Sam left the hospital a couple of minutes later, after assuring Maurice he did not need an escort to breakfast. The doctor had already been waiting for him when he left his appointment, and carried out a session of light interrogation while guiding him to pick up his new prescription. Sam was torn between appreciating the genuine concern, and disliking the fact that Maurice was forcing himself to act a certain way for Sam’s supposed benefit. There was also a little seedling inside him that started resenting all the care and attention being thrown his way, but Sam made sure to starve that emotion as much as possible. He could understand where those emotions were coming from, but that didn’t mean he had to allow himself to accept them.

  Once outside and alone, he put on his headphones and tried to avoid thinking about the last hour. Everything he had talked about during the therapy session, the therapy itself, its implications. Just let his subconscious mind process it for a while, put some mental distance between him and all of that crap. He wasn’t very successful. Although, to be fair, he managed to avoid settling on a single coherent thought all the way to breakfast, just jumping from one half-formed thought and physically affecting emotion to the next instead. So you could count that as success.

  A couple of minutes later, even though his brain was nowhere close to finishing going through that disjointed mental process, it was time to take off the headphones and rejoin the outside world. As he sat down to join his friends, three pairs of eyes turned to stare at him, only two of them even trying to maintain subtlety.

  “Good morning all,” Sam said with a sigh.

  “Good morning,” the three echoed. Immediately after, Sarah asked, “So how was it?”

  “Fine. Good enough, I guess. It’s not like I expected a miracle cure or anything. It was helpful. It was healthy. Etcetera etcetera. I’m going to keep going every Sunday at the same time. Nothing more to say… Really. Unless you’re gonna ask me what we’ve talked about, which is not something I’m going to answer.”

  “I wasn’t going to. Just wanted to make sure everything went alright. That the therapist is good.”

  “Seems good enough. Nice enough. It’s not like there are parameters I could use to objectively grade her. But like I said, I’m satisfied for now.”

  “So what did you decide about psychiatric treatment?”

  “Nothing for now. She did give me the same pills that you have. You know, for emergencies and whatnot.”

  Sarah nodded. “Let’s hope you won’t feel like taking any, then. So did she say anything about your… schedule?”

  “Only indirectly, and you’re veering into forbidden waters.”

  “Sorry. So what are you going to do today?”

  “Go to Dan’s. Same as Friday.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Don’t have anything better to do.”

  “Still at the stage of ‘lacking all earthly desires?’” Felix asked.

  “More or less. A little bit less, maybe. But not enough so that there’s anything I actually want to do instead of studying. Or practicing, I should say. Cause I doubt we’re going to go over anything new. And that’s bound to be easy, so even less reason to change things.”

  “Define easy.”

  “Less hard than the alternative.”

  “That’s easier.”

  “Mhm.” Sam turned his head away with a feigned shrug. “Alright. So it’ll be easier. I still don’t have anything else I would like to do. So shouldn’t I go with the easier option?”

  “I’m pretty sure studying with Dan doesn’t top the list of easier thing for you to do. Those would probably involve stuff that doesn’t require as much brainpower. Want me to give you some examples?”

  “No thank you.”

  “A shame. I had a few really funny ones.”

  “Save it for later. I just realized that this is the last week of the trimester. So you guys really need to stop worrying about me and start focusing on yourselves.”

  “We are. The reservation I made yesterday for the same time next week is for me just as it is for you. And that time, I’ll put on some bacon perfume to draw the animals to me and achieve maximal relaxation.”

  “Fair enough. Then I can only hope that you will be spending this Saturday staying in and studying instead of babysitting me.”

  “Felix won’t be doing any studying on Saturday,” Yvessa said.

  Felix nodded. “That’s right. The last day of the trimester is for relaxing and unwinding. It’s important to take a break before the exams start. Otherwise, you’re just going to be moving from a week of straight studying into a week of even more studying. And that’s not a recipe for success, I have to tell you.”

  “Isn’t it? Same for you, Yvessa?” Sam asked.

  She shook her head. “No, I pretty much just treat it the same as every other week. I never really cared about exams, to be honest. And it’s not like there’s any chance that we’ll fail these ones.”

  Felix chuckled. “Well, maybe not us two. But this one…” He gestured at Sarah. “She just had to take a couple of courses that are hard as fuck.”

  Sarah shrugged. “Eh. Even if I fail in one or two electives, it won’t matter to me. The important thing is that I studied them and that I posses the knowledge I wanted to get out of them.”

  “But can you really claim that you ‘posses the knowledge’ if you failed the exams?” Felix nodded to himself in mock contemplation.

  “Yes.”

  “Does it even matter for people like you if you fail exams?” Sam asked. “Does the academy even care?”

  “Hey!” Felix said. “People like us. All four of us.”

  Yvessa rolled her eyes and turned to Sam. “It does matter, but not as much as it does for most people. We get more leeway. Like a second try or private tutoring if we really need it. But even for your ‘average’ cadet, it’s only the core subject courses and the combat training that the academy really cares about. We talked plenty about what happens to people who fail history, right? I suppose if we’re being really cynical, then someone like us could fail every course that doesn’t have to do with magic or fighting and still be allowed to graduate, while most people couldn’t get away with that.”

  Felix nodded. “That’s true. But still, no one likes failing exams. Especially not me. Then again, the only tests I’m really worried about are math and ethics.”

  “I thought you were good at math?” Sam asked.

  “I’m not bad. Worse one in this table, probably, even if you’ll never admit it. But I don’t want to just pass, I want to ace the tests.

  “I’ll tutor you, then.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Well, maybe not in math. It’s not just that I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I’m studying it and statistics at the same time, so I still haven’t gotten to where you are. But ethics I can definitely help you with. Will be easy. Not even sure what’s all that difficult about studying it, much less studying for a test, though… Just reading the textbooks. Or the summaries if you don’t have time.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to call bullshit on that. Plenty of those guys you need to read like five times in order to understand what they’re saying.”

  “Maybe. So what? You’re not reading any of the primary sources.”

  “Even the explanation of what they’re saying is still pretty hard to understand.”

  “Eh.”

  “Whatever. I’ll come find you the day or two before that exam. Unless you get your appetite back and find a better use for your time. And next trimester, you could help me with statistics.”

  “How do you know that you’ll need help with that?” Yvessa asked.

  “I didn’t say I’ll need help. I don’t really need help with math or ethics, but I’d like it if it’s in on offer. Besides, I’m pretty sure statistics is supposed to be harder than math, so maybe I really will need help with that one. Probably won’t, though.”

  “God you guys are sure of yourself.” Sam released a half chuckle.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, I meant it in a good way. It’s awesome how much self-confidence you all have.”

  “What, because I’m not worried about failing math?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s a low bar.”

  “Not really. I’m willing to bet that a sizeable chunk of your fellow students are scared as fuck of the math test. Or some other test that you’re not even worried about. What’s the course with the lowest average grade? Imprinting?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said, “but only because the exam is bad. It prioritizes speed over everything else. The year two exams are much better. They’re longer, so people who aren’t good at imprinting fast but are good at everything else are able to get the score they deserve.”

  “Well I don’t know a whole lot about imprinting yet, so I’ll have to take your word for it. Does the exam being ‘bad’ mean that you two aren’t going to be competing for the fastest time?” Sam asked Felix and Yvessa.

  “Nah, even if the exam wasn’t bad, we wouldn’t be competing,” Felix said. “I guess you could count aiming for full marks as competing, but we’re both going to end up with a perfect score, so…”

  “He’s only saying that because he knows I’m faster than him,” Yvessa said.

  Felix nodded unabashedly. “Yeah. I mean, you’re right, but I also stand by what I said. We don’t really need to care about exam scores. We’re going to get the best deployment anyway because we’re the best fighters. Which means that, practically, the only thing for us to compete about is who is the better fighter.”

  “When has that ever stopped you from gloating about being ‘better’ than me at stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with fighting?”

  “I didn’t say I was perfect a person. Besides, one could argue that everything we do has something to do with fighting eventually. It’s all connected.”

  Sam turned to Yvessa. “Would you consider taking a dive in your ethics exam so that Felix will be forced to argue that ethics is important for fighting? After he inevitably gloats about that?”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “No. But only because that would hurt the integrity of the exam. I am more than happy to live in a future where Felix gets a better score than me and the scenario you’ve described to comes about.”

  Felix crossed his hands with a sour face. “Well bully for you! Now I’m going to do all in my power to make sure I don’t get a better score than you.”

  “Notice how he didn’t say that he simply won’t gloat if he did.”

  Sam nodded. “It’s a very interesting insight towards how much he thinks of himself. On the one hand, he realizes his competitiveness is a core enough aspect of his nature to prevent him from not acting upon it when available and, most likely, allowed by the relationship he has with the person he is comparing himself with. On the other, he is not competitive enough that winning is more important to him than being able to gloat. One could perhaps make the assumption that what Felix is most concerned with is not being the best possible version of himself, but just the version better than anyone else he knows. So that were he surrounded by monkeys, he would simply be content with being a monkey in a top hat.”

  “Why is a monkey in a top hat considered better than a regular monkey?” Felix asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s just the first image that came to my head.”

  “Well in any case, it’s nice to see that you got some of your sense of humor back.”

  “Oh… Is that what I was doing?”

  “I thought you were being funny. Were funny. Probably not the best to have pointed that out then.” Felix winced. “Sorry about that.”

  Sam shook his hand. “Nah. That’s alright. Don’t worry about it.”

  Yvessa cleared her throat. “Anyway, me and Felix won’t be competing with each other academically. It’s not like there’s even anything to really compete about.”

  Felix nodded, clearly embarrassed. “She’s right. I might poke fun at her if she gets a much lower score than me, and I more than welcome her to do the same, if applicable. But thankfully, I’m at the point in my life where I’m no longer concerned with test scores and having the highest average. So there will be no actual competing.”

  “So you were concerned with that in the past?” Sam asked.

  “Oh yeah, sure. Back when I needed every little advantage I could get in order to prove that I deserve to be where I am, and that I deserve every ounce of special dispensation sent my way. Also, when I was a lot less confident in my talents and abilities. For some reason, those two periods mostly coincided with each other.”

  “My condolences.”

  “Eh, whatever. It’s all behind me now. And it’s like I had that difficult of a time. Especially when compared to other people.”

  “There’s really no reason for you to compare your difficulties to other peoples.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. But enough about me. There’s still two more people at the table who we haven’t heard from in regard to their end of trimester plans. Sarah, care to explain to us your convoluted plan for somehow managing to pass all of your exams? Surely, even if you pretend not to care about them, you still want to, at the very least, not fail in any.”

  Sarah raised her eyebrow. “I have one less exam in total than Yvessa and the same amount as you.”

  “Yeah… but yours are way harder.”

  “They’re really not.”

  Yvessa nodded. “She’s right. It’s mostly the courses she has to write a final paper that are comparatively harder.”

  Sarah sighed. “I’ll be fine. In all of my courses. But to answer your actual question, Felix, I’ll just be spending a little less time training and a little more time studying. Worst-case scenario, I’ll have some longer nights if I feel like I need to.”

  “A little less mandatory social gatherings, maybe?” Sam said.

  “Nope. No way. It’ll be counter-productive cause I need those to stay sane. Hanging out with you guys is the last activity I’m willing to cut.”

  Felix laughed. “All three of us? But if you had to, where would you rank each one? From a ‘benefiting your sanity’ perspective.”

  Yvessa shook her head at him. “So now you’ve moved on to competing on who Sarah likes the best?”

  “Why not? Competing about social standing is what separates us humans from the monkeys in top hats.”

  “You must be so happy with yourself for making that joke.”

  “Not so happy. But I’ll admit to a little bit of smugness, sure. So, Sarah, who’s it going to be?”

  Sarah made a show of giving that question serious consideration, chin resting on hand, eyes intently focused on her own nose. “I don’t know… I really don’t. Well, at least I can’t differentiate between Sam and Yvessa. You, on the other hand…”

  “Of course. Me. Felix. And we all know why that is, don’t we?” He shook his head with a tut. “One day, you’ll have to get over your prejudices, Sarah. So, what about you, Sam?”

  “What about me?” Sam asked. “Do I also have to get over my prejudices?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt. But no, I was talking about the end of the trimester. We all had our turn. What about you? What does Dan have in store for you?”

  “I imagine that even he doesn’t quite know right now, considering my recent developments.”

  “I mean, sure, yeah. But you’re still going to be studying with him, right? So he’s not just going to keep you in Thursday’s limbo for the foreseeable future. Didn’t he have any plans for what to do with you after next week?”

  Sam shrugged. “Not really. Nothing special, at least. It’s not like I’m actually taking part in the trimester system and studying accordingly. Especially since my exams, if you can call them that, are wholly centered and scheduled around me and my progress, so I don’t have anything comparable to your week of exams.”

  “Nor to our trimester break,” Sarah muttered before clearing her throat. “Maybe we should move on to another topic. I’m sure Sam will have a better idea of what next week has in store for him, next week.”

  “Well we all know two things he’s going to be doing for sure.” Felix held up one finger. “First, he’s got a movie date with Farris. Then he’s got a just a regular date with a cat named… Rolf?”

  “Rufus,” Sam corrected. “And why are you already making plans for us to go to that restaurant three times in a row?”

  “What’s the big deal? I want to relax with the cute puppies and kittens before the exam week starts. And I want to celebrate with them after it’s over. You’re really going to take that from me?”

  “Isn’t your whole character and personality based on the fact that you love hooking up? What happened to that?”

  Felix laughed. “OK, first of all, don’t tell me that wasn’t a joke. And second of all, my whole character and personality isn’t based on the fact that I like having sex. It’s a facet of it, sure, sometimes it’s a little more central, sometimes a little less. And honestly? Right now, I’m being drawn way more to some friendly pussy than to having sex.”

  Deciding to completely ignore Felix, Sarah turned to Sam. “This Saturday, though, I’m definitely coming with you to your call with Farris, so don’t try to get out of that.”

  “I won’t. He’s the one you should be worrying about. He could decide at the last moment to rescind his invitation to you.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Probably because he thinks it will be funny if he does.”

  “That’s all? Really?”

  Sam shrugged. “It’s all a bit anyway. He doesn’t really care if you’re there or not.”

  “Then I think I’m going to be there, whatever Farris says.”

  “Up to you. I don’t care either way.”

  “Except about the part of set combination that Farris talked about.” She smiled.

  Sam felt a slight blush creeping up his neck. “I don’t care about that.”

  “Whatever ends up happening,” Yvessa said, “please try to force him to talk about politics.”

  “And don’t forget to tell us any state secrets he reveals,” Felix said.

  “That’s a no on both accounts, I’m afraid,” Sam said

  “Really? Even mine?” Felix withdrew into his sit with shock.

  Sam nodded as he took his last bite. Pondering his empty plate for a few seconds before deciding to get up. “I’m going to head out, then. See you guys later.” Sarah gave him a puppy-eyed look while gesturing to her also empty plate, but Sam shook his head at her. Making a quick exit out of the mess-hall towards Dan’s office, he only stopped to put his headphones back on. His rapid pace managed to get him there before his thoughts had a chance to catch up and start leading him places that might wet his face.

  “Sam,” Dan greeted him, “you’re a little early.”

  “Finished breakfast early. Didn’t stop you from being all ready for us to start, though,” Sam said as he took a sit across from him, before drinking a small sip of the glass of cold water on the table.

  “I finished my work early as well. Had nothing to do besides sitting here and waiting for you.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  Dan chuckled. “I already told you this plenty of times before. But I don’t have much use for free time. I’m more than content to sit and wait for you for a couple of minutes.”

  “Or sit and stare at me for a couple of hours as I silently cultivate.”

  “That too. The benefits of age, I suppose.”

  “You’re not that old.”

  “Neither are you. And yet you’re currently suffering from even less of a drive to make use of your free time than I am.”

  “Fine. Forget I said anything. Can we start?”

  “Of course not. First, I need to hear about how you’re feeling. How you fared yesterday and this morning. And what are your plans for the rest of today?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I want to study like we usually do.”

  “Oh, you want to? That’s great. I’m all for that. And what about my other two questions?”

  “Doesn’t Maurice pass everything I tell him over to you?”

  “Not everything. Just general updates. Not enough for me to formulate a plan for what and how to teach you. So…”

  Sam sighed and gave him the cliff-notes of what he did yesterday and thing morning. Trying to avoid answering the core of Dan’s question and just focusing on his actions. “So my point is that I’m not all that much different from Friday. Actually, I think it’s fair to say that I’m even a little better. So there’s no reason for me not to study today.”

  “Only as long as you still don’t want to do anything else.”

  “… The one thing I maybe want to do, I don’t want to do now.”

  “You need to understand that rest is important, Sam. The only reason I’m willing to keep you on the same schedule as usual is because you claim that you won’t be getting anything out of resting.”

  “I do understand that,” Sam said through grit teeth.

  “Alright, then I’m sure that the minute you start feeling well enough to want to do something else, something with your free time, you’ll tell me so that we can plan accordingly?”

  “What does planning accordingly even mean?”

  “Give you a day off. Or half a day off.”

  Sam scoffed. “Do other cadets get a day off during their training to be the sole bulwark between humanity and its destruction? Do the soldiers in the front?”

  “Yes. That’s why we’re not allowed to tell them what to do on Saturdays. They also have a trimester break. They’re also not training as much as you are. And with all due respect, let’s not speak of soldiers. If we were in the field right now and you were under my command, I would be well within my rights to send you on leave, or whatever version of R&R I thought best for you. In fact, I would’ve already done so on Friday. Let’s face it, Sam, currently you’re not capable of operating at your usual high capacity. And even if you could, you shouldn’t because that would be detrimental to your overall health and progress. It’s not what’s best for you.

  “And don’t think I’m talking about you, Sam Anders the person, when I’m saying that. I’m talking about Sam Anders, the future Ruler who I want to make as strong as possible and as fast as possible. This is a cost and benefit analysis in my eyes. All I want to do is balance the minimal amount of rest you need in order to train maximally.

  “Before Friday, I didn’t need to intrude too much on that front, because even if you were taking it a little harder on yourself than I would suggest, you seemed to be handling it fine. Which means, in my parlance, able to keep giving your training as much effort as I demand while getting good results out of it and not risking an imminent burnout. Now, by your own admission, you’re not able to do that. Although I would disagree with your pessimistic assessment and say that your efficacy is not as bad as you make it out to be. But regardless, it’s not where it was three days ago, where we want it. In order to get back to where it was, to full utility, you need to feel better. And in order to feel better, like it or not, you will need more rest, to take more breaks than you have been up now.

  “Of course, I’m not saying I want to relegate you to bedrest and force you to play video games and completely disregard your own opinion. Whatever plan we come up with for the time being, it will take into account your own opinion and wants. That’s the point of it all. But to do that, I need you to be honest with me, and most importantly with yourself, and tell me when you start feeling differently. When you start wanting to do stuff, as you say. Do we have a deal?”

  Sam sighed and nodded. “Of course. It’s not like you’re wrong anyway. I promise to tell you the moment I get… well enough to start wanting to do something with my free time.”

  Dan leaned back with a smile. “Good, so we can start our day. Tracing or gathering? Which one would you like to start with?”

  “Just one question before we begin. Did Farris tell you to say this?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he gave me a sort of similar pep talk. Before we split up yesterday. Asked me to stay behind and ran me through the same bullet points that you did, less time and more… his way, but roughly the same thing.”

  “Ah, I see. Then no, Farris didn’t tell me to say any of that. In fact, he hasn’t spoken to me at all for quite some time now. Which I take to be a good sign. But it makes sense he told you the same thing. It’s common knowledge. At least common to most people my and Farris’ age and position, and who aren’t total assholes. You don’t command people for us long as we did without understanding some fundamental truths about human nature.”

  “Fundamental truths? Really?”

  “Maybe they’re not fundamental truths. I don’t know. I’m just going by what I feel and what I think is the right thing to do. But if you’ll allow me my universal classification of human behavior, then, yes, there are some fundamental truths that guide me in guiding those under my command. The first of which is that some people, amongst those with the very clear and lofty goals, and usually those that are most self aware of their emotional state, hold themselves to a very high standard and see deviating from it as abject failure. Leading us to the second fundamental truth: since those people won’t allow themselves small deviations, or failures as they see, then they will eventually come face to face with a major one, which they won’t be able to avoid. Which wouldn’t be necessarily a bad thing, even a major failure can be a great boon. Unfortunately, those people are going to have a very hard time turning that negative into a positive, because they didn’t allow themselves to experience anything negative until that point.

  “But that’s only one facet of the problem, the minor one, funnily enough. The major problem is that by adhering so strictly to their harsh requirements of themselves, those people aren’t able to develop a healthy balance of rest and training. So what happens when they meet their first major failure? They don’t allow themselves any rest, they pick themselves right off the ground, and crash right back down because human being aren’t made to always keep running. Everyone needs a break. They need a break in order not to breakdown and they need a break after breaking down. If you don’t start allowing yourself breaks now, you won’t allow yourself breaks later. And what’ll happen is that, quite simply, you’ll burn yourself out. It happens to everyone. I’ve seen it happen with people much less talented than you. I don’t want to see it happen to someone as talented as you are.

  “But enough about that.” He chuckled when he saw Sam’s discomfort. “Since you didn’t pick, I’m going to. Let’s start with tracing for today, yes?”