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Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Wednesday

Right, okay. Fjord hadn't been to work for a few weeks now. It would have just been one week, around the school trip, and that would have been fine, but last week had been called on account of no hands, so Fjord was feeling good and rusty by the time he came in to work at Amaya's forge today.

He decided he might as well jump right into it until Amaya came down, finding some slightly dull weapons in need of sharpening and setting to work on those.

Look, what he'd been trained to do here so far was fairly minimal, what with missing a couple of weeks now. He was going to make himself useful with what he had at his disposal. And he was damn well going to like it, too.

He'd really missed having thumbs.

[OOC: Open!]

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"Good to see you're feeling more like yourself again," said Amaya, once she came down after hearing the sounds of the sharpening wheel going, feeling relieved to discover it was exactly what she'd expected it to be and not some other strange thing going on.

She was still working on her own morning mug, but figured she'd pour a second, as she'd never say no to more for herself if Fjord was interested. "Coffee?" she offered, holding the other mug out, which was as much of a warning as he'd get that it was coffee made by Amaya, so...well...she did like all things bold, and that was being...kind.

"Coffee," Fjord agreed, setting his work aside for the moment and reaching for the mug with a pleasant smile and a nod of thanks. Hey, he was a sailor by trade. If he couldn't handle coffee strong enough to sit up and do tricks, what business did he even have as first mate on Vandren's ship? "Much obliged, Amaya. And my apologies for being remiss in my duties lately. I figured perhaps coming in without full use of my faculties would have been... disastrous, to say the least."

But he'd totally gone to Caritas and tended that bar.

The bar didn't involve molten metal. So.

Amaya waved a dismissive hand. "Couldn't be helped," she shrugged, took a sip from her own mug. "Hard to really imagine a snake being anything but trouble in a forge, anyway. What would you do? Even if you could handle anything, I'd suspect the heat would just make you want to get comfortable and just sleep. I guess I wouldn't know, though. Never been a snake. How'd you like it?"

"Had no hands, and it's entirely too cold out there," Fjord reported. "Funny thing about being a snake, the cold made me feel more sluggish than anything. Wasn't until I found my way into someplace warm that I felt like moving around again."

And because that warm place had usually been a large pocket in a hoodie Fenris had picked up, moving around hadn't actually been an option, either.

"Not an experience I'd care to repeat any time soon, honestly. I'm too fond of opposable thumbs."

"Can't fault you on that one," Amaya agreed. "I'm pretty glad to have a pair of those myself. And I guess here's some more good news: I've managed to catch up on all my jobs in the meantime, which means I've got all day for teaching, if you want to get those thumbs back to work."

"I'll happily admit I've been itching for it," Fjord replied, shooting Amaya a quick, casual sort of grin. "Have you got anything in particular in mind for today?"

Because he was kind of dying to do some actual productive work around here.

And Amaya couldn't not return that grin, the type of grin shared between two people who just understood hard work and preferred it as a default setting, a grin she'd kind of missed with these last few weeks being a little...off, a grin that made her very glad to see things settling back into a normal pace again.

"I've got a few ideas," she said with a nod, "but nothing too particular. I suppose I should see if you've got anything in mind, any particular itch you want to scratch."

"Honestly, at this point?" Fjord sipped at his coffee, looking thoughtful. "Something challenging. I want to do work with my hands, whatever that work might be. Something I can put a bit of focus into, and a bit of muscle. Got anything like that in mind?"

"Well, we can always start with just getting you going on your first sword," Amaya offered. "Get familiar with the process, give you something to practice when I'm not here. Definitely'll take some focus your first time, probably more than a bit of muscle, but we know you've got more than enough to spare. Sword's pretty easy, too; from there we can start in on daggers, axes, spears, morning stars, flails...all that good stuff."

Fjord couldn't help but smile at that suggestion, and he raised his coffee in a small toast at the thought.

"What the hell," he chuckled. "Let's get me started on my first sword, then. Might as well leap right in."

"Exactly!" Amaya agreed, toasting back before finishing what was left in her cup and plopping it down on the counter to get it off her hands, which she brushed together a moment, time to get to work. "It really is the best place to start, because everything else is just a variation. Now, let's see..."

She drifted over to the shelves where she kept her spare steel, clearly organized and categorized in some way that she could understand, since she was looking them all over thoughtfully, though they probably looked quite a bit the same to an untrained eye. "Now, typically," she said as she considered the options, "I'd do a design phase first; you very artistic, Fjord? Doesn't matter too much, most swords are going to follow the same basic structures and styles, but sometimes it's nice to get a little creative, too. Not for this one, obviously. We can use a basic pattern if you'd like, or you can cut it freehand. It's not like we're looking to pull off anything fancy."

"I'm not terribly artistic really, no," Fjord admitted. That would be Jester, who he'd known roughly a week before ending up stranded here.

... Hopefully she hadn't been eaten by a giant in the mountains or something.

"Perhaps it would be a good idea to start with a basic pattern," he mused, "so I can get a feel for it. And go from there?"

"Solid plan," Amaya nodded, finally pulling out one of the hunks of metal from the shelf and bringing it over. "Take that. I'll go get the outline; you can mark it on the metal so you know where to cut the basic shape before you start with the good stuff. Eventually, you'll get to a point where you'll know how get the shapes without the patterns, but, you know, just staring out. You any good with a hacksaw?"

"I'm a decent hand at a hacksaw," Fjord confirmed, smirking a little as he took the offered sheet of metal. "I get the feeling I'm about to get much better with one from here."

"There's a lot of fancy new machines that can do the cutting much easier around here," Amaya admitted as she pulled out a large pile of thin papers from under the counter and started leafing through them, "but that takes out all the fun. Figured I want to keep this shop...traditional. Old school. It's a niche market, sure, but this is kind of a niche island."

She found a pattern for a good, simple pattern for a simple, symmetrical sword with a center ridge. "Here we go, not much simpler than this." She handed it over, followed by a black grease pencil. "Just trace it out on the metal, grab a saw, and get to cutting it to the shape you want. You're going to want to pay extra attention to the point and the tang. I figure you know what the point is, the tang's basically the handle, which is the base for the hilt. Keep the the point sharp, but you'll want to cut where the tang meets the blade a bit rounded, makes its stronger and sharper edges there makes it more susceptible to cracking."

She cleared off one of the worktables and went to pick out a saw for him and grinned.

"So that should keep you busy for at least a little while."

"More traditional methods suit me just fine," Fjord replied taking the grease pencil and considering it for a moment. "I won't have any of this fancy machinery back home, either. Better to get a feel for doing it with the tools I will have access to."

And honestly, he didn't completely trust electricity here yet anyway.

He laid out the metal and the pattern, and got to work tracing away.

"That's a good point," Amaya said, adding the saw to the worktable for him and then going over to check on the forge. "I like the technology here just fine, but it does make me think on how dependent everyone here seems to be on it. So I'm glad to take advantage, but sparingly."

The forge seemed good and warm, they wouldn't need it for a while anyway, so she went for the leather she'd gotten in to start stripping it up for some hilts and scabbards, moving them over to the counter to work from there.

"When you get to cutting, just set the cut bits aside. We can end up melting them down and recasting them to use for something else another time."

"Will do," Fjord replied, smiling faintly as he traced. "No sense in letting any of it go to waste. I can appreciate that."

And make sure that part curved, and... ha. Done. A sheet of metal with a lovely drawing of a sword on it.

"Hey, look at that!" Amaya grinned. "It even looks like a sword. You're off to a great start, there."

"Looks like I've already got a handle on the fine art of tracing?" Fjord grinned right back. "My confidence in my ability to do this is getting stronger by the minute."

"You keep this up," Amaya noted, "I'm going to have to start looking into a new trade in no time."

"And then I'll have to serve under you as an apprentice there, too," Fjord replied. "Because clearly my prowess is due to having an excellent teacher."

You two. Really now.

Aww, shucks.

"How d'you feel about falconry?" Amaya offered. "I've always wanted to try falconry."

"Never considered it," Fjord mused, "but last I checked I didn't have any bird allergies..."

He made a reach for the saw.

"That's a good start!" Amaya said cheerfully as she sliced into the leather after measuring it out against one of the daggers still needing wraps. "And I've already got the gloves for it, too."

"I'll have to get something to cover my vambraces with if I want one to be comfortable sitting on my forearm," Fjord mused, carefully lining up the saw with his lines. "But that shouldn't be too much hassle."

He really, really was not in the market for a falcon.

"Well," Amaya chuckled faintly; she made another cut and wrapped the dagger's hilt, but before she reached for the tacks she was going to hammer in to keep it in place, she craned her neck to get a better look at his work, "maybe we'll just wait and see how you handle that saw before we start getting too ahead of ourselves."

"Never know," Fjord replied, grinning. "I might be a total disaster with a saw and my only option will be to take up falconry anyway."

That was not likely to happen. Not with the way he started in on sawing at that metal, really putting his back into it.

Well, he kind of had to. It was sawing metal. And Amana had to admit, she was not minding keeping a close eye in this lesson at all.

"Now, this is just one way to shape a sword," she called out over the lovely sound of metal on metal. "A fast way, good for beginners, or if you need something simple and quick. The others take a bit more time, and we'll work up to those once you've got a good hammering technique down. You'll get the best results shaping the metal with heat, but that'll take some doing."

Edited 2018-10-25 00:58 (UTC)

Fjord nodded as he listened, making note of that. More time, work up to it, he could live with all of that.

"Looking forward to it," he called back. Again, over the lovely sound of metal on metal. This was what he'd signed up for, right here. Actually putting in the hard work. If he wasn't feeling this one in the morning, he'd actually be a little disappointed.

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Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Wednesday

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