Javad expected to have stay with Shora for months. With final exams for the year coming up, he knew he’d lose that entire year of school. He’d just have to delay a year and try again. It was the least he could do to bring her back to health. He enjoyed his time with her. Her odd attraction to him was one thing, but he enjoyed her company. She insisted on learning about his classmates. Loneliness made her interested in his social life.

To his shame, the three he knew best were the three boys who tried to fight him all the time. They were the biggest in his class, and insisted on causing trouble for him, the smallest.

Shora remarked that they wanted to be the most dominant. The smallest in the class constantly showed them to be weak. 

Javad wanted to know how to make them give up. Shora’s advice was to cause them enough pain that it wasn’t worth it. They’d probably become his friends after that. After all, he knew them best. Once Javad had caught her up on his lack of friends, he asked her to teach him about her life out on the edge of civilization. 

There was enough cooked and dried chimera meat to last for a long time. But Shora taught him about hunting, butchering, and preserving food all the same. He didn’t have much else to do and enjoyed the work. In return, he taught her more about Qismat and its customs. Shora had a great interest in the art of smithing. Orcish weaponcraft was functional, but the process of hammering metal into thin blades was beyond them. 

The spear her brother had given her used a human made metal tip, taken off a pike. Uzgar had retrieved the speartip from the dead chimera, but now she needed to seat it in a new haft. Javad wasn’t an expert himself, but by following a book, they both rebuilt her weapon.

A week passed, and Shora was up and walking already. Javad remarked that her orcish constitution was fearsome. She wasn’t able to hunt on her own, but she crafted more wooden javelins for him and accompanied him. He became reasonably accurate, taking down one of the larger deer towards the end of the second week. 

Shora was impressed how quick he’d advanced on the deer to land the mortal wound. It ran for miles, and the pair chatted away happily while they followed the occasional drops of blood. She wanted to carry it back over their shoulders, but Javad talked her into making a sled for him to drag it on instead. The fresh deer meat tasted good to both of them. The preserved hyena meat had never been delicious. It hadn’t even been that good, freshly cooked.

Two weeks after her injury, Shora was fully healed. Javad would make it back to the Temple of Inferno in time for his final testing. Shora insisted on a final sparring session first. They matched each other blow for blow. Javad wasn’t sure why she’d slowed down enough for him to match her. Was she holding back on purpose? But soon, he realized why. 

They’d spent so much time together that they were unconsciously matching each other’s speed. Shora had said the training was for fun, when she first agreed to spar with him. But she took her sparring seriously. Javad believed she was almost afraid during their sparring. But certainly not about herself, he rarely landed a hit. It was on his behalf, the boy realized at last. She was afraid of hurting him.

But today, she seemed relaxed, and was enjoying their bout immensely. Her tusks were curled into a big smile as their weapons clashed. Sparks flew, and neither of them gave ground. Both were operating on instinct, and not really trying to win. Stroke and counterstroke as Javad held even with her. Eventually, he was worn out by her fearsome strength, and she grinned easily, holding back the finishing blow she could have landed. 

“Javad. That was fun. I’ll have to accelerate my efforts in the future. Can’t have you getting the better of me just because I was in bed so long.”

He bowed to her in the Qismat gesture of respect. “It was nice to be equal for a while.”

“Always.” She copied the gesture. 

It seemed much more impressive when she did it. She was well over six feet now, but still lanky, for a she-orc. She was of the age to fill out to an orcish solidity soon. He gathered his stuff for a return to the school, packing some of the deer with him. Shora sat with him as he prepared.

“When is your first fight going to be? Will it be far?”

“I’m going to join the arena in a nearby town. I only have to finish my testing at The Temple of Inferno. After that, I’ll be an acolyte of Inferno, an educated individual. I’ll be missing out on the more mystical aspects of training at the temple, including the safe use of the berserker mushrooms. I’m going to banking on you instead.” 

“You’ll be outweighed in every fight,” she warned. “This Inferno can give you an edge. You should take it.”

“I’m free to rejoin any of the temples in Qismat to finish two more years of training. At that point, I’d be an official Knight of Inferno. But I can’t afford it now. First the arena, and then I’ll make my fortune as man-at-arms to a rich noble.”

With heavy hearts, they parted. It was the first time the pair had spent extended time together. They’d grown fond of each other. But Shora knew by his earnest expression she couldn’t talk him out of his goal. So instead, she banked on his promise. To walk the streets of the human’s grand city with him by her side.

*

Javad returned to the temple and scraped by a passing grade for his final tests. Despite a low mark, his inspectors were impressed by his martial dedication. They regretted that he wouldn’t be finishing the rest of his training. Javad told them it couldn’t be helped. The acolyte training had been paid off by working for the temple. Training to become a Knight of Inferno was ten times the cost. 

He was shocked to see his parents at his graduation. They had never expressed any interest in his life. What were they doing here?

His father, Ayazir was dressed in his finest clothes, freshly washed. His mother too. Unlike standard tradition for such a celebration, they wore black. Funeral clothes were the only fancy clothes his parents owned.

His father walked up to him, and for the first time in Javad’s life, bowed to him.“I regret not being involved in your life Javad. I never expecting anything from you. I was wrong and glad to be. What you have accomplished here was a worthy goal.”

Javad stared back at his father with open suspicion. “Now I’m educated. Do you think I might be useful to you? If you think you’re going to get money from me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Javad! Don’t mock your father.” His mother, Vida, scolded him. “I asked him to come. Your father and you never took the time to know each other. He is as stubborn as you. It didn’t come from nowhere. He’s too stubborn to take your money. He’d die first. You became a man by your own will, and I wanted to see you. We wanted to see you.”

“If it isn’t about money? Why do you care now? Nothing I did mattered before.” 

“I regret that I never gave you much love. But a worthy accomplishment deserves our recognition.”

His father nodded at this. “I don’t expect you’ll return home, Javad. But I have a request.”

“Let’s hear it,” Javad said curtly.

“Take care of your mother in her final years. I think you’ll achieve great things. I have a feeling you and I will not meet again.”

“Father, you aren’t so old yet. Mother is even younger. There are many acolytes. It doesn’t exactly mark me for greatness.”

“It isn’t your education, Javad. It’s your walk and posture. Even the way the others of your class look at you.”

“I don’t have many friends. And how do I walk?” he scoffed.

“You are like a combination of a wildman and a man who could command an army. The one in command doesn’t have many friends. But he is respected. I see the three biggest in the back. They were staring at you with something like envy, but fear too.”

“I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t make a habit of practicing how to walk.”

Ayazir stepped forward and took his hand. “Will you look after your mother when the time comes?”

Javad looked up at his father. He was greying at the temples, but his life kept him fit. “Of course. I will. You worry too much. She has older sons.”

They exchanged a bit more small talk about his life. He told them of his plan to continue working at the temple, but none of his more extreme goals. They told him how his siblings were doing. He’d been as separate from his siblings growing up as he had his parents.

His father shook his hand once more before they turned to leave. “Goodbye son. I’m going to hear about you. I’m sure.” 

As Javad watched his parents go, he pondered the strange encounter. Why did his father assume they’d never meet again? Of course, the arena had its own risks, but he hadn’t told them about that. If he had any success, his father would turn out to be right.