“You look shit.” Alan commented as Theo walked into The Pub. While physically he didn’t look too banged up (thanks to Striding Wind), he was exhausted, and it showed on his face.

“Training.” Theo grunted. He sat in the first stool on the left, and started to wonder if he would be okay to sing tonight. He started to cycle Endless Song, and he felt energy enter his body with every breath. He sat there for a few minutes, just infusing his lungs and throat with mana. It felt how mint tasted, and while it didn’t remove the exhaustion he had to admit that it was nice.

Theo was starting to see how it got its name. Shaking off the exhaustion, he grabbed the beer that Alan had (presciently) poured and placed in front of him, sculled it, and stood up.

Theo still felt like shit, but at the very least he could sing.

---

Theo nodded his head and bowed slightly to the cheering crowd, as he muttered “excuse me”s and pushed past people to reach the bar. As soon as his ass touched the seat, he slumped like a puppet with its strings cut, and the grin plastered on his face quickly followed.

He felt the breath come to him easy, at least, as the benefits of even a little bit of the second step of Endless Song made themselves apparent. Theo closed his eyes and savoured the feeling as he started to cycle it again. He was starting to understand why Sparrow was happy to meditate for hours.

Too soon for his taste, he heard people sit down to his left and right. He gave himself another minute before opening his eyes, to see Sean and Rick there once again.

“Well, someone clearly has managed the second step. Congratulations.” Rick chuckled as he looked at Theo and smiled. He knew it was in good spirit, but Theo couldn’t help but get a little self-conscious (the way someone who jumps after being surprised protests that they were only a little scared).

“Is it that obvious?” Theo asked, and he lowered his eyes from Rick’s gaze, to the beer that Alan had silently set down in front of him at some point. Blinking twice, he looked over, and found Alan on the other side of the bar, not even paying them any attention.

“What, the complete zoning out, or the way you sat completely still with your eyes closed when we could hardly get you to sit still normally?” Sean added. “Oh and by the way, you’re lucky half the people here consider you either their kid or little brother, because otherwise you wouldn’t have any money left on you, and maybe no clothes either.”

They all laughed at that. Theo got used to things growing up in and around The Pub, but even so he took a mental note to be more careful. It was a place he was familiar with, but that didn’t instantly make it a safe place to be. It’d be good practice for learning to infuse with his eyes open at least, Theo mused.

“Hey dad, could I borrow a gold?” Theo shot back at Sean, and Rick guffawed at the shape his face took. “But thanks, both of you.” The smiles he got back were gentle, and while that didn’t necessarily fit with their exteriors in the eyes of lots of people, Theo knew that could you be perfectly kind and lovely while simultaneously breaking someone’s arm. Being gentle and being brutal aren’t opposites, merely acquaintances who don’t hit it off under most circumstances. In the case of people like Sean and Rick and the other regulars at The Pub, they were less like acquaintances and more like roommates.

“I’m a big brother at worst.” Sean protested weakly, only to be met by a very loud scoff from Rick.

“Nah, you’ve got the bald head and the belly of a daddy.” Rick teased, and winked before turning his attention away from Sean (leaving him sputtering and staring, dumbfounded) towards Theo and continuing. “Anyway, what have you been up to?” Theo mulled over how to answer the question (and ignored Sean and Rick’s usual banter) as he took a nice, long sip of his beer.

“Like you could tell, I got to the second step, and I’ve been enjoying the feeling.” Rick and Sean shared a knowing look. Theo took another sip. It tasted like a different beer to the one he had before his set.

“How many complaints did you get?” Rick asked, and Theo started coughing up that second sip. While he hadn’t had the misfortune of choking on the one earlier, at least now he could definitively tell that they were different beers. This one was dry, bitter, and very fizzy. None of which made his current predicament pleasant. After a long moment of more choking, Theo remembered that he had internal magic now. One channelling of Endless Song later, he was feeling fine.

“How did you know?” Theo asked, as he wiped at his mouth. He took another sip of the beer, and had to admit that, although it wasn’t the most pleasant experience, at the very least he appreciated the flavours of the beer now that it wasn’t stuck in his lungs.

“Most people either do that, or get specifically instructed not to do that. And seeing as you’re not learning at the College of War, it was a pretty easy guess.” Rick explained. Theo nodded along, and grinned as he waited for them both to take a sip.

“I actually was training at the College of War today.” Theo couldn’t help but laugh as they both spluttered and glared at him. He held his hands up as they both wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands and coughed, before Sean chuckled while Rick shifted the glare to him for a moment.

“Did you see a man with a stick securely lodged up his ass doing paperwork?” Sean asked, pointedly ignoring Rick as he looked at him. Theo quirked up his lips at that description.

“Shaved head, looks like the last time he laughed was standing on a pile of his enemy’s corpses?” Theo responded, and was glad to see both Sean and Rick chuckling along, enmity (and chance of another fight that Alan had to break up) forgotten entirely.

“Yep, that’s the one.” Rick confirmed. He made an exaggerated move of looking dramatically from side to side, before learning in to loudly stage-whisper to Theo. “He wasn’t always that serious. When we were in class together he was a gentle guy who loved bad puns and making people groan.”

“What changed?” Theo asked, as he tried to reconcile the idea of someone that stern being gentle and goofy. Somehow, it was harder to imagine than someone being both kind and brutal at the same time. Rick paused, and faltered as the act slipped off his face like a particularly wet pigeon shit.

“War happened.” Sean supplied, as Rick temporarily lost contact with the present moment. The conversation stopped, and all three of them started staring intently at their drinks. Theo was kicking himself for ruining the mood and making things awkward.

After a minute of silence, he decided to make the most of it and try to cycle while his eyes were open. He was familiar enough with Endless Song at this point to let go of a little bit of focus, and allowed his eyes to take in information. It wasn’t quite running by itself in the background yet, but it was a start.

“What were you doing at the college anyway?” Rick cleared his throat, and put on a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, as he tried to resuscitate the conversation. Theo stopped Endless Song and waited for the stream of consciousness in his brain to thaw.

“They had me doing the obstacle courses.” Theo replied, now passing the baton of conversation. He winced internally at the memories, and was silently thankful that Sparrow had healed all his bruises before he left.

“Oh yeah! Those are super fun to goof around on, but if someone sets a goal and wants to be harsh they can be brutal.” Rick said. Theo understood exactly what he meant. “Which obstacle course did you do?

“The labyrinthine pole jumble one, the tight maze, the suspended hanging things, and the tight wires.” Theo replied, and phantom twinges ran through his body in sympathetic memory (or trauma, one of the two), as Rick and Sean’s faces slowly grew more shocked, mouths agape and blinking frequently.

“Wait - all of them?” Sean asked. It had the tone of someone who just overheard someone talking about discovering the secret of immortality casually. Disbelief wasn’t etched on their faces, as that would require them to stay still long enough to have something carved in, and they were currently shaking and twitching slightly. It was slightly amusing how in-sync they were, eyes narrowed and heads tilted in incredulity.

“Well, I tried to.” Theo complained. “I managed the first one well enough.” Theo thought back to that labyrinth, and omitted all the times he had missed jumps and smashed his ribs against poles.

“I got lost and banged up too many times in the maze.” He continued, as he thought back to the second obstacle course. It had been a maze full of tight turns and a low ceiling (low enough that his head kept bumping into it and he had to hunch). Sparrow also set him a deadline to reach the end, and Theo found that his newfound strength meant absolutely nothing in front of right angles and dead-ends. He ran into a wall almost every turn. He ran his hand through his hair (partially as a soothing gesture, partially to check to see if Sparrow had missed any bumps or injuries with their healing). Rick and Sean were silent, and resembled goldfish with their open mouths, so Theo decided to continue.

“I kept missing the hanging grips.” Theo remembered all the leaps he tried, and missed miserably. The third obstacle course was a series of hanging poles and grips and rocks, and it was simple enough in that it was just trying to make it from one end to the other. This one hadn’t been painful physically, but the damage to his pride might have been terminal from how many times he had tried (and failed) to make a jump.

“And I cut myself badly enough on the first wire that they stopped me from actually going in there.” The fourth and final obstacle course was a series of tight, thin wires you could use to garrotte someone (or floss, if you really liked bleeding gums), that he was supposed to run through and avoid getting cut. He didn’t know it was possible to have such a deep cut without feeling much pain, but it was good to discover that now while he had a healer on hand.

Theo was lost in his musings (and the ghosts of pain past) before he realised that Sean was looking at him with disbelief, and Rick was looking very frustrated.

“You’re a monster.”

“I thought I was a little brother.”