Captain Emma Carlister of the Lunia Town Watch found the Southport residence to be a welcome respite. After a long day of reviewing patrol schedules and mediating a dispute between two fishermen, the warm, noisy home of Arthur Southport was a balm.
She was here on a casual basis, sharing a late supper and discussing the rising cost of harbor tariffs with the seasoned merchant. The man's insights were often sharper than any council official's. When she was little, the man had funded her education in the Royal Knight Academy, changing her life forever, allowing her to eventually step in the knighthood realm. In other words, she was almost part of this family.
It was during this conversation that the youngest Southport, Greem, slipped in. Emma offered him a warm, familiar nod. She'd known the boy for years—quiet, clever, with a head for numbers that made him a natural for his work at the library. He was slight of build, with an air of bookish preoccupation that made his mother fret and his brother ruffle his hair. A perfectly ordinary, if notably intelligent, young man.
After supper, needing a moment of quiet, Emma stepped into the walled garden at the back of the house. The cool night air was a relief. It was then she saw him.
Greem was in the moonlit center of the garden, a stick in his hand. But he wasn't the Greem she knew. The hesitant scholar was gone, replaced by a figure moving through a series of forms with a focused intensity that made her pause in the shadows.
Her watchman's eyes narrowed, analyzing. The footwork was clumsy, the power existent though ordinary, but the patterns… they were unmistakable. The high guard, the pivot on the back foot, the clean, efficient line of the thrust.
It was the Porfield Kingdom's Military Swordsmanship. Not the flashy dueling style of nobles, but the practical, lethal art taught to every soldier and guardsman in the empire, including herself.
He was practicing the kingdom's swordsmanship forms. She'd drilled them herself a thousand times.
A jumble of thoughts collided in her mind.
'Greem?', The boy who could barely heft a crate of his father's ledgers
How? Where had he even seen these movements? The library? Some old manual, perhaps. But to translate text into motion… that took a different kind of talent altogether. His body was clearly trained. From her acute eyes, she could tell the boy was at least as strong as a regular soldier of the Town's watch. But what surprised her was not the toned muscles on his body. In her barracks alone, dozens were superior to him, having trained for longer.
It was his mind. His sword was reproducing the geometry of the art with surprising accuracy. He had the idea of it. Each thrust was getting more accurate, as if his intuition was getting sharpened as he practiced. The swordsmanship was unimpressive. Clearly, he had been training for less than a year. The growth, however, was noticeable.
A surge of unexpected protectiveness and professional interest rose in her. This was a side of the quiet librarian she'd never imagined. He wasn't just memorizing books...
She stepped out of the shadows, her boots making a soft sound on the cobblestones. Greem froze, the stick dropping to his side as if burned. His head whipped around, and for a split second, she saw something raw in his eyes—not just surprise, but a flicker of something like alarm, quickly smothered by his usual polite reserve.
"Captain Emma," he said, his voice a bit breathless, "I didn't hear you."
"I noticed," she said, her tone gentle to put him at ease. She gestured to the stick in his hand. "I didn't know you had an interest in the sword, Greem."
He looked down, a faint blush visible even in the moonlight, "It's… just something I read about. In an old military history. I was curious about the forms"
So it was a book, she thought, a smile touching her lips. Of course it was. But the curiosity was the key. The talent was there, hidden under layers of ink and parchment. Again, his body was like a sculpture, waiting to be refined.
"Curiosity is a good start," she said, walking closer. "But the text doesn't tell you about the weight of the sword, the balance, or how your wrist should turn on the parry" She stopped a few feet away, looking at his slim frame, seeing not its weakness but its potential for speed and precision. "Your form is… academically correct. But it's like you're trying to dance by reading about it."
He met her gaze then, and she saw the keen intelligence in his eyes, the same one he used on his father's ledgers. He was assessing her, weighing her words.
"It's harder than it looks," he admitted.
"It always is," Emma agreed. "Tell you what. Next time I'm off duty, I'll show you. The proper grip. The basic stance. It might save you from pulling a muscle trying to learn from a dusty old tome. I know I have been visiting the manor less regularly these days because of the rise of criminality in the slums, but maybe I should have"
The alarm in his eyes was entirely gone now, replaced by a look of genuine, almost startled, gratitude. "You… you wouldn't mind?"
"Not at all," Emma said, her smile widening. It felt good, this idea. Teaching the quiet scholar a bit of practical self-defense. It was a far more pleasant thought than harbor tariffs or fishmongers' squabbles. She saw no dark acolyte, no wielder of forbidden magic, only a bright young man with a hidden spark of a fighter, waiting for a little guidance.
"Consider it a citizen's initiative. Can't have our best bookkeeper pulling a shoulder, now can we?"
The both of them laughed it out, and returned to the home. As Emma bid the family farewell, the young man rejoiced. Lessons from a full-fledged knight? Now that was something valuable.