Tate wrapped bandages around his left hand. Even though he'd drunk the healing tea last night his palms were still red and raw. With what Bezhar had described as his expected training regiment the day before this seemed his best option at the moment.
He held out another roll of bandages to a startled Lou who had apparently been staring at him. "Can you do this hand?"
"Oh, yes of course," Lou said coming out of his trance. He wrapped Tate's hand with practiced ease.
"Where are the dragons?" Lou asked.
"Bezhar said not to begin training until nine today."
Lou looked up in surprise. "Then why are we out here at five?" He asked with a little annoyance in his voice.
It was true that he'd had to drag Lou off his bed to be here.
"Sorry, but I need someone to call for help if I fall."
"You're going to start now?" Lou asked incredulously.
Tate nodded. "I've got to. This is important. I have to do this to be able to move on to the next step."
Lou sighed. "Why does it have to be this? The one weapon you are probably the least versed in and it's what gets chosen to substitute for a dragon attribute."
Tate shrugged. "That's life, Lou, things get thrown at you that you never expected."
Lou looked down and Tate was momentarily distracted by the marks on Lou's forearm. He looked at them pointedly. "Are you okay?"
Lou took a deep breath. "How did you do it? How did you bear such...silence?"
Tate shrugged, not having a good answer. "Maybe I didn't."
Lou gave him a confused look. "I don't think that I've ever gotten used to it, Lou. I think that's why I've begun to feel so messed up. Sometimes I've felt like I'm stuck in that moment. I've spent all these years not being sure of what I'm supposed to do with all this silence, I didn't know what to do next." He gestured with his chin to the wall and the targets. "For the first time in what feels like forever, I don't feel stuck. I'm going to get us home, I promise."
"I still don't understand why the Elder is making you do this. Why do you have to prove yourself like a dragon does, you are not a dragon." He huffed with exasperation. "Why can't she just introduce us to this mage and be done with it? She seems to hint that she doesn't want us to take information to our side of the veil but how does that make sense? If she just found a way to send us back we'd leave not knowing much, but every day we spend here we learn more and more about what a dragon society is like."
Tate answered slowly. "I'm not entirely sure either, maybe the mage has his own requirements. Like you said we are learning more and more about dragon society but that also means there's a lot we don't know. I will say this much, after all the trouble they've gone through I don't think they will actually kill us if I fail but I do think we'll be locked up like we are now for the rest of our lives. I'm going to do my best Lou, I promise, that's all I can do for now."
Lou nodded and finished the wrap. "I miss Lancec." He admitted, looking like a kicked puppy. Tate smiled a little and ruffled his hair like he had when he was a child. Lou was no child anymore but Tate couldn't help himself.
The other man scowled at him.
Tate stretched and warmed up to his heart's content today. Bezhar wasn't here today, he'd just told him to start at nine and to run it as many times as "humanly possible," before informing him that the Royal Guard had a rare mission together and would be gone for a few days on an errand for the Elder.
Once he was done warming up he began. He nodded at Lou, who was also there to keep time.
Now that he was on his second day he'd actually call the first run though thrilling. He'd almost gotten the hang of moving across the rods with fair stability. His heart was pumping and the feeling of his balance in space hanging by a thread was actually very stimulating to him. Even though it was nothing alike, it did feel something like riding on the back of a dragon.
He ran and ran and ran, he also fell, slammed, and rammed, several body parts into unforgiving surfaces.
He was able to hit one target, although nowhere near the center, but that was all even though he'd stayed up late practicing on a small board in his room.
Frustrated at his lack of progress he took a break with Lou. He sat down next to him and took the water flask he offered.
"Hey, can I ask you a question?"
Tate nodded starting in on a sandwich that had just arrived from the palace kitchens. He mentally praised their perfect timing only half paying attention to Lou when Lou said.
"The shadows..."
Tate snapped to attention and stared at Lou with wide eyes. "The shadows," he interrupted him. "Why are you talking about the shadows?"
"Because they are my unit." Lou pointed out.
Tate rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh yeah, I forgot for a second. You basically took my place."
This caused Lou to stammer and protest that no one could take Tate's place. Tate chuckled. "I'm just kidding, I looked up your records the moment I got back with Aliya. I know that they didn't pick anyone for a long time because they were waiting for the right fit. Apparently, you and Lancec are stealth masters." He grinned at him.
Lou cleared his throat in embarrassment. "Um, yes that's how it worked out."
"Well, what did you want to ask," Tate said in a more genial tone.
"Why-why do they not like to talk about you?"
=======
Lou watched as his mentor's face did an interesting series of rearrangements. It may seem like an off the wall question but it was something that had been bothering Lou for a while, ever since he'd joined the Shadow's actually. Finally, Tate's too-perfect to be handsome features settled on confusion. "I don't really know. We were never on bad terms or anything. From my perspective, we were all on good terms. I was the leader in name but Ivan was always the practical leader. He's a good man and a good tactician. It's thanks to him that I have so many wild stories about myself out there. He had a knack for putting me and Aquana in just the right place at just the right time." Lou saw him look off nostalgically. "I'm not sure what you've experienced with them or why you would ask that question but knowing them I think they probably wouldn't want to talk to me out of guilt."
"Guilt?"
"Yeah, why not, I don't actually think this way but there were criticisms about me moving around on my own. As you know in a group like the Shadows you always move about in a pair as per regulation. I was the only exception to this rule, but I think the unit got embarrassed when Aquana died. If I'd had a wingman like I was supposed to would that have happened?" He shrugged. "Nobody knows the answer to such a question but I know that people have asked it before nonetheless."
"Humm- do you ever talk to them? I've never seen a letter or communication pass to us from you, but of course, I don't see everything. I've also never seen or heard of you visiting us. Why is that?"
Lou watched Tate think about it.
"I don't know." Tate finally said. "I've just never found the time to go talk to him."
Lou frowned. It was funny because that's the exact excuse Ivan had given.
Lou let it go, there was no use prying into something that could not be confirmed since the other man was not here but Lou had long suspected that Tate just had a skewed view of himself. On the other side of that coin Ivan and the others were just stubborn.
To everyone else, Tate was a prodigy, a war hero, and a pillar of their peaceful society. He was also someone that others could miss when he wasn't there anymore.
Lou had come to suspect that Tate was the kind of person who would never assume people wanted to be near him for him. Lou was guilty of this in the beginning if he was being brutally honest with himself. He'd not approached Tate for the sake of approaching Tate the person. He'd approached Tate the legend and dared to ask him to be his mentor even after all his horrible behavior. Quickly though this had turned into an appreciation for the man Tate.
Lou had missed his mentor when he'd been away these past five years. That was the only thing Lou really knew about the Shadow's feelings towards Tate. Although they wouldn't speak of him much and although their faces twitched when his name was said Lou knew one undeniable fact. They missed Tate.
Lou wondered if that fact would ever be relevant to Tate. Here he was, on his own once again, facing some new challenge that had never been asked of a human before. Just like how raising a dragon had never been asked of a five-year-old before. Lou wondered if Tate was capable of forming those kinds of connections with people, of missing people. He knew that Tate cared about him in his own way, look at him now trying to get them both home, but something was still missing. Just like something was missing when he spoke about Aliya, his mother, or his father and brother. Lou couldn't put his finger on it but something was just missing in Tate's connections to other people.