Sir Regis was enjoying the party as it continued on, couples dancing, the band playing, and onlookers feasting happily. At that moment, he felt a tug on his sleeve, and looked down to see a small child standing beside him. "Yes, child?" he asked. "Is there something I can do for you on this fine evening?"
The small boy looked up at the knight with curiosity in his eyes. "Sir?" he asked. "You are a knight, right?" Regis smiled and nodded his head. "And that means you fight with a sword, right?" He chuckled and nodded again. "My parents tell me tales of knights and their good deeds. They say that you can not be stopped from protecting us. Can you teach me to use a sword to do that?"
Regis laughed and lifted the child up onto his lap. "Look at the dancers, child, and I shall teach you," he said. The boy was surprised, but turned his eyes intently to the dancing people. "Do you see how they move, going back and forth, using their weight to move one another around?" The boy watched as the people danced, trying to see what the knight was trying to tell him. Regis waited patiently as the boy observed, and slowly the boy began to see. As the dancers moved amongst each other, they moved their feet just so as to flow from one position to another, and their partner moved in response. Couples moved smoothly back and forth, in one moment taking control, and in the next letting the other do the same. Slowly, the boy nodded his head.
"Good," said the knight. "Combat, the way we fight, is based around this same flow. The sword is nothing more than an extension of our own beings. We must be capable of seeing the intention of our enemies, a dancer's partner, and act in kind. Do you know how to dance?" The boy shook his head. "You must learn the steps before you can dance. It is so with all people. And it is the same with a sword. You must first learn the strikes of the sword. But that is not enough. Watch again. See how, even though all the dancers know and use the same steps, no two dancers are the same."
Again, the boy turned his attention to the dancers. He spent time watching a single couple, seeing how they moved and remembering it, before he moved on to the next. Not at first, but eventually he could see in their feet that what the knight said was true. In essence, they all danced exactly the same. But watching them as a whole, they all looked so incredibly different from one another. He looked up at the knight, confused. "Sir?" he asked. "If they all learned the same steps, and they all follow them, why do they look so different?"
Regis smiled at the boy. "You are a smart one," he complimented. "One day you may make a very wise knight indeed." The boy smiled back, but his eyes remained confused. "You're right. A dance is nothing without a person to dance it. And a sword is useless without a knight to wield it. Though we each must learn the steps, we each must also lend ourselves as a person to our fields. The dancers all look different because they all are different. They think differently, and they are capable of different things. The take the basics, and the develop them in new ways. And as they come into contact with others, they learn from them, take away new ways of being from them. And their dance changes, becomes something newer and brighter. And of course, it is the same with the sword."
Regis chuckled and patted the boy on the back. "But I think I've taken up enough of your time now, child. Did I answer your question?" The boy looked up at him and nodded as he climbed out of the knight's lap. "Go on then, and don't stop asking questions. That is how you learn, after all." He watched as the boy ran off, and once he disappeared into the crowd, Regis turned back to watch the dancers. He chuckled to himself and rested his chin on his fist. "One of these days," he mused to himself, "I should really learn to dance."
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