fandomtownies | Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Wednesday

To be fair, that kid did have more than a couple of years on him...

"'Morning, Fjord," said Amaya, who had no inention on dwelling on any awkwardness at all if she could help it, but believed firmly in celebrating small victories, even when those victories were purely incidental, "and only Fjord, thank the heavens, praise the stars, bless the rains, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."

Almost like it was the end of summer and the kids were finally off to school again, instead of into some emphemeral unknown void of wishy-washy, awkward future possibilities.

But hey! She had coffee!

"Fjord and only Fjord," Fjord agreed, grinning up at Amaya from the prototype sword he'd been examining. "Mornin', Amaya and only Amaya."

He broke into a small, relieved grin at that.

"How're you doin' this morning?"

Besides blissfully kid free.

"Relieved to find out that my head remembered how it's supposed to be when it's not aching for three days straight," Amaya decided, "though it took the better part of yesterday to figure it out. And yourself?"

"Not a parent, not a red porcupine thing, and not completely fuckin' aggro," Fjord reported, "which feels like a win all around. Ready to actually get back to work, maybe start making some progress around here without a thousand unnecessary distractions. Lookin' forward to it, actually."

"Well, then," said Amaya, looking around a little before tilting her head and picking up what looked like the start of the head of an axe, "I've got good news for you, Fjord, because there appears to be the beginnings of at least half a dozen projects for you to get plenty of practice on by finishing them up."

Her eyes narrowed, though, speculatively, at the axe.

"...oh, wait," she said, "this one's one of mine."

At that, Fjord gave a chuckle.

"Well, you're in a better position to figure out which are yours and which belonged to Djodge than I am," he noted. "Pick something promising and set me to work on it, and I'll be happy to do just that."

"You've got yourself the pick of the litter, it seems," Amaya said, setting down the axe head and picking up another piece, turning it over to figure out exactly what it was intending to be in the end. "Looks like Zeph even took to a few bits and pieces of armor, so let me ask you this: anything in particular you've been itching to give a try? With my last class finishing up here today, I'll have time to really get into something new, if you like."

There was a...slight pause.

"Island permitting, of course."

"Island doesn't seem big on permitting, lately," Fjord noted, but he shrugged, looking thoughtful. "Wouldn't mind branchin' out with different blades, I'll admit. The armor I use leans leather, Fenris seems to have that handled."

He glanced at the items sitting, just waiting.

"Any you figure would give me a challenge?"

By now, Amaya ~~stopped getting sucked into YouTube forging videos~~ felt she'd recovered and gathered most of her wee little blacksmiths' projects (she had a feeling she might be finding things for weeks after the fact), and she considered them thoughtfully.

"Honestly?" she said. "I think we either stick with the axe...axes seems as good as business around here as swords, even if it is mostly repair and replacement work rather than building up a whole thing from scratch like swords or..." She picked up a piece of flattish rectangual steel, about the length of her forearm, and held it up for closer inspection, "looks like he might have been going for a rapier on this one, which would be a good test on handling lightness and length. A big sword is mighty forgiving; it's the thin ones that'll really put you to the test. I'm planning on starting one myself here, actually, soon as I get just a few more finishing touches on that set for Beau. Might help with demonstrating the finer points." Ha! " You can sort of follow my lead."

"Rapier, huh?" Fjord gave a thoughtful nod. "Hell, that sounds like exactly the challenge I'm looking for right about now. Somethin' I'm not used to, not even really all that familiar with. The swords I grew up using were a bit more sturdy."

That falchion of his certainly wasn't small.

Amaya had to grin a little; it was always satisfying to see a plan come together so well and, a good clear direction for the lessons already forming in her head. "It's a plan, then," she said, with a small pump of her fist and a nod. "That'll be perfect. No class next week, so I can spend the day teaching you the proper bevels and get you going on that, and that'll give me the time to get to work on the special treatment I've got in mind for mine, since that's going to take a good few days. If you don't mind waiting, that is. Looks like Djodge got most of the grunt work done, the next step'll take some attention and finesse. Though I suppose if you wanted a challenge for yourself while I'm gone, you can always take some steel and see if you can figure out how he got it to this point.

A little fascinated and feeling a bit strange about the whole swell of pride she felt over it, Amaya held the piece of steel up to her eye level to look down the length of it. "Just look at those edges, though! You could balance an egg on that edge."

She taught that edge!

Probably. Maybe? She wasn't going to think about it, she was just going to admire it.

"Kid knows his stuff, is what you're saying?" Fjord leaned in for a better look, himself. Made note of the weird little feeling of pride over a kid he barely knew and didn't have the faintest clue as to what to do about it, and so opted to ignore it entirely. "Couldn't hurt to give something like that a try, get myself started, see what needs refining when you get back?"

Right, so Beau hadn't come by to bug Fjord much in the last week or so. For good (she thought) reason, but she actually kind of felt bad about it.

It had been a long couple of weeks, and like a lot of people she was still unpacking a lot. There was only so much of that she could do, though, before she got too twitchy, so. Making up for lost time and bugging Fjord it was.

"Hey, man," she said from the doorway, slightly more gruff and -- more notably -- more subdued than usual. "You doing okay?"

"I'm..." Fjord frowned a little, and then hiked up a shoulder before he turned to look at Beau. "I'm fine."

He was not fine, folks.

"... I'm workin' through it," he amended. "The island's been at it pretty fuckin' nonstop lately, hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Beau said with a laugh that was more uncertain than she'd have liked, and a look that suggested she'd have called him on it if he'd stuck to claiming he was fine. "Been a pretty wild time. Kinda worn out after all of it, you know?"

Not just physically, either, but that could just remain implied.

"Yeah, I know the feeling," Fjord admitted, brow creasing as he blew out a sigh. "Kids weren't so bad, but Amaya and Fenris mostly handled that. Week leading up to 'em was shit, though."

"Whaaaaaat?" Beau blinked at him a few times in perplexed surprise. "Last week was kind of awesome."

For some people, Beau, yes.

Fjord blinked right back at her, equally suprised.

"The fuck did you spend last week doing?"

Fjord. Buddy. Sweetie.

"What did I spend last week doing?" Besides being too busy to visit. You know. "What did you spend it doing?"

. . . Beauregard.

Fjord looked faintly taken aback.

"... I spent it fuckin' angry. The whole damn time."

Like everyone was, right?

Look, it wasn't that Fjord was oblivious so much as he was extremely in denial.

". . . angry about what?" Beau asked in the quieter, faintly sullen voice that meant she was worried and a little bit confused. "Oh. Oh, dude, was last week not -- are you like not into that or something? 'cause, I mean, it's fine if you're not, but wow, that had to suck for you, then."

Hey, at least she wasn't telling flirty barmaids you had performance issues, Fjord.

See! The worst was still yet to come!

"... Wasn't exactly a priority, apparently," Fjord muttered, a little awkwardly, as denial took a little sidestep into grudging acceptance. "So everything else just wound up dialled to thirteen. Wasn't a great time."

"Yeah." Beau just looked pained and awkward now, because how did you convey sympathy, anyway? Or, well. It was more like pity, so maybe pained and awkward was the better option here.

She reached up to punch him in the arm, but lightly.

"Sorry about that, man. You find a way to like . . . work it off eventually?"

Fjord sighed.

"Went away on its own. On Saturday."

... So, nope.

"That shit ever hits again, I'm gonna find out how long I can last takin' out a room on the mainland, showin' my face in public in hour-long stretches at a time. I came too fuckin' close to puttin' someone through a wall a few times."

"It happens every year right around this time, from what people have been telling me," Beau offered, rubbing a hand over the back of her head. Hmm. Might be time for another shave. "The pollen shit, and then the kids. It's like a package deal, I guess?"

She made a face. "It was really that bad, huh? I mean, I get it. If I didn't, y'know . . ." Not going into her sex life, thanks, so she just shrugged. "I'd probably have been in a real bad mood too.You're okay now, though, right?"

Look, Fjord, she'd worried about you and everything.

"Doin' better," Fjord agreed. "Probably could've stood to get in more quality time with my kids," as in... any. Literally. At all. "But I think I made the right call keepin' some distance, after... that."

Not parent material, this one.

Not even babysitter material.

Beau went very quiet for several moments. Then, finally, she asked in a low voice:

"You think ignoring them was the best call?"

Not exactly what he'd said, but she had . . . feelings coloring her interpretation here.

"I..." Fjord looked at her in silence for a moment. Tried to process what that change of tone might possibly mean. Nothing good, he'd suspect.

Possibly for either of them.

"I was afraid I'd break 'em, Beau," he said, finally. "Just spent a week contemplatin' rippin' doors off their hinges and beating people to fuckin' death with 'em. Then I woke up because of this slip of a thing that made me look like a fuckin' giant, callin' me Dad, and I had no fuckin' clue what to do with that. And there was another one still, and I don't..." He struggled for a moment to put together words. "Know..." Another moment. And then, frustrated, he just finished with, "How."

This might require a lore drop, Fjord.

"Don't know how what?" asked Beau, the look of annoyance on her face masking most of the disappointment and concern. "They're kids, Fjord, they just want you to be there for them and spend time with them, not -- not ignore them and pull some bullshit in the name of trying to protect them."

It was entirely possible she wasn't listening to what he had to say so much as just trying to say what she wanted to, yes.

"I didn't know that," Fjord replied, frowning. "How the fuck was I supposed to know that?"

Deep breath. Slow exhale. Take a moment to try to piece together words out of a tangle of muddy feelings, pick it out of that feeling of being overwhelmed, inadequate, guilty. Shape it into sentences.

"Started to figure it out. Too little, too fuckin' late, when Kia... basically thanked me for my gods-damned time because I cut a belt down to size for her. The night she left. Of fucking course."

"Fjord . . ." Beau sighed, and it was kind of impressive that she managed to just do that, and not really lay into him. Maybe she was just still wiped out from having emotions for those few days. "Sometimes kids just . . . want to know you notice them, think about them. Shit, maybe just that you're not ashamed they exist. That never occurred to you?"

That said more about her than about him, really, but it had been that kind of weekend.

"Why would that occur to me?" Fjord frowned a little. "I never had that shit, Beau. Didn't have anybody there leading by example. Spent my entire damn life trying not to be noticed. Shit, that--"

He bit into the inside of his cheek and just shook his head.

That hasn't changed any.

"Why --"

And yeah. It hadn't for a second occurred to Beau, who'd wasted years of her childhood trying to prove she was worth some attention, that a kid might want to not be noticed.

"Shit, man. I never thought of that," she admitted. "I was trying real hard for the opposite, myself."

Fjord was quiet for a moment while he tried to picture that. He didn't know what to do with attention. It had been one thing when it was Vandren, encouraging him to be better, to be something, but now more than ever he was appreciating just how different life with Vandren had been compared to what came before.

"I don't want to fuck up any kid's lives, Beau," he said, rather than wading into that steaming pile of issues. "Maybe someday, it'll be something I can do, maybe whatever Fjord it was who decided to have kids is someone who has the faintest idea of what they need. They seemed like good kids. Like maybe they had someone in their lives who had his shit together. But who I am now? Fuck, I don't know what the fuck to do with family. I never had one. I am," his mouth twisted into something wry, not quite pained but at least a little self-deprecating, "fucking terrified I'll do it wrong. Fenris had it handled. Amaya had it handled. I... don't have it anywhere near handled."

"You think I had a fucking clue what I was doing?" asked Beau with a fractured little laugh. "Jamie just barged into my room, jumped on the bed, and called me Mom. Said they loved me, like I was --"

Someone who deserved it. Who wasn't a piece of shit.

"Like I'd already earned that. Like I wasn't this asshole whose first reaction was to say I didn't want kids." She turned and punched the doorframe, not hard enough to cause damage but hard enough to make her knuckles sting. "I don't know the first fucking thing about how to be a real, functional family, because fuck knows mine wasn't. That kid had faith in me for some fucking reason. I couldn't just let them down. That's the kind of disappointment that sticks with you forever, you know? Maybe you don't, whatever. But trust me, it does."

"I..." Fjord found himself at a loss for words, scraping the bottle of the barrel trying to piece together anything. Hated the swell of feeling that grabbed his chest, one that he couldn't entirely put words to. "I don't."

A frown.

He wasn't quite ready yet, to say those words. To just jump out there and say that he had been too damn young to be disappointed when his parents had... whatever the fuck they had done. Died or thrown him away. Couldn't even paint a picture in his head of who they might have been. Someone green?

Great. That narrowed that shit down a whole hell of a lot.

"I'm a little envious of that," he said, instead. "That you had your shit together enough to... know what to do. That your kid had a mom that was... there."

Words were still not happening right. Damn it.

Beau ran a hand over her hair, her knuckles still smarting from punching the wall. She'd said about as much as she'd been prepared to herself.

"I didn't know," she said again. "Karolina had that shit way more handled than I did." She couldn't help grinning just for a second at the memory. "But I couldn't just leave all of that to her. And I wasn't going to be that asshole who made it real clear to a kid who loved me that they meant nothing to me."

Okay, she'd let a little more slip than intended, but . . . not directly.

Fjord's gaze slipped downward a little at that. There was a lot to unpack there, and he had no idea where to even start.

"You figure I was that asshole?"

"I don't know," Beau replied, because she had strong feelings about this, but Fjord was enough of a friend that he didn't get her usual snap judgment. "I didn't see you with them, so I can't really say. Maybe they didn't need you, I don't have a clue. I dunno, man. I guess I'm just saying I'd like to think you're not that asshole, you know?"

"Fuck, Beau," Fjord sighed, reaching up a hand and burying his nails in his hair, "I don't know what I am. And now they're not even here for me to ask."

Shit.

Shit. He was going to be sick.

And now Beau felt kind of awful, too, about being at fault for the look on his face.

"I mean," she began, her hands twitching aimlessly at her sides, "did they seem like they were doing okay to you?"

Not that this was necessarily a foolproof indicator; she knew perfectly well how easy it could be to just pretend you were fine.

"The way I look at it, Jamie came out way too well adjusted to be my kid, you know? The me in their world has her shit a lot more together than I do. Maybe this is just a sign of some kind that we should, I don't know. Try to be better?"

Not that she knew where to start.

"'Okay kids' are apparently one more thing on the list of shit I wouldn't know to see," Fjord sighed. "But..."

He nodded a little.

"Trying to be better sounds like a goal worth strivin' for, you know? Kids or no kids."

"Yeah." Beau chewed on her lower lip for a second, then laughed awkwardly. "Not actually sure where to start with that, but it's at least good to have goals, I guess."

"Havin' the goal is the first step to figuring out what the hell we need in order to make it happen, right?"

Admit you have a problem, was it?

Well, that part might give them a little trouble for a bit, maybe.

"Gotta start somewhere, right?" Beau held a hand out to him.

They were both so bad at this.

"Gotta start somewhere," Fjord agreed, reaching to take her hand, nodding as he shook it firmly. "You ever catch me being an asshole, Beau, you call me on it. Alright?"

"That's a deal," Beau replied. "You know I'm good for it."

She was maybe trying to squeeze his hand as hard as possible.

And he was maybe grimacing and squinting one eye. You know. A tiny bit. Before returning that squeeze in kind.

Because that's what you did, right?

"I appreciate it, then."

He really did, was the thing. Even if they were now trying to do mutual hand-crushings and all.

Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Wednesday

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