Day by Day/The Pupil

"In the end, the sword is just a tool, for it is the warrior's hand that brings it to life and, when necessary, delivers death."

- Roni 'Visag, Sangheili blademaster

For reasons that Simon could never understand, the youngest Sangheili who trained in swordsmanship at the 'Visag keep performed their drills and exercises naked. Perhaps they were meant to earn their clothing and armor; he had seen the older students wearing loincloths, simple robes, and even pieces of armor as they went about their training. Maybe the exposure was to remind them of their lowly place on the long, arduous path to sword mastery so that they never got too cocky if the training began to seem a bit too easy. But whatever the rule's real purpose was, it didn't change one key fact for the young human: no matter how much time he spent around them, he'd never get used to seeing Sangheili in all their nude glory.

And another fact: he was in the novice class as well, which meant that he had to drill naked as well.

He lunged forward and slashed his dull metal practice blade at his opponent, a trainee named Ventu, with one of a dozen standard attack moves he'd learned during the month and a half he'd spent in the keep. His back ached at the sudden movement; it still hadn't gotten the abuse it had suffered such a short time ago in the Brute slave camp. But the pain was slowly fading with each passing day, and Simon had almost gotten used to it. Almost.

Ventu parried the attack with ease and responded with one of his own, which Simon only barely managed to parry. The two of them locked practice blades and struggled to push the other back. Were it not for the chemical augmentations he'd undergone during his SPARTAN-III "graduation ceremony," Simon would never have been able to hold his own against even this Sangheili youth. As it was, he could barely match Ventu's power as their blades pressed together and the effort made his back ache even more.

From across the quivering blades, Ventu glared at him with that mixture of contempt and annoyance that Simon was getting to know quite well from his fellow trainees. Most of the trainees and some of the 'Visag keep's swordsmanship instructors themselves seemed quite off-put by the great Roni 'Visag's decision to adopt some lowly, ex-slave human into the keep and his insistence that such a creature be allowed to train alongside regular Sangheili youths. While all who lived and trained in the keep respected the legendary swordmaster to the point of reverence, such a move was guaranteed to spark controversy no matter who made it.

Simon knew that the Sangheili were just as thrown off by his appearance as he was by theirs. His pale skin and dark hair were as alien to them as their mottled brown skin and lack of any hair at all was to him, as were his odd, mandible-less mouth and his straight, un-curved head and neck. And not only was his appearance strange, he refused to be like most humans and fold under the Sangheili's superior strength. Although his muscles had been enhanced by his Spartan augmentations, his arms and legs were still quite slim, a trait which led most Sangheili to believe that he was as weak as any other human. It always seemed to disturb them when they learned that he was not.

And then, of course, there were the scars.

This problem was one that could be easily solved if the instructors had allowed Simon to bend the train naked rule, but since they wouldn't he had to deal with plenty of stares from his fellow trainees as they studied the patterns of scars that crisscrossed his torso like a roadmap. There were a series of light scars across his lower body and chest, the result of a bomb accident during his SPARTAN-III training. These would have been bad enough, but the whole of his back was covered with fresher scars, many of which were dark red from being opened multiple times. He'd been more fortunate than most slaves during his stint in the Brute forced labor camp--most punishments had involved a swift and decisive death somewhere along the line--but that didn't mean the injuries hadn't hurt like hell when they'd been inflicted and weren't doing him a whole lot of good now. And then, of course, there was the deep slash across his forehead that he'd received, ironically, from one of the very energy swords he was supposed to be training to use.

Normally Simon would have covered the scars with bandages that he wrapped around his head and body, but apparently bandages counted as clothes to the Sangheili instructors because they'd forbidden them the first day he'd started training. So instead, he got to endure even more stares than he might already have gotten.

But the scars weren't even the worst of it. As if he wasn't getting enough unwanted attention, he got to attract more with his prosthetic left arm.

He'd lost the arm on the same day when Roni 'Visag and a cadre of his warriors had stormed the labor camp he and his fellow slaves were imprisoned in. In the thick of the fighting he'd made the dumbass move of charging a Brute chieftain with little more than a makeshift knife, and for his trouble he'd gotten his entire left arm ripped off by the furious Brute. If 'Visag himself hadn't seen the whole thing and come to his aid, Simon would be dead now. And if the blademaster hadn't been so impressed by such a young human's tenacity, Simon wouldn't have been brought back to the 'Visag keep.

The keep's technicians had done their best, and their best was quite good. The prosthetic moved just like his old arm had, possibly even a little better, and the technicians had made him do strength exercises with his remaining arm so that they could calibrate the settings on the new one to match it so as to prevent balancing issues. They'd even been able to mold the arm after a five-fingered human one as opposed to a three-fingered Sangheili model.

But Simon was still getting used to having an arm that didn't feel, aside from the small response impulses it sent to his nervous system.

Yes, there'd been a lot of things to get used to in the past month. It was a good thing Simon was used to sudden, nasty changes or he might not have been able to handle them.

He leapt back and broke free of his sword grapple with Ventu, who seemed to snort with scorn; it was a sign of weakness to pull out of a contest like that. But Simon wasn't interested in all these intricate Sangheili customs. If the savage battlefields of Mamore and the equally savage pits of the labor camp had taught him anything, it was that you had to be flexible in order to survive. Juvenile traditions like the one he'd just broken just held you back and got you killed.

Maybe that was another reason he wasn't too popular around here.

Lunging in again before Ventu could respond, Simon slashed in with a series of swift attacks that he was pleased to see threw the young Sangheili off-balance. All around them, nearly a dozen similar pairs of trainees were doing the same thing, sparring on one of the 'Visag keep's many grassy training knolls. On an elevated platform on the outskirts of the training area, an instructor wearing traditional Sangheili robes stood with arms folded across his chest. By the prosthetic right foot that protruded from the bottom of the robes, Simon could tell he was Suv 'Visag, one of Roni's last remaining uncles. The old Sangheili was said to be a veteran of the Human-Covenant War which, like many things about Sangheili history, tended to make Simon uneasy. Suv had probably killed dozens of human soldiers and might even have butchered civilians during the Covenant's brutal march through human territory. And now he was one of Simon's instructors.

Sometimes Simon had to wonder if there was anything he could do these days that didn't spit in the face of everything he and his comrades had fought for back when he had been a Spartan. He usually found that the best solution was to not care about it. Those kinds of things weren't worth worrying about; there was only one of his former Spartan comrades that he cared about now, and she probably thought he was dead anyway.

He realized too late that he'd let his mind get preoccupied; Ventu scored a sharp blow across his right shoulder, the one that was still flesh and bone. Hissing through his teeth with suppressed pain, Simon leapt backwards and adopted a defensive stance. This sort of exercise was all about endurance: it didn't matter how many times you got hit so long as you stayed up and didn't lose your grip on the practice blade. That was one of the principles that Roni and the instructors he'd personally trained were determined to drill into the new trainees: never let go of your weapon.

As he parried another one of Ventu's attacks, Simon realized that he'd lost track of time. They must have been at this for at least an hour now, possibly even more. Sweat had drenched his exposed body and in spite of his Spartan training and augmentations, he could feel himself beginning to falter. And, for what little comfort that it was worth, Ventu seemed to be wearing out as well.

Endurance is one of the keys to mastering the art of the blade. That was one of the things Roni had taught them. You must be prepared to go for any amount of time, exerting any amount of strength, in order to win your battles.

Simon really hoped that they were near the "any amount of time" Roni had been talking about, because if such an effort could exert both a Sangheili and a former Spartan than anything more would have to be damn near superhuman. What was even more discouraging was that Ventu was still young; he'd gain more strength and stamina as he grew. But young as Simon was, he really didn't see himself getting any stronger.

In any case, he'd have to end this quickly. Around them, several of the sparring pairs had stopped after one of the duelists had disarmed the other; Suv had gotten down off of his heightened position and was discussing pointers and criticisms with the finished pairs.

Simon gripped his training blade tightly. It was shaped just like a regular energy sword, albeit one made of metal and slightly smaller than the real thing. He'd taken a week or so to get used to its odd shape, but now he had at least that down pat. He leapt forward, angling the twin points of the blade at Ventu's sword hand. The move caught his opponent by surprise; Ventu was slow to respond to the attack!

He was close, so close...

And then Ventu sprang into motion, whipping his own blade in a fast motion that locked the prongs of his blade into Simon. His sluggish response had only been a feint!

Realizing what was about to happen, Simon desperately brought his metallic left hand up to grasp his blade's hilt. If those prosthetic fingers closed on it, then Ventu would be unable to break his hold...

He was too late. Ventu wrenched his arm with a victorious grunt, sending Simon's blade tumbling from his hands to land in the grass a few feet away.

It was over.

Simon dropped down to a crouch, panting. Defeat was not a new feeling for him: he'd always been losing sparring matches back in training on Onyx, and it was a rare day that he won a match in this new training environment either. But he'd managed to last longer than usual, so there was a small victory to be had here. He rubbed his hands over his bare, scar-covered chest in the hopes of removing some of the sweat.

Ventu lowered his sword and clicked his mandibles. Simon had been living around Sangheili long enough to know that this was their way of shrugging. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Suv had noticed that their match was over and was slowly making his way over to him.

"I suppose that's all that can be expected of you," Ventu informed him. Simon had been studying the Sangheili language at Roni's request, but he still required a translator chip in his ear to understand all that was said to him. It was really amazing how the chip could translate the alien language into english while keeping the original disdainful tone intact. "I was wrong to think that you could do better."

And suddenly Simon wasn't interested in small victories anymore.

It wasn't as if he wasn't used to such taunts. After all, they'd been a staple of his daily routine back on Onyx. Ventu was no less nasty than most of the other trainees had been to their unwelcome human classmate. In fact, compared to some, Ventu's comments were actually quite civil. But Simon was getting tired of dealing with these stupid rituals and exercises, and he was especially tired of trainees like Ventu, who were so wedded to the path laid out for them by their instructors that they never thought of going further than they were instructed.

This wasn't what he'd learned in the training fields of Onyx. This wasn't what he'd learned on the dusty plains of Mamore as he watched his friends get cut down around him. He hadn't learned this as he starved to death on Hekate and he sure as hell hadn't learned this as he slaved away in the Brute labor camp.

What he was about to do was reckless, impulsive, and would probably prove everything the other trainees said about him behind his back right. He'd probably be punished and he'd probably regret this in a few minutes. But right now, he didn't care at all about any of that.

He reached down and dug into the grass with his organic hand, gathering a fistful of grass and dirt. "Nah," he said, looking up at Ventu, trying his best to remain completely calm. Ventu, like all the other trainees and instructors involved with Simon, also wore a translator chip to deal with him--yet another reason for them not to like him. "This is me doing better."

And with that, he flung the dirt into Ventu's face.

The Sangheili youth stumbled backwards, his mandibles flailing wildly as he fought to clear his eyes. Simon leapt up and rammed his metal fist into Ventu's gut while his organic one seized the Sangheili's shoulder with the other to stabilize him. Ventu gasped and spluttered as the air was forced out of his lungs. Then Simon brought his knee up.

There are many differences between the bodies of Sangheili and human males. But both share one distinct similarity: no matter if you're a human or Sangheili, it does not feel good to be kneed in the crotch, especially not by someone with chemically hardened bones.

Ventu collapsed, momentarily paralyzed by the sudden pain. Simon swiftly seized up his opponents fallen energy sword and aimed it at the wheezing Ventu's throat.

It was only then that he realized that the entire training field had gone silent. Suv and all of the trainees were staring at him with what Simon could only guess was the Sangheili equivalent of slack jaws. He got the feeling that not even a veteran like Suv had ever seen anything like that before.

Suv seemed to recover first, and as he stepped towards Simon he took a breath, probably to begin a barrage of reprimands. But before he could do so, someone else broke the silence.

One of the other trainees threw back his snake-like head and laughed. The youth was literally howling with laughter, and if Simon didn't know any better he'd have said there were tears running down his face.

Suv's attention was immediately fixed on the laughing one rather than Simon. "That's enough, Tuka!" he snapped, but his words didn't seem to have any effect. Tuka just kept on laughing, and some of the others were joining in.

Suv looked furious, and Simon knew that the laughter was only serving to make his inevitable punishment worse, but he couldn't resent Tuka and the others for laughing. It was the first positive thing he'd brought out of them since he'd started training.



Evening fell over the 'Visag keep. Most of the clan members and trainees would be in their respective dining halls eating, but today Roni 'Visag couldn't find the appetite.

Instead, he had walked to the keep's council chamber, where the 'Visag family saga was inscribed on the walls and ceiling around the room. Here were recorded all the great deeds of his ancestors, the mighty history of a proud bloodline. It had always heartened Roni to be in its presence; it gave him a kind of peace that a regular chapel could not.

Kneeling before the wall where the saga ended--that is to say, where it hadn't yet been carved--Roni lowered his head and prayed. "Gods, ancestors, if I have found favor in your eyes I beg that you hear my humble entreaty."

He had knelt so low that his head was scraping the floor and the elaborately-patterned robe he wore was splayed out around him like a small rug. "I thank you for the many blessings you have bestowed on me: the skills you have vested in me, the clan you have placed under me, and the students you have sent to me. I thank you for the peace you have brought not only to this clan but also to this great galaxy, and I pray that it may continue."

He paused for a moment. He had always been taught to thank the gods before requesting anything of them, and there was always something to thank them for. But he also needed to ask them questions, and he had never been sure how they might be answered. "But there is still trouble in this world you so graciously created for us. Conflict continues on the border worlds, where many of our own people and other races have gone to seek their fortune. Our governments seek peace and cooperation, but there are those among us who will have none."

Another pause. This coming problem was one that weighed heavily upon the aging blademaster. "My son, great ones, has not returned from those border worlds, and I believe that he has strayed from the path forever. He goes where he wills and fights for pay to satisfy his own cravings. I beseech you to, in your mercy and wisdom, grant him freedom from both the sin that drove him from my presence and the sins that continue to drive him from your grace."

Now the requests came tumbling from his mandibles, and Roni felt a little ashamed that he'd waited this long before coming to lay them at the feet of the gods and his ancestors. "Grant me guidance, so that I may lead this great bloodline in your ways. Save those of our race who have become discouraged and strayed from the path. Do not let the lies of the San Shyuum, which bound us for so long, be the undoing of our ancient faith. Grant us all forgiveness for the sins we committed against the humans... and grant me guidance as I guide the troubled human you guided to me onto a more sturdy path. I thank you for your patience and guidance that you grant to one as lowly as I."

He rose then and saluted the saga wall with a clenched fist over his chest and a small bow. Turning from the wall, he left the council chamber and walked down a small corridor that led through an automatic door to a dimly lit chamber. This was the council's private chapel, the place where he normally would have gone to pray. Small statues of the different Sangheili gods inhabited alcoves in the circular wall, each one meticulously carved by a master craftsman. But Roni's attention was not drawn to the, but instead to what floated inside an even larger alcove at the far end of the chapel.

There, suspended by a simple anti-gravity field, hovered the Sword of Harka. This massive, metal blade had belonged to one of Roni's greatest ancestors, Harka 'Visag. Harka had been one of the first Sangheili warriors to dedicate his blade and body to the service of the San 'Shyuum once the Covenant between their races had been established. It had been he who had crushed the Arbiter Fal 'Chavamee after his refusal to cooperate with the new order. 'Chavamee had killed Harka as well, but ever since then the 'Visag clan had held Harka up as an example of courage and unwavering dedication to duty.

Of course, now that the Covenant had been broken and the San 'Shyuum proved false, Harka was being cast in a less favorable light by contemporary historians. Now he was a power-hungry opportunist who had gleefully butchered the 'Chavamee clan before falling to the heroic Arbiter.

But Roni could not bring himself to dishonor his ancestor's name. Harka had done his duty in the name of the Covenant they had all sworn an oath to protect. Had he been in his ancestor's position, Roni doubted that he would have done any different.

Reaching forward, Roni passed his hand through the alcove's protected energy field and rested it on the blade's cold surface. The field that protected it was keyed to his biometrics. Only a member of the 'Visag bloodline could breach it without setting off a dozen alarms and traps within the keep.

Harka, my great ancestor, he prayed silently. Give me the strength to fulfill my duties, for both my clan and for the Sangheili people.

He suddenly felt invigorated, as he always did after prayer. Nodding his thanks to his ancestor's large blade, Roni turned and left the chapel. There was one more matter he needed to attend to before he could sleep.



The human, Simon, was alone in his quarters. He had opened the room's concealed window and was sitting on the ledge, going over a human-made pistol when Roni entered. Simon immediately got to his feet and made one of the hasty, sloppy bows that he always made when Roni surprised him.

"You wish to see?" he asked in mangled Sangheili. Roni's wife, Bera, had been instructing him in their language, but so far they'd made only a little progress. "Because I wrong do?"

Roni indicated the ear holes in the side of his head to show that he had his translator in. "You can speak to me in your own tongue, Simon."

Simon hesitated, then nodded and sat down on the small cot that was wedged into an alcove in the wall. "Yes sir."

Roni was always amused that in spite of Simon's clear nervousness at being in the presence of his benefactor, he never got around to the groveling humility that seemed to take over Sangheili who owed him far less. Bera said it had something to do with the youth's murky past.

"He has told you that he is a traitor," she had told him once, after one of her early language lessons with Simon. "But he has been betrayed before as well. He's afraid to give out trust and respect, because he's done that before and they were thrown back in his face.

Bera was not a seer, like the famed spouse of the great Arbiter Thel 'Vadam had been, but she was perceptive even towards alien emotions, and Roni trusted her judgement. He faced a corner of the small room, where the battered suit of human armor that he had reclaimed for Simon from the trophy room of the labor camp he'd rescued him from hung. That and the pistol Simon held in his lap were the only things that the half-conscious youth had asked for as he'd been carried from the burning camp.

"Instructor Suv was quite displeased with your display on the training grounds today," Roni remarked mildly. He ran a finger down the faceplate of the armor's helmet. Such a strange thing to have in one of the rooms in his keep, the armor worn by human Demons who had been as efficient at killing Roni's people as Roni and the rest of the Sangheili had been at killing humans.

None other than Roni and Bera knew of Simon's true origins; the other members of the keep merely thought their mostly-unwelcome guest was merely some pet project of Roni's, one that he'd taken a fancy to and would soon set aside for more worthy matters. But Simon had--reluctantly--told Roni the full story after arriving at the keep.

He had once been a Demon--or "Spartan" as it was deemed more correct to call them now--but had learned to hate his old masters once the war was over and had ended up trapped in stasis after betraying them. He had awakened and been captured by the Jiralhanae shortly after.

Roni was taking a huge risk by harboring and instructing Simon. If the High Council learned that he was sheltering a traitor to their ally, the human United Nations Space Command, he would face dire repercussions. But Roni had felt called to take this battered human and instruct him in the ways of his family: the ways of a swordsman. Perhaps the gods were using him to do some work through Simon. Roni didn't know, but it had been he who had asked for the training and Simon who had accepted it, not the other way around. He was willing to accept some problems from him, particularly since he was an alien in the midst of a world he was unfamiliar with.

Simon did an admirable job of keeping his face free of worry, but their was some nervousness in his eyes. "Suv is displeased with everything, sir. There's so much for him to be displeased with, I doubt he'll keep worrying about this for much longer."

Sometimes Roni wondered if his translator made Simon sound more formal than he actually was, because the tone of his voice often didn't match what the translator was saying.

"And your punishment was..."

"No dinner." Simon shrugged. "I've had worse."

Roni nodded thoughtfully. "And I suppose you could have done worse as well. But you know why you were punished?"

He regretted his wording immediately. He sounded as if he were addressing some errant child. True, Simon was young in both Sangheili and human terms, but he was still a warrior who had already seen more than his share of combat. More than any one as young as he should, in Roni's opinion. But perhaps Simon's translator softened the language, because the human gave no sign of being insulted. He merely nodded.

"I behaved dishonorably in a manner that was unfit for a swordsman," he recited, before looking at Roni as if searching for approval.

"And would you do it again?"

"No..." Simon began, but then trailed off. He shook his head, which Roni was told was a negative sign. "Yes, sir. Yes I would."

Roni was at once taken aback and impressed by the honesty. "And why would you do it again?"

Simon took a breath before answering. "Because it worked. My opponent let his guard down and I beat him."

Roni clicked his mandibles. "It was just an exercise. If exercise rules aren't followed, the exercise doesn't work. I'm sure even you humans understand that."

The human hesitated, then raised his shoulders up, the human equivalent of a mandible click. "Sir, I appreciate everything you've done for me and all that you're teaching me. But most of what I know, I learned on the battlefield. I was terrible at exercises like these back in my old training, but I learned how to keep myself alive once I was put into danger. There are no exercises for me anymore. I either win, or I die."

"An interesting philosophy." Roni enjoyed these brief chats with his human charge. There was a refreshing amount of honesty to them that he rarely found with other Sangheili. Being the Kaidon of a famous bloodline could be lonely at times. But it was late and he had other duties to attend to.

"I'll make sure Suv isn't too angry at you," he assured Simon as he turned towards the door. "But bear this in mind: the art of the sword isn't about living a life of warfare. You don't need to treat everything like it's a life or death struggle."

Simon gave no reply, and Roni knew that he'd have to dig deeper than just a brief visit to the human's quarters to get a better look at his mind. But he knew he would, some day. And when that day came, he'd be waiting to accept Simon's hidden burdens and to welcome him into the 'Visag clan with open arms.

Yes, that was his plan for this young Demon. To give him the home that the galaxy had clearly denied him.

Roni 'Visag smiled to himself as he left the room and headed for his own, where he knew Bena would be waiting.