230) The Salvation of Eden, Chapter 55 -- Getting better at not falling down?

Eventually, Melkorn tracked down Dominic and asked him to teach him how to stop falling down when he’s axe-fighting. Dominic, like Reilly, enthusiastically accepted the challenge. After all, Melkorn was their best fighter already. If Dominic could help him become less clumsy, he would be unstoppable!

They went outside and got right to it, using the features of the natural landscape to work on improving Melkorn’s balance. This was right up Dominic’s alley; he had years of Ranger training to draw upon, plus a whole childhood of hunting and stealth.

And Melkorn was the perfect student, at least as far as effort and enthusiasm were concerned. No matter what happened, no matter how many times he fell, he never gave up, never got frustrated even. He just kept trying. 

But as the afternoon wore on, Melkorn simply did not improve. Dominic tried everything he could think of. Nothing seemed to stick.

“I need to take a break, Melkorn.” 

Melkorn sat up in the snow, getting slowly back to his feet. He looked exhausted, soaking wet, bruised everywhere. “I need to pee.”

Dominic laughed. It sounded hollow, and he laughed at that too.

“What is funny?” Melkorn asked, still good-natured even after hours of failure. 

Dominic paused, wondering what to say, how much he should express of his deep despair at ever teaching Melkorn anything.

And at that very moment, Lenny changed Melkorn’s life forever. She’d been watching their training session, mainly because it was the funniest thing happening at Grok’s that day. She knew just how hard Dominic had tried, and just how impervious Melkorn was to those efforts.

“You should use falling AS defence,” she suggested nonchalantly. “And attack.”

Dominic smacked his forehead, his despair evaporating. Brilliant! Melkorn fell all the time anyway, so why not teach him how to USE falling as a combat advantage? Dominic immediately started to think of strategies, like teaching Melkorn how to fight from the ground. 

With renewed energy, they practised right through dinner and into the night (after Melkorn went pee, of course). It was beautiful, the enthusiasm, the joy of discovery, the thrill of co-creating something amazing, as they stumbled, literally, into a whole new style of fighting, turning what had been Melkorn’s biggest weakness into a strength. 

The next day, right after breakfast, they were hard at it again. The only downside to this new fighting style was the punishment Melkorn’s body took as he fell, over and over again. 

Again, it was Lenny who came to the rescue, commenting from the side, “You need better armour, Melkorn. You need a big pillow to fall on…or something.” 

This time, Melkorn didn’t retreat to his lab to ask more questions. He already knew the right person to recruit for this job — Grok! Anyone who could weave a net that could catch a wyvern, surely could invent better armour for him. 

And he was right. It took a few days, but by the time the snow from the blizzard had settled down to a reasonable level, Grok had fashioned him a body-fitting set of chain-reinforced scales, overlapped in a design none of them had seen before. The scales preserved Melkorn’s flexbility and range of movement, but also deflected blows away from his body, and cushioned most of the impact of his falls. Plus, it was light enough to allow him to easily roll back to his feet from a prone position. In short, genius. 

Grok explained, with considerable pride, that she’d learned the technique from an old Earthborn, who in turn, learned it from a Dragon, a dead one, by studying how its scales attached to its body.

When presented with his new armour, Melkorn was flabbergasted. It may well have been the single happiest moment of his life, up to that point anyway, and he fell to his knees, pledging his loyalty to Miss Grok for all time. She laughingly accepted. 

Melkorn, not knowing what else to do, stood up, grasped her in a joyous bear hug, and spun both of them around until, predictably, falling over. Although, with the reflexes of his new training, he twisted as he fell, ensuring that Grok landed safely on top of him. As she climbed off, Melkorn jumped back to his feet, high-fived Dominic, then Lenny, then everybody, one-by-one, then ran around hugging them all and telling them how much he loved them. 

The thought occurred to Kohra as all this was happening, that she was wrong about the Black Lake. What they did, did make a difference.