aterat | A Joyous Fall

Entry tags:

A Joyous Fall

Who; Lauri-Ell, Terra, Open
What; Forge Work, Delight Over The World
Where; Forge, Market District Tavern
When; September
Warnings; None

I. A New Forge Crafter | Bay Blades Forge

Today was a good day, an important day. Today was the day that Gili had declared Lauri-Ell's success. While she was by no means a proper master yet (hadn't even considered what her masterwork might be), she had graduated to full journeyman. Lauri-Ell was finally a proper crafter who could sell her things freely and take commissions for Bay Blades. And oh but the woman was happy for it.

And, to celebrate, she was doing something almost meditative. Instead of some great work, some amazing project, she was doing needful work: she was pulling wire. Lauri-Ell hummed happily as she held the tongs holding the lead of the wire, hauling it through a small hole in a braced metal plate. It was nice, to watch the way the wire thinned out, cooling through the very process. This was a delight. And, as the final pull came, she was careful to not let the wire lash out quickly and hurt someone. That done she coiled her wire and returned it to the heat of the forge. She's going for very fine today, and more heat will be needed.

The timing, though, was such that as she nestled the coiled metal in the heat, she heard someone approaching. The large blacksmith smiled and dusted her hands off on her leather apron before turning to the approaching steps.

"Good day! What can we do for you?"

II. Tavern Time | Market District Tavern

The Tavern. It was a wonderful place, so alive with people. So alive with noise and laughter and life. There were not things like this among the Kree, and given Lauri couldn't cook, she was happy to enter here when she could, to gain some joy. These were a good thing to hear. To know that the city is happy now.

Lauri-Ell moves to the counter to order her drink (scotch, neat) and her food (stew, double serving with a good dark bread). Once it was in hand she moved to a large table, one that locals cleared without a question she she approached. After all, people knew that after she ate the fun would come. Lauri-Ell was the queen of arm wrestling in the tavern, and people loved challenging her and betting. It was fun.

She started into her meal, enjoying the noise and talk and laughter and music. This is all good, so very very good. It was right. Just as right as the noise of someone approaching. She lifted her head and nodded.

"You are welcome to eat here, if you wish. They just give me the space so I can do arm wrestling later."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Terra had been excited for this. This was helping people in a different way than he expected, but there were no signs of unversed or heartless anywhere. So he wandered around and even took walking breaks at either job. He wasn't sure if this was going to turn into a job or just a hobby but any which way it went, he was going to learn and be helpful.

So at the appointed time, he showed up at the forge, ready to work. He might be a little slow to learn sometimes, but Terra wasn't going to let that stop him. Helping people defend themselves was an important job. And he wondered if people might want lessons to go with their new weapons. He only had a keyblade but could spar against people and go easy as necessary. That was how he and Aqua had trained Ven, having gone easy on the boy at first until he got better. In the end, he was faster than Aqua or himself, which was impressive.

So he showed up and stood back as he watched Lauri-Ell and the woman she worked for smiling at each other. After the other woman departed, Terra canted his head to the side with a slight smile on his face.

"Is everything okay?"

Is everything okay? Oh very much so.

"Today I am a journeyman craftsman. I still learn, but my things can be truly sold and commissioned and the like. I am recognized as able, and I will build my skill and in time consider my masterwork. Gili is proud of me."

ANd the gruff dwarf woman is not normally 'proud'.

"So if you make your own stuff, then you get to keep all the munny from that, right?" Terra was pretty sure that's how it would work but since he wasn't familiar with this sort of thing, it didn't hurt to ask how things worked here.

"Do you have any commissions yet?"

Edited 2022-09-22 06:16 (UTC)

"I keep a portion," she says. But a larger portion than she would have otherwise had. "I still use her space, her materials, her customers. But I help allow her to work on greater things. It is a benefit to both."

Any commissions? She grins and nods.

"I'm doing a new type of hauled farming tool to work up the ground before planting!"

"So that other portion pays for you to still work here then, right?" Again this wasn't him trying to be nosey so much as trying to learn as much as he could about different people and how they saw and fit into this new world.

At the news about this farming tool, Terra cocked his head to the side just for a moment. "Work up the ground?"

He knew nothing of farming.

"Exactly! So I am not a burden on her," she said with a wide grin.

Still, she has to think more to come up with the word she needs.

"A till."

"Makes sense."

But then the word still meant nothing to him so he tried to think of something else. "Can you show me?"

"Yes," she says with a grin before moving over to the sketches she has pinned to another work bench. "Here. See, I make many sharp discs that will come toward a point so that they can work up and spin the dirt. It puts more air in there apparently."

She'd researched in the library for it.

He felt lucky that Lauri-Ell had things to show him. He wasn't the imaginative sort, or so Aqua had said. And it was in times like this that he felt those words were actually true.

So Terra found himself looking at the drawings that had been made. "So this gets the dirt ready for planting then, right?"

The wire could wait for another day, so Lauri takes a moment to cross to the forge and reaches in with tongs to pull the wires over to a cooler edges before returning to Terra.

"Exactly," she says with a smile. "It turns it all over, tears up old roots so they can break down better to feed the soil, things like that."

He watched with equal parts of fascination and curiousity as she pulled the wires over for him to look at.

Once he did a quick visual inspection, Terra shook his head. "I don't really know much about planting or growing things."

"These aren't for that," she says, letting the wire coil rest. "Pulled wire is for other things. But if you wish to see the till work, I will work on that."

Which means she has to move to where she's got the metal she intends for this purpose.

"I have learned things with the help of my friend Yuki, and the lady Aerith. I like plants, but it is not a thing Kree warriors normally deal with."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to see it in action."

He could go either way with this and if she wasn't okay with it, he was okay with letting it go. But he was curious.

And the curiousity got even further when she mentioned her friends teaching her things. His friends taught him things too, much like Cinderella did with the whole 'faith in her heart that anything was possible.' Terra had taught her too, about being strong which had been weird to hear his own words come back to him.

"I'm sure you'll be helping a lot of people out with this invention of yours."

"It is not my invention," she tells Terra, smiling at him. "I found it in a book."

And with that she takes the first metal disk she will need to work up onto the anvil. Better to get this going.

"Oh." Terra replied. He had to smile, all sorts of wonderous things could be found in books. He knew how to read, but wasn't half as fast at it as say Ven or Aqua. That might be something he'd work on since he'd have to read books about repairing a house but right now he was more fascinated with what Lauri-Ell was doing.

"Are you planning on making more than one or two or? I mean, lots of people will need one, right?"

"I have only been commissioned for this one. To pre-make such a large thing that requires so many pieces of metal, and then work from the carpenter to frame them, would consume resources that are needed to other tasks," she answered.

If others called upon the desire of it, she would do more. But it was better to just make to need for something this large.

"I'm sure once word gets around, you might have your hands full." Although the keyblade wielder was more than confident on this, he wasn't sure anyone else might be commissioning until late Winter or early Spring. But whatever it would be, Lauri-Ell was sure to get more business.

Yes, she might well. But for now she's happy with the work she's doing. So very, very happy.

"I just hope they are happy with the work," she said, before picking up the large metal disk blank she had made earlier and moving it into the fire to heat it. Then she moves to the bellows to kick up the heat with more hair.

"Alright, this is an important part of smithing. You learn how hot the fire is by the color of it, and how long you can look upon it."

Terra nodded and watched as Lauri-Ell worked the metal. He wasn't crowding her and kept a small distance so that he could see everything that she was doing.

"I'm sure they'll like it. I mean, you're making this to help them."

But his eyes got a little bigger when she went on with instructions. "I didn't know fire changed colour." There was way more to all of this than he knew. And Terra was fascinated.

"I am also being paid to do so. I feel I am doing good, and yet I wonder if I would not do more good if I were to merely grant them the things which might help then. And then I remember the history of my people."

And how they had become the people they had because of such things. And the evil it had created across the universe for millennia.

"Oh yes, fire has many colors and characters. What color do you believe would indicate fire at its hottest?"

"Well ya, but they wouldn't be paying you to make this if it couldn't help them, right?" And then Terra canted his head to the side at Lauri-Ell's words about the history of her people. He wasn't sure what she meant by that. "The history?"

Blue eyes looked from his companion to the fire at her question. "Uh..blue?"

Well yes, there is that, which earns a nod from her.

"But sometimes people ask for things they cannot handle. Such as happened with the Kree."

She ignores the question of the history of the Kree. She does not know him well enough yet to admit the sins of her people.

"Yes, blue fires are hotter than yellow."

Terra quieted when he heard about people asking for things they couldn't handle. Sometimes the memories of failing the Mark of Mastery still plagued him and all that had happened since then.

But his attention turned back towards his task with a smile. "Does it turn another colour after that?"

"If it does, that is beyond my eyes to be able to see," she answered, stirring the coals a bit to kick up some more heat.

Terra smiled. "Then how long does it take for the fire to get that hot? And does it take a long time to forge a weapon?"

Questions, he was full of them.

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