Chapter Text
Whenever they’re out on the Shattered Plains training the squires, Kaladin always has a few more experienced Windrunners just waiting and supervising, not actively participating in training. There’s always at least one squire on any given day who overestimates their abilities, runs out of stormlight five hundred feet in the air, and goes plummeting towards the ground. Someone needs to be ready to catch them.
Today, he’s doing that. Hovering about fifty feet off the ground, just watching the recruits get themselves into trouble in the air. Most of the time, it’s not particularly dangerous trouble. Spinning a little out of control. Getting stuck upside down. Shooting up towards the sun a little too fast. That sort of thing. He doesn’t get involved unless they’re really in danger. It’s important for them to have some unmanaged time to figure things out themselves.
There is one kid he’s keeping a particular eye on. Pelari. A newer recruit, that one, but really talented. Picked up flight really fast. Also extremely reckless, and likes to take a lot of risks to see how far she can push her abilities. Kaladin had expressed as much to Teft, and Teft had just looked at him sidelong and said, “Hmm, wonder who that reminds me of…”
In any case, Kaladin is keeping a bit of a sharper eye on her than everyone else. He won’t have anyone falling to their death after an idiotic stunt, not on his watch.
He’s about to call over one of his other Windrunners from the ground to take over for him—he’s running low on stormlight, needs to go swap out his spheres, but he doesn’t like to leave the field unobserved while he’s doing it. He waves Lopen over— and turns back to the Plains in time to watch the very kid he’s keeping an eye on zip by way too fast and then, with a shriek, run out of stormlight right over a steep chasm.
Almighty be damned.
Kaladin breathes in more stormlight and speeds after her, picking up three times as much speed to catch up, and whips over the edge of the chasm just as Pelari does. He manages to catch her, goes to pull what remains of his stormlight to flip their lashings back upward before they can hit the chasm floor—
Pelari gets the stormlight first. But she’s not as fast, or powerful, with her lashings as Kaladin is, doesn’t get them turned quickly enough—
Kaladin whips them around in the air so his back is to the ground and then they hit, hard. His head cracks against the chasm floor, and—
—he wakes woozily some time later to find he's... not in the chasm. The sun above him is far too bright for that. He's lying at the top of the plateau, vision spinning and duplicating and ultimately solidifying on Lopen, Adolin, Syl, and Pelari all looking down worriedly at him, anxietyspren floating around them. Pelari is sort of rocking back and forth, saying,“Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no” over and over to herself. She doesn't seem to be injured. Why is Kaladin on the plateau?
"Whew!" Lopen says, making Kaladin wince at the volume. "Thought you conked your head too good for a moment there, gon!"
"You weren't drawing in any stormlight," Adolin says. Kaladin's head is resting in his lap. "Syl says you got all scrambled by that hit."
"Lopen..." Kaladin says, each word coming out a little slow. "You're not supposed to move someone after a fall like that."
"Well, your noble suitor here was fretting!"
"Yeah, even so."
"You were out for a good ten minutes," Adolin says, brushing Kaladin's hair back from his forehead.
Ten minutes? That's not good. But if he can breathe in stormlight now, then it's probably fine. Mostly.
Syl lands on his chest. "Nap time's over!" she declares.
"What about concussion time?" Kaladin asks.
"That too!"
Pelari stares at him with wide, panicked eyes as Adolin slowly helps him sit up. Then her eyes well up with tears. "I'm sorry," she says.
Kaladin winces as stormlight makes gradual progress in, apparently, knitting his head back together. He thinks he might have broken his collarbone too, but that seems to have healed faster. Storms, he really did get scrambled. “What’s the first thing I taught you?” he asks.
“Always make sure you have more than enough stormlight for what you plan to do,” Pelari whispers.
“And then?”
“The faster you go, the more stormlight you use up.”
“Exactly.”
Pelari reaches out to touch him, as if to try to fix him, but thinks better of it. “I thought you died. What if I got you killed?”
"Well. That's why we have spotters," Kaladin says. Adolin touches the back of his head to check the status of his injury, and Kaladin winces as his fingertips graze over the still-raw cut. “It’s my bad, too, I should have swapped my spheres out earlier. But, listen, if I'm catching you... don't steal my stormlight?"
Pelari winces. She still seems stricken with guilt. Well, maybe she’ll fly a little more cautiously next time.
"Don't worry about it too much,” Kaladin adds, “I’ve honestly done worse myself. Just be careful, okay? And if you’re trying something risky, make sure you have a spotter near you. The fact I was several plateaus away didn’t help either.”
She nods. “Yes, sir.”
Lopen pats Kaladin on the shoulder. “With this one,” he says, “you have to do what he says and not what he does.”
“Hey.”
Lopen shrugs. “The Lopen speaks only the truth, dear Captain.”
Kaladin sighs. “Let's call it for the day. That’s all the peril I have in me right now.”
Lopen takes off to go call down the rest of the squires, Pelari following him after one last guilty look at Kaladin.
Syl studies him, arms crossed. "Lopen said maybe that would knock some sense into you, but I really don't think so," she says.
"Thanks for that, Syl."
Adolin wraps an arm around Kaladin's shoulders. "Safe to move now?" he asks.
"Thank the Almighty someone learned something today and this wasn't all for nothing," Kaladin says. Storms, he still has a headache. "Yeah, we can move."
He didn't actually intend for Adolin to pick him up, but nevertheless finds himself suddenly lifted up in Adolin's arms. "Adolin. Put me down."
"Hm. No," Adolin says, and the way the world starts swirling as he walks makes it kind of hard for Kaladin to argue the point. "Honestly, Kal? That looked brutal. So please don't complain."
In many ways Adolin had to experience it more than Kaladin did, so Kaladin decides to just concede the point. He is actually still pretty dizzy too.
"And don't worry," Adolin adds, lips tugging up in a smile. “I’m very good at taking care of imperiled Windrunners. I'll show you.”
“Oh, yeah?”
"Yes. I've been practicing."
Kaladin leans his head against Adolin's shoulder with a tiny smile. "I'll look forward to seeing the results then, princeling."