What is discipline?
A very simple question. Which is why most people answer it wrong.
For some, discipline is a virtue. A blade kept sharp, a spine kept straight, a rule kept because breaking it would make the world slightly worse. Lucavion knew that kind well. Valeria Olarion was that kind. A knight who treated the regulations like a sword oath, and the sort of friend who would follow Elara into a fire and lecture her about the fire's safety violations on the way out.
That was the type the book had taught him to expect. Strict woman, armband, rulebook. Cue the honor.
But what is discipline when nobody sees what is under it?
This...
This was the other kind, or at least the kind the book had shown him. Chalk, a slate, and the quiet conviction that the world was a schedule and everything in it was running late. Function, in other words, with nothing beneath it on display. No speeches. No ideals stated aloud. No sword oath.
