Chaffy Grain Beneath the Thresher's Flail

August, 476 IC, Odin

Yang was eminently glad when school began again. It was an unfortunate, conflicted feeling, because the logical part of his mind still told him that he should not be happy about attending the IOA, but he was. He needed to escape the suffocating sadness of the Mariendorf household, he wanted to see Reuenthal be himself again, and he wanted to return his life to some kind of stable course.

He checked himself into his dorm and immediately set about seeing what his friends were up to. Wahlen and Bittenfeld had arrived, but Reuenthal had apparently decided that he was going to check in to school fashionably late. Yang checked his class schedule and the rankings, to make sure they hadn’t somehow shifted around over the summer. Everything was exactly as he remembered it, except he got to pin the sophomore pin on his cadet uniform. A thrilling upgrade.

He texted Eisenach, just to ask how his summer was, not really expecting a comprehensive answer.

> why, are you hoping I get kicked out so you don’t have to deal with my questions anymore?

> maybe this year I’ll get around to challenging you in chess, so you can thoroughly trounce me

> you going to vet my mentee like you vet my friends?

> I’m not high strung

Yang laughed and put his phone away. He obligingly opened the intranet and clicked on the class rankings for the incoming freshmen, grabbed the contact info for who was in the number two spot, then double checked the official mentee assignment email to be sure that he had the correct person. He typed out a quick letter.

Hello Mittermeyer,

You probably got a note that you were being assigned a sophomore mentor. Congratulations, it’s me, Hank von Leigh. Everyone gets assigned the person who has the equivalent rank in the year above them. Lucky for you, I started in the number 2 spot and stayed there, so I’m very familiar with what that entails.

I don’t know how much help I can actually be to you, but I’m happy to give advice, or meet you, or whatever.

My own mentor has warned me that you might be high strung. If this is the case, I apologize in advance, because I am a lazy man and will not be able to deal with that.

Your mentor,

Hank von Leigh

Military History Dept., Class of 479

He got a response a little later, as he was setting up his dorm room.

Hello von Leigh,

Thank you for your welcome letter. I’d be happy to meet you and hear whatever advice you have to give.

It will be up to you to judge if I am high strung or not. I don’t believe that anyone who is would willingly self describe that way.

What is a good time and place for you to meet?

Thank you,

Wolfgang Mittermeyer

Engineering Dept., Class of 480

Yang raised an eyebrow at the signature on the response. Now that he had had a year of school experience, he understood why all his classmates had been so confused when he had introduced himself as belonging to the history department. It was probably about to be disastrous for his mentee, if he stayed in the engineering track and was put in the strategic warfare program like Yang had been. He rubbed the back of his head. On one hand, he hadn’t appreciated Eisenach telling him to drop history, but, on the other hand, it was the only reasonable advice one could give.

He sent a reply to his mentee saying that they could meet in one of the student lounges tomorrow night, since the freshmen were about to have their convocation dinner.

Then, he met up with his friends for their own dinner in the dining hall. It was good to see them again.

The next night, around five, Yang headed to the student lounge where he was supposed to be meeting his mentee. He said he would wait by the pool tables, though, since he was almost pathetically bad at pool, that had been a bad choice. He lined up the balls on the table, then poked them around with the cue in a solo game, hoping that no one was watching him miss pretty much every shot. Since Reuenthal was good at pool, Yang was glad he was not around to judge.

He was going to be meeting Reuenthal in about an hour, though, for the first session of the awful hand-to-hand class that Yang was still dragging himself along to. Why he continued to subject himself to that torture when he clearly wasn’t getting any better remained a mystery.

As Yang was attempting to line up a shot, he saw a young man walk into the lounge and look around. That must be his mentee. “Mittermeyer?” Yang called out.

The man’s head snapped up, and he smiled. He was blonde, about Yang’s height, and had what could be described as a winsome face. His smile really illuminated his whole expression. He came over to Yang, glancing at the state of the pool table.

“Von Leigh?”

“That’s me.” Yang stuck out his hand to shake, and Mittermeyer grasped it, seeming enthusiastic.

“May I play?”

“Get yourself a cue and I’ll set up. I’ll warn you that I’m terrible, though,” Yang said.

“I don’t mind,” Mittermeyer said, and grabbed a cue from the rack on the wall. Yang set up the table, then let Mittermeyer go first. He was good at the game, and cleared about half the balls before missing a shot. Yang took his one turn, missed, and Mittermeyer went again.

“So,” Yang said. “Did you have any questions? I’m sorry, I’m not really sure how to be a mentor-- I never actually met with mine.”

“You said he thought I’d be high strung.”

“Well, I texted him a lot,” Yang said, rubbing the back of his head. Mittermeyer sunk the seven ball, then walked around the table. “He’s kind of a weird man.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “Okay.”

Yang decided to bite the bullet and ask about the one thing he knew was going to be an issue for this new student: the engineering program. “Have you looked at your class schedule?” Yang asked.

“I did. It seems tough, but…” He shrugged, and hit the eight ball into the pocket. Yang retrieved all the balls and set the table up again. “I guess I didn’t expect anything different from such a selective place.”

Yang laughed a little. “Well, about that,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re in the engineering department, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, the thing is...” Yang bounced his cue up and down on his foot. “The top thirty or so students are all tracked together into the Strategic Warfare program, so that they can directly compete with each other in the ranks. Nobody ever expects somebody in the top group to be in one of the other departments-- history, engineering, admin, whatever. So you were put in the SW program, and in the engineering program.”

“That happened to you? You’re in the history program, right?”

“Yeah. It did.”

“And what did you do about it?”

“Er… Nothing?” Yang said. “I took the classes.”

Mittermeyer looked at him. “Okay.”

“Do you want to hear the advice that I failed to take back then?”

“Something your weird mentor told you?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure,” Mittermeyer said.

“You should drop engineering, and focus on the SW program.”

Mittermeyer sighed and missed his next shot. “Why?”

“The SW program is where the prestige is,” Yang said. “Most people, I’ve been told, care about that kind of thing.”

“You don’t?”

Yang smiled. “For a person like me, caring about prestige is liable to get me in more trouble than it is to earn me any respect. I can have number two, but not number one.”

Mittermeyer frowned deeply. He seemed aggrieved on Yang’s behalf. “That’s not…”

Yang shrugged. “It is what it is.”

“You have a noble name, though,” Mittermeyer said. Yang was caught so off guard by that that he snort-laughed. “What?”

“Having a ‘von’ in your name does not always mean very much,” Yang said.

“I don’t want to ask rude questions,” Mittermeyer said.

“That just means that you do want to ask rude questions, but you don’t want to be rude,” Yang said. “I’m from Phezzan. My mother had her way with a merchant.” It was a true enough lie.

Mittermeyer smiled. “I see.”

“But back to engineering. I’m not particularly good at math, but I get the impression that the engineering courses are probably harder than the history ones. Or maybe I’m just very good at history. I do recommend you drop it, though.”

“I can’t,” Mittermeyer said.

“You have a passion for it?” Yang asked.

Again, Mittermeyer sighed a little. “No.”

“Then you should definitely drop it.”

“My father’s an engineer,” he said. “The only reason I was allowed to come here was that I said I would join the engineering corps.”

“Hm.” Yang drummed his fingers on the cue. “Can I give you some very bad advice, then?”

Mittermeyer raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

“The class that counts the most towards your rank is the SW practicum. If you do badly in your engineering classes, just for one semester maybe, you can convince your family that it’s worth letting you be free of them. But as long as you do well in the practicum, you should still be okay.”

“That does sound like terrible advice.”

“Like I said,” Yang said, “I’m a lazy man. Often, the best course to victory is the one that involves the least amount of work.”

“That sounds more like a truism than the truth.”

“Well…” Yang said, and shrugged expressively.

“What’s the practicum like, if you don’t mind me asking? Is it difficult?”

“I guess that depends on your definition of difficult, and how good your classmates are.” Yang described the practicum to Mittermeyer in great detail. When Mittermeyer missed a couple shots in the pool game, Yang just waved at him to play alone, which he did, while still astutely listening to Yang’s description of the class.

“So there’s no way to practice?” Mittermeyer asked.

“I think there might be some computer sims that you can play against, but Staden really loves the human moderated experience. The class itself is supposed to be the practice.”

“Oh.” Mittermeyer sounded disappointed by this.

“Why, you want to study outside of class?”

“If you really think that I should put all my hopes into that one class, and do really well at it so that I can drop the others, I probably should.”

Yang backpedaled. “I didn’t think you were actually going to take that advice!”

“Then why did you give it?”

“It’s what I would do if someone was forcing me to take engineering classes,” Yang said with a laugh. “But nobody should ever do anything that I do. Or that I say, for that matter.”

“You’re inimitable?”

“No, I’m a disaster!”

Mittermeyer laughed loudly. “I’m glad that I at least have an honest mentor.”

“I’m sorry you’ve been stuck with me.”

“No, you’ve been very helpful so far,” Mittermeyer said. “Thank you. And, besides, you can’t be that bad-- you are number two, after all.”

“I keep expecting that not to last,” Yang said. “Look, Mittermeyer, if you do want to practice outside of class-- hold on, let me text a couple people.”

Mittermeyer looked at Yang curiously as he pulled out his phone. Yang texted basically everyone he spoke to on a regular basis: Reuenthal, Bittenfeld, Wahlen, and Eisenach (though ‘spoke’ was a bit of an exaggeration in Eisenach’s case).

> does anyone feel like they’re really dying for more practice at strats

Bittenfeld:

> my mentee wants extra practice. I’ll GM but I need someone to play him against

Eisenach:

Eisenach:

> he doesn’t seem high strung

> you can’t blame him for this

> this was my suggestion

Wahlen:

Wahlen:

> i don’t know. Probably the first game would be pretty short

Reuenthal:

Bittenfeld:

Bittenfeld:

Wahlen:

> thanks everyone

Eisenach:

Eisenach:

> that wasn’t really what I was trying to set up…

Bittenfeld:

Bittenfeld:

Bittenfeld:

Eisenach:

Wahlen:

> I don’t know, let me figure this out, calm down

Reuenthal:

Yang could practically feel Reuenthal’s smirk through the phone. He shoved it back in his pocket before anyone could text him again.

“What was that all about?” Mittermeyer asked, cognizant of the flood of text messages that Yang had gotten.

“I asked a couple of my friends to set up a game so that you can get some extra practice,” Yang said. “What time is a good time for you to play?”

“My schedule’s free. Whenever, as long as it’s not during class. Weekday nights, or weekends after the physicals.”

“All right, I’ll let you know when.”

“Thank you,” Mittermeyer said.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Yang said. “This might end up being a painful experience.”

“Why?” Mittermeyer asked.

“You’re probably going to lose, immediately and hard. Nothing on you, I mean, Reuenthal is just really good, and he’s had a year of practice.”

“Who is Reuenthal?” Mittermeyer asked.

“The fresh-- no, we’re sophomores now-- my class’s number one.”

“Oh, cool, I guess I’ll have a lot to learn from him, then.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty great,” Yang said. “Don’t tell him I said that.” Mittermeyer laughed.

“Don’t want to inflate his ego?”

Yang laughed. “No. He’d just make an infuriating expression at me.”

“I see.”

Yang glanced at the clock. It was almost six. “Look, Mittermeyer, I’ve gotta go-- I have a hand-to-hand class.” He cringed as he said this. “I’ll let you know when we can meet, and, you know, feel free to text me with whatever questions you have.”

“Sure. I look forward to whatever practice you’re setting up. I really do appreciate it.” He stuck out his hand for Yang to shake, and they shook again. “See you later.”

Yang felt Mittermeyer’s eyes on him as he left, though it wasn’t an unfriendly look.

The time that they decided upon was Saturday afternoon, after mandatory physicals and lunch. Although some (Bittenfeld) had grumbled about wasting a perfectly good Saturday afternoon, Yang had pointed out that all they would be doing was either hanging out or doing homework anyway, so it hardly made a difference to play a game during that time. Eisenach had somehow managed to wrestle his way into having swipe card access to a training room in one of the academic buildings, so they met there in privacy, rather than having to exist in the public eye of the library or on the green.

Yang made the introductions to everyone. “Er, everyone, this is Mittermeyer, my mentee. Mittermeyer, this is Reuenthal, Bittenfeld, Wahlen, Eisenach.” Mittermeyer shook hands with everyone.

The group was in high spirits as they entered the training room, and Yang directed everyone to their seats, feeling rather like he was herding cats. To the people who were not playing or GMing (which for the first game would be Eisenach and Bittenfeld), Yang set them up to observe the match, and put Reuenthal and Mittermeyer on opposite sides of the room so that they couldn’t turn around and see each other. Since this wasn’t a real class, it obviously didn’t matter that they knew who was playing, but being able to see their opponent’s face and reactions would be too much information. As long as no one spoke, Yang believed the game would go pretty smoothly.

Yang hadn’t had a ton of time to create a scenario himself, so he had looked through past years’ freshman game transcripts, and picked out one that seemed like it would give Mittermeyer a slight advantage, while not being too complicated or unfair in the other direction. Unusually, he chose a space-based game, because he thought it would be easier for Mittermeyer to deal with. Space games were, for the most part, pure tactics, and the only thing that was more complicated about them than land battles was the full three dimensionality.

Mittermeyer had a slightly smaller force in the scenario, but an easier win condition: this was a timed game, so all he had to do was hold out at a star system until his reinforcements arrived. Reuenthal could win by wiping Mittermeyer out, or forcing him to retreat.

Yang explained all of this to Mittermeyer, as well as how to send his commands, and the various complicated rules about timestamping and how Yang and Wahlen would decide the results of actions, then began the game.

Immediately, it was clear that Mittermeyer had a sharp grasp of the situation. For the entertainment of Bittenfeld and Eisenach, Yang kept up a running commentary on how he thought the game was progressing. He described what he thought Reuenthal was going to do, what he would have done in Reuenthal or Mittermeyer’s place, and what Mittermeyer should do if he wanted to counter or circumvent Reuenthal’s actions.

“Obviously, the first thing that Reuenthal’s going to do is information gathering. If Mittermeyer is smart, he’ll station a few ships around the system, to catch any of Reuenthal’s advance scouts, jam their communications, and wipe them out. That would force Reuenthal to come in blind,” Yang typed.

Sure enough, Reuenthal sent out his scouts. At first, Mittermeyer didn’t realize the scouts were approaching, but by pure chance, one set of them stumbled near enough to the main body of his fleet that he intercepted them. With that, he split off forces to search and destroy the rest. Although it was a little late at that point, it was better than nothing, and the only information that Reuenthal was able to get from his scouts was the position of Mittermeyer’s fleet in the system, based on the fact that his first scout group had stopped responding before the others had.

Mittermeyer picked up on this subtle fact, and tried to use it to his advantage, splitting his force (which made Yang cringe), and leaving a small detachment where he had been spotted, taking the other part further away, hoping to do a half-encirclement of Reuenthal as he entered the system.

Reuenthal wasn’t one to be surprised by that kind of thing, though, and when he realized that the small force in the expected position was just bait, he moved in slowly, waited for Mittermeyer’s main fleet to show itself, then turned and attempted to break through their center.

“If I were Mittermeyer,” Yang said, “since Reuenthal’s going to break open his center anyway, I’d try to let him through and get around his backside. That would let him closer to the planet, but that detached force can go in between. If he can coordinate it right…”

And that was exactly what Mittermeyer did. The fight turned into a kind of acrobatic dance. Yang could predict Reuenthal pretty well at this point, and it seemed somehow that Mittermeyer could as well-- their movements seemed to be scarily in synch with each other, even though they were fighting. Mittermeyer was perhaps a little clumsier, having had no practice with this style of game, but he more than made up for it with his precience.

The fight dragged on. Reuenthal had the upper hand, and he was slowly grinding Mittermeyer down. Neither side wanted to retreat, but they also didn’t know exactly when Mittermeyer’s reinforcements were going to show up (that was knowledge that only the GMs had), so every move they made, they had to weigh their options of sticking it out for a little longer and risking destruction. Mittermeyer risked Reuenthal grinding him into nothing, and Reuenthal risked the reinforcements showing up and overpowering him.

Mittermeyer turned out to be the one to retreat first, pulling his forces out to the edge of the starzone, and letting Reuenthal have the planet. It was a loss, but a narrow one. If he had held on for twelve more hours of in game time, his reinforcements would have arrived.

“I can’t fault you for that,” Yang said, as he ended the game. “I probably would have done the same thing.”

Reuenthal turned his chair around and smiled at Mittermeyer. “Good game.”

“Yeah, you too,” Mittermeyer said.

“Do you want to know the secret to winning this?” Reuenthal asked.

“Sure,” Mittermeyer said. “They’re not going to reuse this exact game type in class, though, are they?”

“Not an exact one,” Yang said. “What are you about to tell him?”

“The same thing I told you,” Reuenthal said. “You have to remember what level you’re playing the game on.”

“What do you mean?” Mittermeyer asked.

“This isn’t real,” Reuenthal said. “If this was a real battle, it obviously would be best for you to retreat and meet up with your allies. That way you could come back and recapture this whole place, taking it easily against me, since I’m now much weaker after a prolonged fight. It would, in fact, be suicidal of me to stay without reinforcements of my own arriving, so while you retreated, I should have chased you and tried to destroy you before you could meet up with your friends. That way, even if I can’t hold the starzone, your overall force would be weaker.” Reuenthal smiled. “I’m sure you were thinking about all those real logistics.”

Mittermeyer nodded. “Some of them.”

“But this isn’t real. You retreated, so you lost. It’s really a very simple game, when it comes down to it.”

“Don’t let him psych you out,” Yang said. “I have the same internal struggle every time I play.”

“He gets lost in the fantasy,” Reuenthal said. “And then Staden yells at him.”

“Once,” Yang said. “I probably won’t do that again.”

“Probably.”

Yang kicked back in his chair and put his feet on the desk, which made Eisenach swat at him, apparently worried about getting the practice room tables dirty. “It’s stupid, though,” Yang said absently. “If you think like that, I think you’re setting yourself up for bad habits in the future. When there’s actual people on the line, and real stakes, not just points.”

“I don’t know,” Bittenfeld said. “I think I play the game the same as I would act.”

Wahlen sighed. “Of course you do. But maybe you shouldn’t.”

“So, what are you saying, that the SW classes are useless?” Mittermeyer asked.

“Not useless,” Yang and Reuenthal said at the same second, which made them both smile.

“I think they do a decent job of separating the wheat from the chaff,” Reuenthal said.

“They’re good at some things. Forcing you to develop situational awareness, quick decision making, adapting to other people’s ways of thinking. At least in the top level SW class,” Yang said.

“The problem isn’t people who play the game as though it’s real,” Reuenthal said. “They’re probably fine, if wasting their time. The problem is people who learn that the best way to treat reality is like a game.”

“Stop lecturing the kid,” Bittenfeld said. “You’ve already crushed his spirit enough for today.”

Eisenach leaned forward on his chair, pointed at Yang, then himself. “You want to play me?” Yang asked. When Eisenach nodded, Yang said, “Did anyone prep a second scenario?”

“Of course I did,” Bittenfeld said. “I told you I would GM.”

“Great,” Yang said, though he had half been hoping that Bittenfeld would say no, so that he wouldn’t have to play. Games always took so long, and he liked GMing more than he liked playing. “Mittermeyer, you want to GM with Bittenfeld?”

“Sure,” Mittermeyer said.

“You’d better win,” Reuenthal said to Yang.

“Why?”

“If you don’t, I’ll have to play Eisenach, to reclaim the honor of the sophomore class.”

Yang laughed. “I’ll dedicate my victory to you, then,” Yang said.

“Strong words, when you haven’t even seen the situation,” Bittenfeld said with a grin. “I picked it out just for you.”

Yang grimaced. “Just set it up. I don’t want to be here all night.”

They got the game open on their computers, and Yang looked over the starting conditions. “Seriously, Bittenfeld?” he asked.

“No talking,” Wahlen said.

“I picked it out just for youuuu.”

“You have Eisenach at a disadvantage,” Reuenthal said, leaning over Bittenfeld’s shoulder. “How unsporting of you.”

“No talking!” Wahlen said again, this time more forcefully. Reuenthal smirked and sat back down.

The situation was far from the usual ones that they played in class. It was a land battle, which wasn’t that strange, but this time, rather than tanks or airplanes or stationary artillery, Yang’s forces were horseback archers, a calvary riding across the plains of Asia, the image akin to something taken straight out of ancient Earth history.

Bittenfeld typed, “I’m trying to prepare you for this year’s hunting trip. Don’t want Deitch to almost murder you again.”

“What?” Mittermeyer typed.

“@Mittermeyer, I’ll explain later. @Bittenfeld, this is hardly going to help with that,” Yang sent to the GMs.

“It is funny, though,” Eisenach typed, and one of the GMs let the message through to Yang. “Let’s just get started. I’m anxious to test my mentee’s abilities.”

Yang rolled his eyes, but began to issue the commands to scout the situation and organize his troops. Reuenthal was right that he did have the upper hand; unless Eisenach had some kind of heretofore unknown vast trove of historical warfare knowledge in his head, Yang was far more familiar with the tactics and capabilities of historical calvaries.

The situation he found himself in was not real, but it was based on ancient Mongolian armies. Yang and Eisenach had approximately the same troop strength in armies comprised mostly of light archers on horseback: highly mobile, highly self sufficient, and the most powerful conquering force that had existed in the world at the time.

Bittenfeld had chosen a scenario with the simplest win condition: one side must beat the other to win. Maybe he thought that would make it a purer contest. Either that, or he thought that dealing with the logistics of calvary was enough of a challenge, and having to protect fortifications or a civilian population would be too much of an annoyance.

It made life easy for Yang, though, because he devised a strategy that again took advantage of the fact that this was a game. The plains of Asia were not endless in reality, but they could be for Yang.

He started running, driving his troops across the plains, and burning everything behind him. Eisenach would have no grass on which to feed his horses. He would engage Eisenach in little skirmishes, often at night, trying to take out as many horses as he could, sending in small, fresh bands of soldiers every night to harry Eisenach’s troops. They would get in, kill as many as they could, then escape as quickly as possible.

Eisenach was forced to follow Yang’s hellish pace, play by his rules, even as his calvary grew slower and weaker from lack of food and rest. Eisenach couldn’t push his soldiers faster, to get ahead of Yang and cut him off, and even when he tried to sneak up on Yang during the night, Yang was able to catch him out and defeat him.

Eventually, when Yang decided that this torture had gone on long enough, he engaged the much-weakened Eisenach in open combat, and he surrendered in fairly short order.

“Good game,” Eisenach typed. “If I had been quicker on the uptake, I could have used that strategy against you.”

“I’ll take you up on your offer to play chess,” Yang said aloud. “Then you can redeem your honor.”

Bittenfeld was unhappy. “That was pretty much the most boring way you could have won,” he complained.

Yang shrugged apologetically. “It seemed like the easiest thing to do.”

“How did you like it, Mittermeyer?” Reuenthal asked. “Seeing the master at work.”

Yang raised an eyebrow. “Master?”

Reuenthal laughed.

“It was pretty elegant,” Mittermeyer said. “You kept things in order when you retreated. That doesn’t look easy.”

“It’s one of those things that’s easier in the game than it probably would be in life. But I guess in life I’m not going to be commanding horseback troops, so it’s fine.”

“You just wait until the hunt,” Bittenfeld said. “It’ll be the most dangerous game out there.”

“You are not hunting your classmates for sport,” Wahlen said. He seemed to be willing to take on the responsibility of being Bittenfeld’s impulse control.

“They started it.”

Mittermeyer leaned towards Yang and quietly asked, “What are they arguing about?”

Reuenthal heard the question and said in his dry tone, “Every year, the Kaiser invites the top students from each class on a hunt at Neue Sanssouci. Last year, someone decided that Leigh was more of an enticing target than the deer were.”

“I’m just not going to go,” Yang said. “I’m terrible at horseback riding.”

Mittermeyer looked righteously angry. “You got shot?”

“It’s fine,” Yang said, and laid a hand on Mittermeyer’s arm. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You can’t exactly refuse an invitation from the Kaiser,” Wahlen said.

“Watch me.” Yang knew that was an empty threat. He probably would have to go, though he wasn’t looking forward to it. “Anyway, it’s not like anyone’s tried anything since then. I highly doubt there will be any trouble.” He shook his head and attempted to bring the conversation back to order. “Well. Good games, everybody. Thank you all for volunteering.”

“We should do this again,” Bittenfeld said. “I want to match you.” He pointed at Eisenach, who nodded. “Next Saturday?”

“I thought you didn’t want to give up your Saturday,” Reuenthal said.

“It’s more fun when I get to play.”

The group gathered their belongings and headed to dinner, chatting amicably about the matches and agreeing to meet up the next week.

Later, Yang and Reuenthal sat outside on the green, in the last dregs of the August sun. Yang had a book open in front of him, but he wasn’t really paying any attention to it. He was leaning back on the grass and staring up at the bright red clouds of sunset above him.

“What did you think of my mentee?” Yang asked.

“I like him,” Reuenthal said.

“That’s high praise, coming from you.” Reuenthal made a noncommittal noise. “What?” Yang asked.

“Am I not allowed to say that?”

“You usually don’t.”

“He has good intuition.”

Yang nodded. “I thought so, too. You should read the game transcript-- I kept up a little commentary.”

“I look forward to doing so.”

They were silent for a little bit. Yang glanced around the green-- there was no one else in sight, so he felt a little more confident in broaching the next subject. He didn’t want to come up on the topic of the summer directly, but he felt he needed to address it somehow. “Reuenthal, am I allowed to ask if you’re okay?”

Reuenthal laughed, maybe at the suddenness of the question, or at Yang’s odd phrasing, but it wasn’t really a happy sound. “You’re allowed to ask.”

“I was worried about you.”

“Pity is a poisonous emotion,” Reuenthal said. “And I find it unpleasant to be around people who insist upon feeling it.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?”

“I can’t pity you for things that you refuse to speak about.”

“I’m certain that you can. Especially since you stayed with the countess.”

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Not you.”

“When the subject came up, I stopped her before she told me anything.”

“You’re such a gentleman.”

“And a scholar,” Yang tried to say, but the joke fell flat. There was a long moment of silence.

“There is nothing that you need to worry about,” Reuenthal said. “I’m fine.”

“If you ever…” Yang said, and ripped up a fistful of grass. “You know. I would do anything I could for you.”

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“Why not?”

“You might make a liar out of yourself.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You wouldn’t do something against your nature,” Reuenthal said after a moment. “That’s all I mean.”

“And what would be against my nature in helping a friend?”

“Don’t worry about it, von Leigh,” Reuenthal said, then stood. “I talk too much.” The sun had slipped behind the buildings and cast them both into deep shadow.