Tales from a Lewd Fantasy World – Tale 7 – A Knight Needs Her Armor – Part 1

Author's Note: This is the first part of the latest Tales. The thing is about finished, but I just don't have enough energy left to finish the last two scenes and edit what's left of the story today, so, seeing as I feel horribly guilty about not having posted anything in the past few days, here you have the first 9.5k words. I'll have the rest ready tomorrow after having slept enough not to mess it up. I hope you enjoy it!

Inés

This is… disorienting.

“Inés? Are you listening?” my… my former superiorasks.

And I…

I shake my head. Because no, I am not listening. Not with the sound of rushing water seeming to come from inside my ears as my former general’s room spins and distorts, the maps covering the walls turning into some rather funny shapes as the legs of her desk wobble, or maybe it’s mine that do, and…

“Sit down,” my—Louise gently tells me, holding my arm and taking me to the plush, red chair in front of her always too cluttered desk.

“I… I am sorry, I just—”

“Shush. I understand. I did not take it well when it happened to me,” she says with a reassuring hand on my shoulder as she looks down at me with bright blue eyes peering through her blonde bangs, and, oh, wait, she just said what?

“You were dismissed? From the army? The army you are a general in?!” I tell her with the kind of tone and volume that would have gotten me a court martial before I was demoted to being a civilian.

She chuckles. And then ruffles my hair.

My eye twitches.

“It’s a bit of a trade secret that almost allgenerals have been dismissed at one time or another,” she says.

I… blink at her. Possibly dumbly.

“What.”

She, yet again, chuckles.

“Goodness, but aren’t you giving me some much-needed closure on why Marianne found this so hilarious when she did it to me…”

“General!”

“All right, all right! Try to take a deep breath, and I’ll explain,” she says with a placating, conciliatory gesture that is somewhat diminished when she, yet again, ruffles my hair.

I glare at her as I try to (futilely) pat my red mane back in place, the always messy tangle of wild locks refusing to cooperate yet again.

If only Mom didn’t insist on me not cutting it any shorter…

“Here, take a sip of this,” Louise says as she puts a small mug in my hand, and—gack!

“This is foul!”

“Oh, definitely. It helps me not drink the whole damn bottle after having one of those days.”

I blink up at her, but this time it has more to do with tears welling up in my eyes than with any kind of confusion.

… Mostly.

“All right, Inés, let me explain why this is a good thing. Do you remember how you chose your weapon?”

“Yes?” I mean, it’s hard to forget Mom and Dad dragging me through the Arvanitaki Castle’s armory and putting the whole stored supply in my hands one by one while frowning and tsking all the way.

When I was four.

…

I think I understand why Anna kept slipping me cookies. And dolls. And one very memorable plushie.

…

I miss Anna. I hope the little terror’s doing well at the College.

“Right, and I guess your instructor explained to you how important it was for the weapon to suit you—why are you looking at me like that?” she says.

“Mom and Dad didn’t explain jack shit,” I tell my former superior, relishing the chance to use profanity in front of her. “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” I immediately add, blushing, looking away, and regretting my life choices.

“Ah. One of those,” she says.

And steals back my mug and downs it in a single gulp.

The next two hours are filled with plenty of explanations about magic, personality match-up, talent, self-expression, and a few things that fly right over my head.

Through it all, Louise keeps complaining that “Marianne had it easy.” Whoever Marianne is.

***

“So. You get it now,” she sternly declares rather than ask after her long, strenuous diatribe on things Mom and Dad had always told me to play by ear.

Like them.

… Mostly because I don’t think I have the head for the technical lecture Louise just unleashed on me, leaving my thoughts swimming like I drank more from her offered mug than I did before I tactically retreated from the hostile liquid’s assault.

Still, I dare not do anything but nod in understanding at the woman sitting in front of me, gently massaging her temples and looking like she wants to bury her face in the disorganized piles of paperwork until the world goes away.

“There’s… Just one thing?” I recklessly ask.

Her eyes blaze.

“I mean! It’s just… Huh, permission to speak—”

“Get on with it, Inés.”

“Why am I being discharged?”

Louise freezes. Then stares at me.

Then, realizing she must have skipped over that particular explanation when getting lost in aura interactions with favored weapons, she drops her head until it loudly clacks against the dark wood below her.

It… takes her a moment to start talking.

***

As it turns out, soldiers and adventurers are two very different things because soldiers are perfectly suited for mass battle, fighting in ranks and using standardized tactics, while adventurers, as Louise, after taking far more of that awful thing that she stores in her lowest drawer than I think anyone should imbibe without medical supervision, colorfully puts it, “Goddamn motherfuckers can’t be expected to play nice.”

So, when somebody like me shows up to recruitment with their own equipment, their own fighting style, and aren’t terribly bad at it… Someone takes note of it.

Something that both my mercenary parents turned retainers of the Arvanitaki and the noblewoman and legendary monster slayer who basically oversaw my whole upbringing until I became a soldier somehow neglected to mention. Mostly, I think, because they found it hilarious.

So. Somebody takes note. And you go through basic, learn the standard tactics, the shield wall, the… well, the whole thing.

And then, after a few promotions, you’re tested. Without you knowing it.

If you have the knack for it? If you are still somehow that much better with your old weapons than with your new ones? If a battalion caster can take a look at you and confirm the guesses?

You’re booted out.

You’re booted out because you’re wasted as a rank and file and will serve the country much better as an adventurer—which will also give you the chance to work with “The other fucking nutjobs” as you develop your own style and bag of tricks.

Then, after you’ve proven yourself, with a few solo missions under your belt, you can ask to come back.

And that’s what most officers above a certain rank are supposed to have done because nobody goes beyond lieutenant without having their own particular… idiosyncrasies.

Something that, now that I think of it, would certainly explain Mom and Dad.

“So… I have done nothing wrong?” I ask for, I hope, the final time because I hate feeling this pathetic ball of self-pity niggling at—

“No. You have grown ridiculously fast, you’re the best fighter I’ve ever seen with a two-handed sword, and I really want you to stay so I can spoil you rotten—I mean, watch over your future prospects.”

I blink at Louise, who’s currently blushing due to what I think is a mild case of alcohol poisoning.

I could be wrong, though. It could be a severe case.

“And when can I come back—”

“Spread your wings. See the world. Meet and kill interesting people. Come on, Inés, this is a chance for you to live your own life. It is, in fact, a mandatory chance for you to do so.”

I… blink at her.

Louise smiles.

“Look, I get it. I sat right where you are about—someyears ago, but it turned out fine. I learned things I could never have learned while sticking to strict discipline, and when I came back, this whole thing, life in the army? It felt better. Like it finally fit rather than smothered. I think you’ll also find your way back, and I’m eager to greet you as a fellow general, Inés. I really am.”

My eyes itch for some reason I care not name, and I try to return her wide, proud smile with my hesitant one until she reaches across the desk and grasps my hand with fingers that I finally understand how have remained smooth and soft despite years of archery and dagger work.

“Oh, there’s one last thing, though,” she says with knitted eyebrows.

Without letting go of me yet looking away as uncertainty swims in my belly, Louise rummages through the leftmost pile of stacked letters and documents until her eyes light up as she triumphantly holds aloft a single envelope.

One with the coat of arms of the Arvanitaki house boldly emblazoned upon it.

“Congratulations, Inés! You’re officially a knight of the kingdom!” she says with beaming pride.

And I faint.

***

A week later, my cheeks still burn when I remember it.

But it looks like Mom, Dad, and Anna’s own mom had conspired to have me promoted to petty nobility as a knight as soon as I became an adventurer, and… And…

Anna sent me a letter. She both congratulated me, updated me on her studies going far better than she anticipated, and then spent five pages gushing about a guy named Lucas that I’m dearly hoping is not the same Lucas who was teaching her divination in her last update.

The fact that my becoming a noble merited a fraction of the lines points toward my hopes being somewhat misguided.

…

I wonder if Anna’s arrived at the obvious conclusion that somebody attending the most prestigious center of learning of the continent should arrive at with my lacking mentions of any interesting fellow soldier of the male persuasion—by which I mean that I’ve remained perennially single, not that… I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Some of my best friends are lesbians!

I think.

Look, it’s kinda hard to notice the usual signs when we’re all wearing the same uniform, sleeping in the same barracks, and… and…

Come to think of it, Jeanne and Laure did spend a lot of time together.

And cut each other’s hair.

They mentioned spending the solstice break at Jeanne’s home, meeting her parents.

And tended to share a bedroll.

… Oh. Some of my best friends are lesbians. I guess that’s a relief.

What is not a relief is noticing just how obtuse I’ve been over the past few years, but, to be fair, I was cramming all I could about what I thought would be a life-long career as an officer of Her Majesty or training with my weapons to, you know, not die, which seemed like a more pressing concern than gossiping about life in the camp or trying to find Mister Right while there was still a good chance that he would get his head split open by a raider’s axe, his throat pierced by a bandit’s arrow, or his brains twisted around by whatever demon of lust was unleashed that week.

Yes. This is why I’m single. Because I’m a sensible young woman with her sense of priorities perfectly aligned with life-long goals.

Who is now unemployed.

…

I wonder if I should start getting drunk.

***

I’ve just come out of the local adventurer’s guild to formalize my recruitment.

Somehow, there was a missive with the Arvanitaki seal waiting for me.

This time, there weren’t any encouraging words from Mom or Dad (not that they were particularly encouraging in the one that announced my knighthood, but well, that’s Mom and Dad). No, this time, it was a message from Anna’s mom.

The one who knighted me, even if in a ceremony I didn’t attend, and how that is even possible may have something to do with… with her being Arvanitaki.

I don’t think Anna realizes how scary that name is to anyone not in a direct line of succession to the throne.

And to some of them, if the rumors are true.

Anyway, what the sealed envelope in my not trembling at all hand contains?

Money.

A lot of money.

Enough money that I am starting to feel nervous about standing in the middle of the street while holding so much money.

I already had my severance pay! I don’t need this! This is too much! And, and—armor doesn’t cost that much!

‘My dearest Inés, a knight needs her armor. It’s not only a symbol of their station, but I couldn’t stand the thought of you going into the world with anything but the best protection I can pay for you. Please, take this as the gift I would’ve liked to have given you when you enlisted.

‘Sincerely yours,

‘Marianne Arvanitaki, Duchess of Armaqua, Protector of the Realm, Defender of the Mark, and Doting Godmother.’

I’m blushing.

And I didn’t even know she was my godmother!

What is wrong with this family?!

“Madam? Are you all right?” the guild employee who saw me wander off with an unfocused, faraway gaze some minutes ago asks from right behind me, prompting me to turn around faster than I would have when carrying spear and shield, my hand already on the hilt of my flamberge, and—

Oh. So I’m really that much quicker with my own sword. Huh.

Weird.

Also, the guild secretary looks somewhat pale. Wonder why.

“Ah! I am sorry! I am sorry for asking! Please don’t kill me!” she says, taking a step back, the double half-doors of the guild swinging open at her passage as she stumbles into a room full of trained combatants eyeing me warily.

Darn it!

“Armor!” I yell.

“I will give you armor, but don’t kill me!” she yells back.

“No! I need to get armor done!”

“I don’t know how to!”

“I…” I look at the pale, frightened woman matching me in my frantic tone and loud volume.

Then my blush comes back harder than before.

“I’m so, so sorry!” I yell, bowing in what Anna’s courtly etiquette lessons that I sometimes had to sit in for reasons I will never understand—darn it! Apologize now, obvious realizations about my past later! “I didn’t mean to threaten you; I was just startled! I’m very, very—is there anyway at all that I can make this right?”

After some silence only broken by the screech of poorly-oiled hinges protesting the free swinging of two panes of wood, I cautiously raise my eyes.

And I meet a very calculating look from a blonde woman who, while still pale, seems to be quickly regaining both color and cunning.

… Darn it.

***

Good news? There’s a good armorer in town. A recently arrived master blacksmith. A dwarf.

Which means I’m about to lose all the frankly ridiculous influx of wealth my godmother just sent my way.

To the guild office nearest to my last deployment. Because, apparently, I’m both that predictable and that monitored.

Yes. Those are still the good news.

The bad news?

I just signed up to clear a demon infestation for half the offered reward. A demon infestation that nobody wanted to work on for the offered reward.

And I now wish I had attended more of those lessons Anna was forced to stomach regarding the proper way to negotiate. They likely wouldn’t have made any difference at all because I’m about as good at bartering as I am at telling people ‘no’—which, now that I think about it, may be two very related things.

I blame Mom and Dad. But mostly because I’m pretty sure that, at this point, there are a lot of things I should blame on them that I’m just unaware of.

Anyway! A dwarf!

I’m about to meet a dwarf!

There… There are so many legends about their masterworks! I have always wanted to one day hold something crafted by a true master, and, yes, some humans can come close, but… But when you think about legendary blades, there’s only one race that has forged so many of them.

So…

Well, let’s just say that Anna may have been slightly miffed at how much I used to focus on certain things other than princesses, dragons, and powerful sorceresses during our adventures in her castle’s yard.

Look, I just like swords. And armor. And… Not much else, really. I can tolerate shields and spears after so much time training with them, and I’ll never in my life get the hang of bows or slings, though I maygrow to like daggers and throwing knives, seeing how practical they sound for adventuring work, and—

“Are you going to stand in front of my store for much longer, lass?” a short, black-haired man with a cropped beard that gleams like shards of coal asks me, leaning on the door’s frame, his verywell-defined, thick, hairy arms crossed over an expansive chest that bulges against the leather apron with tools hanging from—wait. His shop?

I… I blink.

Down.

I blink down.

At the first dwarf I’ve met in my life.

… I was expecting him to have white hair. And a beard reaching down to his ankles.

Look, there’s just one way these things are supposed to go, all right? Nobody looks at a perfectly smooth forehead, devoid of any wrinkles or marks of the ravages of time, and thinks ‘legendary master blacksmith dwarf.’ That’s just not how it works.

“I asked you a question,” he points out, a thick eyebrow rising in what I believe to be reproach, if only due to conditioning by three adults who were too used to people following their orders to properly raise a small girl.

Huh.

I may be bitterer than I thought.

“I… apologize. I was told there was a master blacksmith here?” I say.

His eyes meet mine.

They… They don’t blaze. Not really. It’s more like they could. Like they are coal waiting to burn, waiting for a spark to set them off and show me just how bright those flames can be.

My heart is speeding up, and I don’t know why.

Then he nods and, without saying another word, steps into his shop, leaving the door open for me to follow.

***

“Is this really necessary?” I ask, blushing hard enough that it shows through my olive skin.

Or, well, that’s what Anna used to say when I felt my cheeks burning as badly as they do right now, so I‘m making an educated guess that this is what’s happening, even if there are no broken toys, dropped dishes, or, in one memorable occasion, rampaging horses to explain the burning sensation.

There also are no demonic, overactive daughters of a noblewoman rampaging around, though, so that key component may be lacking.

“You want a masterwork armor and you are asking me if taking your measurements is necessary?” the short man—the dwarf asks while tightly cinching my waist with a piece of knotted string.

My bare waist.

Because, apparently, measures for armor need to be exacting.

Which may account for the aforementioned burning in my cheeks, seeing as I’m holding up my off-white chemise as if I was intent on showing off my abs like somebody badly losing a drunken bet with Jeanne and Laure that just took on some worrying connotations.

I’m straight!

And showing off my body to a man! A dwarf! A—somebody who has reason enough to examine me but that should stop prodding me with thick, firm fingers that make me squirm because nobody has touched me there in years, even if ‘there’ is only my belly and the sides of my waist, and I want to shove my head into the smoldering forge and burn all these stupid thoughts away!

“I… I guess the pants are tight enough that I don’t need you to remove them,” he says, audibly scratching the side of his beard as he stares at my—he isn’t staring at my behind.

He isn’t. Or else.

“My pants aren’t that tight,” I indignantly mutter.

He looks up at me with another disapproving eyebrow raised.

And then pinches the side of my thigh.

I almost hiss out something that I would’ve regretted letting out in front of Louise before I snap my mouth shut and glare downat the man whose head is more or less in line with the raised hem of my chemise.

Then I keep glaring, even if the renewed realization of just how close he is makes the burning in my cheeks long for the cool release of shoving my head in his forge.

“Looks tight enough to me,” he says, almost bored, before kneeling down to wrap the string around my ankles.

Then my calves.

Then my knees.

I… I try to hold my breath when he nudges my legs open, prodding me to spread my feet so he can comfortably slide the string around the middle of my thigh, and I… I most definitely manage to bite back my whimper when he tightens it maybe a tad more than necessary, because I can see absolutely no reason for him to need to dig the string into my flesh and make that uncomfortable tingle of sensation shoot up along my inner thigh and straight to—nowhere.

Absolutely nowhere.

“I am going to need to measure your inseam,” he says as the string slowly loosens around me, and he…

Kneels down.

Again.

But, this time, in front of me.

And… and he’s slowly standing up, unspooling the string, each knot smoothly sliding between his pinched fingers, susurrating a steady tempo, as he lies it in a straight line along my leg.

My ankle. My calf. My knee.

My thigh.

And, this time, I do hiss as his fingers ghost along my flesh, only impeded by pants that I may have worn last a few months ago, during the holidays, when I went back to the Arvanitaki’s castle to spend some time with my family and their employers who, as it turns out, are now in some way also family, and I definitely need time to think about what all this means, but right now it’s doing a very poor job of distracting me from a man filled with taut muscle carefully measuring my body while we both are inside of a stone room only lit by red embers that seem to cast dancing light over his bare arms, and, oh, dear, that little drop of sweat running down the side of his forehead is very eye-catching…

Maybe Jeanne was right. Maybe I am pent-up.

…

Darn it, just how many clues did I miss?

“I… I think I can guess the right number,” he mutters.

His hand stopping.

The heat coming from him reaching me… oh.

I… I lick my dry lips, looking down at the dwarf meeting my eyes while his hand is still touching my inner thigh and stopping right before they would touch somewhere else.

Where my thighs meet.

Because that’s what the inseam is, of course. I know that. It’s not like I never had a dress (or riding pants) made.

It’s just…

It’s just that, usually, it would be a woman taking my measurements, and she wouldn’t have bare, muscled arms nor deep, dark eyes, and she would, most certainly, not be breathing deeply and roughly enough that I could feel it through my tight, hip-hugging, embarrassing pants.

So… So, I…

I wet my lips in what I am often assured is a nervous gesture that I will soon grow out of, even if I’m in my twenties, and thus all the growing up should already be done, even if it seems I still am growing sidewaysbecause I swear these pants weren’t that tight just a few months ago, and…

And I…

I reach down. To his hand. To fingers shorter than mine and a palm broader than my own. To a hand that looks so much stronger than mine, even if it lacks all the scars and discolored spots that I would expect from a master of the forge.

His skin is… Soft. Smooth. As much as I thought it would be when he ghosted along my bare belly.

And… And I take the string from those soft fingers, stretching it out to my inseam before closing my eyes, pinching the last measure tightly, and lowering it to him.

“There,” I say, not meeting his black eyes. “That… That should be accurate.”

He doesn’t say anything. Not while he takes the string from me, careful and dexterous in a way that makes my heartbeat just a bit faster and my breaths come out a bit… shorter. Like I just went a few miles at a marching pace.

“Hn,” he says, or grunts, or whatever it is that he does while sending yet another gust of warm air to rush over my inner thigh. “I guess this works. Very well, you’ll be doing your hips and breasts next.”

My eyes shoot open.

And are met by the frankly unimpressed eyes of a dwarf standing up from between my legs, his face right in front of my toned belly, his breathing washing over my dark skin, his eyes just slightly below where I’m still unnecessarily holding my chemise up.

I parse that last thought.

Then I let go of the hem of my underwear and, as the thin fabric slowly floats down in such a way as to traitorously fall on top of the dwarf’s face, I do my best not to whimper.

***

It’s done.

He has my measurements.

And, most likely, given the way he keeps looking at me with barely disguised exasperation, my measure.

…

That was terrible. I’ll never again do puns unless I’m drunk enough to have an excuse. I’m sorry.

“So, there’s the matter of payment,” he says while jotting down some very embarrassing numbers, sitting on top of a tall stool that brings him up to a table that is not meant for somebody his height.

I think. I don’t really know. Maybe dwarves always use regularly sized furniture, and I’m the weird one for thinking they wouldn’t. Maybe everyone uses the same kind of furniture. Maybe giants would crouch over this very table, eating whatever it is that giants eat out of regularly sized dishes, and…

…

Do mermaids have furniture?

“Lass? You there?” he says, cruelly bringing me back to a world full of regret and embarrassment.

“Yes, sorry. The payment,” I mutter, patting my pocket before I take out (with some tightness-related struggle) the letter my godmothersent me. “I’m afraid this is currently my limit. I guess you could work with cheaper materials if you need to?”

He, again, raises a reproachful eyebrow as he reaches for the letter in my hand, or well, the single page with a signature and a number.

He reads it.

Then he reads it again.

“You… you want me to make you an armor that costs this much?” he asks.

“I’m sorry!” I say, resorting to my catchphrase. “I… I know a master dwarf blacksmith is… I know your skills are worth far more than this, but… but… This is all I have! My godmother says that it’s a gift to celebrate my recent knighthood, and I… I would like it very much if I could show her something she would be proud of…”

I trail off, trying to mask my embarrassment at still, in my twenties, wanting to impress the Duchess.

Marianne.

My godmother.

…. This is still going to take some getting used to.

“You are the godchild of the Duchess of Armaqua,” he says with a clipped tone that doesn’t sound like a question.

“Yes?” I answer in what very much sounds like one.

“And a knight,” he continues.

“Only since a week ago! It barely counts! I’ve been a commoner most of my life! Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Some of my best friends are commoners!”

The master blacksmith of legend, for some reason, stares at me.

Then at the letter of credit that made me very nearly faint in the middle of a guild hall right after I registered myself as an adventurer.

Then he closes those black eyes of his and seems to mutter something under his breath.

“Tell you what, I’m going to give this my best effort. I won’t spare materials, time, or redesigns. I will even set aside all of my other pending orders. But you will mention my name to your godmother,” he finally says.

I, again, wet my lips.

“There’s… there’s only one issue?” I dare ask.

“What?” he says, with a gruff voice that makes me absolutely nothing.

“What’s your name?” I manage to ask despite my own voice coming out as a strangled, reedy thing that just makes the burning in my cheeks come back with incendiary arrows—and yes, those are really ineffective and usually not worth the bother, but they sure do seem to be doing the trick right about now.

Particularly when he holds my gaze with those black eyes of his, and… And people don’t really have black eyes. They have dark brown that can have many hues, some very near to black without never quite managing.

Not him. Not his eyes.

They have shades of black.

They have a few strands of dull, matte, shadow black that seem to drink the light around him, then he has those other strands, the ones that glimmer, that shatter the light hitting them to scatter it over a varied iris that seems richer than most colors.

“Kohle,” he finally says. “My name’s Kohle.”

And… and I stand there like a moron, not knowing what to say, do, or reply until he clears his throat before, yet again, raising that eyebrow of his.

“It’s in the sign of the shop,” he says.

And now I’m definitely blushing.

***

Kohle

The Arvanitaki’s goddaughter.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

She… Oh, gods down below, why? Why would she have to walk into my shop? Of all the places an aspiring adventurer could have gone to, why even bother with Brigantium? It’s… It’s a damn frontier town with nothing around it but mountains? There aren’t even any active mines worth bothering with! I checked.

Hell, that’s why I am here.

Very few chances of any distant family stopping by to chat in this place.

And that’s just the way I like it.

I look once again over the small piece of paper with some very scandalous numbers noted down on it, both the money numbers and the… other ones.

Then I once again try very hard not to think about a tall mountain of tanned muscle with just enough softness in her curves that my measuring string sank into her without even trying, and then I very carefully do not remember running my fingers over her bare belly because it would be utterly unprofessional of me to resort to such…

…

Damn it.

Armor. I need to make her a masterwork set of armor. One that costs as much as she offered, that is worth showing off as a business introduction to one of the scariest nobles in this country, and that will protect a starry-eyed adventurer who knows absolutely nothing about what she’s getting herself into.

Right.

The most salient issue I can see with the whole project is that I am not a master blacksmith.

***

“This… looks a bit rough?” the girl says when she comes around the next day.

“Were you expecting me to finish your armor in a single evening?” I ask, pretending to be slightly more offended than I am.

Just a tad.

“No! Of course not; it’s just… I don’t know? I maybe… There are all those legends about what a master blacksmith from the northern clans can do, and… I guess I got carried away. Sorry, I didn’t mean to disrespect your craft,” she says, bowing her head in apology and making me feel like a heel.

Again.

“Don’t sweat it. How is the chest plate?” I say, changing the subject as quickly as I am able to.

“It… Well, it squishes me a bit. Which is fair! I am used to armor not being form-fitting. Really, you should have seen what we had to manage with some times, when I was running across the Palatian frontier,” she says, waving her hands and utterly failing to notice how very carefully I do not react to her mention of her breastplate not… not fitting quite correctly.

She’s a bit of an airhead. And I’m decking her in a suit of going-to-get-murdered.

Moral dilemmas were not what I had in mind when I decided to cut my apprenticeship short.

“The Palatian frontier? What were you doing there?” I idly ask as I retrieve my notepad to—

“Well, you know, crushing raiders, making sure our Southern neighbors don’t get any ideas, razing a demon nest here and there,” she says.

And I, very carefully, don’t drop both notepad and pencil.

“Raiders?” I ask. Because there’s just one people that are often called raiders by the Galateans.

“Oh, right, they usually don’t reach down these parts. On the Northern side of the Palatian Empire, though? Things can get real messy, real fast. They have these long ships with shallow drafts designed to quickly run down rivers, and they can get in and out of a country before the army gets any warning. They are always a pain to deal with,” she says with a middling frown and her eyes set on a cracked flagstone by the corner of my forge.

And… And she’s telling me about fighting raiders, Northernraiders, as if she was grumbling about a particularly bothersome but everyday task.

…

Oh. I guess all those rumors about the Arvanitaki were true, after all.

“And you were dealing with those raiders because…?” I trail off, hoping she will fill the pause with something that isn’t pure insanity.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” she says with the air of someone who doesn’t think what she’s about to mention is worth talking about. “I am a lieutenant. Or, well, I was a lieutenant, but now I’m not, and I’m still getting used to it, and I just… I am a knight. How am I supposed to go from lieutenant to knight? What’s next, do I have to start hunting down dragons instead of demons? How am I supposed to make sense of this whole—”

The girl keeps talking as my eyes drift to the sword she always carries by her side.

A flamberge. An ostentatious, two-handed sword with a sinuous blade meant to evoke flickering flames. Something too long to comfortably use in a street fight, which is where most swords get their time to shine because sensible people use spears for a reason when facing any foreseeable danger.

And now, for the first time in more than a year, a raspy, old voice scratches against the back of my memory.

‘Adventurers are very rarely sensible people, Kohle. That’s why they need us.’

Damn it all.

***

Stupid.

Bloody stupid.

Stupid, daft, useless reject unworthy of his clan.

She comes in, waltzing into my shop, into my forge, claiming she wants to be an adventurer, carrying a sword nearly twice as long as I am, and I assume she doesn’t know what she’s doing? That she’s a green, wet-behind-her-ears girl who just happened to be raised by a noble who makes the queenie of this backwater country hide behind her castle walls?

I am a fucking moron.

I push the bellows as hard as I can, making the embers of my forge roar as I put my all into feeding them as much air as the stone construction can handle.

I feel it. The coal. The coal that has yet to burn, asking me to give it more.

It’s in my fucking name. Kohle. Coal.

It’s in my blood. In the clan I am no longer a part of.

‘You are good, Kohle. You may one day be great. But you are no master.’

No shit, Grandpa. Of course I am not. Because I never made a fucking masterpiece.

The chest plate Inés wore earlier lies on my anvil, the utter piece of crap taunting me with rough edges, unpolished finish, and inadequate proportions.

So I Iet go of the bellows, take my hammer, and smash it.

It’s… not nearly as satisfying as it should be, seeing my imperfect work scrapped, the dent running right over the middle line that should have diverted the blow to the sides.

It hasn’t.

Because it’s crap. Unworthy of a true master. Something made in a hurry to get a first idea out of the way, even if I usually stop at first ideas and see no need to push harder and further.

Because they are good enough. Always good enough.

Just not masterful.

To my left, the forge still blazes, the flames too high for the work I’m meant to do as rivulets of sweat run down my chest and my arms.

And what was I expecting?

I came here to be mediocre. Why did I think it would be a good idea to take the girl’s obscene fortune away and gamble that it would serve me as good publicity rather than expose me as the fraud that I am so I can get hanged and quartered?

… Do they quarter people over here? Father always used to say that Galateans were soft folk, but they are regularly beating back raiders.

Our raiders.

A stupid thought. Not important.

I shake my head off the nonsensical distractions and wipe my brow with my forearm before I go to the pile of ready-made plates of steel I have already prepared to supply the local guild and militia with cheap cuirasses and shields. They are good steel.

They have just enough coal to be malleable without being too soft. To take a blow without either denting or shattering.

I know they have enough coal.

It’s in my blood.

***

“This… this looks much better!” she says with a glimmer of enthusiasm that only sours my mood further.

“Looks aren’t what you’re here for, lass. Try it on,” I say.

She looks like she’s going to say something else, something likely enthusiastic, nonsensical, and that will leave me wondering just how much I fucked up by taking this assignment.

But she, instead, looks down at the cuirass held in her hands, the two burnished pieces of steel with a single emblem adorning the upper right of it. An olive branch laid across a sword.

The Elf and the Hero. Their supposed founders.

It’s… It’s been a while since I engraved anything other than my own emblem into any of my pieces. It’s delicate work, and people usually aren’t willing to pay for it when they just want something practical rather than beautiful.

I’m out of practice.

Sorely out of practice, given how my fingers are cramped after taking too long working on the detail of the leaves, an intricate design to offset the geometrical simplicity of the bare blade.

I wish I had done more.

But the gal seems to like it, going by how her grin softens as she traces the contours of the emblem with fingers that I want to yell at her will grease up the polish I took until way past midnight to finish up.

Then… then she raises her arms, sliding the cuirass over her doublet, before cinching the straps by her sides to properly adjust it.

“It… It fits wonderfully,” she says, gearing up for one of her rants. “I used to—well, let’s just say that it was always a bit uncomfortable to march while wearing armor, and, uh, you know…” she gestures vaguely toward her chest, the chest that I, this time, made adequate room for, even if it’s still tightly encased inside the metal, and she blushes as magnificently as she did when I stupidly measured her inseam.

And, before she can continue embarrassing the both of us, I take my hammer and strike her right in the middle of her torso.

She immediately takes half a step back, shifting her balance to absorb the impact without losing ground, her hand going to a sword that isn’t by her side but resting on top of my desk.

Then she blinks.

And looks down at the very light scuff mark over the middle line of what should have been her cuirass.

“Wha—this… This is amazing! I barely felt that! How did you do it? Is it the weight distribution or something? Is it magic steel? Is it enchanted to be durable and—”

Before she can say anything, I grunt with barely suppressed rage, tear off the leather straps holding the cuirass together, and struggle to get the armor off her.

“What—” she says.

“It,” I say, “is crap.”

And immediately throw the cuirass on my anvil before smashing my hammer through it.

…

I shouldn’t have done that.

Particularly because the girl is looking at me like she’s recently found religion and is about to share it with me.

***

“I am not an adventurer,” I tell her for the hundredth time.

“Bu—but! My general—Louise told me that only adventurers can do this kind of thing! Like, using whips to cut through chainmail, or, you know, using a hammer to pierce solid plate. It just… she said it has to do with the inner magic of the person, with expressing who you are, and that—okay, if you aren’t an adventurer, how did you do that?”

Yes. How?

‘You still haven’t learned to listen for it. It’s different for everyone, but it will come to you. In time, it will come to you. It’s in your blood, Kohle.’

I know, Grandpa, but the only thing I could ever hear was coal. That… That was useful. I can make steel like very few people can—unless they are alchemists or they follow the new gnome recipes that turn absolutely every amateur into someone capable of making usable steel.

So I can make steel like very few people can unless they are competent at all.

Yeah. A great use of my ancestral gifts.

Except… Except there’s a wrecked piece of armor sitting atop my perfectly intact anvil.

“I am a dwarf,” I finally answer the girl’s question before she can get too bothersome. “Doing mysterious things to metal is our bread and butter.”

She, finally, raises a skeptical eyebrow at me.

Not the most opportune moment for her to start questioning her wild assumptions, but I guess it’s better than nothing.

“You…” she meets my eyes, her green irises seeming to glow in the poorly lit forge, surrounded by her tanned skin and shadowed by her fiery red hair, by the wild locks I can’t believe were in the army just two weeks ago. And I know she’s about to say something, but after a moment, her cheeks darken just a tad further, and she averts her gaze. “You still owe me my armor,” she mumbles.

I do.

And so my heart beats.

My forge roars.

And I start to think.

***

Self-expression. She needs something that will show who she is. Something that will yell, ‘I am Inés, knight of the realm, adventurer, and slayer of raiders.’

Because that’s how an adventurer’s power comes through. That’s both what Grandpa taught me and what Inés’ superior said to her before dismissing the disoriented lass from the life she thought she had chosen.

So. Who is she?

Naïve. Naïve, airheaded, her ideas flitting from one moment to the next, flowing in a string of utter nonsense that still lets her move forward.

Tall. Powerful. Muscles toned and lean, but in harmony with curves and feminity.

A mane of red, wild hair. Waves that seem sharply angled at times. Like flames.

Dusky skin. Blood from the South, from beyond the mountain range of fire, maybe from the other side of the sea.

Inés. That’s not a Galatean name. Not the way she pronounces it.

So. Somebody out of place. Perennially out of place. Like a dwarf drifting away from his clan after failing again and again to become a master, setting on the forge of a decrepit human about to retire or die, as if there’s any difference for a true craftsman.

Damn it.

So. Fire. Fire, in her blood, her hair, and her skin, but there’s… something else because fire can be wild and inconsistent, but there’s something about Inés that doesn’t quite fit what comes to mind when I think of fire and flames.

Damn it.

I take another sheet of steel from the pile, one that is about to lose its heat treatment.

There’s one secret to the forge that the alchemists and gnomes still haven’t quite figured out. I’m sure they will, in time, but, so far, this is a trick of the trade. Something ours.

There’s color in steel.

So I hammer the sheet into an approximation of its final shape, my blows harder than they would if I wasn’t working on cold metal, forcing it into what I envision for it rather than shaping a heated, yielding material ready to accept what I want it to be.

It’s hard. Hard to get an even curvature. To get the middle line perfectly straight, ready to divest the blows to either side of her.

It’s not enough.

I… I shift the design away from the optimal geometry, making the curve higher, going around her breasts, dipping straight down to her cinched waist.

And I realize what I just did.

So I hold her image in my mind, letting it guide my hammer blows. The scrapping of my rough file, the cut of my chisel.

Until I have it.

It’s subtly modified. Just different enough from what I did yesterday that I could tell at a glance that it is meant for her. For the flighty, carelessly powerful girl bursting with thoughts and emotions.

But I’m not finished.

I take it with my tongs, the steel already warm after so many blows have rained down upon it, maybe warm enough to hurt somebody with skin thinner than mine, and I put it over the bed of coals, turning it around evenly and regularly between my working of the bellows, getting the flames high and hot, but not too much because evenness is much more important than anything else for this particular piece.

And then… it shifts colors.

Of course it does. Everyone knows it does.

What most don’t know? It’s that each color has a meaning. That they show how the steel is changing inside, how the metal flows into something new and other that is still the very same thing that went into the forge even as it keeps changing.

Right now?

It’s losing the hardening I did for it.

It’s becoming something soft and malleable without reaching the red-hot point in which it’s almost molten.

And now it turns almost golden, and I hold my breath.

The rest of the colors come and go too fast for many to react, but I’m still just holding the half cuirass, making sure it’s as evenly heated as can be, that the color suffuses every bit of it with the same tone, the very same hue.

And then I see the first hint of red and take it out and shove it inside a barrel full of olive oil that immediately catches on fire.

I wait for the quenching to be done, for the steel to be set into its new state.

It’s new color.

And, when I take it out…

It’s Inés’ color.

***

“This… this is beautiful,” she says, awed, holding aloft the chest piece I worked all night on.

And I…

I don’t know what to feel.

It ishers. I can feel it in some way that I’ve never felt before, the metal singing in tune with something inside the red-haired girl.

Even if her hair looks more like copper in this light than the faded, pinkish red of the armor I crafted for her.

“Put it on,” I say.

She looks at me for a moment longer than I think she meant to and then wets her lips yet again.

I should offer her something to drink. I’m a terrible host.

“Sure,” she says, her tone soft, and… And as soft as the slight smile that curves up her lips when she runs a fingertip over my second version of the Arvanitakis’ sigil.

This time, the olive leaves are curled up, as if dried up by fire.

So the girl goes to put it over her head, and I—

“Stop,” I say, my voice harder than I meant it to. “First take off your doublet.”

She blinks at me, first in confusion, and then… then her cheeks darken.

“I thought… I thought I was meant to wear something padded underneath,” she says, not meeting my eyes.

“For regular armor, yes,” I say, very carefully not saying what it is that she holds in her hands.

But she makes up her own meaning for my words, a look of wonder and anticipation crossing over her eyes as she quickly sets the cuirass over her stool before stripping away her doublet to stand once again in front of me wearing a chemise that hangs over her bust like cascading water.

I tried not to stare, the first time.

Now?

Now I don’t even notice that I’m staring.

That I’m devouring how she fits her cuirass, my cuirass, over her breasts, shifting them inside of it, into a piece that I thought would have more room for them, but that makes her gasp as she’s forced to slide a hand into the side openings to properly settle her breasts inside the cool metal pressing down on her thin, linen undergarment.

Then she tightens the straps by her sides, letting out a small breath of something that I don’t understand right now as she stands up to her full height, towering over me, a thin streak of tanned skin peeking out between the top of her pants and where her chemise has gotten trapped under her cuirass.

No, I don’t understand what that breath means because, as soon as she’s done adjusting it, I grab my hammer and hit her as hard as I can.

The blow clamors like a cathedral’s bell, echoing all over my forge to the point I would have flinched.

If I wasn’t too busy grinning.

At where my hammer rests atop immaculate, gleaming, spotless steel.

The girl… She’s taken another half-step back, but her left foot is just resting on its ball, her weight not fully shifted behind herself.

And she’s looking at my hammer’s head with amazement shining through the shock and surprise.

“I… This…” she says.

“No. This isn’t enough,” I say, my grin growing wider, tighter.

“What—but… But I barely felt it!” she says, the hand going to her chest stopping to cradle my tool in a way that reverberates through the handle, that lets me feel her fingers as clearly as if she was holding my hand.

“Still not enough,” I insist, finally dragging my eyes up to meet her green ones. “I need to see you fight.”

She returns my look.

Then her throat bobbles, and she looks down and to the side, wetting her lips yet again as her cheeks flush with the heat of my coal-fed forge.

“Okay…” she mumbles.

And I don’t stop grinning.

***

Inés

I… I…

I don’t know what I’m doing!

All right, that is a lie: I am marching up a goat’s trail to where the guild’s mission says the demon nest, the dungeon is, and I’m wearing my newest piece of equipment, carrying my flamberge, and a handful of throwing knives that Kohle has carelessly given me as extras.

Tempered steel extras that gleam like moonlight, perfectly balanced, razor-sharp at tips shaped like broadhead arrows, yet perfectly smooth along shafts meant to glide along my palm and fingers.

And each and every single one of them has an Arvanitaki crest with the olive leaves dried up in the summer sun etched on the flat of the blade.

So, yes, in the broadest, most generous sense, I know what I’m doing, even if what I’m doing is partly my job and partly feeling guilty about getting a gift that would have cost me quite a few days of work as a lieutenant to pay for, because the knives are nice.

But, in a more concrete sense, I really, really don’t know what I’m doing.

Because I’m marching up a mountain path, the kind where you need to pay attention not to trip on loose stones or traitorous weeds, the kind that scouts or, I guess, adventurers march on much more often than regular soldiers do.

And there’s someone behind me.

Someone who’s shirtless and short enough that, with this trail, his eyes are more or less in line with my ass.

…

“How… how are you holding up back there?” I mumble without looking at him over my shoulder because I’m not ready to meet yet again those coal black eyes of his peering right into mine without even a hint of wavering away—

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got stamina to last for days,” he answers.

And almost makes me stumble.

Did he…? No. No, he didn’t. This is just me being pent-up, starstruck by finally meeting the kind of person I’d only ever read about in fairy tales (the ones meant for children, I mean), and single for years without anybody paying me any kind of attention other than my very good, very close friends, Laure and Jeanne, who may have been sending the wrong message to all the men in the regiment regarding my availability.

… I just want to bury my head in a pillow and scream until I go hoarse. Would that be so bad? Is it that terrible to grant me this much of a mercy, oh cruel, spiteful world?

“Heads up, lass,” he says.

And I look up from a fascinating spot on the bare, greyish earth between my leather boots to see two demons coming down from the bend in the path in front of us.

They are goblins. Or, at least, one kind of goblin. Human-like shapes twisted in cruel ways by their mixed ancestry with spirits of pain and misery, sores bursting open over their shoulders and knees when they turn toward me in alarm, reaching for bone clubs lined with jagged flint spikes that I always thought impractical but that I now understand how fitting they are for the fey bastards. How they act like my own sword, allowing them to express a part of themselves. Of their magic.

Their power.

So I charge.

At my first step forward, my hips open up, allowing me the distance to draw out my blade in a single sweeping motion, the second step has my two hands on the handle, the quillons by the side of my face, in what seems like an open, vulnerable stance with the tip of my sword pointed back, and my belly and legs left open.

I could wait for them. I should wait for them. I’ve got a solid reach advantage both due to my weapon and to my height, the wretched things somewhat shorter than Kohle.

I should capitalize on that, take a solid stance, and lash out as soon as they cross into my range, slapping their weapons away before plunging my blade into yielding, sickening bodies the color of old bruises turning green or purple.

I take the third step. Without even pausing. Or without pausing longer than it takes me to notice the surge of something roaring inside my belly, tugging my hands forward, leading me to…

To be myself.

I notice the grin at the same time that the wavy steel glints in an unnecessarily large crescent, dropping below and behind me before surging up and forward along with my right leg stepping forward, the passage of the sword sudden enough that I feel a gust of wind ghost across the side of my thigh.

I keep moving, taking the next step, the fourth one, and going past the bend in the path to find an unexpected clearing waiting for me, one in which I can fight much more comfortably than on a narrow road that would’ve confined me to a single line of attack and retreat.

I pivot on my front foot while still moving toward it, my right leg crossing over as I sink into a low guard with my left side facing forward, back to the way I came from.

Then I notice two things: the arm of the goblin I just maimed falling to the ground, and the two other goblins who were until now hidden from my sight and are rushing toward me.

Three against one. And a fourth, dying one that may still be trouble because people don’t die in a single breath unless they are very, verylucky, and one can say many things about goblins, but rarely that fortune favors them.

These are terrible odds. Insane odds. Nobody should ever face these kinds of odds.

But I’m grinning.

And something crackles and roars.