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They'd learned early on that it wasn't wise to do too much exercise before breakfast; Jordan's metabolism had always been fast, and the addition of the weapon bond had only made it easier to burn through energy at an astonishing rate. So he ate first, had coffee to make the world a little less unbearable, and then went out to do his morning run and the exercises and routines they'd developed for individual training. Stretch out, destroy a few training dummies that he'd help rebuild later, and perform the meditation exercises that helped them fall into sync.

The latter required very little conscious thought by now. At first, when they'd begun doing them, both hunter and weapon had had to concentrate, mentally step through the sequence of movements and work to complete them, body and minds straining at the same time, Ferros reinforcing Jordan's memory to keep the routine the same each time, and they'd noticed how it became easier to hold themselves in the same mental space. Over time, the routines had burned into muscle memory. It was almost a dance, a slowed-down fight against an invisible opponent, one of several sets that they'd invented. Keeping Ferros moving naturally at half speed through the arcs and spins worked all of Jordan's muscles, a display of the core and upper body strength that these exercises had helped to build and that they'd worked hard to achieve.

When the routine was finished, they fell into a balanced stance, resting the hammer across their shoulder and breathing hard but evenly as they surfaced slowly from the deep and interwoven flow of nonverbal thought that accompanied the exercise. It was like and unlike swimming underwater, coming up finally for air in a buoyant rush. That was Jordan's thought, they knew, but Ferros didn't have a metaphor to offer in its place, and was content to accept this one. After a moment, Ferros desummoned, and Jordan stretched, rolled his head so that his neck cracked, and headed over to where he'd left his water bottle.

They startled slightly at the voice, right hand twitching; the red stone of the ring lit briefly. "Yeah," Jordan answered, turning to look at Horace curiously. "You out exercising? Were you there long? We get kind of absorbed in it." He pushed his hair back from his face, frowned a little as he discovered that quite a bit of it had gotten loose, and put his water bottle down so that he could tie it back again.

"Nah, it's fine. Like I said, we get pretty absorbed. Like reading a really good book, y'know, just about anything can startle you when you're only half there." Jordan picked the water bottle up and drank again. "Thanks. We started doing this to get my upper body strength up," he explained. "The bond makes Ferros's weight manageable for me, but he still feels like he weighs as much as a big sledgehammer, so that took some doing. I was sore for weeks."

He gave Horace a considering look. "Your strength is going to be in speed and flexibility, so if you were going to do something like this, I'd think you and Dr. J might do better with something more like a gymnastics routine."

"Well, either that or a really solid right hook,"Jordan said solemnly.

He nodded. "Parkour would probably work if that's better for you. Or some other kind of exercise, doesn't have to be combat-related or even physical, I guess. The part that matters is both of you thinking about the same thing at the same time, so that your thoughts sort of -- " he laced his fingers together to illustrate, "overlap. We found that it helped us sense each other's flow of thought better. I can't say if it would work for anyone, though," he added. "The weapon bond varies a lot. It seems to make sense that this could work for other people, but I could be wrong, too."

"Sun's combat strategy as well as power," Jordan said cheerfully. "But the world we saw where we were in a different division, Ferros was more like a polearm, so their shapes must have some kind of relation to the fighting style you develop."

"That sounds inefficient," he agreed. "And not very safe." The corners of his lips twitched up, amused by the image. "We do a set routine so that we have a series of steps to remember and concentrate on."

"We're offensive combat, but that's not just flinging yourself at the biggest thing to hit, much as it may look like it sometimes." Jordan laughed a little. "I don't know about often," he answered, "but a lot more than before, anyway. Once every year or two, maybe. On an irregular schedule. We were in Death, that time."

His eyebrows jumped a little at the joke, but he chuckled anyway. It seemed that Horace was getting more comfortable with the injury, enough at least to joke about it. That was progress, maybe. "Yeah, I don't think it'd matter what you were thinking about as long as you were both thinking it."

"I haven't really done free-running. Some climbing, though," he offered.

"I've thought about transferring, actually, but I much prefer working for Allan." Jordan shrugged.

"Sounds like fun," he answered. "I'd like to give it a try. You done with your workout, or were you staying out here? I'm going to go in and get a shower and make myself some coffee."

"No tentacle bits, don't know about eldritch horror from the deep, the violence part is accurate," Jordan confirmed. "Not seeking him out is a good survival tactic."

He paused to study Horace's expression. The guy looked nervous, or maybe worried; Jordan wasn't sure what he might be asking about, but if he could help, he would. "Sure. If you don't have duties or something, come by in like half an hour, forty minutes, and I'll even share coffee."