The professor didn’t move. She was still looking at him in awe.

“Come on, grab your lance and let’s fight.” Mahon repeated.

But the woman shook her head. She dropped to the floor, and, knees on the ground, she bowed to Mahon.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize you were a true master of the lance. Please forget my insolence. I’m not worthy to defy you.”

“Uh… What?” Mahon looked dumbfounded at the girl who had her face buried in the rough sand of the arena. “I thought you wanted to fight. I’m here now, so let’s do it.”

“No, no, no. I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight.” She shook her head, but she was still against the ground, and she buried herself even further in.

“Uh, Fada…”

Mahon pegged his lance into the ground and walked closer to the girl. He sat just next to her and forced her to sit up. She looked back at him with pleading eyes, the face coated in sand.

“What’s wrong with you? Getting all pissed off for a fight and then suddenly kneeling like your life depends on it.”

“I… I’m sorry.” She managed to say while trying to wipe the sand away from her eyes and mouth.

“Take a deep breath. Calm down. There is no need to go to such lengths.”

The woman managed to calm herself a minute later, and Mahon could see some lucidity returning in her eyes.

“Good. Now explain. What do you want?”

“Eh… I… I…” she took a deep breath and shook her head to refocus. When she spoke again, it was with the same voice she had used the first time Mahon met her. “I’m sorry for the mess I caused.”

Mahon waved her excuse with his hand, indicating there was nothing to worry about, and she continued.

“It’s just that you appeared randomly one day, and with a single piece of advice, you turned months of hard work into nothing. And you were right. I trained on my own, with what you showed me, and I managed to move further into the ninth Step. I refined the previous Steps too, searching for efficiency. In a single week, I’ve progressed more than in the past two years!”

Mahon thought back to that day where he had seen her practice. There was indeed a lot to improve in her stances. But he knew better than to say it and let her continue.

“ ‘Who are you?’ I kept thinking. I couldn’t imagine you were a student, instead I thought you had decided to mock me that day. But when I looked deeper, I found out you were really a student. A student! Impossible, I thought. And yet, it is true. I… I somehow got mad at how you treated me. I started thinking that maybe I had imagined everything. Maybe you didn’t exist. So today I wanted to know, for sure. I went to your house and waited for you to come home and…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’m sorry for what I said last time.” Mahon spoke in a gentle tone. “I… I’m not very good with people besides commanding, so… Uh. But since we’re here now, why don’t you want to fight anymore?”

“It’s impossible… You’re a thousand times stronger than me. These 12 Steps of the Lance, it was… incredible. There is no way I can win.”

“Who said anything about winning, though? We can fight to train.”

“No, no, I wouldn’t want to waste your time. Please, ignore my demand.”

“Actually, now that I’ve taken hold on a lance, I’d appreciate some sparring. Whatever your level is, doesn’t matter.”

The woman looked back at him with surprised eyes. “Really?”

“Yes. Now stand up. Time to show me how good your Steps are.”

“So you just destroyed her?” Zac asked as they were heading to Ash’s shop for their first music training.

“Not really… we trained, so it’s not really like…” Mahon started.

“Yeah, but you won every time, right?” Zac interrupted.

“Yes.”

“And she didn’t even touch you once?”

“Yes.”

“So you destroyed her. Ah, Fada. I can’t even realize that you taught the lance professor how to fight with a lance.” Zac shook his head in disbelief. “The lance professor!”

“To her defense, she’s not really good, so…”

“How is that to her defense?!”

Mahon threw a weird look at his friend. “She still has a lot to learn?”

“Ah, whatever… What happened next?”

“She was tired from the training, so we cut it there. Afterwards, I went to Nightmare and trained a bit more with the lance, but it’s not the same feeling as here. I had the Flow and a real lance. It was so perfect! Imagin…”

“Wait, wait, wait! What do you mean, we cut it there?”

Mahon looked at Zac like he was an idiot. “She was tired, so we stopped the training and went home.”

“Wait a second. A beautiful lady ran after you for the whole week. She is in awe in front of you. She is tired and sweaty from an intimate training, and you just… let her go? Not even escorting her home?”

“Yes?”

“Ah, my friend… I’m telling you, you missed an occasion to train with your lance.”

“What? I told you she was already tired. Lance's training was over…”

“Not the lance I’m talking about.”

Mahon finally understood. “Uh, shut up! I’m not interested. I just wanted to practice with the lance.”

“And she, too, wanted to practice with your lance! Two good reasons to escort her!” Zac laughed at his own poor joke.

“You’re a lost cause.” Mahon sighed.

“Can’t be training all day, right? Next time you…”

“Shut up. Tell me about you and Ash, instead.” Mahon retorted with a predatory smile.

“Weather is nice today, right? It’s a good day to walk.” Zac answered with an innocent face, and the two friends laughed together a second later.

They continued their chitchat and taunting all the way to Ash’s shop. She was already waiting for them, and as soon as they arrived, she led them to a backroom full of bookshelves and dismantled instruments. She had made some space at the center and brought three chairs so they could all sit.

“So, what do you want to play?” she asked once they were all set up.

“I was thinking, maybe we can make a selection of songs that would fit the reception’s mood, and then practice them.” Zac answered.

“You don’t want to create new songs? Or some improv?”

“I think Mahon is not ready for this yet. And it’s our first time training, I’d prefer we keep it simple.”

“Really? No improv at all?” Ash seemed almost pained at the news.

“Ah, no, no, we can do some!” Zac explained. “It’s just since we’re not sure yet how much we can do, I thought it was best to first select some songs so we’re sure we got the whole party covered, and if we’ve still some time to train, we could try some improvisation. But with Mahon here, I think it’s safer to learn some songs first.”

Ash looked like she didn’t share Zac’s opinion, but, instead of arguing, she turned to Mahon and tried to draw him to her side.

“What do you think? A bit of improv can’t hurt, right?”

“I know nothing about this kind of stuff, so you decide.” Mahon smiled innocently. “And there is no way I’m taking part in your quibbling. You settle it with Zac on your own.”

Ash pouted and started to debate with Zac how it was important to learn to improvise as a musician. Mahon didn’t pay attention to it and simply looked at them bickering happily between themselves.

War, cultists, everything seems so far from here.

“Mahon? Mahon!” Zac threw him a ball of rumpled paper. “Stop daydreaming. We’re gonna start with the first song now.”

“The first song?”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t listen to anything we said.”

Mahon glanced at the room and realized a lot of books were opened and scattered on the ground. At their feet, Zac and Ash had dozens of papers with scribbling on it. At least an hour must have passed since he had stopped listening to them. He showed his best smile as if he had done nothing wrong, but Zac wasn’t duped.

“Oh, Fada… Just start with this one.” He pointed to one of the sheets at Mahon’s feet. “We start easy, with low music, while the guests are coming. We’re just doing two or three of this kind now. They’re all the same afterwards. On the d-day, however, we might go on for hours with these songs.”

Mahon nodded and brought his harmonica against his mouth, ready to play. The song was slow, with not much volume to it. It was made to be simple and not very loud. A nice background noise. That also meant it was not very interesting, and Mahon quickly got the hang of it.

Most of the work was assumed by Zac with his sitar and Ash with her mandolin. They imposed the rhythm and flow. With his harmonica, Mahon mostly hummed low tones to cement the rhythm. Once upon a time he had an occasion to blow a stronger series of notes, building up some volume and enlivening the melody, but the songs they practiced at first weren’t supposed to be very cheerful and it didn’t last long.

They practiced a couple similar songs, before they switched to the main songs of the night. Zac and Ash had no trouble playing any of them, but Mahon was often offered advice as to improve his contribution to these songs.

“See here, Mahon? When those notes come, it’s to tease and start to build up the main piece. That is you. So you need to start from here and incorporate this intention into your first notes, got it?”

“No, not all. What do you mean by intention?”

Zac threw a pleading look at Ash, and, taking the hint, the woman went on to explain.

“Intention is the way you play the note.”

“But a note is a note. You can’t play it another way than it is.” Mahon answered, confused.

“It’s only half true. A note is a note, right. But the way you link this note to the one after is the important part. It’s where you can express yourself. You can abruptly cut the links between the notes or make them flow into each like a river. You can start low and build volume with each added note, like charging horses. You can alternate high and low in a soothing way. You can do whatever you want with it. This is intention.”

“Wow, great explanation.” Zac commented. “Here, however, Mahon, you can’t do what you want. You need to understand the intention of the author, the man who wrote the song. Only by mimicking his intention can you draw all the emotions from it.”

“I get it. But… Isn’t it bound to be less than the author’s intention, though? He wrote the song. I can only do worse than him.”

“Ah! Told you we should improvise.” Ash taunted Zac. “We could choose our own intention then.”

“You’re mostly right Mahon.” Zac ignored Ash and continued his explanation. “But sometimes the intentions are easily mimicked and you don’t lose much. Sometimes you can change the intention a bit, to better adapt what you want to convey. It changes the song a bit, but it’s not inferior. Just different.”

Mahon nodded. “So for this song, I should follow your intention when you play this series of notes, that’s it?”

“Yeah, exactly! I’ll read the mood and depending on when we play this song, it may vary from a peaceful discussion to an entailing dance. I’ll choose when to play it, and I’ll be responsible for setting the mood. When you get to the main part of the song, you’ll be responsible for most of the intention. Your goal is to build the same one I used during the previous series, to have a beautiful continuous song.”

“Playing with intention and reading the mood are the main differences between amateurs and professionals. If you get this right, and I’m sure you can, then we’re set for an amazing performance!” Ash concluded.

The trio spent the next hours training in the different songs for the reception. They focused on low vibes songs first, and when they got tired of it, they practiced with dancing ones. The cheerful melodies always improved their mood, and it happened more than once that Mahon continued playing alone while Zac dragged Ash into a frenzied dance.

Sometimes Zac grabbed Mahon instead, and it was Ash who tried to remain serious while the two boys moved randomly on the improvised dance floor. Whatever they ended up playing, the end results would always be the three of them laughing out loud.

They spent the whole afternoon and most of the evening playing around and giggling. When Mahon and Zac went back to their First White residence to sleep, they grinned from ear to ear, feeling both exhausted and full of life.