Chapter 25: Exhaustion

Chapter 25: Chapter 25: Exhaustion

The front door felt heavier than it had any right to.

Jason leaned into it more than he pushed, boots dragging through the last few steps into the hallway. His spear hung loosely in one hand, his grip so weak that it nearly slipped free before he caught it against the wall.

Voices drifted from the kitchen, easy and mid-conversation.

Before he’d even reached the doorway, [Cursory Insight] flickered active on reflex, sweeping briefly over both of them.

[Judith Watson]

[Age: 45]

[Cultivation: Third Level– Late stage]

[Condition: Stable. Mild fatigue.]

[Occupation: Disability Caregiver]

[Novaria Agnello]

[Age: 24]

[Cultivation: —]

[Condition: Stable]

[Notable: Full recovery from recent seizure activity]

Jason let the tension in his shoulders ease a fraction.

"—so when you’re shifting from the bed into the chair, the trick is getting their weight forward onto their own arms before they actually lift," Judith was saying, demonstrating the motion with her hands. "It braces the transfer properly. Saves both your backs, and hers doesn’t end up getting jarred halfway through."

"I see," Novaria said, sitting straight-backed in the chair. "Though I’m fairly certain half of what you’re teaching me is really for whoever ends up lifting me into this thing on days he’s out."

She pointed toward Jason.

Judith caught sight of him in the doorway mid-sentence and glanced at the clock on the wall, already reaching for her bag.

"That’s my cue. I should get going, actually. I’ve got somewhere to be tonight."

"Everything alright?" Jason asked.

"More than alright. I just need to see my son."

Something warm and immediate softened her whole face at the mention of him, a different kind of energy from the brisk, capable one she usually carried.

Novaria’s eyebrows lifted slightly. "You have a son?"

"I adopted him not too long after I left the service. He’s a teenager, if you can believe how fast that went."

She slung her bag over her shoulder, already halfway to the door.

"He’s the reason I got into this line of work properly, honestly. Figured if I could handle one difficult teenager, healthcare couldn’t be that much harder."

"Debatable," Jason muttered.

She shot him a look that had probably silenced soldiers twice his size.

"I’ll be back early, before your training starts," she said, pausing at the threshold. "You, in the meantime, should get some rest. You look like something that got dragged behind a cart."

"Thank you. That’s very kind."

Judith snorted before stepping outside.

Jason shut the door behind her and made his way back into the kitchen, lowering himself into the chair across from Novaria.

"So," she said, a familiar glint settling into her eyes. "Sit up straight and tell me how badly you embarrassed yourself today."

"That’s a very specific accusation."

"It’s an educated guess. You’re walking like every joint in your body personally betrayed you."

"They did, actually. All of them. At once."

She laughed, short and warm.

"Tell me everything."

He gave her the general shape of it—the stance corrections, the footwork drills, and the number of times he’d ended up flat on his back in the dirt before lunch.

"He really didn’t go easy on you."

"Not even slightly. Every mistake got called out the second it happened. Sometimes before I could even make them."

"He really knows his stuff."

Something flickered across her face, brief and almost wistful.

"I had one like that, once. Before all of this."

Jason grabbed the broom leaning against the counter without really thinking about it, demonstrating the stance shift Darius had drilled into him that morning, his weight settling back as his elbow dropped into position.

"Like that?"

Novaria studied his form with a critical eye, tilting her head slightly.

"You’re still fighting like you’re holding a sword."

"I’m holding a broom."

"You know what I mean. Your weight’s committing forward the second you thrust, like you’re chasing a cutting edge instead of extending a point."

She paused.

"A spear isn’t about the strike landing hardest. It’s about the strike landing first, from farther away than your opponent can reach back."

Jason adjusted his stance, pulling his weight back and letting the "strike" extend rather than lunge.

Something clicked.

"That," she said, nodding in satisfaction. "See the difference?"

"I do, actually."

He turned the broom over once, feeling the shift in balance now that he wasn’t fighting his own instincts with every movement.

"And you could tell just from watching me once?"

"I spent years training people who made the exact same mistake transitioning between weapons."

She said it simply, without any weight of self-pity attached to it. Just a fact.

"When you mentioned having trained with a sword, it was pretty easy to place."

"Well. Thank you. That’s the first correction today that didn’t come with a bruise attached."

"Don’t get used to it. I’m not nearly as patient as your instructor."

"Somehow, I don’t doubt that."

She smiled and nodded toward the kitchen counter.

"Are you going to actually eat something, or just talk at me until you collapse where you’re sitting?"

"I’m getting there."

He wheeled her toward the kitchen properly this time, already reaching for the same ingredients he’d used that morning—moonvine, lotus ginseng, and the rice he was fairly certain his body was owed after the day it’d had.

He worked through the recipe while they kept talking, the conversation drifting easily between his training, her own day, and small updates about Judith.

She teased him several times before the rice finished boiling, once about his form and another time about the state of his hair when he’d walked through the door.

That continued until they finally started their meal.

They ate slowly, still talking, with Novaria pulling more details out of him about Darius and the training he’d put him through.

By the time the last of the fire essence in the rice finished settling into his system, something in his chest had noticeably steadied.

The bone-deep exhaustion from earlier hadn’t disappeared, but it had receded into something more manageable.

Jason cleared the dishes once they’d both finished, then moved to lift Novaria from the wheelchair into the bed.

This time, he found himself shifting his grip almost without thinking.

He eased her weight forward onto his arms first, exactly as Judith had described, before lifting properly.

The whole motion settled more smoothly than usual.

There was less strain in his lower back, and no awkward half-second where he had to correct his balance midway through the lift.

"Huh," he said as he eased her down onto the mattress.

"What?"

"That seemed a little easier than usual."

"Just something Judith mentioned before you came in."

"I’ll make sure to thank her properly tomorrow, then."

"Goodnight, Jason."

"Goodnight."

He leaned down, brushing a hand briefly over her hair.

"Sleep well."

"You too. Actually sleep this time."

"We’ll see."

She was out within minutes, worn down by her own day in a quieter way than his.

Jason sat down on the floor beside the bed, fully expecting the same losing battle he’d faced the night before.

It didn’t come.

The rice’s effect carried further than he’d anticipated, a steady thread of borrowed energy running beneath the exhaustion, enough to actually hold his focus this time.

Mana flowed into his body cleanly, refined down into the Core with far more ease than his body had any business managing after the day he’d endured.

He pushed through a solid two hours before the last of that energy finally burned away.

Only then did exhaustion catch up with him in full.