fandomtownies | Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Wednesday

But look on the bright side! Because Amaya didn't have a class to interrupt a lesson, and there were certainly plans, and she was just about as excited about it as if she were the one learning the new skillset herself.

She maybe also wanted to show off the patterned steel she'd been working on that she'd be using, too, as she figured if anyone would appreciate it, it would be Fjord, or, in the case that he still wasn't quite far along enough to really appreciate it, he'd do a good job of pretending he did.

But first! Coffee! But the order of the day had Amaya's usual "'Morning, Fjord!" a little more chipper and eager, because the guarantee of a hard day's work was the guarantee of a great day overall. "I'm not even going to ask if you're ready to get some work in today, because I know for a fact that you are."

At least he better be. If he wasn't...she was going to be convinced the quiet spell was over and something wonky was going on, and she didn't want to deal with anything wonky on Teach-Fjord-About-Rapiers Day.

Hell, Fjord didn't want to deal with anything wonky on Teach-Fjord-About-Rapiers Day. He wanted to learn about rapiers, damn it. If only for the sake of a challenge, sure.

"No point in asking, true enough," Fjord agreed with a grin and a nod as she came down. "Really goes without saying at this point. I'm here, I'm lookin' to get into it as soon as possible."

"Good to hear," said Amaya, grinning back, and offering out Fjord's mug, "but let's not let perfectly good coffee go to waste in our eagerness. Got the forge good and going, though? Not too hot, though. With rapier work, you don't want to go too hot or too quick. Not unless you like starting all over again from scratch, which, at the very least, means you wouldn't be bored..."

"Got it going, not too hot," Fjord agreed, taking the mug with a grateful nod of his head. "Is the worry that the steel will break, in that case?"

Tiny little precision weapons were still pretty new to him, yeah.

"Break and bend," Amaya corrected. "One of those is easier to fix than the other, but if you fix the one too much, it'll just lead to the other. A nice broad, flat blade is pretty forgiving; it'll pretty much do exactly what you and the hammer tell it to. But when you start stretching it out and thinning it up, it tends to take on a mind of its own about where it wants to go if you're not careful."

"Huh," Fjord mused. "So probably a good thing this waited until after..." He waved his coffee mug around vaguely. "After things calmed down some."

When he was in a mood to smack things with a hammer, but maybe not so frustrated that he was just blindly whomping stuff with it.

"Just a bit," said Amaya, who was going to need a particularly long sip of her coffee just then. "I'm half surprised I didn't wind up having to replace all my hammers after that week...or the whole damn anvil, for that matter..."

That last bit may not have been intended to be an outloud observation, but there it was anyway. Even if Amaya didn't even seem to realize it.

The corner of Fjord's mouth quirked up just slightly at that. Wryly, really.

"And apparently this is an annual thing. I intend to be in a position where I can leave the island for the week, next year. Maybe it'll spare... ah... your anvil."

In hindsight, that came out terribly wrong. Fjord hid a grimace behind a mouthful of coffee.

Ah, zards! Once was a time where a comment like that would go blissfully right over Amaya's head's, but those halcyon days were long gone after this year's bout. Her face scrunched up a little with just what she thought about that, and then scrunched up a little more as the thoughts decided to run a little deeper, and then she shook her head and resolved to just think about coffee for a second, and once that was thought about, she set aside her mug and went for the swords.

Blacksmithing was a dangerous profession, everyone knew it, but it shouldn't be dangerous like that.

"Anyway, then," she said, going to fetch patterned piece she'd spent the last few days working on and then handed it over to Fjord, "that's mine; let's start by having you go and compare that and what Djodge got started to see if they seem like they're a good match for each other. Size, weight, balance, length, all that good stuff."

Which she, of course, had checked already, and the two were pretty evenly matched for the most part, with the exception of the pattern treatment Amaya had given hers. Which was why this was really only a way to get Fjord to notice the treatment without her just pointing it out and fluffing her own feathers a bit.

It was...a test, that's it. See if he'd be observant enough to notice the treatment without having it mentioned. Sure.

Fjord set down his coffee and took the piece with a nod, thankful to have something to throw his attention into that wasn't... Amaya's anvil.

Shit. Look at the sword, look at the sword... Hey, actually, that was kind of pretty.

"Huh," he said, tilting his head a little at the beginnings of a rapier he had in hand. "You don't see metal like that every day."

He glanced up at Amaya, eyebrows raised in interest.

"It looks like gray wood, or currents in water. What causes that?"

Amaya beamed, not just out of pride for her own work but out of pride that Fjord had passed the test. Not that it was a very difficult one, of course; anyone with two eyes...or even one!...would recognize that something was different, but that wasn't the real test, anyway. The real test was whether he'd be curious enough to askm after it.

She really did get a good one in Fjord, there, didn't she?

"That's what I've been working on this last week," she said, nodding, holding out a hand to take the sword in progress back. "Figured a special sword called for a special treatment, and it would give you something to look forward to or try out on your own during the slower times. It's basically just layered steel; sound simple, but like anything, it takes some doing to do it well. You forge out your steel, no big deal, but then you start cutting it. Put the pieces back together in a new order and forge 'em together, and all the layers in the steel will start making patterns. You can keep cutting it, or you can fold it, just keep repeating it, and the differences in temperature and how you shape it's going to make all sorts of interesting lines and what have you when you're finished. Putting them together different ways makes for different effects, there's a whole lot to go into making something like that, but when you get it right..."

She sucked in a breath, shaking her head now with nothing but admiration for the piece. "You get it really right."

Fjord nodded as he passed it back, looking thoughtfully at the piece. A hell of a lot of work had gone into it, clearly. A lot of care.

"That's..." It was the sort of thing that deserved some manner of praise, and for a moment his adopted speech patterns battled with what had always been there before. In the end, instead of the 'mighty nice' he might have drawled out on most occasions these days, what actually came out of his mouth was, "beautiful."

He admired it for a moment more before adding, "You've got a lot of passion for what you do, Amaya. And that shows basically all the time, but you still manage to one-up yourself, constantly."

Alright, now. Amaya was just looking to get a little praise for the blade, knowing full well she'd done a fine job with it, indeed, but now Fjord was going to go and get her almost blushing over the whole thing.

Nope. Not almost. And, try as she might, a faint snort wasn't going to chase it away so easily, either.

"That's what I was going for," she said. "One-upping myself, always, but with the sword being a beauty...I've got to make this one so damn pretty it'll make you want to puke. But thanks, Fjord. You know probably better than anyone that I do this because there's nothing else in this world...or any other, for that matter!...I'd rather be doing, but it's still always nice when someone else can appreciate it, too."

And she was just going to let herself enjoy that for a moment before snorting again, shaking her head. "Don't you go thinking flattery's going to make me go soft enough to take it easy on you. We've got work to do!" With a grin over her shoulder as she turned toward the forge, she took a moment to check how it was going before shoving the steel in. "These pieces are about half the length and twice the thickness we want them to be. I'll get mine going and then show you the best techniques to get this drawn out, then it'll be your turn. It's already a slow process and that's just going to slow it down a bit more, but that's alright. We'll both get to pay close attention this way, though now I'm just wondering if I can see about getting another anvil in here, maybe extend the forge a little to make it easier for us both to work at the same time on days like this."

Never in a million years would have guessed she'd have an apprentice when she designed the place, really, but it was a welcome surprise.

"Would definitely make the going a bit easier, wouldn't it?" Fjord was grinning unabashedly now, looking from the steel back up to Amaya. "Just think how much more work you can get done if we're not taking turns for one day a week."

Hell, maybe he'd even be able to come in on other days, too, without worrying about getting in her way. There was a thought.

Even if she weren't already pretty warm to the idea, a phrase like more work would always do wonders to turn Amaya's attention a certain way. "A bit of dueling blacksmiths, if the mood strikes," she noted, amused, giving the shop a look around thoughtfully after turning her steel in the forge a bit for an even heat. "I'm sure I could make the space for it. Bigger forge'll be a bit of a project, but between that, the greenhouse I'm thinking of putting in upstairs, and whatever jobs come through, I don't think I'll have to be worried about being bored this summer."

"I'm afraid the only duels I'll be winning for a while will be of the using the weapons sort, not the making them," Fjord mused, still smiling. "But you know I'm always game for a project. Point me wherever you need me."

"Will do," said Amaya, with the confidence of a person who knew if she shoved a wheelbarrow at Fjord and told him to hit the preserve in search of large smooth stones, she'd likely have enough for a whole second forge before sundown.

"In the meantime, though," she pulled the steel out from the forge, glowing hot as she turned it over a little to inspect it, then nodded, mostly to herself, "I'll point your attention over here. Looks like she's ready."

She turned toward the anvil, setting the the glowing metal down and taking up her hammer, adjusting the grip slightly in preparation. "Now, remember: we're going for longer and thinner, not broader and flatter, so how you move the sword as you strike it is going to make a big different. Even hits, along all sides, while slowly pulling it back. Like this."

And then she got to it, just as she described, lining up each swing evenly and quickly with her hammer as she slowly pulled the metal closer to her, drawing it out. Then back out again, flipping it over, doing the same. Then turning it to its side, calling out a little as she worked, "You see it already starting to bend a bit? Nothing a few good hits on all sides can't wrangle back into place, at least at this stage in the process!"

A few more draws, though, and the length of the metal had increased noticeably at the end, the width of it diminished, almost to the point where, pulled in as much as Amaya's arms would let her, she could barely reach to hammer out a point in the tip before stopping, running an arm across her now sweaty forehead, and holding the elongated piece up for inspection, proudly, turning it over to check for bends and warms.

"Just like that."

"Just like that," Fjord echoed, looking thoughtfully at the rapier-in-progress before glancing toward the one that Djodge had begun working on.

... Was he afraid he'd fuck it up? He was absolutely afraid he'd fuck it up.

"Even hits, all sides, while pulling it back," he echoed under his breath, even going so far as to mime out the motion of it for a few strikes, moving the way she'd done while working the metal.

Grinning softly, Amaya nodded. "Exactly right," she said, adding, "but don't rush the pulls. Should be easier for you, too, once it gets going. You've got longer arms."

Oh, she was already planning on setting so many longswords on you now, Fjord.

But for now she just set her rapier-in-progress aside after another inspection to cool and stepped back with a gesture. "The forge is all yours, Fjord; let's get her started."

It'd been a while since she'd had the chance to really just sit there and watch how he was working, too, so...no added pressure or anything there, either.

Noooo pressure at all. Really. Truly. Even if Fjord was looking the faintest bit sheepish as he put Djodge's rapier into the heat.

"Alright," he agreed. "No better time than now."

He just had to trust that Amaya's supervision meant she wouldn't let him mess up the kid's work too badly, right?

Blackstone Foundry and Forge, Wednesday

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