Breath after breath.
He is teaching her how to live inside motion instead of fear.
He just refuses to live that way himself.
The realization burns hotter than the sun overhead.
If he will not enter the fray with her, she will not wait at the boundary.
She lengthens her stride.
Pushes harder.
Teddy does not run with them.
He stalks the interior of the moving formation instead—turning, observing, correcting with surgical precision.
“Shorten your stride,” he snaps, not loudly—but the command slices through the pounding of feet. “Speed comes from turnover, not reach. You are slowing yourselves with every step.”
Seren shortens her stride, but doesn’t stop pushing. She runs past the soldier beside her.
Then another.
A man to Seren’s left lengthens his pace instinctively anyway—panic chasing speed—and stumbles when his heel strikes too hard against packed earth.
“Stop striking the ground like it is your enemy,” Teddy says, appearing beside him as if conjured. “It is your foundation. Land beneath your center—not ahead of it.”
He moves again before the man can respond.
“Breathe with rhythm,” he calls to the group. “Not fear. If your breath is chaos, your body will follow.”
Seren becomes acutely aware of her own lungs—dragging air in sharp bursts, chest rising too high, shoulders tightening with effort.
She forces her breath down.
In.
Two strides.
Out.
Two strides.
The burn sharpens, but steadies.
The difference is immediate.
Less panic.
More motion.
“Loosen your shoulders,” Teddy continues, voice cutting across the clearing as he pivots, tracking dozens of bodies at once. “Tension steals air. Air is endurance. Endurance is survival.”
A soldier ahead of Seren bounces with each step, vertical movement wasting precious energy. Teddy reaches him in three long strides and shoves a flat palm briefly between his shoulder blades.
“Forward,” he says. “Not upward. War does not reward those who leap—it rewards those who advance.”
The man adjusts instantly, stride smoothing, bounce flattening into directed motion.
