Ivel was whistling when he walked up to Leom.
Not any particular tune — something loose and upbeat that had no clear beginning or intention, the kind of sound a person makes when something that had been sitting heavily on them has quietly stopped doing so. Leom was in the field running through his sword forms, the blade moving with the unhurried precision of someone who has done this so many times it has stopped being practice and become something closer to breathing.
He paused when he saw the boy approaching.
"You seem to be in a good mood."
Ivel was already settling into his stance.
"I suppose I am."
Leom looked at him for a moment — at the stance, at the expression, at the quiet certainty in both — and then took his own position without further comment.
Ivel moved first.
His steps were minimal, economical, covering the distance faster than the effort behind them suggested. He came in and swung, and Leom deflected it with the ease of someone swatting a question they have already answered, using the redirect to open Ivel's guard in the same motion. Before Ivel could close it, Leom's foot connected with his chest — light, controlled, barely a fraction of what the man was capable of — and sent him tumbling backward into the grass.
Ivel got up.
He came back in with the refined technique he had been building — a feinted horizontal that converted into a vertical at the last possible moment, the transition clean enough that Leom's initial read was wrong. The man adjusted in time, stepping out of the line of attack with a speed that had no business belonging to someone his age, and then he was coming forward, the counterattack arriving as a torrent — slash after slash from angles that changed faster than Ivel could fully track, each one forcing him further back, tighter, with less room to work.
Leom swept his legs.
Ivel went down, rolled, and came back to his feet with his weight centered before the motion had fully resolved.
"Better," Leom said. "Though keep your feet centered when you're defending against something larger than you. Against a beast that matters more than you might think."
Ivel nodded and went forward again.
He unleashed everything he had — a sequence of strikes aimed at the shoulder, the chest, the neck, varying the angle with each one, pushing the pace. Leom blocked every single one without appearing to increase his effort at any point, the deflections arriving with the calm efficiency of someone managing a minor inconvenience.
"Be more precise," Leom said, turning another strike aside. "And more elusive. You're telling me too much before you arrive."
Ivel backed off and caught his breath.
"It's not my fault you're just strong," he said.
Leom laughed.
"That's beside the point." He leveled the sword at his son. "You can do better. I know you can."
Ivel looked at him. Then he looked inward — back at the arena, at the feeling of the Medra when it had finally clicked into place. The looseness of it. The clarity.
Calm. Elusive.
He went forward again.
Something changed in the approach — not in the speed or the footwork, but in the quality underneath them. He moved with a fluid, almost careless ease, as though the sword were making its own decisions and he was simply accompanying it. The swing came from somewhere relaxed and arrived with a weight that surprised even him.
Leom deflected it.
But the momentum didn't die. Ivel let it carry him, spinning with it, and brought his heel around toward Leom's face in the same continuous motion — a kick that came from the leftover energy of the sword strike, unannounced and fast.
Leom's hand closed around his heel.
The motion stopped.
Silence.
Then Leom smiled — a genuine one, full and unhurried — and released the heel with a small toss that sent Ivel rolling across the grass. He landed, recovered, and looked back at his father who was laughing openly now, the sound of it carrying easily across the field.
"Now," Leom said. "That is more like it."
Ivel sat up in the grass and brushed himself off.
"I didn't land a single hit on you," he said, with the particular flatness of someone processing mild disappointment.
Leom sheathed his sword.
"You're not supposed to. I am stronger than you."
"You're also old."
"Ouch."
"If an old man is beating you it's quite embarrassing, don't you think?"
Leom gave him a look of profound injury.
"I retract the statement," Ivel said, before he could respond.
They smiled at the same time, which somewhat undermined the dignity of both positions.
They ended up on the cliff afterward, as they often did, side by side with the ocean wind coming in steady and cool off the water below. The afternoon had softened around them, the light going warm and long, the kind of hour that slows itself down without being asked.
"It won't be long now," Leom said. "Before you head off."
"Three weeks will go quickly." Ivel looked out at the water. "Yes."
"How do you feel about it?"
He thought about it honestly, the way Leom's questions usually required.
"Nervous, I think. I haven't been anywhere besides Minerva — not really. The capital was the furthest I've ever gone and that was only recently." He paused. "It's strange to think about."
Leom nodded slowly.
"I remember my first journey. I was about your age."
Ivel looked at him.
"Where did you go?"
"Evera. A continent far to the north — a long way from here." He was quiet for a moment, looking at something in the middle distance. "I was tasked with escorting some royals through difficult roads. While I was there, a war broke out between Evera and a neighboring country called Xerva — they were trying to occupy the land. I stayed and offered what help I could to the king of Evera."
"Why did you take a side?"
"Because it seemed like the right thing to do. Or that was my reasoning at the time." He exhaled. "Though in the end it was a meaningless war. Human beings fighting each other over borders and pride when there were far larger things in the world that deserved their attention." He shook his head slightly. "But that was a long time ago."
A quiet settled between them.
Ivel looked at the water for a moment before he spoke.
"Did you ever kill a human being? In that war?"
Leom turned and looked at him directly.
"Yes," he said. Simply, without flinching from it. "I did. It was something we all had to do to survive. If I hadn't, they would have killed me instead."
Ivel said nothing.
The waves moved below them, indifferent and steady, the same as they always were.
"Is the world always that cruel?" he asked finally. His voice was quiet — not afraid, just honest. "Everyone seems to say so."
Leom was still for a moment. He looked at the boy beside him — this boy who was almost not a boy anymore and still completely was — and then he placed his hand on Ivel's shoulder and lowered himself so they were level.
"Sometimes it is," he said. "Yes. That's the truth of it and I won't pretend otherwise." He held the boy's gaze. "But life is also a beautiful thing, Ivel. A genuinely beautiful thing to have and to live. And I think — I believe — that somewhere along the way you will understand that for yourself. In your own way, in your own time."
Ivel looked back at the ocean.
The distant waves rose and fell in their slow and ancient rhythm, carrying nothing and everything at the same time.
"I suppose I will," he said quietly.
A pause.
"One day."