Words: 673

Björn had signed up for the full rotation of events- Caber Toss, Stone-Putter, Hammer Throw, Weight Throw, and Hill Race. Five events that ran the course of the afternoon, usually leaving the contestants sweaty, tired and with one or two pulled muscles. He’d started with the Caber, and had done a personal best as well as won second place in the event. His lord had come….he’d been rewarded. He had placed in the top three of every event thereafter, and he’d not been wheezing, tired or strained. He had not been tired running uphill. Every other competitor had looked well done for the day, and he was only just off the high and just starting to feel a regular sort of fatigue as if he’d only competed in a single event. It was disturbing.

Equally disturbing was that it did wear down. It was a soul. The very energy and fabric that powered personhood within a body. That starseed Mr. Collins had given him was a person who’d had a name, a hope and dreams, maybe had family and friends and somehow all that was boiled down and away in so little. No, more than that, it was just pissed away on a couple events of a Highland Games. He was grateful to have the knowledge of what it meant to eat a starseed, for the honor and reward from his lord, but the paltry use was appalling. It was as bad as flippantly expending Youma. He didn’t want to use a starseed for so petty a situation ever again.

Clarity came for the reasoning that officers keep energy on hand and, at need, one starseed for emergency purposes. He understood it now. He’d experienced it quite clearly. Taking hits, like Troy’s punishing fists or Ida’s pointy paws of death, or in the case of the higher ranks using teleportation, could wear someone down after not many minutes. Battle was a test of attrition, and the starseeds and energy orbs really did pack a noticeable trump card. He’d not made it a priority to bother with keeping them on his person as anything other than caches before he made a quota drop. He hadn’t liked taking starseeds before, still didn’t. But he knew their usefulness now, and the reason why the officers were told to use them when facing off against firebreath and steam guns.

Mr. Collins was General Obsidian.

It was mind boggling. Sure, he knew by now the answer to bizarre things like that was ‘magic’, but it was still incredible. His gym teacher for his two years at Hillworth had been the same as the shadow he’d worried and hoped would find him out in the city or on campus late- the one who’d given him answers and made him seriously consider that he might not get home alive. It was even a little ridiculous- students only ever joked that their ‘evil’ teachers must eat souls. Obsidian sure did. Mr. Collins ate souls. Did he just….during the school day? Were any of the other teachers officers? Maybe even some of the students! He’d never have known, while he was there, and that was a little sad. To be near allies, near friends, and not know them was a tragedy. It was a moot point now that he was graduated- he had no default community around himself. There were the regulars at the gym, sure, but that wasn’t much or large a crowd. Besides, it was something of a etiquette rule like riding on a train or bus when you went to the gym that no one interacted unnecessarily or outside of common courtesies. It made him glad, in a way, that he and Colin were both graduated. It meant Colin was not in direct danger of being targeted now. Not that they’d had had any idea that they could be before. Were many of the Negaverse sourced from Hillworth then? Should he, as an alumni, aid this somehow now? It was confusing. It was all confusing.