Fire and iron.

[Carnath-Emory]

Some part of her had reckoned he might decline the ruined hilt she'd pressed upon him. Some part of her had dreaded insisting that he accept the thing, and were it necessary, she would have: on a whim, the woman had resolved to bury it here, just as thoroughly as she'd once buried a necklace at Aithne. But with not a blink of the eye had Bos accepted that stub of metal from her, and this eases the way for her so well that she thinks nothing now of clasping that heavy hand in her own.

There is some subtle strength to her grip, although of course his own dwarfs it. Still, there is some firmness in this bird-boned limb, some contrast to the rest of her narrow self.

"Ariane Emory," she answers him then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if courtesies meant nothing here amongst craftsmen, and names held no power at all.

[Bos]

"Ariane Emory." Her name repeated back to her, a deeper, rumbling echo, and he nods; his hand, work-calloused until its palm resembles leather, grips hers briefly before he steps back. There's a glance to the sky, as if gauging the position of the sun, then he looks back to this weapon of a woman, straight and lean and made for speed above all else. At length he grins, and clenches his fist until the knuckles crack. Ready to work, to mould iron into a new tool, a new weapon.

"Come back in a seven days, Ariane Emory. You'll have your blade then."

He's barely finished the words before he's glancing to the anvil, to the stack of iron billets and the furnace. He has his instructions, he knows what is required, and now there's almost an impatience as he considers how it might be achieved. Willing to pay any price? This opens up possibilities, far more than the simple farmers here who desire nothing more than sturdy tools to work their fields. This... this is a license to create. And he hungers for the opportunity.

[Carnath-Emory]

"There will be nothing left!", a woman had roared down at her, with the broken sword still jutting from her gut; hands wreathed in flames had meant to press Ariane into kneeling, had meant to crush utterly what remained of a swordswoman whose weapon was lost. And during the weeks which followed, Ariane had wondered at this, had wondered if there was something to it after all, had wondered if anything was left of her at all.

Such things are more readily written than spoken aloud, she had discovered. Crookedly written, unevenly phrased, they had filled page after page of unsent letters.

They have also fueled her return this morning, these questions, these cautions, for she travels to the open-air smithy to claim answers as well as newborn steel. Perhaps this is why she has walked the journey, dark warhorse Ch'rnyj Voron led restless at her side. Perhaps she has needed to stretch some quiet fear from her limbs..

[Bos]

The blacksmith's simple camp is quiet this morning, the sound of forest birds and gently-shifting leaves taking the place of hammer on iron; though the forge is lit its coals are banked to save their heat for now, and the smith's sturdy carthorse lazily crops grass from the verge some yards away. A quiet scene, rustic and calming.

The forge's master sits at ease on the steps of his caravan, drawing smoke from a clay pipe as he watches the road with a mild gaze. The swordswoman's approach has him climbing to his feet, unfolding to his full height and flexing his shoulders. It may be that he was simply enjoying a break from his work; it may be that he was waiting for just this moment. Whatever the case, he raises a hand in greeting and moves to carefully knock his pipe-ash into the forge.

"Good morning, Ariane Emory. You'll be wanting your blade, I imagine." A statement rather than a question, and a broad grin within his beard to go with it; clearly he's been looking forward to this meeting. The scent of pipesmoke lingers about him, a more fragrant scent than that of coal and hot iron; it's early in the day yet, and it could be that stoking the forge has been the extent of his toil so far. A glance for her horse, some small nod of approval for the beast's solid build; then he nods towards a stake hammered into the earth near his caravan.

"If you'd like to see to your horse, I'll get your steel." He's already turning to head for the caravan steps again, little time wasted on how-do-you-do's and such. This is business.

[Carnath-Emory]

"I have watched it come upon you," a man had once spoken to her -- and more gently by far. "So that for a moment your eyes see beyond the very grim of the reality of Now ... so that for a moment you see something for which you could want. Something that, perhaps, calms." And this was certainly so, and this still is certainly so. 'Even steel must sometimes breathe,' she ought to have replied then -- except that there'd been no need for it, for this was a thing which was understood between them very well.

Even steel .. during such times as these: when the world is still sleepy and fresh and quiet, and the air itself so very still. Such times as these, when the world is green and grey and filled with expectation. This has lent some ease to her approach, some quiet to her sharp features, and when she closes upon caravan and forge, it's with a hand lifted in wordless greeting, a gaze briefly occupied by that pipe and its fragrant smoke.

She listens, as is her nature and as the moment warrants; inclines her head then, in quiet assent. And breathes something quiet and delighted into the flicking ear of Ch'rnyj Voron, as she sees to his comfort, for expectation is a thing which fills her, as well.

[Bos]

The blacksmith steps up into his caravan, pushing aside the curtain of sun-faded cloth which guards his living space; in the glimpse between the fabric moving aside and his broad back filling the door one might glimpse the simple features of his life; a plain bunk; a deep chest that also doubles as a seat; a small stove; shelves laden with thick, leatherbound books. Then the curtain falls back again, and there's some sound of metal being moved aside before he emerges once more, a long, narrow parcel of oilcloth and twine. He moves across to the anvil to set it down, nodding to the swordswoman to be sure he has her attention.

"Two pieces for you, though they go together as one." Broad hands rest upon the parcel, and he regards the women with a keen eye, a pause that one might guess is purely for dramatic effect; a simple blacksmith, but one who enjoys what small showmanship he can find.

"I am pleased with it. I believe that you will be also."

[Carnath-Emory]

The tilt of the curtain might allow this: a stolen glimpse of another person's world, of an environment far more familiar to her than bakery lofts and tavern accomodations, and only because for so many years it was her own. It might, and it briefly does, except that she is soon averting her gaze from the sight of it, sensing itrusion where there ought rightly to be none.

This is a woman who maintains some distinct divide between Then and Now.

So that instead, her eyes are for the clear grey skies, and for the dusty darkness of the horse's mane. Her attention is for the gloss of his black coat, and for distracting him from the cart-horse yonder, so that when Bos returns, she may approach him from some distance yet. The 'smith, that is, and the narrow, bound parcel which he's set down between them.

Of a sudden, he will find naked anticipation in the grey of her eyes, an eagerness that she had not quite expected. And with it, some thin and glittering edge of apprehension --

There is not a word to answer him. She is not capable of that.

[Bos]

Her silence taken for assent, those broad hands are moving with deceptive nimbleness across the parcel; knotted twine is unfastened, falling away as he unfolds the oilcloth with easy, confident movements. One layer lifted to drape back across the anvil's edge, then the other, and the result of swordswoman's will and blacksmith's toil is revealed.

Sheathed, a scabbard of unadorned leather stained slate grey; tidy work, with neat but utilitarian stitching, little more than a vessel to hold the blade within.

The hilt, though, is perhaps another matter: a basket guard of sweeping, polished steel strips the thickness of a dainty lady's little finger. Steel that coils and twines in elegant curves, reminiscent of smoke streamers in still air or a serpent coiled to strike, having that sinuous flow to them; the joins in the metal are near-invisible, as if the whole were moulded from a solid piece rather than beaten and forged and welded together. The guard's pattern itself is light, open, but the metal woven such that a blade's edge would be stopped before it ever penetrated that airy cage.

The grip is of sharkskin, bound close with a helix of narrow wire, and the pommel, cat's head in style as the swordswoman had insisted, bears subtle continuation of that serpentine motif. Quillons extend from the grip with an almost liquid smoothness, continuing the sense of flowing movement that surrounds the wrought thing even as it lies untouched upon the smith's anvil.

With careful, almost reverent movements Bos lifts the weapon, cradling it in broad hands before presenting it to the swordswoman, grip-first.

"Take it."

[Carnath-Emory]

'Take it,' instructs the 'smith, which is just as well, for without such instruction she'd never quite have touched the thing. Her hand clearly wants to: low at her side, the long fingers have subtly stretched, have brushed fingertips together as if anticipating the texture of fine steel. The whole of her clearly anticipates this, and it has lent a fine, fine tension to the narrow lines of her; she is risen forward very slightly on her toes, and the grey of her gaze has not left the elegant weapon, not for one moment since its first unveiling --

So that this instruction is very much required, for when has it been Ariane's habit to claim what she best wants? And she wants this thing, very, very much.

Given permission, she takes it.

Here are upturned palms which will accept what it offered to them -- with some quality that is not quite gingerness, nor wholly reverence. Which are reluctant at first, but only because the woman is herself reluctant -- to commit too much of herself to this weapon, to lend it any meaning yet at all, and touch does that.

Here are thin fingers which glide beneath the delicate ribbons of steel that are the weapon's hilt, and discover almost immediately that Bos has made good upon his unspoken promises. The fit is excellent. From ricasso to pommel, this thing is made for her hand. It lingers there for a time yet, caged and caging, for fingertips must sample the rough texture of bound sharkskin, must have a taste of the thing's feel, but then --

She draws it swiftly from that grey-stained scabbard, for this is nothing that she can linger upon, and the morning light strikes the blade's narrow flat like sunshine upon bright water.

[Bos]

The blade draws with a silken smoothness, a whisper of metal that holds a pure, crystalline note within it. The edge is a razor-edged line of silver without mar or imperfection, and one might imagine the sound of the air keening as the morning breeze flows over that blade and is cut by it.

Upon the flat of the blade, a broad and shallow fuller tapers along its length; this concavity is etched with twining patterns that seem to flow from the forms of the basket hilt, reminiscent of vines or long hair blown in the wind, and in a sinuous line among these etchings are more deeply-engraved letters, in familiar script but an unfamiliar language.

The sword as a whole is light, swift, balanced such that it remains nimble in the hand while adding the weight of its steel to slashing blows. When wielded there is a sense of swiftness to it, even when still - a responsiveness, a readiness to strike; when rested upon its point of balance it perches in the hand like a hunting bird, keen and poised.

The blacksmith stands silently, withdrawing a pace the better to let her inspect the weapon, to test it and take its measure; so it is often the case, when a craftsman's work is scrutinised, that he watches the customer to gauge how well they are satisfied, how well their work stands up to expectations. About this artisan, though, there is a stolid assurance, a confidence that he will find approval.

So for now, he simply watches.

[Carnath-Emory]

It is the habit of Ariane's teacher, friend, sometime employer to watch a thing which has caught his interest: with eyes that see far more than they rightly should, with senses that devour far more than is natural, with a care for detail that flays a thing down to its core aspects.

The creature standing before Bos this morning is no less intent upon what she holds.

It is not possible to learn a weapon within the span of several minutes, not possible to know this blade within any reasonable stretch of time. In such matters, Ariane does not care to be reasonable at all, and conforms to no timetable save her own. It is not possible to grasp the totality of a weapon while performing a few brief passes with the thing, and so she will not commit herself to this one, no matter that it sings like a promise when she draws it from that scabbard; no matter that its edge would sever raindrops from the sky. It is with reason that she sports ambiguous greys.

And yet...

And yet her gaze lingers a heartbeat longer than it quite needs to, on glancing across the twining curves etched into the flat of this blade -- and lingers again when she's raised the sword level with her eyes, to check the smooth conformity of its lines. And perhaps there is a sudden flare of satisfaction in her eyes, when she begins to really work the thing: to shift it from one grip to the next, one posture to the next; to drive it through a swift two-three of cut-guard-riposte. Perhaps there comes some startling flicker of smile, when her touch lingers upon the intricate work of that hilt for a moment longer than is quite necessary -- shared with the 'smith this is, almost guilty, utterly helpless.

"What does it speak?" she asks at last, when the blade is stilled upon her palms once more.

[Bos]

There is a satisfaction in the smith's grin easily equal to the swordswoman's as she moves the blade, moves with the blade, and it becomes a dancing thing of clean reflections and sharp highlights. At her question, though, he's tilting his head, then blinks and raises a finger; wait, the motion says, as then he's returning to the oilcloth bundle that lies atop his anvil.

A few more folds of cloth are unwrapped to reveal some smaller thing; more ribbons of polished steel, a graceful framework clearly the brother of her sword's hilt, but worked into a hollow cylinder, open along one edge. This he lifts carefully, and it can be seen as he does so that there is some cunning work in it as the metal shifts and flexes, some arrangement of hinges and pivots. He steps around the anvil towards the swordswoman with some slight tilt of his head.

"The other piece. Your hand, please?" He nods to her right hand, and at that one might surmise the nature of this other item; a cylinder wide enough to encompass a swordswoman's wrist, perhaps a broad handspan in length - somewhere between bracelet and bracer, and holding aspects of both.

[Carnath-Emory]

Wait, the motion bids her, and she is content to, the moreso because it was a gesture which spoke to her. But really, who couldn't be patient, with such steel as this held balanced upon their palms! Even now it threatens to steal her attention, no matter that Bos' work intrigues: these are eyes with a love for polished metal, this is a mind still cautious of committing itself to this fine weapon, except that some part of it very much wants to, so that again and again her gaze drops, seized by its reflection in that fluid, silver blade -

Oh, but that oilcloth unfolds to reveal something so strange that it intrigues.

Two pieces, Bos had said, and she remembers this only now; had half-expected a dagger, a tiny buckler; had mostly reckoned he'd meant the scabbard, and forgot even that within moments of drawing the blade from it. What he reveals now is nothing that she'd have thought to anticipate, with its hollow places and its cunning hinges. Certainly not a bracelet, which would have been wasted metal in any case. Not quite a bracer, unless her eyes deceive: it hasn't quite the contours, hasn't quite the correct dimensions.

So that here's her hand, callused at the edges and gritty at the nails, and it waits to be devoured by clever steel.

[Bos]

The band of woven metal is slipped around the swordswoman's wrist with care. Not delicacy with which one might treat a flower or fragile porcelain; more the precision which one might use when fitting parts together, uniting carefully-wrought pieces into one whole.

It is loose at first, until he pushes at one particular strip - the movement carried out with exaggerated slowness and deliberation such that the swordswoman might mark it well - and the whole arrangement lengthens and narrows as tensions and leverages worked into the metal shift and realign, the gap along one side closes to a mere finger-width, and finally there is some small click as the mechanism locks into place, becoming more rigid and firm. The metal is sturdier and reinforced alongside the bones of the forearm, providing protection from blows taken there; lighter, looser around the top of the wrist where the hand requires freedom of movement.

The smith takes a moment to show how, with a simple press of one of those strips the metal unfastens, loosens again such that it might be removed. Pull the ends together, and the bracelet-bracer grows shorter, wider, and the hand can be pulled free.

Then he fastens it once more, the metalwork locking closed again; firm enough to keep its place at her wrist, loose enough not to chafe or restrict movement. There is a certain difference in the tone of the bracer's metal compared with that of the sword; some other piece of iron, mismatched, but reforged and fashioned to accord with the styling of that hilt. At last, the smith speaks.

"Two parts, but made to work as one - as the arm and hand work together, you see? The words are of an old tongue, one now used only by scholars."

He runs a fingertip over one of the topmost strips of the bracer, following the line of incised lettering that flows along it.

"As swift as the mind that guides me." He turns his attention to the blade, and brushes a touch along the inscription there. "As strong as the will that commands me."

A glance to the swordswoman to see that she understands the words, then a nod as he steps back a pace or so to let her make her own inspection.

[Carnath-Emory]

There is a moment's primitive awkwardness here: the weapon does not fear, but the woman very slightly does. The 'smith equips her limb with this thing, fits a piece of armour to it as if the rest of her were steel as well, touches his hand to it in such a way that it crushes -

No. Not quite.

There is a strange sort of alchemy occuring here, the sudden transformation of idiot panic into a solemn curiosity. Bos will mark it in the thin line of her frown, in the studying tilt of her head; in the care with which that arm is lifted some distance from the rest of her still -- not quarantined now, but examined. It is lively with tiny motions, tiny adjustments, and she has realised at least that the steel does not mean to crush that limb, but to conform to the shape of it. Bos has shaped a hilt to the fit of her hand, and now his bracer shapes itself.

The process holds her fixed: with tiny, darting motions her eyes follow this, and they are the only movement in her, even when the 'smith demonstrates the workings of the thing. It loosens its grip on her at the command of his touch; tightens again afterwards, as well - and then there come words, such words that she must echo them after he's spoken that enscription, but silently yet. Not a whisper of breath for such things. Not yet.

Still, Bos' glance will find no confusion in the swordswoman, for all that she's spoken no assent to his explanations. Will neither find lingering fear, nagging superstition; on the contrary, she is backing a step clear of him now with some small, precise nod. Is allowing the hand, the arm, to flex a moment within what binds it, is permitting fingers to discover their new limitations, if any even exist...

And finding the fit of this thing most satisfying, most satisfying indeed. A twisting pass of the blade sends a shimmer like quicksilver through the air between them; a sharp twist of the wrist produces no betraying *click* of metal workings, no pinch of steel against skin. And if that skin glitters slightly, well...

It's only because her blood must find its limits, too.