The storm that delivered Lysander to Mount Helicon's gates was natural—unlike the supernatural tempest that had brought Aetos sixteen years prior. But the man who stumbled from its fury seemed to embody war itself, as if violence had taken human form and walked among mortals.
Scars crossed his exposed arms like a cartographer's map of violence, each mark telling its own story of battles survived. His hands bore the thick calluses of someone who lived by the sword, fingers scarred from countless hours gripping weapon hilts. His eyes held the flat, calculating gaze of a survivor who counted peace as nothing more than the brief pause between battles, a temporary illusion before the next conflict erupted. Even barely conscious, his body maintained the coiled readiness of a predator, muscles tensed despite exhaustion.
"Sanctuary," he rasped at the gate guards, voice raw from the storm's assault, then collapsed face-first into the mud.
Brother Matthias and two younger monks rushed forward, carefully lifting the unconscious warrior. They carried him to the infirmary, his dead weight betraying the dense muscle beneath his travel-worn clothes. Brother Alexei, the temple's most skilled healer, immediately set to work stabilising his condition. The healer's expression grew increasingly grim as his examination revealed the extent of the damage—not just from recent battles, but from years of accumulated violence.
"Fire user," Alexei reported to the gathered masters an hour later, his voice heavy with concern. "But corrupted, damaged beyond normal healing. He's pushed past safe limits so many times his channels are scarred like old leather—some permanently. The technique signatures suggest military training. Spartan methods, or something equally brutal."
"A mercenary," Master Zephyrus concluded, stroking his silver beard thoughtfully. "The question that concerns us is whether he brings trouble with him, following in his wake."
"He brings violence," Brother Kyrios stated flatly, his disapproval evident in every rigid line of his posture. "It clings to him like smoke, stains him like old blood. We should send him on his way once he's stable enough to travel."
"Sanctuary is sanctuary," Zephyrus reminded him with gentle firmness. "We'll tend him, learn his story, then decide our course. The temple has never turned away those in genuine need."
Lysander woke two days later with the instant, complete alertness of someone accustomed to danger—no grogginess, no confusion, just immediate awareness. His hand went immediately to where his weapons should be, found nothing but empty air, and shifted seamlessly to defensive readiness despite his obvious weakness.
"Peace," Brother Alexei soothed, raising empty hands in the universal gesture of non-threat. "You're in Mount Helicon temple. You're safe here, warrior."
"Nowhere's safe," Lysander croaked, his voice like gravel over stone, but he relaxed fractionally. "Water?"
As he drank slowly, carefully, his dark eyes never stopped moving—cataloguing exits, assessing potential threats, evaluating everyone in sight with the cold calculation of someone who'd learned that danger could wear any face. When his gaze landed on Aetos, who had been observing from the doorway with undisguised curiosity, he paused, something flickering in those flat eyes.
"You're staring, boy," he said without looking directly at him, peripheral awareness sharp despite his condition.
"You're interesting," Aetos replied with characteristic honesty.
"Interesting." Lysander laughed—a sound like grinding stone, devoid of actual mirth. "That's one word for it. What's a child doing in a warrior temple?"
"Learning. Like you, apparently, though your lessons seem considerably harsher."
That earned a direct look, sharp and assessing. Lysander's eyes narrowed as he recognised something in Aetos beyond his apparent youth. "You're the prodigy. Heard about you even in the shit-holes where I work. Youngest master in generations, they say. The boy who dances with wind."
"They say many things. Few are accurate."
"This is accurate enough. You've got that look—power without scars. Talent without suffering. Pretty temple forms that work in demonstrations where no one's trying to kill you."
"And you have the look of someone who mistakes cynicism for wisdom," Aetos shot back, unintimidated.
Despite their rocky introduction, Aetos found himself inexorably drawn to the recovering mercenary. Here was someone who had faced real combat, whose skills were forged in the crucible of necessity rather than the safe confines of tradition. During Lysander's recovery, Aetos often found excuses to be nearby, observing how the man moved with economy of motion, how he constantly assessed threats even in the temple's peaceful halls, how his pneuma flowed in patterns unlike anything the temple taught—sharp, aggressive, designed for sudden violence rather than sustained grace.
"Why do you hover?" Lysander asked after three days of this scrutiny, not looking up from the blade he was sharpening—Brother Kyrios had reluctantly returned his weapons after much debate.
"You fight differently," Aetos said simply, seeing no point in deception. "Your pneuma patterns are... aggressive. Direct. Nothing like our flowing forms."
"Because your forms assume rules, assume honor, assume your opponent wants to dance with you. Real combat has one rule: survive. Everything else is philosophy for dead men."
"Will you show me?"
Lysander studied him for a long moment, those flat eyes seeming to weigh his soul. "You wouldn't like what I'd teach. Your pretty temple wouldn't approve. They like their violence clean, sanitised."
"I'm not asking the temple. I'm asking you."
"Persistent little monk, aren't you? Maybe. When I can stand without the room spinning like a dervish."
As Lysander recovered, his presence created ripples of discomfort throughout the temple like a stone thrown in still water. Everything about him clashed with Mount Helicon's cultivated serenity. He ate quickly, defensively, always watching the room while he consumed his food like someone might steal it. He sat with his back to walls, exits catalogued within seconds, hands never far from where weapons would rest. His responses to simple kindness wavered between deep suspicion and grudging acceptance, as if gentleness itself was a trap he hadn't yet deciphered.
During meal times, his commentary on temple life grew increasingly barbed, each observation cutting deeper.
"Look at them," he muttered one afternoon, watching students practice forms in the courtyard with dedicated precision. "Dancing. Pretty movements that would get them gutted in the first real fight they faced."
"Those 'pretty movements' have been refined over centuries," Aetos defended, feeling oddly protective of traditions he sometimes questioned himself. "Each form contains wisdom from countless masters."
"Centuries of peace, you mean. Show me how that spinning kick works when someone's trying to knife you in an alley. Show me your perfect balance when you're knee-deep in mud and blood."
"Not every fight happens in an alley."
"No, but the ones that matter do. The ones where you die if you lose. The ones where your enemy doesn't care about your honour or your perfect form."
Despite his cynicism, Lysander began sharing stories during evening meals. Not boasts or glory tales meant to impress, but raw, unvarnished accounts of survival. He spoke of battles where honor meant death, where the strongest fighters fell to lucky peasants with sharp sticks and desperation, where pneuma mastery meant nothing against overwhelming numbers or simple betrayal from within.
"There was this earth user," he recounted one night, his voice carrying the weight of witnessed death. "Temple trained, like you. Perfect form, flawless execution. Could make stone dance like water, build walls from nothing. Died to a crossbow bolt from a rooftop. Never saw it coming because he was too busy making his rock wall artistic, adding unnecessary flourishes."
"What would you have done?" Aetos asked, leaning forward despite himself.
"Not been there in the first place—best fight is the one you avoid. But if I was? Burned the building down. Can't shoot from a rooftop that's on fire."
"What about the innocents in the building?"
"What about the innocents the earth user was protecting? He died pretty. They died anyway, just moments later. Where's your philosophy in that equation? Where's the honor in failure?"
Aetos absorbed these stories like dry earth absorbing rain, troubled but unable to dismiss them. Each tale revealed gaps between temple training and battlefield reality, spaces where good men died for stupid reasons. Lysander wasn't trying to destroy his ideals—he was showing where ideals met their limits, where philosophy crashed against reality's rocks.
"You'll leave here eventually," Lysander said one evening, studying Aetos with those flat, knowing eyes that had seen too much. "When you do, you'll find the world doesn't care about your perfect forms or noble intentions. It only cares if you're strong enough to survive its tests."
"And if I want to do more than just survive?"
"Then you'd better be stronger than everyone who's content with just survival. And boy, there are a lot of us out there. We're the ones who'll do whatever it takes to see another sunrise."
The challenge was clear in his tone. Not mockery anymore, but warning—the kind given from one warrior to another. The storm named Lysander had brought more than just his battered body to Mount Helicon—he'd brought questions that demanded answers, realities that couldn't be ignored.
And Aetos was beginning to realise he needed those answers more than he'd ever needed another perfect form. The world beyond the temple wouldn't wait for him to be ready. It would test him the moment he stepped beyond these walls, and pretty movements might not be enough to keep him alive.
The visiting storm had arrived, and its lessons were just beginning.