Chapter Text
"Sir," Kaladin protested, "I can still fight!"
"I know you can, son. But Adolin told me about that moment in Kholinar."
Kaladin looked down, shamespren fluttering around him like windblown petals. "It won't happen again, sir." He'd frozen up in Kholinar, and while their mission had ultimately been mostly successful, and they'd returned with Elhokar bonded to a Cryptic spren, that was because Syl had acted while Kaladin was kneeling there uselessly.
"Yes, it will," Dalinar said, as gently as he was capable of, though that still involved looking like he'd been hewn from rock like a peakspren, but still inexorably. "We both know that battle shock isn't something you can just will away. We have the time for you to step away for a little while, time you helped win for us. Don't consider this a punishment, call it a leave of absence. You aren't yet to the point where I need to relieve you of duty indefinitely, Stormblessed, so take some time and make sure you don't get to that point."
"Sir..." Kaladin gritted his teeth, angry but also not entirely able to protest. If one of his men had reached this point, he would have tried to get him to step away, too. "I think that sitting around with nothing to do will help me."
Syl poked him in the shoulder, and by the way that Dalinar's eyes shifted, Kaladin knew that she'd made herself visible to him. "He didn't say you had to sit around with nothing to do!" she pointed out.
Betrayed by his own spren. "No," Dalinar agreed. "I didn't. What do you usually do to unwind, son?"
Kaladin's brain unhelpfully went blank. What did he do to unwind? Syl, of course, had an answer. "He scowls! And grumbles." She drew her face into an exaggerated frown. "Storms. What are you men doing? What's fun? Also, I'm banning toes."
"Toes?" Kaladin and Dalinar chorused.
"Yes, toes," Syl continued, as gruffly as she could. "No more toes. You keep stubbing them and hurting yourselves. Next week we'll try going without feet."
Dalinar cleared his throat in a way that sounded like any other man would have been laughing. Kaladin's face heated. Syl didn't usually take the mockery quite this far in front of other people. He had to admit, she'd made her point, though. "I usually...I do katas sometimes, sir," he tried.
"Well," Dalinar said, composing his expression back to its usual carved-rock sternness, though there was still a hint of a twinkle in his eyes, "you have six weeks to work on them, then. And maybe find some other things you like to do."
"I...don't know where I'd start, sir."
"I find it comforting to have someone read to me," Dalinar volunteered unexpectedly. "Adolin is better at...unwinding, than I am, though."
Kaladin wasn't sure that listening to someone read would help much, but he said, "Thank you, sir."
Dalinar took it as the end of the conversation, and moved away, leaving Kaladin to reflect on what on Roshar to do with six weeks of mandatory leave.