Ranvir walked the line of students, each of them moving through the motions of throwing their spears. Though dark clouds brooded on the horizon today it was clear skies, which meant it was bitingly cold. Even through his gloves, Ranvir’s fingers ached. His cheeks and ears felt like tiny frozen fingers were sinking into them.

Ranvir stopped his fellow classmate, a brawny fellow with sunken dark eyes. “Stop and think before you throw.” Ranvir pointed down the range. “Look where your last throw went, then adjust your next accordingly, don’t just throw on impulse.”

The man followed Ranvir’s finger down to the target, made of compacted snow. He’d punched off the top right corner with his spear in his first throw. The second had gone completely over and, if Ranvir were to guess, his next would gone above and to the left.

“Even if you over-correct you’re still developing the skill to properly adjust your aim,” Ranvir clapped him on the shoulder and moved on.

Throwing spears was something Ranvir had proved immediately adept at. When he did practice, he did so from half again as far back as the other students and he still did it better. His target had a tight cluster in the center, despite it being fifteen meters further away. Ranvir was struggling beyond that because of the effort required in throwing those distances.

There was an elective to learn the use of bows during warfare in second year that some students took. The common thought was that bows were strictly inferior to the Piercer Discipline, so long as you were a Sword or Lancer. You had adjustable aim and plenty of the ammunition. Obsidian and ice even had the range should they need it.

The reason close range weapon skills were taught was for the ability to defend oneself in combat. Most times the tethered would be better off taking a break and trying to recover, or picking their shots more carefully than joining in a volley. They had commander training and their abilities weren’t a drain on the armies resources.

Master Vigo said the reason they were training in spear-throwing was to add it as another tool in their belt when wielding the spear, though they still didn’t practice it that much. If you were going to the front lines with a weapon you should know how to use it in all its variance. Granted they were training with throwing spears and not the longer melee spears, not that the longer stick couldn’t be thrown.

Master Vigo nodded to Ranvir as the master approached. He’d just finished up another session with Grev and Sansir, judging from the now awkward fighting. They were clearly trying to get used to some new aspect. It was only when Master Vigo arrived that Ranvir realized they were guiding their ability with their main hand, instead of their off-hand.

Technically, you didn’t need a hand, but you could also technically learn to write with your off hand. That didn’t make it easy.

“How are things going?” Vigo asked stopping next to Ranvir.

“Mostly, they take care of themselves,” Ranvir replied then pointed to a few of the students. “There are a few that need some extra pointers, though.”

Master Vigo nodded seemingly unsurprised by Ranvir’s call, likely having known the same thing from teaching them for seven months. He scanned the students before them, looking over their work. They were just about done throwing, which meant they would soon be released to go pick their spears up again.

“You’ve got a talent for teaching,” Master Vigo said finally. Ranvir started twisting to stare at master, before he stopped himself.

“It’s not that hard,” Ranvir muttered packing a snowball together. “So long as they know you’re competent enough that they’ll listen to you,” he continued packing the snow together. “or they trust you enough to listen,” He added almost as an afterthought. “Most people aren’t as dumb as we tend to give them credit for. So long as we pull them back to a thinking state, they’ll handle most of the teaching themselves.”

“That’s what I mean,” Master Vigo said. “That attitude doesn’t come easily to most people. It didn’t come easily to me, at all,” Ranvir tried not to flush under the Master’s words. “On top of that you’re really good at presenting a…” He paused seeming to search for the right word. “Cold front to the students-” Ranvir’s foot slipped on the pressed down snow nearly making him fall. “Making them unsure exactly how they stand, keeping their enthusiasm contained. Yet, you know when to warm up and allow a bit of warmth through.”

Ranvir was flushing plainly this time, as he stared at Master Vigo out the corner of his eye. Was that intentional? Did he do it on purpose? the master’s face was completely blank. Ranvir couldn’t read a thing through it.

Ranvir was aware that he was better able to pick up some cues, that others struggled with. He also had a knack for patterns and recognizing them. Still those patterns rarely emerged in social encounters, or rather they didn’t seem to help him as much as they did during other situations.

Guessing what Sansir or Grev was going to do in chess was pretty simple, all things told. It was a confined space with a confined pool of options and very well developed habits. For a time, he’d been able to coast on that against them, but their superior skill at the game was winning out more and more often. Most times, Ranvir couldn’t even stall either of them out anymore.

In a social situation with thousands more options it was infinitely harder to figure out the next move, and Ranvir was more easily flustered and thrown off. Dissecting a chess game was a sometimes fun experience, while breaking down a social encounter was mostly a lonely experience that removed him from that social aspect.

All that to say, despite his best efforts, Ranvir couldn’t tell if Master Vigo had used the words ‘cold front’ on purpose or not. Cold was sometimes used to refer to an item as blank or expressionless. Ranvir remembered there was an artist that had gotten popular on ‘cold’ art. Though he couldn’t for the life of him remember her name. It was just one he’d come across in the library once.

“Does that mean you find the conditions acceptable?” Ranvir asked finally resting his hand on the practice hammer at his hip.

“Let’s begin,” Master Vigo agreed pulling a wooden sword from his hip.

Ranvir fell on his rear in the snow, his hammer lying fallen next to him. His fingers were screaming in pain, joining in the chorus was the line of fire across his right thigh. Master Vigo had rapped his already sensitive fingers with his blade causing him to drop the hammer, which earned him the lash on his thigh.

His cold limbs were already vulnerable to the blows, crying out beyond their usual habits from the well controlled and well placed blows. Sparring with Master Vigo—for this the ‘Master’ part seemed especially poignant—was a lecture on a level beyond training with Grevor or Sansir.

Ranvir lacked experience fighting. He knew the forms of the hammer inside and out, he practiced them nearly everyday for over half a year. He wasn’t the fastest that was true, but that was a limit experience and wisdom could overcome. What he needed to learn was the right move in a given situation.

Predicting what his opponent was going to do was a lot harder when he was coming at you with a sword. Sure, Ranvir could respond with the forms he’d learned and that did give him a foundation to work from, but when should he seize an opportunity? If it forced him to break from established patterns? Always, of course. Unless the opportunity was fake and the opponent was feinting instead.

Going over the latest lesson in his head, Ranvir rested on the snow. Master Vigo was now watching over some of the students throwing spears, making sure they were doing okay and their teenage thoughts weren’t running away from them.

Ranvir’s mind wandered, as his eyes touched on the pair of dueling Veils. Sansir and Grev still seemed awkward fighting and wielding their power with the same hand, but Ranvir had no doubt the ability to use their main hand and act quickly was an incredible boon in combat.

His mind returned to their chess games. They still played most days in the lounge, though he didn’t join in as often anymore. He didn’t enjoy it the same, but part of him felt like that was because he’d mentally pulled away from it first. At some point, consciously or not, he’d decided to not participate in chess anymore.

He hadn’t realized it at the time, but now Ranvir could see it plainly. And yet, he wondered why. Chess was a good exercise for the brain. A strategic game, that allowed him to exercise his ability to work through problems on multiple lanes. It allowed him to work on his ability to predict outcomes and his opponents. There were multiple benefits and yet he rarely spent any time on it anymore.

Do I just have more important things to work on? Ranvir thought. Is it literally that I just can’t make it fit within my time schedule any longer? Is it something else? Are those the skills that I need to be developing right now?

He thought back, trying to pinpoint when he’d stopped caring as much. Around the time I started working on the Wings exercise. I spent so much time on it that I didn’t have the mental capacity to handle another exercise, like chess. But then I didn’t return to it.

Do I still lack that capacity or is it something else? Mostly, I only work with Kirs on the rituals, though, I only help when she asks for it, so I can’t blame that. My own research has completely fallen off, I’ve had no development on that front for weeks. So maybe I should start paying more attention to it?

Are those the skills that I even need to be developing right now? Even then, when I figure out the issue with my tether, or I advance, am I just going to drop it again because other things are more important? Probably. Definitely.

I dropped chess, because it felt less important. There were skills I’d rather focus on, and the effort chess took was muddying the waters and taking energy away from them. Would it still be doing that now? Saleema’s still looming, Ranvir thought he sometimes sensed her tether-sense on him, though he couldn’t be sure. My tether issue. The fucking academy’s starting to fall apart…

Chess allows me to train some important skills, but not important enough that I can let myself get distracted. At least, not yet.