Private Tales Mending Flames

[Maranae]

She moved through the crowds with a certain degree of trepidation, eyes darting this way and that. Looking for threats, any threats. Every venture into a city had been met with some catastrophe, some new pain or terrible memory to carry with her.

There was a time when innocence reigned, when she had been completely ignorant of the world and how it worked. She was less so, now, but if anything the things she had learned only served to make her more aware of how little she knew. Things were easier in the wild, where she could hunt and live without much fear of others.

But being in the wild was not enough. With her awakening mind, new desires arose. Before, it had been simply about seeing new things. Now...

Who am I? What am I? And, the more painful question that had yet to be answered: am I a monster?

There had been no answers. The den that had spawned her had been devoid of much useful information. Only a tenuous tie to Vel Anir, and a loose connection to this city, this Alliria. A name, associated with druidic arts - whatever those were - who resided here, or had a few years ago.

She had not been able to bring herself to search. She was wary of cities, if she was not wary of people.

There were many of these here. Despite her past experiences, she could not help but feel elated to be around others. There was such a diversity of people here; humans made up the majority of the crowd, in a range of hues, shapes, and sizes. She stood out among them - among most, really - for her height. She stood head and shoulders above the majority of the crowd. The only ones here that could come close were a few Komodi moving in a bubble of empty space.

She moved through the crowds, early morning sun shining down brightly through the crisp air. Smiling brightly, red hair fluttering in the faint morning breeze, searching for a thing she knew vaguely of but had never dealt with, before. A blacksmith, a forge, whatever it was called here.

That was what she had been told to seek by a caravan guard out on the Reach. The reason was simple enough; in a piece of poorly cured hidewhere the shards of her heavy bladed hunting knife. She did not like to think of how she had broken the blade. She did not have much money, so buying a new one was out of the question (and, in any case, the concept of money was difficult for her to understand).

A few questions had brought her here. She had no idea what she was looking for, other than a place that had fire...but most places here seemed to. Mara did not particularly like fire.

She continued her search, determined to find a place that could fix her sharp steel and then leave this city before trouble could stir.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel needed an assistant. Or Three.

It seemed that it was the season for adventuring at the moment and she was working flat out to fill her contracts with both the horses and the weapons. It was also coming up to the time the City Guard took in a fresh wave of recruits and they had given her a tall order to fill in the coming weeks. This would be the next step for her career and it could spread her name even further than Alliria. She wanted it so bad. But, she also missed the time she had had for new concepts and ideas. If she had a few assistants or apprentices she might be able to free herself up to get back to that. She thought about the beginnings of the bear armour she had begun to sketch and sighed, a faint smile dancing over her lips of the memories which had led to her getting those measurements in the first place. It was the last time she had felt like she had had a moment to herself.

For a blissful moment the workshop was not full of people and she took the opportunity to take her lunch break. Hanging up a sign on the door of the forge that read "in fields, come through", she then made her way out into the little courtyard out the back of her workshop and climbed onto the fence. It was one of Miriel's favourite places to have her lunch. Firstly, it was a break from the heat in the forge. There always seemed to be a nice breeze coming across the flat fields on this side of town and it let her skin breathe for the half an hour she took to eat her lunch. Secondly, she loved nothing more than watching the horses playing. It was one of the things she hated about most stud farms in the city; horses were boxed into tiny stables and given only a small paddock to walk around in. People always commented she should have a place further in the city, but she was positive what made her horses better was their ability to just be horses for most of the day.

She spotted her black beauty Thorlion as he bucked, kicking out at a young horse who had obviously over stepped the mark in the herd. The young horse went to rear, thought better of it, and bolted which caused the whole herd to take off. Their pounding hooves brought a smile to her face as she tucked into her sandwiches.

The elf's ear twitched when she heard someone enter the forge behind her: "I'm out back!" she called.

 

[Maranae]

Morning slowly changed into midday, and she could not find what it was she was looking for.

Maranae had stood in the crowded street with a look of such comical concentration on her face that had anyone noticed they might have thought some kind of performance was about to begin. People did not have time for that sort of thing this early in the day, however, and they simply streamed by on either side of her on their own business. Here and there a cat-call drifted her way, but those were truly a wasted effort. She had no idea what the men - and sometimes women - were whistling about. If anyone had tried to explain, she would only have been even more mystified. It didn't seem to matter that she was dressed in rags that were barely still of a single piece, patched and worn. At least they were clean; once.

The tall redhead decided it was time to leave the jungle of stone and wood and people, and turned to go back towards the outskirts of the great city.

Why did I come back here again, she thought to herself. The city only brought with it trouble, and while there had not been any (yet), she was still far from the border. It would take her an hour at least to get back to the grasslands surrounding the city proper. She hadn't even made it to the city proper, even; Alliria sprawled across miles like a spilled drink, slowly spreading ever outwards.

"Can I go see the horses?"

The plaintive voice belonged to a little girl. Mara normally did not pay much attention to the noise that people made. She only just happened to be looking in that direction, and saw the girl pointing at a building with a sign that looked elaborate. She had never seen a horse with wings before, but the image there was definitely that.

"You can bother the lady some other time, dear." It wsa the mother, dressed in a thick woolen dress, tugging at her daughters arm to draw her away. "Don't need to bother the blacksmith in the middle of the day, anyway. I am sure she is busy," she added, and succeeded in redirecting her little girl on to some other subject.

Mara stood in the street, staring at the place. Blacksmith. The woman had said blacksmith, and the caravan guard had also said the same thing, had said that was where she would have to go if she wanted her blade reforged (although he had scoffed at reforging something so simple as a hunting knife). Mara was filled to the brim with curiosity, then. Stepping forward, she cut through a much reduced crowd (that regardless cursed at her rudeness) until she was standing in a large doorway, looking into a forge. She had never really seen one before, and slipped inside. The scent of brimstone and other acrid odors were sharp in the air, along with a far more familiar equine one. There were a hundred other scents in the air, a mangled mishmash that was nearly impossible to separate out.

"I'm out back!"

Her head snapped in the direction the sound had come from, eyes focusing on the doorway. Mara nearly had to duck down as she crept in the direction of the voice, but did not speak herself. Despite herself, her heart thundered in her chest. The mixture of excitement and dread couldn't possibly be healthy.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel half glanced behind her when she heard the footsteps on the cobbles and then she did a double take. Being an elf she was more than used to other tall elves, but she wasn't expecting it from someone who at a glanced looked human herself. Her eyes ran down her quickly, as it always did when a customer came through the door. Quietly the smithy was assessing already the type of weaponry she might be after and that Miriel could provide, or thinking of her taller horses that would be able to take her height. She finished a bite of her sandwich and took a sip from the leather skin she had hung around around the top of the fencing on her left.

"I'm just eating my lunch, why don't you hop on up here and tell me what I can do for you while I finish this?" Miriel patted the wooden beam next to her and returned her attention to the horses. It seemed they were in frisky spirits now, particularly the young foals. Only a few weeks old and they were leaping around the fields like lambs. She kept a careful eye on them near the three mares she was still waiting to go into foal, but the youngsters seemed to sense the larger ladies were off limits. Besides, they were apparently having too much fun tormenting Thorlion. Her lips twitched in amusement as her stallion gave one of them a nip only for the foal to nuzzle her way under his throat. That filly was definitely going to be a flirt when she was older.

"Do you like horses?" the blacksmith asked when she felt the girl come and sit on the fence beside her.

 

[Maranae]

Mara moved with an unthinking, predatory grace no matter what it was she was doing. The scent of the sandwich had benoist in all the other new things within the forge, but here, in the yard, the scent was only overpowered by the equine smell of a stable.

The chimera's face lit up when the woman spoke to her, though she did not take the offered seat. She glanced out at the animals running around. Horses, she knew they were called. She had never dealt with them, much; they detested her presence in the same manner that dogs and cats did.

Something stirred in her myriad souls, and her smile nearly fell.

She took the question as a way out of having to think too much of the devil lurking in the shadows of her mind.

She took the pouch off her belt, and removed the little hide bundle within. She unfolded the foul smelling hide, revealing what it contained.

A knife, or at least pieces of one. The blade would have been a foot long, slightly curved and heavy. The thing was shattered into five pieces, the biggest being the handle.

"I hit a hard-skinned man with it really hard," she said by way of explanation, gesturing with her free hand. "I broke his skin with it, but it broke my sharp steel." She spoke brightly enough. "A caravan man said to find a smith to fix it. Are you a smith?"

She looked out at the horses, but said nothing of them. How could she like something that always ran away from her, anyway?

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel glanced over when there was no response to her question on horses. Usually with women it was a pretty sure way to get an easy conversation going - for men it was a hit and miss but usually they wanted to sit with her for other reasons. Either way it meant she got to eat her sandwich before thinking about work. But, alas, it didn't look like this would be the case today. Maybe she should start closing the doors during her lunch break entirely. She mused on the idea as she finished her sandwich off in two large bites and carefully took the stinking piece of leather in her hands with barely a scrunch of her nose to examine the knife closer.

"Unfortunately that is what tends to happen when you hit something very hard," Miri sympathised. She still remembered the absolute horror as her axe hit a creature she still had no name for who lived in the Wilds and whose skin seemed to be made of crushed diamonds. The poor thing had stood no chance and had shattered into pieces. Gently she picked up the pieces and held them up to the light: at least they were clean cuts and not jagged pieces. She didn't even think she would need to use the forge for this.

"I am a blacksmith yes," the elf nodded, picking up another piece and turning it over. "Are you sure you would not just like a new blade? The metal on this is not particularly good," she arranged the pieces on her lap so that they all fitted nicely together as if it was a whole thing.

In the fields Thorlion had clearly had enough of the youngsters for he spread his wings and took now to the skies, gliding low over the field he then landed in front of the two and put his large head on Miri's shoulder in his best attempt at a "mum make them stop bullying me" face. She absentmindedly scratched him behind the ear. "Such a big baby," Miri tutted.

 

[Maranae]

Mara cocked a head to one side, then shook her head. "New blade?" The thought had not occurred to her at all, truth to tell. The weapon was only intermittently used at best, as she usually used natural weapons far more often.

She did not like fighting at all, though. It was just a shame that she drug her problems around behind her no matter how she wished them to simply go away.

"Mara knows little about metal, or...or...a lot of things," she finished rather lamely. She still had a smile on her face, but it was a little more strained now. "She...I, do not want to fight anyone. I do not want to have the sharp metal!"

She was a touch vehement about it. An odd mixture of anger and contriteness mixed on her pretty face, and seemed to reflect a deeper confusion that she harbored poorly. The tips of her fangs seemed to poke a little bit out from under her upper lips, of a sudden. The next moment, though, the chimera's face had regained its purely human features. "Ma...I was given sharp metal to protect myself by the man who is Valthar," she said. She looked up to Miriel, and seemed to breath out all the tension, that same radiant smile lighting her features up again.

"Horses have wings? Mara has not seen flying horse, only hard-footed kind. Men with hard skins ride hard-footed horses all the time." Those same men often hurt her, too, and backed her into corners that she had to fight her way out of, whatever she might think of it.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

At the mention of Valthar her whole body had changed. It was a slight change, but one nevertheless. She sat up a little straighter and re-examined the pieces. Was this the big knife he had shown her a few weeks ago the witch had tried to kill him with? Had he passed it on to this girl? If he had it was for a reason. Had he been the one to point her in this direction? No, no the girl had said a caravan had done that. Miriel listened to everything the young girl had to say before mulling it over in its entirety. She lifted a slender eyebrow when the girls face changed even if it was only for a second. So not human. She mulled over it some more and began to scratch at Thorlion's neck just under his long mane where she knew his favourite spot was. She decided to start on her last point.

"This is Thorlion," the great black stallion was eyeing up the girl but he wasn't tense in anyway. Exposure to Valthar had made the stallions tolerance for things that smelt a little more unusual a lot higher. Sometimes, he had conceded, the odd smelling ones were ok for they also had treats. "He is a special breed of horse from The Spines. I mended his leg when he was a baby, like those ones," she nodded to the foals who were now tormenting their mothers. She had naturally begun to speak in a way similar to how she addressed other young children who entered her store. It wasn't meant to be condescending in anyway, and her voice was gentle. It was what others referred to as her teaching voice. She never thought even the young ones should be ignorant on matters. She told them the truth, just in a way that was easier to digest for those with little knowledge of the world.

"Now he has decided to live here with me, here, why don't you give him a treat? He won't hurt you," Miriel rummaged in her pocket as Thorlion's ears pricked forward: he knew what was coming. She popped the mint in the girls hand. "Just, stretch out your hand, keep your thumb tucked under, yes like that, hand nice and flat. It's ok, he won't bite I promise. He might slobber you a bit though." Thorlion abandoned her immediately for the treat and slowly approached the girl instead with a gentle snort, eyes glued solely on the treat. If she went ahead with it he would dip his head and lap it up before giving her face a gentle nuzzle and nibble at her hair. If she appeared to like it, Miriel would hand her a bag of further treats to stretch her confidence. If not, then Miriel would have taken back over the pampering of her horse with no sign of judgement: some people didn't like horses and some just needed to learn they weren't horrific monsters.

"Sometimes, we find ourselves needing to use sharp metal to protect ourselves. Not many people like it - Valthar didn't like it either," she seemed to think on the matter a moment, weighing up whether to ask the question. Her voice was gentle as she spoke, "are there people hunting you?"

 

[Maranae]

She decided this long-earred lady was alright, and gave her a rather more toothy grin than should have been the case. Having made that decision, she snatched the sharp smelling mint from Miriel and offered it awkwardly to the winged one she had called Thorlion. Mara was quite fearless in most cases, anyway; it was only people she had grown to show a measure of caution around.

A small measure of caution, anyway.

She snatched the bag of treats away, offering another to the horse (and being drooled on, albeit she seemed either to not notice or care). The horse was, of course, more than happy to accept any tidbit that came his way.

Mara looked to Miriel with a brittle smile on her face. She did not like being reminded of the pursuit behind her,always somewhere near.

"Mara is a monster," she replied in a matter-of-fact tone, nevermind the question in her mind regarding that. She plucked a mint out of the sack, and examined it. Such a sharp scent. "Many badmen chase me, say I am dangerous." She absently popped the mint, horse slobber and all, into her mouth. She sputtered and spit it out, rubbing at her mouth with her arm. "Icky! Why does wing horse like that?" The look of disgust on her face really was comical.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Thorlion gobbled up the treat she spat out and preened, spreading his wings out like a pleased child who had managed to steal a sweet from his mother. Miriel's laughter bubbled out at her at the pair which seemed to only spurn the horse into showing off. With a toss of his head he turned on his back right hoof and pranced in a circle, exaggerated beautiful movements with his tail high, before coming to a stop again in front of the girl and nudging the bag of treats expectantly. Miri wiped a slight tear from her eye as her laughter subsided.

"The mint to horses tastes very sweet and sugary," she explained matter of factly. "I think you have made a friend," she commented with a happy smile. Nothing brought her much more joy than seeing her Thorlion happy. Slowly the smile faded as she circled back to Mara's other comment, debating on how best to handle the situation. She wanted to know why they thought she was dangerous - Thorlion would pick up on that. There was more than once he had barged her away from people she had thought normal but that he had sensed. It was however, a subject she still needed to know before she could offer any help. But she had to handle it gentle and with care. This girl seemed young at least in the mental sense and she didn't want to cause her unnecessary upset by thinking on an obviously distressing subject.

"Why do they think you are a monster, Mara? Because of what you are, or have you done something?" Miriel glanced down to the knife: Valthar wouldn't have aided a monster of that much she was sure.

 

[Maranae]

The constant shift between first and third person often threw people off when dealing with the tall redhead. She was trying to get better about it, but some things were difficult to change, especially after such a long time referring to herself in the third.

"I do not like this sweet," she said vehemently, spitting some more to get the taste out of her mouth. Her senses were particularly acute, a product of the bizarre experiments that had been performed in her creation, although she certainly would not understand such a thing. Yet, anyway. "Mara likes meat with red water still in it," she added. She didn't particularly care if it had been heated with fire or if it was still raw and twitching, either. The predatory nature was another gift - or curse - of her strange origin.

"Mare is a monster because she is not human," she replied simply to the woman, who she could not recall if she had introduced herself by name yet. That it was on the sign out front meant little; Maranae could not read. "The bad men in the dark place called me an abomination. I do not know what that word is, but Mara does not think it means nice thing." She tossed another mint in the air, and the stallion dutifully snapped it out of the air. Her fingers were getting sticky from the sweets, combined with the horse slobber from before.

"Mara thinks they are afraid of her," she said after a moment of staring at the horse. "I do not know why. She only hurts people that try to hurt me."

What she did not speak of was the strange thing she could do, although not of her own volition. The trick of shifting, of becoming something else, or becoming many something elses. The trait was mystifying to the girl, and she thought there were a lot of things about it she had yet to understand. The simple fact of it made people very uneasy. "I killed a few of the hard-skinned ones that came after me," she said at last, looking sick about it.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel pondered over everything the young girl said and sat in silence for a while. It was a lot to digest and she kept looking at the knife in her lap with a troubled expression.

Mara is a monster because she is not human.

Miriel could relate. She had been on the earth for over 200 years and had travelled from one end to the other. Not everywhere was kind to those who were not their own race. It would be cruel to pin all of the blame on humans; she had come across elves who had looked down on even other elves, dwarfs who would spit at you even after you had saved his life, humans who collected unique keepsakes of body parts from the 'monsters' they had killed. If it was one thing she had learnt it was that a monster could wear any skin. Miri was in no doubt that Mara was correct about them being afraid - or perhaps she had escaped from somewhere and they wanted her back in order to control her. That was also quite common. Even if they hated your kind if you could benefit them and advance their aims they would put up with you enough to use you. It turned her stomach.

The elf was a killer, was raised by killers, knew killers. A killer, was not what she saw as she watched Mara toss Thorlion treats to make him jump further into the air - at one point he even had to use his wings to chase it.

Quietly she put her hands over the metal in her hands and closed her eyes. The familiar tug at her energy began as soon as she called on her power to mend the broken mental. The blade began to glow and faintly she began to hear its 'voice'. Miri had tried to explain the sensation a multitude of times to no avail but every piece of metal had its own voice and personality. It was that that she could 'talk' to. It's how she bent mental and enchanted it: it's also what made her weapons of higher quality. This voice was sleepy, scared and in pain. With gentle encouragement she bade it to fix itself and begrudgingly, it did. The whole exercise took less than a few minutes and once the glow faded it revealed a perfectly formed blade - no trace of a break.

"My name is Miriel, Mara, and I think you should stay here with me for a while," she passed the blade back to the girl quietly. It had taken a lot of thought, but she couldn't just send the girl back into the streets with people looking for her. At least here she would have some form of protection. If Valthar had given her this blade he clearly had thought the same: she needed care.

 

[Maranae]

The whisper of some kind of magic breathed through the girl, but she paid it as little heed as the actual event itself. She was, truth to tell, more interested in the flying horse with the love for sweets. Although her attention span had been growing longer and longer, she was still far too easily distracted when the stakes were low.

When Miriel spoke to her, she physically jerked back to the real world with a guilty look on her face and the sack of sweets almost half gone. She looked at the blade, and then at Miriel and cocked her head to one side. "Sharp steel is not broken now? How did Miriel do that?" She took the blade delicately away from the elfin woman, talons clicking on steel as she did so. Another illusion, perhaps, for it was finger nails in the next moment, and then claws, and then finger nails again. if it was untoward to Mara, she did not show any concern for it.

She suddenly looked apprehensive, at the mention of staying. "Is dangerous. Mara attracts problems, so man who is Valthar said. Like a moth to a flame." She had no idea what that meant, but it didn't matter because she was just repeating it. "One of the bad men said I was a mess they had to clean up. If they found me, someone would be in trouble."

So many questions without answers. Maranae wanted to know what she was with a burning desire, but she wasn't the only one who wanted to know. And someone wanted her gone, erased like the laboratory had been.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

"Valthar once said I was dangerous too," Miriel laughed softly and turned her eyes from the girl back over the fields. Probably for a very different reason than Mara but the memory made her smile. She felt content with what she had offered; this was the right course of action. "These men can come to my door all they like, I'm not sure they will enjoy the reception they get." It wasn't a very veiled threat - the anger was clear in every syllable. Miriel had been born a warrior, had grown up in a House that taught you to swing a sword before you could even take your first steps. It disgusted her when people took advantage of another just because of their gifts. Gifts, Miri cast a side look at the girl, she wasn't entirely sure the extent of. She had sworn she had seen the girls features change but Thorlion wasn't acting as if this was a shifter with a great beast contained within her skin.

"I mended the blade with magic, I can talk to metal," Miriel offered as a way of explanation. "It is easier to fix something like your sharp metal with my magic sometimes than to put it in the fire inside. If you stay I could show you how to fix metal with fire, or how to look after Thorlion, perhaps?" her lips twitched up at the corners as she watched Mara feed the remaining treats to her horse. "I could even teach you to ride if you wanted. I do need help around here," the last sentence was almost to herself and she sighed.

 

[Maranae]

"Mara does not need to ride," she replied to the last with a sincerity that couldn't help but bring a smile to the face. "I am faster than horses," she added.

She took the explanation of magic without question, although she looked distinctly uncomfortable in its presence, now that she knew what it was. "Magic is not good. Not good, not good," she muttered under her breath without seeming to realize she was doing it. She came a little closer to the woman, still not taking a seat on the fence.

Something dark inside of her stirred, and she cringed at its presence. The beast within, as some of her pursuers had called it. The monster that made her dangerous, despite the fact that she had never raised a hand in violence to another without them having first done so to her, and generally having to have been violent with her to begin with.

The beast was the primal side of her, of all the myriad souls that made up what she was. At best, she had only ever learned how to wield a guiding hand when the instinctive nature showed its ugly presence.

Finally, some part of what Miriel had said to her cut through. "Mara can learn magic?"

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel raised a curious eyebrow at the confident way she said she could run faster than horses - now that was something she would really love to see her do. Perhaps, when the girl trusted her more. She watched as Mara slowly came closer to her, inch by inch. Miri kept still. It was like dealing with a wild horse - you couldn't rush things, they had to get used to your presence and make up their own mind if you were worth their trust. She was surprised however she had still decided to move closer even after such an outburst at the use of magic. The elf looked back at the other sandwich in her box and then broke it in half, offering it to the girl as she chewed on her own half and contemplated how best to answer.

"I can not teach you metal magic, like what I did to the blade. But I can teach you how to use your hands to make things; it is not magic but it is still useful. I can teach you to make the sharp metal things," she nodded to the knife, "Or I can teach you to make the pretty things," she motioned to the golden circlet around her upper arm with the engravings in. "People pay money for you to do these things for them because they cannot do it." When she said it in that way it did sound like magic. Perhaps, if the girl got really good she could even teach her what she knew about runes to etch into blades. It wasn't quite the same as the enchantment Miriel could do but it was still a good skill to have.

 

[Maranae]

She sniffed at the sandwich, but balked at the offering. Her tastes were particular, and tended towards entirely carnivorous. She did not come immediately any closer, either.

She looked at the mended weapon with a happy smile on her face, hefting it inexpertly in her hand. She had literally zero skill in knife fighting, but raw strength coupled with incredible fortitude served almost as well as knowing what she was doing when the chips were down. She slipped it behind the rough leather belt around her waist without a second thought.

"I do not know how to make things," she agreed amicably. And she didn't. She could neither read nor write, and the only reason she was still alive was because of her baser, more predatory instincts. Food, as it turned out, was never an issue. It was always people that were the problem, with their inability to understand why she was the way she was. She became a touch apprehensive, though, after thinking the words over. "Teaching does not hurt? Mara does not like it when she gets hit for not learning fast enough," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, cheerful despite.

She dug in her pouch, and dug a copper coin out. "Money?" A pause, and a look of confusion. "I do not know what it is for; someone gave me some of these round metals, but I cannot eat them. It hurts Mara's teeth. Mara is confused, they are not even pretty," she said earnestly.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Shrugging when Mara showed no interest in the sandwich she ate it herself and then swung her legs back over the fence so she was facing the doorway to the forge. With unthinking grace she dropped to the ground. She was a good head shorter than the girl but it didn't seem to bother her in the least; she was far to used to the naturally gifted height of elves for it to bother her so.

"Teaching does not hurt," Miriel confirmed. "Mara can be as slow as she likes in learning, it is about being right not doing something fast. Fast is not good here. Slow, steady, patient." The blacksmith studied her to make sure she understood before nodding a little to herself. "Money is not needed if you are happy to work for me here. I need help. In exchange I will get you free housing, food, and teach you the art of smithing and looking after the horses. You can run odd jobs here for me to help lessen my workload. If you decide you do not like it, you can leave," a shrug. Miriel would never make someone stay for a certain length of time like most other establishments did - she knew the urge to travel too well herself.

"So, would you like to stay?"

 

[Maranae]

Teaching did hurt, from what she could recall of it. She had never managed to learn any of the things that were being taught to her, before, and the proctors involved in that education had been extremely harsh. And that was putting it mildly. Properly fed, her regenerative capabilities allowed for some exceptionally harsh punishments.

Mara was hard to kill. She was also, apparently, hard to teach.

It was the memories of those harsh days - years, really - that flitted through her mind. She looked to Miriel again, and could not see that graceful form wielding a blade or a cudgel to correct her. The scars of those experiences were all emotional and buried in her psyche, but they were no less real for that.

She did not understand the concept of work. She did not understand the concept of money. She did not, really, understand the concept of metalwork, anymore than handling horses. There was no reason for her to take the offer; she had handled herself mostly well so far. But...she was curious. She had always been, always had the desire to learn things even if the proctors had said she was not bright.

"Mara wants," she said slowly, coming closer. Every muscle seemed tensed for some imagined blow to come. When none did, she straightened, and grinned. "I want to learn things!" And then she was dancing around the elf, although dancing might have been a stretch. Prancing about energetically. "Wants to learn, wants to learn! make sharp metal and get round metals and feed horses mints!"

She stopped suddenly. "But where to begin?" A surprisingly lucid question.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel didn't fight the smile that spread across her face in amusement watching the girl begin to prance around, almost in a similar fashion to Thorlion earlier. It seemed as the girl seemed to break through some of the trauma that was making her hesitate and give in. She couldn't help but wonder when the last time the girl had made a decision about what she wanted that was beyond the necessities of survival such as food and warmth.

"Let's start you on the horses, Thorlion likes you so the others will be fine," it was partly selfish on her own part - the forge was hot and she had been working in it since 6 that morning. She needed to feel the air on her face for a little while longer. Motioning for Mara to follow her she walked along the length of the fence, leaving the forge behind them and making their way to the house built immediately next to it. There there was a gate into the field and fight by that gate was the feed shed.

"Ok! Lesson one. Feeding horses," Miriel opened the shed to reveal several large feed bins and bales of hay. "All of the horses are out 24/7 which means they have access to grass. This is fine, but it is good to vary the diet and get more nutritional things into their bodies than just grass. It makes them stronger and faster. So we just keep the hay in the field properly stocked up throughout the day - just keep an eye on it. If it looks like it's running low sling another bale out," she patted the bales of hay so she visually knew what it was she was talking about. Picking one of them up she passed it to the girl. There were other things like specific feeds for the pregnant mares and some of the stock she wanted to get covered, but it was the girls first day so hay seemed like a good place to start. Grabbing a couple of buckets of feed she had already made up for the mares who had had their foals and were about to drop, she then led them from the feed shed up the field.

"Now if you dump that hay over there," Miri nodded her head to where some had previously been in the top corner. "When you put it down you need to remove all the rope, ok? Use the sharp metal to do that and then bring me back the rope." Once she was sure the girl seemed to understand she nodded and moved to the pregnant mares to give them their tailored feed.

 

[Maranae]

"Okay!" Her chortle of delight was unfeigned, and she fell in behind Miriel as she walked the fence. There was something of feline grace to her movement, like a big cat stalking in tall grass despite not being a big cat, not stalking, and not being in tall grass. It did not seem to matter, because the motions seemed to reach out and tickle some primal part of the mind that remembered the fear of the dark.

She took the bale of hay with one hand, and held it in front of her face, examining the dry grass. She gave a tentative sniff, her nose scrunching up a moment before she sneezed. She did not understand why so many creatures ate this dry grass.

She tried to follow what Miriel was saying, but understood only bits and pieces. The most basic of it all, really; put the feed in the bins and make sure they did not go empty. She had no idea how often that would have to be done. As to all the rest, it made little sense to her.

Miriel had mentioned the sharp steel, but Mara did not often use tools unless she had to. Instead, she snapped the baling twine with her hands, ignoring where the twine cut into her flesh as though it were no inconvenience. It didn't hurt, really. Blood oozed from the shallow gashes, but the twine that did it snapped like thread in her hands. She tossed the bale into the bin and then hurried long, a couple of drops of blood smirching the ground before the wounds in her hands healed enough to stop bleeding.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Miriel kept half an eye on what Mara was doing as she quietly approached the mares who had yet to drop their foals. Very gently she ran her hand down their flanks and felt around their stomach. There seemed to be no discomfort as of yet, perhaps a few more days or even weeks. She gave them both their feeds and clicked slightly to make the rest in the herd back off so they could eat in peace. It was at that moment that Mara returned with the twine.

"Thank you," absentmindedly she put it in her pocket - bailing twine fixed everything, it was just a known fact amongst horse owners, so it was hand to have on ones person at all times. For example, presently she used it to tie her hair back into a pony tail. "Lesson number two, horses shit a lot. We need to clean it up," a shrug. It was one of the least glamorous jobs but it still needed doing and it was a large field. She handed the girl what looked like a meshed fork that made it easy for scraping the shit off the grass. Miriel showed her first how to do it, scoop and put in barrow. "One you've filled the barrow there is a pile up in the right hand corner," she waved in the direction. "The farmers come on a Sunday to pick it all up to use on their own fields. Once you're done I'll show you where you'll be staying," a smile. This was actually a test. Often she found people who wanted to learn only wanted to do the fun bits and never the hard work, if Mara completed the job in a reasonable amount of time and didn't complain, Miri could be certain she would fit in well in the forge. "I'll be right inside, Thorlion will keep you company I'm sure." The big black stallion had trotted back up the field when he had seen the hay being brought up the field. He gave Miri an affectionate nudge before bending to graze near Mara.

 

[Maranae]

Complaint would have to be borne of a certain mindset, one where the one making the complaints thought that they were above whatever task had been assigned to them. Mara had been raised as an animal, in truth, and couldn't balk at whatever task it was they set her, or in this case, Miriel set for her.

Mara did not like the smell, particularly. Her sense of smell was far, far sharper than Miriel's was, but even so the only complaint she gave was the occasional wrinkle of her nose when she hit a patch of particularly acrid manure. Manure wasn't the problem anyway, it was urine and the strongly alkali scent. Regardless, the work was not hard, only tedious. She had to be careful not to break the implements, as her first attempts to use them left the tools giving threatening creaks of warning; much more enthusiasm and they might break.

All in all, it was boring more than anything. Still, the pretty lady wanted her to do this thing, and so she did it without complaint while the sun crossed the sky and began its westward journey to the horizon. Thorlion did not stray too terribly far away, although Mara did not dote on him as much as Miriel did. She didn't shy away though, muttering a nonsense stream of syllables to herself as she went about the work. Had she known any music, she might have been humming something to herself.

By the end of the chore, she was a fair bit dirtier than she had been at the start. The smell of horse urine was no longer as sharp to her nose (the manure had never been, really).

Finishing, she left the tools next to the noticably larger pile in the corner, and then stopped, looking to the west, to the direction she had come from. The forests of the Falwood were far from here, so far she could not see them. She looked in their driection anyway, her eyes distant.

 

[Míriel Fëanorna]

Whilst Mara was distracted in the fields Miriel went back to the forge, shut the doors and then made her way instead to the house. The forge could wait, this girl and making sure she felt comfortable were more important to her now. The house was reasonably large - probably bigger than most would think a single woman would have to herself.

The ground floor which, in keeping with the style of most homes, was an open plan living area, eating area, and cooking area. The floors were solid good oak but sheepskins littered the floor in key areas to keep peoples feet warm during the winter months. Straight ahead was a staircase that effectively split the room in two, with the cooking and eating area to the right and the living space with the large fireplace to the left. Plants were dotted around in large pots and grew around the beams, bringing a little bit of the jungles of her home inside. Kicking off her shoes she trudged her way upstairs. Going to the bathroom she took out spare linen and pillows and made her way into one of the three spare rooms she had. It was a reasonable size with a double bed in the middle of it. She hesitated for a second before setting about making it a liveable place for the girl. She dusted down the furniture: a small desk, a set of draws and a wardrobe. Then she made up the bed and threw a few sheep skins from other parts of the house onto the floor. Finally, she built up the fire in the room so it would seep warmth into the cold walls.

Stepping back she admired her handiwork. It wasn't the most beautiful space but now it looked warm and cozy at least. Thinking about the girls clothes she set about dealing with that next. Going to another of the spare rooms which she seemed to be using as a storage room she dropped down in front of a chest and began rummaging around in it. One of the previous apprentices who had worked there was about 6ft 5 and built similarly to Mara. When he had left he had left behind quite a few clothes. Miri had never thrown it out thinking they would one day make good clothes to wear if she had a particularly dirty job to do, but they would now be Mara's. It meant she at least wouldn't have to look like she lived in rags. In total she found three sleeveless tunics that hadn't been eaten by moths, two sets of leggings in green and black, and a smarter waistcoat. She transferred them all to the girls new room and set them on the bed.

By the time she was done, Miri could see out the window Mara had nearly finished with her chores so she went to meet her outside. As Mara walked towards her she raised her hand in a wave and beckoned her over.

"You did a great job," she offered the girl a genuine smile then slightly tilted her head to the house. "Let me show you where you're staying." Setting off to the house, Miri led her upstairs to her room. "It's not a lot but.... it's yours. You can decorate it how you like," her last sentence was added on hurriedly as she thought of it - she wanted it to feel like her home too.

 

[Maranae]

She blinked at the words, and turned to face the speaker. It was Miriel, and the momentary thrill of fear melted away. The elf-lady had not hurt Mara yet, and she was nearly certain that the elf-lady wouldn't hurt her.

She gave the lady a smile like the sun cracking over the horizon in the morning, illuminating her entire face. There were fangs there, this time, the canines much longer than they had been a moment before. It didn't detract from her beauty, but it certainly raised alarm bells as the what, exactly, she might be. "Mara is not sure what she was doing the scooping for, but I did it!" The agreement was a fair bit more excited than it should have been.

She became slightly apprehensive when they neared the house, though. She had never been very comfortable with the indoor world that most people lived in. It was unfamiliar to her, who spent most of her short life outdoors in the elements. Almost all of her experiences with being in a place with a roof overhead had been very negative. It was with trepidation that she went inside, eyes looking for the cage that she expected to be somewhere, or the steps leading down into darkness.

Neither were present. It did not lesser her unease at being in a house, or whatever a place like this was called.

The room, when presented, was not what she expected at all. Most of the furnishing in it were of an unknown nature to the girl, and her eyes skipped over them without any hesitation. They lingered a little longer on the fire, a sharp spike of alarm there for a moment, before being - it would seem - physically pulled away.

"For me?" She asked slowly. She looked the room over again, recalling another place. "No cage?" She looked at Miriel as though she didn't believe it.