Chapter 1 - Team work

Tin and Tan were two little who were training to become swordsmen by their grandfather. Tin was a tactical thinker while Tan ran headfirst into everything. Although they were advancing very fast they still lacked one thing. One day their grandfather took the two boys into a forest. “ Do you see this?” He said holding out a stone to them.
“ Yeah that’s you’re door stopper.” Tin replied. “ What dos an old door stopper have to do with becoming a swordsmen?” Tan said. “ Nothing. It’s the test that dose” The old man said. “ I will be hiding in the forest. The objective is to get the stone within three days. If you don’t find me then you will fast for the next day,” He explained. With that the old man disappeared.
“ What do you think-“ But before Tin could finish Tan was already off. Tin sighed and began to track his grandfather. Tan was running at full speed, following every footprint and broken twig he saw. After running for a few hours he found him. The old man was resting under the trees, the stone in the middle of the clearing.
Tin was right behind him. Tan ran and grabbed the stone but, just as Tin thought, it was a trap. Within seconds Tan was hanging from a tree by his ankle. “ I’ll take that.” Their grand father said getting up and taking the stone. Tan cut himself loose and attacked.
The old man dodged the punch and when Tan went for a kick he grabbed his student and tossed him. Tan landed in a near by bush and was knocked unconscious.
Tin jumped and soundlessly attacked. His master blocked him and dodged. Then before Tin could react he was caught in an old hunters trap. Tan woke up and charged. Their grandfather sighed and tossed him into a tree.
“ Are you ready to hear me.” He said. The two boys sighed and nodded. “ Alright then Tan, you charged head first (as usual) and failed to anticipate any traps. I can see that you were going to try and defeat me and take the stone. But Tin you watched quietly before trying to take it. The only thing you miss calculated was that you and your brother were evenly matched, so you could not take the stone. “What you could have done was to wake up your brother.” He said.
“ Oh! So this was a teamwork exercise! But theirs only one stone. That would lead to a conflict and the team would have broken up anyway.” Tin replied. “ Yes, but if you were to sacrifice your own needs for your brother…” He said. “ … You wanted to see if we would sacrifice ourselves for someone else!” Tin said. “ Pff! I knew that.” Tan replied. “Really? Then why haven you cut your brother loose?” the old man said.
“ Uh… I was waiting for the right moment!” Tan said using his knife to cut Tin loose. The two boys charged only to get tossed aside. They regrouped and disappeared into the forest. They both spent that night making plans and by morning they were ready. The two expected him not to fall easily but what they didn’t expect was that he wouldn’t fall at all. After all of their plans Tin gave up. “ We’ve tried everything we could think of.” Tin panted.
“ Almost everything.” The old man replied. “ …Could I pleas have the stone?” Tan said. Tan said. His grandfather smiled and tossed it to him. “ But if you were just going to give it to us then why did you make us fight you?” Tin asked.
“ To teach you that there is more then one way to solve a problem.” He replied. “ Always expect, the unexpected. So now that you have the stone what are you going to do with it?” Tan paused, and then smashed the stone into a tree, breaking it in half.
“ Compromise” He said tossing Tin a piece. Their grand father chuckled and the three left the forest.


Morals of the story:
Teamwork and sacrifice

Things to think about:
Compromise
Thinking outside (and sometimes beyond) The “ box” to solve a problem.

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