“That went really well,” Ryke said after the last of the students headed out the door, handing Luna a cold water from the replicator in the corner.

Grabbing one for himself, he snapped the lid off and downed half of it in two long swallows. He’d spent the last hour snarling and generally acting like a complete arrogant asshole, then having students hit him or throw him on the floor.

Not one of them, including Luna, had refused to do so… so the session was definitely a roaring success.

“How are you feeling now? Still good?” he checked in with her.

Luna took the water gratefully and cracked it open.

“Tired,” she admitted after taking a sip. “I um, I don’t spend many mornings throwing people on the floor. I haven’t been this tired since I left the Academy. B… but I’m okay. Um, maybe …because I know you won’t really hurt me? Not that this isn’t good training. Great training! B… but… do you think um, psychologically there’s a difference when I know… I know you don’t mean it?”

He frowned, then shook his head. “The limbic system kicks in and overrides your higher reasoning, dropping you into the fight or flight response. So no, I don’t think so. I think you’re making real progress here.”

“Thanks!” Luna smiled, not one of her usual nervous closed-mouth ones, but a proper smile showing her large, slightly mousey front teeth. The compliment overrode any embarrassment she might feel about being corrected. Ryke after all was much more experienced in matters of imminent peril than she. He handled a lot more difficult patients, after all. Luna took another drink of water. “It’s um, easier when the teacher is a counsellor. I don’t have to worry about um… looking a bit… um, nerdy? I guess? In front of the security officers…?” Luna grimaced slightly, clearly that had happened to her before. But even if Ryke thought she was nerdy, at least he knew she was good at her job and that gave her some buoyed confidence.

Ryke smiled.

“Those guys? I can guarantee that they have their own share of moments they’d like everyone to forget from when they were learning. Me? The first time I threw a punch, I broke these three knuckles.” He clenched his fist to show her. There was still a scar across one of them.

“It hurt but then I tried to play the hard man… walked around the corner and invented about seventeen new swear-words. I think half were in klingon.”

Luna chuckled. She could only imagine the kind of ferocity, the anger, the physicality that led to a situation like that. She had witnessed some similar things from her brothers on Setlik II. It was all alien to her as any physical confrontation was. She almost said as much, but then concluded Ryke would know that. She might even have said it before. Her nervous mind swap looking for a response and grabbed at the first salient question.

“How old were you?”

Ryke wrinkled his nose as he stretched out his hamstrings, thinking back. “Probably about fourteen?”

Yeah, that sounded great didn’t it… admitting to violence at such a young age.

He half-chuckled, and added, “Needless to say, I learned to throw a punch properly very quickly after that. Nothing like healing up a few broken knuckles the old-fashioned way to incentivise you! Now, shall we have another go at it? Take things up a notch?”