but very embarrassing. He probably looked like a dying stork right now.
The crows laughed again.
Alekke swung harder, and the sword slipped from his hand. It flew two feet, landed in the mud with a wet splurt, and lay there like it gave up.
Alekke blinked.
The crows laughed even louder.
His eye twitched in anger.
Alekke turned on them and formed the circle with his fingers, blowing air through his lips in a short, ugly sound.
Northern for "Fuck you."
He turned and trudged over and picked it up again, mud dripping from the blade. He wiped it off with his hands, smearing mud on his palms.
Alekke tightened his grip again.
He inhaled sharply through his nose, trying to summon maybe some hidden power.
Then he swung.
Thunk!
The blade hit the dummy's shoulder and bounced off like it had struck a pillow. The dummy didn't even sway. It just stared at him.
Alekke swung again.
Thunk!
Nothing.
He swung again.
Nothing.
"Argh…!!" Something tore loose in him. He lurched forward and brought the sword down again and again, bonking the dummy's head until his arms gave out.
Alekke tumbled back as his breath fogged in front of him, thin and shaky. His arms ached. His wrists started trembling.
Alekke stared at his opponent.
The opponent stared back, jeering, sneering.
"Don't you dare look at me like that." Alekke spat.
He wanted to tear it apart. Rip it. Crush it. Destroy it. All of it. Reduce it to splinters and straw, because he'll be damned if he'd allow a dummy to look at him like that.
"Why are you so angry at me, bastard? At a sack of straw? Is it because I'm real, and you not so much?" the dummy said.
He scoffed bewildered. "What are you talking about? You're just a stupid dummy. How are you real, but I'm not?"
"Real?" It said, "I stand here. I take hits all day long. And I have a beautifully happy smile on my face. Of course there are better things I could be doing, way better things, but this is me. So how am I not real? Alekke, What do you do? How are you the real one here?"
Alekke's mouth opened, then closed. His breath fogged in front of him.
"I exist," Alekke said, weakly. "I'm a real person; you're just a dummy."
"Im a dummy; you're the human, the person, so… How am I the real one here?" It said, chuckling. "You don't exist, Alekke. You drift, acting like you exist."
Alekke's breath hitched.
"What does that even mean?" He snapped, but it came out thin and unthreatening.
"Don't act like you don't know what it means, you dummy; you know exactly what it means."
He frowned. "Thats so not true… That's not true at all!! I exist! I exist more than you!!" He started to get red. "I'm living! I'm breathing! I eat! I bleed! I cry! I do it all!! I do all the things that prove I exist!!"
"Ugh…! That means you're alive, you stupid bastard! That doesn't prove you exist!" It shouted.
"That's ridiculous!" he said. "Existing means existing. I'm here. I'm alive. That counts! I can prove it to you if you would like!"
Alekke slapped himself. Again. Again. Again. "See!"
"Desperation clings to you like it's your own skin." The dummy laughed, amused. "I'm better than you, Alekke. And I'm just a practice dummy. I mean, yes, it's a very low bar to be better than you, but I've done it... A dummy better than a human with ideals."
Alekke blinked his anger growing, reddening his face.
he swallowed, biting his cheek.
"Alekke, you're biggest problem is that you just dream as you're being flattened by the world."
Alekke stiffened.
"But nevertheless, I am finally seeing you pushback against the world, and make no mistake, I am as proud as a mother and father in one." It said. "Now Alekke. Face me. Hit me. Prove to me you're real."
Alekke stared at its sagging, ugly burlap face and that one button eye hanging on by a thread. It was so ugly Alekke just wanted it dead. As dead as possible.
And it wasn't just ugly; it was accusatory and irritatingly so.
It thinks it's better, so much better than him, and that angered Alekke.
Alekke's breath came in, and his wrists felt like they were made of wet reeds.
Alekke watched his opponent.
The dummy was suddenly silent, quiet. It waited.
Alekke's fingers tightened around the wooden sword.
He stepped forward.
The mud sucked at his boots, cold and heavy, but he pushed through it.
Another step.
Alekke raised the sword too high, too stiff, with elbows wrong, and swung with everything he had.
The strike landed, though not clean or as impressive as his brothers', but it landed. And the dummy rocked on its post with a dull thud.
Alekke didn't get to see more. The force of his own swing pulled him off balance, and his feet slid from under him. He toppled sideways into the mud with a wet, graceless splash.
He blinked mud out of his lashes. He finally landed a decent but pitiful hit.
Mud clung to his cheek, grainy and filthy, for a moment he didn't move, not cause he was scared but because the world became strangely still, watching him waiting for his reaction.
Alekke's fingers curled into the dirt. "I... I hit you..."
The dummy and the crows stayed silent,
"I actually hit you..." he said, voice cracking with a strange, flusterated pride. "I hit you...!"
He started laughing and the crows started laughing too.