Note: Follow-up to Sinister
Reforged
Ting! Ting! Ting!
The mechanized hammer fell again and again, filling the forge with the music of metal on metal. Keydis stood in front of the machine, covered in sweat after a long day's work. She held a pair of tongs in one hand, holding a small, red-hot nub of metal. Her boot pressed down on a pedal on the machine that Nyct built, keeping the hammer beating down at its consistent, rhythmic pace. The hammer hit the same spot every time and all she had to do was turn and direct the work piece so that it landed correctly.
It was still a challenge to transfer the skills she had mostly honed with her missing arm over to the other. In the past, she usually turned her work piece with the left and brought down the hammer with the right. Now that she had only one arm, she needed to be capable of doing both with the same arm. Or, as now, she at least needed to be able to move the metal the way it needed to move and trust in the machinery to bring the brute force.
Nyct had already gone home for the night. Keydis had taken to allowing the enlil to direct the smithing while she did the hammering, just for the satisfaction of feeling metal move and give way to her force of will. It would still be some time before she felt like herself again, but at long last it felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, at least.
Keydis stepped back, and the hammer whirred to a stop. Taking the little bit of metal over to the work bench, she carefully set it down next to all the others. Forty-four. Halfway there. It was a nail, of sorts: a short, four-sided diamond shape with a long, thin spike on the back.
In a way, it was rudimentary: making nails was one of the first things she had learned when picking up the craft, and it was one of the basic things to practice. Like a chef starting out by cooking eggs, the basics of crafting a simple nail were foundational to the art of blacksmithing. She had long grown past that, but after her injury and after so long wasting away, wallowing in depression and guilt, Keydis welcomed the excuse to revisit the basics and retrain her muscles to move and flex, to refamiliarize herself with the forge and the heat and the way the metal felt when it was about to become too brittle to work.
A customer brought in a request for a spiked club, a kanabo, something from the distant nation of Songen. A meter and a half long, the wooden club was thicker at the end than at the handle, meant to be wielded in two hands. It would be reinforced with metal spikes and iron hands. Nyct had already helped in shaping the hardwood, giving it a long handle with rounded grooves, and a faceted, octagonal shape for the main body of the weapon.
Keydis was working on creating the spikes: eighty-eight identical spikes that would go up and down the weapon, each of the eight sides of the club holding eleven spikes, slightly offset by odds and evens. Making a nail? Child's play. Making eighty-eight nails of a consistent size and quality? That was a task worthy of her time.
A lot of time, in fact. By the end of the second day, she was only halfway there, and she had committed to having the weapon done in a week. They had only three days left, and if Keydis didn't pick up her pace, they'd only have one day for the final fitting and shaping. So she kept going past the point of exhaustion, sweat soaking into her clothes. By the time she set one nail down, the next was reaching critical heat and ready to be worked.
In a way, working her muscles was practical. She needed to regain lost fitness and stamina. In the back of her mind, she could hear Havital chiding her for letting herself go for so long without basic exercise. While he had always opposed her joining the guard like him, he had pushed her to keep fit since their earliest days together. No matter what profession she pursued, he insisted that she needed to stay in good health.
A tear rolled down her cheek while thoughts of Havital flitted through her head, but soon enough, she cleared her head and focused only on the craft. Ting! Ting! Ting! The brunette dove into her work, deep into the night.
Fifty-five.
She was getting faster. As she became more familiar with the process and regained some of her prowess, each nail was becoming easier. Fifty-five would have been a good stopping point. A holy number, too, lucky for those who believed in such things.
The thought of honoring Castus brought a sour taste to her mouth. Keydis threw more metal into the forge, pausing only to step away and grab a bucket of water. There was a ladle but Keydis just lifted the whole bucket to her lips, gulping down several swallows while the rest ran down her chin and soaked the front of her shirt. It was already soaked with sweat and covered in soot. The heat of the forge would dry things up soon enough.
Then she was back at it, hammering, shaping, wiping the sweat of her brow off on her forearm. Faster, more consistent. She might even have to go back and rework some of the first ones to match better with her current quality and pace. Perhaps it could be a lesson for Nyct, although she half expected that the engineering prodigy would build some kind of tool or machine to do the work rather than getting a feel for the metal. Would she blame them, though?
Keydis powered through, determined to get at least sixty-six nails done before she turned off the forge. Once she had at least sixty-six spikes, she could go throw herself in the stream in nearby Redberry Park. A faint chuckle slipped free as she imagined the scandal such a thing would cause if she did that in broad daylight. The people who frequented the areas around the Jewels of Terminus were certainly not the type to wash their pits in the open air.
Once more, the iron went into the fire.
The roar of the flames drowned out the faintest sound of wind rustling through feathers.
Reforged
Wordcount: 1,091
Ting! Ting! Ting!
The mechanized hammer fell again and again, filling the forge with the music of metal on metal. Keydis stood in front of the machine, covered in sweat after a long day's work. She held a pair of tongs in one hand, holding a small, red-hot nub of metal. Her boot pressed down on a pedal on the machine that Nyct built, keeping the hammer beating down at its consistent, rhythmic pace. The hammer hit the same spot every time and all she had to do was turn and direct the work piece so that it landed correctly.
It was still a challenge to transfer the skills she had mostly honed with her missing arm over to the other. In the past, she usually turned her work piece with the left and brought down the hammer with the right. Now that she had only one arm, she needed to be capable of doing both with the same arm. Or, as now, she at least needed to be able to move the metal the way it needed to move and trust in the machinery to bring the brute force.
Nyct had already gone home for the night. Keydis had taken to allowing the enlil to direct the smithing while she did the hammering, just for the satisfaction of feeling metal move and give way to her force of will. It would still be some time before she felt like herself again, but at long last it felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel, at least.
Keydis stepped back, and the hammer whirred to a stop. Taking the little bit of metal over to the work bench, she carefully set it down next to all the others. Forty-four. Halfway there. It was a nail, of sorts: a short, four-sided diamond shape with a long, thin spike on the back.
In a way, it was rudimentary: making nails was one of the first things she had learned when picking up the craft, and it was one of the basic things to practice. Like a chef starting out by cooking eggs, the basics of crafting a simple nail were foundational to the art of blacksmithing. She had long grown past that, but after her injury and after so long wasting away, wallowing in depression and guilt, Keydis welcomed the excuse to revisit the basics and retrain her muscles to move and flex, to refamiliarize herself with the forge and the heat and the way the metal felt when it was about to become too brittle to work.
A customer brought in a request for a spiked club, a kanabo, something from the distant nation of Songen. A meter and a half long, the wooden club was thicker at the end than at the handle, meant to be wielded in two hands. It would be reinforced with metal spikes and iron hands. Nyct had already helped in shaping the hardwood, giving it a long handle with rounded grooves, and a faceted, octagonal shape for the main body of the weapon.
Keydis was working on creating the spikes: eighty-eight identical spikes that would go up and down the weapon, each of the eight sides of the club holding eleven spikes, slightly offset by odds and evens. Making a nail? Child's play. Making eighty-eight nails of a consistent size and quality? That was a task worthy of her time.
A lot of time, in fact. By the end of the second day, she was only halfway there, and she had committed to having the weapon done in a week. They had only three days left, and if Keydis didn't pick up her pace, they'd only have one day for the final fitting and shaping. So she kept going past the point of exhaustion, sweat soaking into her clothes. By the time she set one nail down, the next was reaching critical heat and ready to be worked.
In a way, working her muscles was practical. She needed to regain lost fitness and stamina. In the back of her mind, she could hear Havital chiding her for letting herself go for so long without basic exercise. While he had always opposed her joining the guard like him, he had pushed her to keep fit since their earliest days together. No matter what profession she pursued, he insisted that she needed to stay in good health.
A tear rolled down her cheek while thoughts of Havital flitted through her head, but soon enough, she cleared her head and focused only on the craft. Ting! Ting! Ting! The brunette dove into her work, deep into the night.
Fifty-five.
She was getting faster. As she became more familiar with the process and regained some of her prowess, each nail was becoming easier. Fifty-five would have been a good stopping point. A holy number, too, lucky for those who believed in such things.
The thought of honoring Castus brought a sour taste to her mouth. Keydis threw more metal into the forge, pausing only to step away and grab a bucket of water. There was a ladle but Keydis just lifted the whole bucket to her lips, gulping down several swallows while the rest ran down her chin and soaked the front of her shirt. It was already soaked with sweat and covered in soot. The heat of the forge would dry things up soon enough.
Then she was back at it, hammering, shaping, wiping the sweat of her brow off on her forearm. Faster, more consistent. She might even have to go back and rework some of the first ones to match better with her current quality and pace. Perhaps it could be a lesson for Nyct, although she half expected that the engineering prodigy would build some kind of tool or machine to do the work rather than getting a feel for the metal. Would she blame them, though?
Keydis powered through, determined to get at least sixty-six nails done before she turned off the forge. Once she had at least sixty-six spikes, she could go throw herself in the stream in nearby Redberry Park. A faint chuckle slipped free as she imagined the scandal such a thing would cause if she did that in broad daylight. The people who frequented the areas around the Jewels of Terminus were certainly not the type to wash their pits in the open air.
Once more, the iron went into the fire.
The roar of the flames drowned out the faintest sound of wind rustling through feathers.