· · · ? · · ·
The year Eirik turned five, his father stopped going easy on him.
He hadn’t known Bj?rn had been going easy.
Looking back, the signs were obvious — the careful pacing, the short sessions, the way every drill ended just before the burn truly set in. At the time, Eirik had assumed that was simply what training looked like.
He was wrong.
It began on a grey morning in early spring. Bj?rn came in from the night garrison shift, set his gear down with his usual quiet economy, and studied Eirik over the breakfast table.
“The channels are set enough,” he said. “We start properly today.”
Eirik looked up from his bowl.
“We’ve been training for two years.”
Bj?rn drank his water standing.
“We’ve been preparing to train for two years.”
A beat.
“There’s a difference.”
It turned out there very much was.
The first thing that changed was time.
Before: an hour in the yard. Two on generous days.
Now?
Dawn until midmorning.
Rest.
Then again before the evening meal.
Bj?rn’s theory, delivered in the same plain way he delivered everything, was simple:
“The body learns when it’s pushed past comfort,” he said one afternoon. “Then it learns again while it heals.”
He sat on the bench outside the house, carving something small and deliberate from a block of wood while Eirik lay flat on his back in the yard, staring at the sky and reconsidering several life choices.
“My legs feel like they belong to someone else,” Eirik muttered.
Bj?rn didn’t look up.
“That means they’re changing.”
Helpful.
“Eat,” Bj?rn added. “Run your ?nd. Then work again.”
“I am resting.”
“You’re lying there feeling sorry for yourself.” A pause. “Different thing.”
There was no heat in the words. No mockery. Just quiet certainty.
That was worse.
Eirik pushed himself upright with a small grunt, grabbed the strip of dried meat Bj?rn had left nearby, and began cycling his ?nd through the ache in his legs.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like his mother had taught him.
The pain didn’t vanish — Bj?rn would have called that suspicious — but it settled. Became something he could stand beside instead of something he was drowning in.
When he looked up, his father was watching.
No comment.
Which, from Bj?rn, was approval.
Most of the work made sense.
Footwork patterns.
Striking post work.
Weighted carries that built Líkami the honest way — one miserable step at a time.
This was garrison language. Bj?rn spoke it fluently, and Eirik was learning the dialect.
But some things came from… elsewhere.
The first time Eirik ran intervals, Bj?rn noticed immediately.
Sprint the yard.
Walk back.
Sprint again.
Repeat.
Fifteen times.
By the seventh rep, Bj?rn had that look — the one that meant he was deciding whether to ask a question.
“Where’d you get that?” he asked.
Eirik slowed to a walk, lungs working steadily.
“Not entirely sure.”
Which was true.
The memory lived in his body more than his thoughts — the ghost of a track, a whistle, the bone-deep misery of the final repetitions. Ethan’s past life hadn’t come back cleanly in most ways.
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But effort remembered effort.
Bj?rn watched him finish the next rep.
“Does it work?”
Eirik checked his breathing, his pulse, the deep burn in his legs.
“It builds Ferd differently,” he said. “And Trek. Not the same as carries.”
Bj?rn considered that.
Then:
“Show me.”
Bj?rn ran the intervals.
Not gracefully — he was built like a fortress, not a deer — but with the same relentless commitment he brought to everything.
When he finished, he stood still for a moment, breathing hard but controlled.
“…Different,” he admitted.
The next morning, two garrison members joined.
By the fourth morning, half the yard was running intervals.
Ulf did not participate.
Ulf stood at the far edge of the yard with his arms crossed, watching with the expression of a man who was absolutely noticing something being added to his training doctrine without paperwork.
He said nothing.
Which, Eirik had learned by now, was how Ulf approved things.
The stumps came next.
Three of them, left from Bj?rn’s winter cutting.
Low.
Medium.
High.
Eirik had stared at them one morning and thought, very clearly:
Boxes.
The garrison of Járnvik did not, at this time, possess the concept of box jumps.
Eirik introduced them anyway.
Low → medium → high.
Step down carefully.
Repeat.
Explosive power training felt different — sharper, more demanding, like asking the body to strike lightning instead of carry stone.
Leif arrived midway through the second set and watched in silence.
Which, for Leif, was deeply suspicious.
“Why?” Leif finally asked.
“Ferd and Líkami together,” Eirik said between breaths. “Explosive force.”
Leif stared at the stump.
“You’re jumping on a tree.”
“Yes.”
“…On purpose.”
“Correct.”
Leif watched another set.
Then:
“Can I try?”
Leif made the low stump look easy.
The middle stump looked… mostly easy.
The high stump did not go well.
He landed badly, scraped his shin, stood up bleeding, and nodded once like a man who had just received valuable market data.
“How long until you could do the tall one?” he asked.
“Two weeks,” Eirik said. “Maybe three.”
“How do you know?”
Eirik shrugged.
“I know what the work between here and there feels like.”
Leif sat on the low stump, now fully converted into seating.
“You’re strange,” he said fondly.
“I know.”
“My dad says you’ll either be very good at what you’re building toward…” Leif twirled a stick. “…or you’ll run out of body first.”
Eirik considered that.
“…That’s a compliment,” he said.
“From him,” Leif agreed, “yeah.”
The first real unarmed session came on a soft grey morning.
Bj?rn stood across the yard.
“Hit me.”
Eirik blinked.
Bj?rn was… large.
Not just tall — dense. The kind of density that came from decades of real cultivation and harder living. Hitting him felt conceptually similar to hitting the training post.
Except the post didn’t hit back.
“With what intent?” Eirik asked carefully.
“Best you’ve got.”
“That seems unwise.”
“It’s not.”
Bj?rn didn’t move.
Didn’t brace.
Didn’t do anything except stand there like a wall that had opinions.
Eirik inhaled slowly.
Then he moved.
Right foot drive.
Hip rotation.
Elbow through the line.
Clean.
Committed.
And stopped cold on Bj?rn’s forearm.
Bj?rn hadn’t appeared to move.
He looked down at his arm.
Then at Eirik.
“Good weight transfer,” he said calmly. “Footwork’s clean.”
A beat.
“But you telegraphed.”
Eirik exhaled slowly.
“I know. What gave it away?”
Bj?rn demonstrated the smallest shift of Eirik’s right foot.
“Half a breath early,” he said. “At this level it doesn’t matter. Against someone experienced? That’s enough.”
“How do I fix it?”
Bj?rn’s mouth twitched.
Almost a smile.
“That,” he said, “is what the next three years are for.”
? Congratulations! ?
? Rúna Acquired: Unarmed Fundamentals (Lv. 1) ?
Unarmed Fundamentals (Lv. 1) — [Grár | Common]
Weight transfer.
Stance integrity.
Commitment on contact.
You now understand the difference between a strike and a swing.
This is the first door.
Everything behind it is still locked.
The Wyrd would like to note that “best you’ve got” is currently not very much. This is not an insult. It is a starting point.
S?fnun gained.
The status prompt came quietly.
Late summer.
Shrine stone warm beneath his hands.
Channels aching in that honest, worked way.
The Wyrd stirred.
Eirik let himself look.
EIRIK BJ?RNSSON
Year 5 — Late Summer
Líkami (STR): 12
Ferd (AGI): 14
Trek (END): 15
Hugr (INT): 22
Skyn (PER): 19
Tróttur (WILL): 17
Tokki (CHA): 12
Level: Unassigned
(deliberate trigger · ?nd cost)
Earthroot — Grár (Common) · Lv.8
Appraiser’s Touch — Grár (Common) · Lv.4
?nd-Sense — Grár (Common) · Lv.7 (hybrid)
Rune-Reader — Grár (Common) · Lv.3
(continuous · no ?nd cost)
Dreamer’s Memory — Blár (Uncommon) · Lv.7
Ancestral Tongue — Blár (Uncommon) · Lv.9
Toughened Channels — Grár (Common) · Lv.5
Keen Eye — Grár (Common) · Lv.5 (hybrid)
Unarmed Fundamentals — Grár (Common) · Lv.1 (hybrid)
? Wanderer’s Child
? Young Cultivator
? Foundation-Builder
? Against the Grain
? First Steps (S?fnun: minor)
? Still Waters (S?fnun: minor)
? Early Riser (S?fnun: minor)
S?fnun: 24%
Class: Unassigned
Vessel: Filling
— The vessel fills whether or not you watch it.
— Foundation remains within acceptable tolerances.
— Unarmed Fundamentals shows high growth potential.
══════════════════
Eirik sat with the numbers for a long moment wondering where Wanderer’s Child came from and if it was from his past life.
Not panicking.
Not celebrating.
Just… measuring.
Hugr was high. He knew why.
Skyn climbing steadily.
Trek rising cleanly from real work.
Líkami lagging — expected.
Good.
That meant the path forward was obvious.
More carries.
Heavier loads.
Time under strain.
He exhaled slowly and closed the screen.
Outside, Rí’s voice rose through the wall in cheerful, unstoppable narration about something deeply important involving a spoon.
Eirik stood, brushed the dust from his legs, and went inside.
Training was one thing.
This was the other thing.
Both mattered.
And he was only getting started.