Private Tales Forging the Links

[Maranae]

It was midday, and it was edging on towards being uncomfortably warm. Patches of fluffy clouds, looking more like sheep strolling across the heavens than anything else, marred a beautiful sky. It had rained the day before, and the humidity in the air only increased the heat, but if the heat really bothered the tall redhead, she did not show the effects beyond solitary beads of sweat rolling down her brow.

It had been weeks since she had arrived here at The Horse and the Hammer, a forge and stable owned by one Míriel Fëanorna, and in those weeks she had learned a great deal about many things, although it was probably not the things that the owner thought she was teaching. She wore worn overalls and a blouse that was for the express purpose of doing what she was now: shoveling manure. The horses had long since grown mostly accustomed to her and the strange mixture of predatory scents that wafted off of her.

She herself had grown accustomed the smell of animal manure, and of horse sweat and of leather and the acrid scents of the forge when it was running hot, as it was now. The fuel used to keep it hot did not give up much smoke, but the shimmer of heat from the door leading into the yard was evident enough to her from here. Hot and cold did not bother her, although directly grabbing hold of hot steel was something she would not do again (at least not without great need). She was not particularly good at working iron, and certainly nothing like the mistress of the forge was.

Her talents with the horses were not much better, but when it came to menial labor she was more than capable (and willing). Dunging out stalls, feed areas, and feeding and brushing and cleaning out the forge as well as the smithy itself and the house - once shown - were all easy things to do, and required little thought.

She stopped with a barrow, and looked to the forge. She could hear the elfin mistress working from inside, gave a bright smile, and went back to the chores she had been given.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel was concentrating incredibly hard on the piece of commission she was currently working on. She had spent the last three days making the special ore that would go into making the long blade in a earthen furnace. It required constant monitoring and as such she had spent the last few nights getting barely any sleep, snatches here and there. For an elf it wasn't too big of a deal, especially one who was over 200 years old, but she did still require sleep. She daren't ask Mara to help her with this as one wrong move, or if the temperature fell beneath a certain temperature it would be ruined and she would have to start again.

Once she was content she had smashed the whole thing up to separate the weak metal from the tougher stuff. It was important to have a big of both for both would be needed to create the blade and ensure it had an edge so sharp you could cut the wind. For this blade was for a very particular mage.

Now she was onto the forging technique. Like pastry it involved constantly folding and refolding the two types of metal to create a series of beautiful ripples that would be seen down the length of the blade once done. This did mean heating it to a very specific temperature and pulling it out in time, hammering it quick enough, before putting it back into the furnace.

Miriel stood up and wiped the sweat from her forehead as she put the melded blade into the bucket of water. It needed to cool now before she reheated it and started the folding technique again. But for now she needed a break. Wiping her hands on her apron she wondered outside to see how her young new ward was coming with the tasks. Mara had settled in a lot quicker than Miriel would have thought she would, and whilst she was still mentally at the age of a child so couldn't help with the more extensive tasks, she seemed happy enough to help in the small ways.

The debate over vegetables was still an ongoing one though.

"How you doing Mara?" she called over the field.

 

[Maranae]

She heard Miriel stop working inside long before she came out into the yard, and stopped what she was doing to wave to the older woman. She jumped several feet into the air with a whoop at the question, as bright a smile as could be possible on her face. "Mara does well! i am almost done with the horse pile!"

She decided that what was left could wait, and dropped the rake and barrow, and then pelted across the field towards the elfin mistress. True to her earlier words - much demonstrated over the past weeks - she was light and exceptionally fast on her feet. On two legs, she ran as quickly as the horses did and with a seemingly endless stamina. It took no time to cover the ground between the two of them, and when she slowed and finally stopped in front of the blacksmith, she was not even breathing hard.

"Is Miriel still working hot metal into sharp steel?" The question was delivered in as chipper a voice as the smile on her face. "More work for me?"

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel's lips pulled up on one side in a crooked smile as she watched the girl pelt across the field. It was an odd feeling but it was warm and fuzzy and it made her heart full to see her enjoying her life here as much as she was. When she had first offered the girl a place to stay she had thought for the first week that she would wake up and she would be gone, but they were nearing their third week together now and Mara seemed happier than when she had first met her. Miri hoped she was happier here than on the road at the least.

"I need a break it's very hot in there even for me," Miri cocked her head to the little picnic table outside in the forge she had dragged out a few days ago so they could have their lessons in the nice spring weather. "I thought we could have another lesson on your letters and sums?" As she spoke she took off her apron and hung it over one of the railings. She'd already brought out the paper and pencils and arranged them on the table.

 

[Maranae]

The smile on Maranae's face became fixed and glassy as soon as she caught a whiff of paper. The sight of the accursed item did nothing to add to the sense of impending dread. "Do we have to?" The nasal whine in her voice was damned near comical. "I could learn the fire thing more today," she said, indicating the forge.

The heat shimmered in the doorway, but it had never really affected the redhead in the same way it did everyone else.

Maranae shifted uneasily, looking for a way out of the dreaded lessons. She never seemed to make much progress in them, despite Miriels' vast well of patience.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

A breathy laugh as she motioned for Mara to follow her over to the table and sat down.

"We're going to do a bit of both today," Miriel drew three runes on the piece of paper. She wondered if the girl would learn runes quicker than letters. Runes tended to be pictures and once you could see the style, it became pretty easy to understand what the rune was meant to do.

"When we make the metal things, sometimes people want theirs to be stronger or do special things. When they want that we need to carve special symbols into the metal. This tells the metal to do the things we want it to do like be stronger than it should be, or never grow blunt, or never break.

These are the symbols that make up the beginning of anything we do. This is fire, this is metal, this is 'do'."

 

[Maranae]

"Is for magic that you put in swords," she asked, fingering the paper and looking at the symbols. "Only must make Mark's to put the magic in it?"

She was well and truly curious about this. Magic had always been a terrifying thing before ste escaped into the world. Even after, as it been used against her to try and stop her, or kill her. The chasers had not come here, yet, but some day they would. They would come here, and they might hurt the elf lady Miriel.

Mara was terrified that day would come soon, and that she would have to give up on this new life.

She looked at the symbols. One was a highly stylized flame, simple and intricate in equal measure. The others made little sense to the redhead, and she looked at Miriel with questions in her eyes.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

"Exactly," Miriel nodded and rewarded the girl with a bright smile. "Like this one," Miri pulled out a slender dagger and put it on the table alongside the paper so Mara could see a comparison. The three symbols she had written on the page were the first three symbols on the blade starting just under the hilt. A further five followed the chain. "When you draw the marks on the metal, you are doing magic."

Slowly she ran her finger down the paper, starting at the simple flame symbol. "This is fire. We do this one first because the fire makes the metal into a blade, so we ask the fire to help us make it so magic can fit inside too." Her finger then went to metal. This was an upside down triangle with a line running through it. "Next we ask the metal because that is what we are about to put magic into." Then she moved her finger to the symbol for 'do' - she was sure there was a more eloquent name for it but it was the only word Miri could think to translate it to from the Elvish she had learned it in. It was a circle within another circle. "This is the command to do something, because now you have asked fire and metal you need to tell them what you want them to do.

It would me like me saying... Mara and Thorlion do the washing up."

 

[Maranae]

Simple concept, in practice. To Mara, the concept of different languages was a foreign one, and this was very much a foreign language/ The language of magic, of runic magic in particular. Mara traced the symbol for fire with her fingers, and replicated it in the dirt, half expecting to see fire spout from the ground when she did so. Nothing happened, and she looked at the dirt in confusion.

"Only to draw is to make it do?" she asked, looking at the symbols with her head cocked to one side. "Magic is only making the symbols on things?"

It defied her logic, such as it was, that magic could be so simple. All of the magic she had seen outside this forge was far more terrifying and did not involve runes, persay. She picked up Miriel's dagger, but could not feel anything particularly special about it. Maybe she didn't have the capacity to sense magic, or simply did not know what she was to feel for. Her whole world was guided by acute sensory input, far more acute than Miriel could probably even understand. Every touch, every breath, and sound was clear to her...and yet, she could not see what was special with this sharp metal that had the marking on it.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel smiled as she drew the symbols in the dirt - they were a lot clearer than her writing in the Common Tongue at least, the picture style seemed to suit her better. But the reason for her smile was more due to the fact that Miri had had the exact same look on her face as a young elf when she too had drawn the symbols in the soot and been annoyed when nothing exciting had happened.

"To draw is to make the metal do what you want yes, but just drawing these three symbols does nothing. This is the command but you need to command it to do something. So, like on the knife you're holding the next symbol means sharp," Miri pointed it out on the metal. "But these runes only work if you draw them into metal, they don't work if you draw them in dirt. Here," Miriel dug in her pocket and produced a piece of metal and then gave the girl a sharp stylis. It was a magical creation the elves used for their fine work but it was a good way for her to practise. "Copy Fire, Metal, Do, Sharp and see what happens."

 

[Maranae]

She took the scrap metal and the stylus and looked at them closely. They didn't seem like anything particularly special. She took a delicate sniff of the of the implements, as though there might be some hidden property that could be detected in such a way, but the only thing she could smell was the sweat from Miriel's palms and the steel itself.

She took up the stylus and reproduced the markings exactly; she might have a difficult time understanding complex concepts, but repetition of a pattern or duplication of a thing was far from beyond her. It took a moment to figure out how the stylus worked, but once she did her strength made it easy to mark the steel. She felt the tug of something as she completed a symbol, but the rune did not flare to life, and the magic within the marking seemed to fade away as swiftly as it was drawn.

Mara almost felt as though the flow was going in the opposite direction, as though the magic were flowing into her rather than the steel. It was a notion, only. She was as well versed in sorcery as she was in anything else, which was to say that she was not well versed at all.

It only took the work of a minute or so, with the curled steel cut away by the stylus laying on the dirt where she crouched. The steel lay there, the marking cold and lifeless, as though a vampire had sucked all of the essence of the marking from them before they had even had a chance to do their intended task.

Maranae looked up at Miriel with a confused expression. "Mara has made the marks, but nothing happens!" She looked at the chunk of metal, and shook her head. "Did I do something wrong?"

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel watched curiously. It was a test in honesty - not everyone was connected to magic enough to be able to do this type of work and she was still trying to figure out how the girl might fit into the dynamic here at the forge. She really seemed to be enjoying hitting things and the heat didn't bother her, so Miriel was hoping to bring her into the forge to work on the smaller things. The next question was whether it was just the basics, or if she could do more complicated magics like the rune work. As the girl worked she could feel the magic pulse, feel the metal for a moment take and then it seemed to disappear. In fact, the metal not only didn't sharpen but it became rounded and soft. The elf cocked her head to the side in interest.

"No... you did nothing wrong. Not everyone can create magic I was just seeing whether it was going to be one of your gifts," Miriel explained almost absentmindedly as she picked up the metal and turned it in her hands like putt. "Maranae... can you make your claws or fangs appear, are they sharper than usual?" If she was a lab experience there was a chance the runes might work on the girl like they would on objects.

 

[Maranae]

Maranae blanched at the question. "C-claws? I must not let the monster in me show!" She was visibly distraught at the notion of letting the beastly parts of her soul show. In the weeks spent at the forge, she had not shifted into the baser creature that scared her so, and Miriel had not seen that monstrosity. The hints - the fangs that came and went, the claws that were there and then not there - were too much, and the girl nominally didn't even notice them.

Or did not allow herself to notice them.

"Mara cannot make claws," she said in direct contradiction to her previous statement. "Only when the bad one is loose, and she does not listen to me!"

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

"Hey, hey, hey..." Miriel slowly slid down so that she was sat with the girl and gathered her into her arms in a gentle embrace at her worried tones. "We've talked about this Mara, this part of you... I accept all of you, and you need to accept it to so you can understand what you are," gentle strokes down her hair. She hadn't meant to upset the girl and in honesty it upset Miri to see her get so upset about a part of her that was integral to who she was. The people that had had her before and hunted her since had been nothing less than evil. It took every ounce of her being at times when she caught the girl looking scared, or unsure, like Miri would turn on her too, to stop herself from hunting them down and making them pay.

"Shall we go hit things in the fire instead?" She murmured softly into the red locks, still gently stroking them.

 

[Maranae]

She spit to one side, a scowl ruining her pretty face almost as much as the pale line of scars on her left cheek did. The woman was not at all pleased about where she found herself, and even less so about the difficulties she was having.

She had been in the accursed city for two weeks, combing through the streets and the taverns, listening for rumors and tales of the one she sought. She was a very accomplished tracker, after all, but even with all her experience and skill at the job, she could turn up not one lead. The last thing she had heard had been three weeks ago out on the road into Alliria from Norwood. A description, only, but the mark was unique enough that it was all the more she needed.

Vanessa cursed under her breath. If it had been in the wildlands, it would have been little trouble to track the girl. In town, it was much more difficult. Too many people, too many places to hide, too many directions to travel in when leaving. It was frustrating because the girl was not smart enough to evade her, and yet she seemed to be capable of the feat without effort. An inherent skill or trait, perhaps?

She sat outside a local kebab shop, the scents of fire-seared meat hanging in the air. She picked chunks of still-hot meat from the skewer, and popped them in her mouth one by one, savoring the spicy meat that even she was not brave enough to ask after the origins of. Her little table, set against the wall outside the stall, was empty of all but herself. She watched the people passing in the street with only passing interest, ever on the lookout for any of the numerous marks she was chasing.

None of the others were worth even a tenth of what the fiery haired little woman was worth, although Vanessa failed to see why the creature was worth the money. Didn't matter though; if the money was there, she didn't care. Most especially since the little beastie had killed her partner all those long months back. She could still hear his blood-curdling scream when she slept at night, and recall the horror of how it was he had died.

Unaware, she stroked the pommel of one of her swords lovingly. Vengeance was a dish best served cold, and the money would be a nice bonus, too.

===

The fear was born of her own self, but it would be difficult for her to explain such a concept. It was something that just was, and she had neither the vocabulary nor the mental acuity to try and explain it to Miriel.

A thing slept in Mara's head. It was a creature that slinked in the shadows, keeping the the dusky places where it could not find itself exposed to the light of day, or of reason. It had no voice, it had no personality. Just a bundle of instincts that were cobbled together from multiple sources, things that could not be together in the wild and were thrust together and welded into a single thing by sorcery of a higher order than that of Miriel and her runes.

What terrified Mara was what happened when it came out of the darkness, and became Mara herself. Hazy recollections, blurred stretches of time.

And so she clung to the woman with wide unseeing eyes, or rather, eyes turned inwards. She remembered the bad place, and remember those final days when the tormenting finally became too much, and they struck her one time too many.

Screams, madness, and death. Limbs torn from bodies - no mean feat, that - and bodies shredded by animal claws, bitten to death - either from the sum total of wounds or the peculiar poison in her bite. All of these things were - or had been - beyond her comprehension before. Now, they haunted her.

It took a few minutes to pull back from the abyss, and even then it was only with a quavering voice that she agreed that hitting the hot metal would be good. It was a thing she was remarkably good at, for she was far stronger than she looked and could work the steel well. Just not with any great deal of finesse.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel let the girl have all the time she needed. Trauma needed to be faced to be healed but it was a painful process and a scary one. The blacksmith couldn't imagine half of what the young girl had seen in her short life and was confident she hadn't seen a small percentage of it in her nearly 300 years of existence. As she held her she hummed softly, pressed her cheek to the top of her head and watched the horses playing in the field. It was a nice day and hopefully it would bring the girl out of the nightmares Miri couldn't banish soon.

"C'mon then," the elf said softly when the girl finally began to stir, giving her one last tight hug before standing and heading inside. She cast her latest commission a look as if weighing up whether to get back to it just yet before deciding against it and picking out the project she had sent aside for Mara. It wasn't meant to be a fine bit of work but it took enough concentration to keep you busy and you had to hammer the metal pretty hard.

"Ok, I need you to make some more arrow heads, then I'll teach you how to bind them to the shaft and fletch them," Miri handed over the pieces required. She had shown her twice before so she wanted to see how much stuck on the third attempt. If Mara could get to the point she could do these well it would be an annoying job Miri didn't have to bother with again.

 

[Maranae]

The return hug was fierce enough to make the elf's bones creak, but when all was said and done there was only a trace of the old spectre in her eyes.

She bumped up with slightly less enthusiasm than before, but nevertheless made it to the forge ahead of Miriel. The heat radiating from the glowing coals made the room stifling, unbearable to be in during the warmer months. Mara did not appear to even notice the heat.

She followed the older woman to the forge, and looked upon the pieces of iron she was given to work with. It was familiar work, at least; the first thing she had learned to do with fire and hammer.

"Make more sharp heads! I can do this!" She tossed a couple pieces of iron into the coals to get them good and hot; without stoking the flames it would not melt. She fidgeted while she waited for the bits of metal to get hot enough to work.

"Hit the metal, hit the metal while it is hot," she muttered to herself. After a time, she took up some tongs (she had learned that grabbing that metal bare handed was a bad idea, no matter how quickly she healed). She took a chunk of iron that glowed yellow, bordering on white, and set it on the anvil.

And then she took up a heavy hammer in one hand.

You could say there were some things that Mara was not very good at, but her hand-eye coordination was superb. She swung hard, and a shower of bright sparks fountained as she hit it. The scent of singed f kg ash wafted up from where those hot sparks hit her arms, but she did not even appear to notice them. A couple solid swings and the chunk of metal was fairly flattened. The color had barely faded to orange tinged with red, still workable. Mara began to work on feathering the edges of the forward part with remarkable exactness. Sums and letters were difficult; actions were not.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel watched for a while before moving over to her desk with a sigh. This was the part of the day she hated most; balancing the books. At least she had time for it now Mara was helping with odd jobs around the place. It was surprising the amount of time she was spending doings things like poo picking, feeding the horses, doing the small orders like arrows to keep the off the shelf stock up. She would probably have preferred to be doing those than the sums in her large book but this was what needed doing.

The rhythm of Mara hitting the metal was a pleasant background as she carefully went through the orders on her desk, copying them out now into her large book. Once they were in there she would be able to cross them off when they were fulfilled, mark what money had been paid and keep a track of it. She didn't have time to do it when people came in especially in the volumes they had been for the last couple of times. They ended up getting scribbled on any scraps she could find.

When the orders were copied in she turned to another book where she totalled the days earnings and began working through that; money comes in, money goes out. A nice profit today it seemed. The sound of the door went and Miriel looked up at the woman who entered.

"I'm sorry we're just closing for the day."

 

[Maranae]

It was getting late in the day, and she was growing weary of Alliria once more. It was coming time for her to head back into the lands outside the city proper, to spend some time breathing clean air, and to think her approach through again. Perhaps, even, to give up on this particular mark for the time. There was no money in chasing after the girl endlessly, and there were plenty of other marks to be had.

She needed a horse, though, if she were going to be on her way back out of the city again. The last one had died on the road in Falwood, victim of some particularly nasty demons. She had never seen their like before, and at least one of them would never see her like again, either. She'd asked around, as to a place where she could get a proper mount - she wanted a solid horse, well bred and well trained - and not some used up nag.

And so she'd been directed here. It seemed odd to her that a blacksmith would also deal in horseflesh. It didn't matter to her, though, so long as there was an animal for sale. The price wasn't really an issue, just the quality of the animal. If she had time, she might have the armorer adjust some of the more intricate enchantments on her leather breastplate.

She stepped through the door, and stopped dead in her tracks, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. This doesn't happen in real life, she thought to herself, completely incredulous. Her eyes darted between the elfin lady looking up from her paperwork (abhorrent stuff, that), and the ridiculously tall and slender redhead work - of all things - on the forge.

"You," she said in a hiss. Her dark eyes were ablaze with a deep anger that had suddenly flared into life. Maranae looked up from what she was doing, and the hammer in her hand stopped in mid swing, as though she had been frozen in place.

The tableau stood, a moment in time.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel glanced between Maranae and the newcomer, noted the look on the young girls face and began to stand, setting her quill down and reaching for one of her curved swords instead.

"Can we help you, Miss?"

She moved slowly like one might do with a dangerous animal, sword casually hanging from her hand, to stand between the two women.

"Look we don't want any trouble here but this girl is under my protection. If she's caused you any damage then I'm sure we can come to some sort of peaceful arrangement.

 

[Maranae]

The woman gave a sardonic laugh, fixing Miriel with a furious glare. "Peaceful? The only arrangement we can come to is her death at my hands. She killed my partner."

Vanessa turned and squared herself in the doorway, obviously preparing herself to fight. Her eyes darted between the young woman with the hammer still raised and the elf with the defiant light in her eyes. "Truly, I do not understand why you people try to protect this beast. Is it that you do not know what she is, what she is both capable of, and has done with those capabilities?" She shifted her stance slightly. "Give her over, let us end this chase. We can put dozens of souls to rest and save hundreds more."

Mara said nothing, did nothing. Vanessa remained hostile, but she had yet to draw a weapon.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

"I do not care with Maranae has done before she arrived here in my forge," Miriel spoke calmly, her swords stood to attention at the wall but she didn't call of them just yet. Perhaps this could be solved with talking and maybe some money.

"What I care about is the fact she is now my apprentice and she is working for me, as such I have a vested interested in her safety and well being. I am sorry about your Partner, truly, I am, and I will bear in mind your warning about what she is capable of but I must ask you to leave. Peacefully, please, so you can spare your own soul today."

 

[Maranae]

"Threats, you think they work on me?"

Dust glimmered in the light coming through the western end of the shop, motes dancing on an errant breeze.

Maranae lowered the hammer, turned slowly to face the woman in the doorway with wide eyes. "Stop! Do not move," she snapped at the redhead. She cut her eyes to the blacksmith. "I have hunted all manner of things in my day, girl," she said. "Decades hunting the mist dangerous of criminals and monstrosities out of your worst nightmares."

Vanessa did not look old enough to have done any of those things, but her demeanor, the way she carried herself, and the weight of her words lent credence.

"The man tried to hurt Mara." The words were low, a whisper. "Mara had to-"

"Shut up!" There was a raw edge to her voice, now. Her partner had been more than a partner, after all. "Shut your filthy inhuman mouth, beast! You killed him,and I had to watch while your poison did the work slowly, with him screaming until he couldn't work his lungs anymore!" A hand dropped to an work man's hilt, worn leather scarred and stained. Vanessa suddenly radiated a dangerous air, an aura of menace that was not explained by her sudden heightened hostility. "Don't either of you move!"

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel opened her palms so her hands were up and open towards the woman showing she was unarmed. Of course, she had no idea about the elfs magic bending abilities. Any of the weapons in the room could be in her hands in seconds. She did however ease herself very slightly on her heel so that she was fully blocking the path between the woman and Mara. Her eyes briefly flicked to her two curves swords which hung on the other side of the room and were carefully making their way around the room, pressing themselves to the walls as they went.

"It is truly a harrowing experience to lose a partner in that way," her voice was solemn and there was a note of understanding there. Her life was one of the sword, there was no way she hadn't seen and suffered losses of her own. Her sisters, killed. "Mara will be posing no threat to anyone ever again, she is under my tutelage and learning to control her gifts. She will hurt nobody - you have my word."

"Trust me, vengeance is never as satisfying as what we think it might be."

 

[Maranae]

"She is a living weapon." The words were delivered as flat, hard, and cold as a tombstone. The bounty hunter did not move from where she stood. She watched the other two women warily. She had not noticed Miriel's swords yet, but it would not be long. She was too highly strung to miss much, especially with the sense of some other magic than her own at work. "An abomination whose creators have come to their senses in regard to. Whatever you think you are dealing with, it is more animal than human."

A standoff. Why others always seemed to gravitate toward the beast, she could neither say nor understand. It might simply be that she could not see the girl as anything other than the monster she had revealed in the not so distant past.

"How can I trust the word of one that has no idea what she is harboring, anyway? You are a blacksmith and a mage of repute, but a horse this creature is not."