Natsu was first to knock on my door, as he always did during our break-days, for he lived right beside. I was still groggy after mother had awoken me, casting open the shutters for the sun’s light to hit my eyes.

I slid open the door, revealing the grin reaching each end of Natsu’s face. “Ready to see the monk?”

“Sure.” I sighed. “Let’s go meet the others then.”

Natsu’s enthusiasm would not be dulled by my morning weariness. We knocked on Tadaki’s door, then Chitose’s, nearest to the village circle.

Women fanned themselves in the shade of their open homes, people ambling past without thought for a group of children heading to the hills. Dirt ground soon was laden with grass and looming bamboo trees with their countless bladed leaves.

We left the first road in favor of the shortcut past the creek leading to the hills, hopping over each flattened rock in the stream, replaced by larger ones with our growing strength over the years. A dirt path wound up the hill, wide enough for two at a time, or two sides crossing the other. We reached the top, our legs burning from the journey, taking deep breaths from the sloping effort. I witnessed the green woods surrounding our village to the neverending Kaiyen, shimmering turquoise. Everything looked smaller from such heights.

We crested the hill and found Wei resting against a lying mule saddled with travelling bags. The monk was playing upon a reed flute, its sounds echoing across the rusting grass stalks. Rice paddies and crops lined past to the distant farming village of Arayi.

He paused and turned to our rustling footsteps.

“You said you’d be training here,” I said, a touch of disappointment in my words.

“That I did,” Wei smiled and stood. He wore a simple loose brown tunic and leather soled sandals lashed with straw rope. There was a calm grace to the way he moved, slow and relaxed as he rummaged through one pack. With the flick of his wrist he unfurled a tan leather roll holding several… toys. Baubles of wood, three leather balls, sticks worn smooth.

He took a ball in each hand and threw one lightly into the air while picking up the third, soon juggling all three, the arcing movements mesmerising in their speed. Still, we were not amused.

“Catch!” the monk suddenly threw one such ball to Natsu beside me, who flinched in answer. I had caught the ball in one hand without thinking. Wei paused. I passed the ball back to him. After they had been placed back into the pack he knelt down to reach for the smooth sticks that were long as half his arms, tossing one to me, another.

“Have you ever fought with sticks?” Wei asked. He held just one stick, his other hand hidden behind his back.

“Of course!” Natsu answered for me. “But it’s a stupid game. All you get is bruises.”

“Not this game,” the monk said evenly. “Merely a touch and you are the winner.”

“What do I get if I win?” I asked.

The monk smiled. “I will show all of you the technique to stop another's arms from moving. But if I win, you must all train with me this day.”

“Fine,” I readied myself, raising my sticks to my head. Wei merely stood still, his body in an odd sideways stance, stick pointed lazily down.

“I never agreed to this!” Natsu protested.

I rushed forward and raised one stick overhead as a feint, my true strike with my other to his gut. He stepped aside and tapped the stick over the nape of my neck, his speed so casual I stood still, not quite sure how he had moved from where he had once stood to now beside me.

“I win,” Wei said lightly. "Will you honor your words?"

Though I was still a boy, my father had taught me since I could speak that a man is nothing without his word. He must live up to his promises, for no one else will, or be ignored with false smiles.

“I’ll train with you,” I said. “I can’t speak for anyone else.”

There was a pause, and Chitose sighed. “What are we training for?”

The others relented, not wanting to be spurned by the only girl amongst us.

The monk faced us, hands clasped behind his back. “You are to fetch the smoothest pebble you can find from the beach and bring it here.”

We all mulled on this given task in silence, until Chitose said, “You’re not training, though.”

Wei grinned. “Very well. I shall find my own stone alongside. Come, Nilu.”

His mule stood to follow him, the rest of us nearly jogging to match his brisk stride. Sometimes it is easier to climb up such heights than it is to fall down such depths. Our unsteady legs strained to not collapse and tumble down the twisting dirt path we had just conquered before, every crater and stone now an obstacle.

The monk knew where to step, which ground to avoid, and he had not been familiar with this region, at least not since I had been born. Still, he followed the land with an uncanny ease that matched his humble steed’s, and we followed after them.

When we did reach the beach it was near noon, the sun beating its heat down upon us. I found a pebble smooth enough to skim across the water.

“Why can’t we train here?” Natsu asked.

“The sand we stand on is soft and comfortable. Do you want your training to be as such?” Wei replied.

Natsu shrugged. “Sure.”

“Without discomfort, one can never truly improve,” the monk intoned, walking past. “You may stay here, or journey with me back to the hills.”

I moved to follow before turning to the others. “You coming or not?”

By the time we reached the other side of the hill, our breath was ragged and we sat down upon the hard ground, still holding our palm sized pebbles.

Wei stood, calm and still as ever, his mule Nilu already grazing over the plentiful grass.

“Now we shall begin your training. Get up and assume this stance.” He squatted part way, holding his hands together, palms skyward as if his pebble was a gift to the heavens.

Natsu groaned as we settled into the posture. Tadaki, the oldest and strongest of us all, held his form. Chitose began to berate Natsu for having stopped before we had even begun.

“How long do we hold?” I questioned. Wei merely smiled, remaining in his stance.

“Until I stand as well.”

I focused on the pebble I held. What was once a palm sized rock began to burden my shoulders, a weight growing with each passing moment. I winced, for my legs would not stop trembling. I knew it would not be long before they cramped.

Wei did not stir before us. He continued to stare at the pebble in his outstretched hands. My legs burned. Still I stared at my weight. I blinked, salty sweat stinging my eyes. Even Chitose was now silent. Natsu was the first to collapse.

“Do you wish to stop?” Wei asked. “If you do, I cannot teach you anymore.”

My friend rose back into the position. We squatted there until all of us, even lastly Tadaki, collapsed to the grassy ground. The monk asked each of us in turn, “Do you wish to stop?”

We set back into our stances. This labor felt like a test – and not one of us wanted to be the first to walk away. Eventually Wei stood, dropping his pebble to the earth.

“These pebbles will mark where we train, if you choose to return at the same morning of each break-day.” He walked to his pack mule, rising obediently with his gesture. “I suggest supporting each other in pairs on your way down.” The monk left us, ambling alongside his donkey back to the village.

My legs gave way before me when I tried to stand, falling. I looked at Chitose and Natsu, their arms over each other's shoulders. I shrugged at Tadaki, who pulled me up and supported me with his stockier frame.

By the time we reached Giaju it was late in the afternoon, the sun’s heat dimmed by blessed cloud. We shambled along the dirt path, legs wobbling, shoulders burning from holding up our stones. Eventually, we collapsed under the shade of a tree at the beach.

“That dredged worse than drinking the entire Kaiyen,” Natsu declared.

“You can’t drink the entire Kaiyen, idiot,” Chitose scoffed.

“It’s a way of speaking,” he retorted.

“It’s called a figure of speech, idiot.”

Shadows fell; a group of four older boys were standing over us.

Natsu yawned. “Thanks, Tezǔ, for blocking out the sun.”

The tallest boy, gangly with a ponytail of hair, sneered. “Heard you boys were with the monk who disrespected my father.”

No doubt Tezǔ’s father, Baro, had been the one disrespecting Wei, but I was too tired to fight… until they had insulted Chitose. They knew she was self conscious about hanging out with us over the other girls, who gathered mostly inside at their friends’ houses. We were Chitose’s only friends.

I stood with the others. Before the older boys were at least a head taller, but we had grown some more over the last year. Tezǔ was fourteen years old, the oldest among them, though he stood at least two heads taller than even Tadaki, his arms leaner but just as big, apprenticing under his father’s forge.

“Mind your own business,” I said.

Tezǔ had a dirty grin upon his ratlike pockmarked face when he punched me in the gut. His blow knocked the wind out of me, and I sagged down. Tadaki immediately charged to tackle the taller boy, the others shouting and shoving each other. Natsu was caught in a headlock, Chitose slightly taller than the boy facing her, slapping him until he ran away. I recovered soon enough to see Tezǔ atop Tadaki, punching him until I dove to take him down.

The bigger boy shoved me off before Chitose pulled at his ponytail. Then the adults came to drag us away from our scuffle, all of us yammering on the next time we saw each other. I was brought to my home by the village watchman, Shǒuwa, stone-faced with arms gnarled as wood. My father, Daiko, opened the door and sighed.

“What did my son do now, Shǒuwa?”

The watchman said, “Drinn fought with Tezǔ, on the beach.” I did my best to look meekly down.

Daiko frowned. “Baro’s boy? He stands three heads and four summers over him.”

I raised my chin. “He hit me first!”

Shǒuwa shrugged. “So you say, not what Tezǔ said.”

“Tezǔ’s a liar!” I declared, my face reddening.

My father waved me inside, nodding to the watchman who turned to leave. When the circled door slid shut he knelt to me.

“Look me in the eye, Drinn. Did Tezǔ hit you first?”

I nodded. “He called Chitose a boy. I told him to mind his own business. Then he punched me in the gut.”

My father was an honest man, slow to trust and quick to judge one's character, of which he judged uncannily well.

He smiled and rose. “Yuli, let’s eat supper! Our boy has come home and become a defender of maidens!”

My mother appeared, frowning. “So I heard. Stop encouraging him, Daiko. Fighting will do him no good.”

He sat on the woven straw mat that was our dining room, a washboard at the center underneath a hot pot of fish soup and three bowls of rice. We each sat down and scooped our meals.

“He’s of age to prove his strength now,” Daiko said. “Defending Chitose and his friends from the blacksmith’s boy.”

My mother paused. “Baro’s son?”

I nodded proudly. “Tezǔ’s a bully, and he got what he deserved.”

“Be that as it may, you cannot and will not fight again. You can’t come to blows over words,” my mother scolded.

“He hit me first!” I protested.

My father gave his thousand-yard stare. “Pride does nothing for a man. It is dignity, when he knows he’s right and does not need to show anything for it. Next time when you’re with your friends don’t talk back to him. And if he does hit you…” he shrugged. “Make sure he won’t dare hit you again.”

“Aya, Daiko, I told you to stop encouraging this behaviour,” my mother scolded.

“Yes, la,” my father said, winking at me while sipping his soup.

I smiled, for I knew what I would do the next break-day, and the next from then on.