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Arms do not make the man but they are practical to have.
(This is a thread from Mizahar's fantasy role playing forums. Why don't you register today? This message is not shown when you are logged in. Come roleplay with us, it's fun!)by Dariel on November 30th, 2012, 6:19 pm
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by Dariel on November 30th, 2012, 6:23 pm
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by Fia Eaven on December 1st, 2012, 7:48 am
"If'n you please." The mild voice was womanly but diluted of its power by shyness. "I'd like these ones." Interposing a little between Dariel and the unfortunate shop boy were a pair of wool scarves, a neat pile of kinas on top of them. Fia didn’t look at Dariel in the midst of his temper, but kept her eyes on the boy. "The kinas will need to be broken a mite." It was a happy distraction for the boy who was bearing the brunt of Dariel's overflowing frustration. A few overheard words and Fia recognized he was the sort her Da said "did not suffer the fool". She was a fool in many things, but not regarding the tool that awkwardly pitched in Dariel's pale palm. A man deserved a blade worthy of his labor and his coin. When the boy stepped away to fetch her change, Fia was able to advise Dariel discretely. She seemed uncertain of his reaction as she had pushed her purchase before his. Distraction though it was, the act made her nerves begin a reel. "'Tis not good for you, Sir," she said without withstanding Dariel's imperious eyes. Knowledge fed courage and she fixed her glance on his hand and the half cudgel it held. Her words came in steadier lines. "For chopping vegetable, 'twill be fine. But you—your hands need something nimbler. Me Da hand long-fingers too. In the forge we made plenty of tools to suit him. That's what I do, by the by." Her eyes lifted, striking his true. "I'm a smithy," a persuasive clarity was beginning to inhabit her, "And I can make you something for half that wage at the Touch of Fire." |
by Dariel on December 2nd, 2012, 8:54 pm
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by Fia Eaven on December 5th, 2012, 6:05 am
OOCHaha, don't even sweat it. It's all good. Despite the hobbling of her tongue, the woman's ensuing look had a straightforward shrewdness, like a farmer about to barter for seed. All sense and no cunning, she could only speak plain. "Don't normally care for giving advice unasked. But we all have a sticking place. Man's tools ought to be worthy of his labor." It seemed a refrain she inherited from older kin, spoken like a creed. Her smile was swift and only a little fettered by her dim eyes. "If'n you don't mind waiting, I have to get some soap for laundry still. Just down the way a bit." Fia pocketed the loose kinas the boy returned with. He handed her the scarves tied in a bundle with twine. Dariel's offer to carry Fia things had struck her with the same surprise it was given in. His face barely yielded to the courteous expression he sought to wear. Here was a man not easily moved to deference. "Kind of you, Sir. Thank you." It was an unnecessary gentility, most were, but Fia knew the joy of offering and would never discourage a small kindness. It didn't seem like the man would run free with the scarves one they were in hand. Colors wouldn't suit his graceful marble tones anyway, she thought with harmless mirth. So, the bundle of scarves was passed along. "I'm Fia, by the by," she said with a quickly bowed head. "So, tell me what your purposes are for the weapon you want. Is it a knife for hunting, defense or traveling?" She had done her part to foment conversation. The task would normally be nothing to her, but her spirit had been supped on by forces voracious and grim in recent days. As she walked toward the stall that sold soap, timidity faded into mildness. Small things pulled her attention but did not slow her pace. Her hand sometimes drifted over objects as she passed, curious as to their texture. A quietness that might have been serenity or fatigue inhabited her again. She was posed to listen and little else. |
by Dariel on December 6th, 2012, 1:27 am
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by Fia Eaven on December 8th, 2012, 10:01 am
"Dariel," she pronounced his name as if she liked the sound. It was both sturdy and flourished, like a blade made right. "You sound proper like to me. I'm not the sort you apologize to for rustic habits." Fia's laugh was low and full of indulgences, for him, for herself, for the world at large. "I'm not from here neither." She wasn't from anywhere anymore, but it was not the time to consider that. The thought was returned to the pool from whence it came. It would find her again come evening, rising up like a pale and terrible fish. The stall for soaps had blocks and bricks of the stuff with merchants cutting pieces with cleavers. Fia lifted broken waxy pieces to her face to inhale their bouquet. "I have never heard me motto turned about like that, Dariel." Her smile was like candlelight, gently bright. "It's just a bit of hope I wind about people, that some are worthy of good things." She considered his point a bit longer, listening to him again in her thoughts. "If'n the man isn't worthy it will be no fault of mine. But if'n the tool isn't worthy, then I have done another wrong. All in all, let the toddler grow into the master's tools." Half a pound of lavender soap eventually joined her purchases. This one she chose to hold, soothed by the crisp, floral fragrance. "Perhaps you can walk with me to the forge. We'll talk a spell. I like to understand a bit of the person I'm making a weapon for." Fia explained. "Hope you don't mind overmuch." Her intent was not to pry, but to learn the shapes others chose for the outline of their life. There was a strain of courteous kindness that hopefully turned her curiosity from working harm. "I don't mean to sound fanciful, but I think there's something to a weapon made to suit. When you pluck it off a table you hear only the smith's voice. It should be yours too." Her thumb idly rubbed the white surface of the soap as she considered what few questions would serve her best. "It's a mite strange far as questions go, but what manner of thing holds your approving eye?" Merriment softly touched her, "Apart from your lady glaive?" To know his aesthetic taste would help her understand the nuances necessary to make a useful object a beloved symbol of its bearer. OOCApologies, it seems tonight I get to stumble through writing! |
by Dariel on December 9th, 2012, 1:53 am
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by Fia Eaven on December 15th, 2012, 9:54 pm
It was a spiraling litany of things beloved and accrued. The moon-colored human did not seem the singing sort, so Fia was startled by the precise poetry that rained steadily over her. Minute stories were scattered at her feet for her to harvest and fill her pockets with: the coppery smell of water and stone, things swayed and smooth, the soft lichen and moldering bone, objects pale, cool and seamless as a pearl. Fia dashed to collect the fragments, and wondered how they became dear. She wanted to set the ideas together and show him the incomplete mosaic. How each splinter touched another to begin a picture complete. But Fia was oppressed by her language. It felt plodding, and crude as a post when she tried to translate understanding. It had all poured from him dreadful fast. "Forgive me. I seem slow, but I am listening." She wondered if it would matter to him that they had felt the same impulses of pleasure over some of the same bric-a-brac. Fia searched Dariel's face for a soft chime. No, he was like the prow of a ship. He would turn aside for nothing when given a course. Her meandering words had little place here. New understanding rose in her: his blade would require a double edge, no serration. It could not hitch when he pressed it forward. This was not the sort of man who stuttered. Even the careless trajectories of other bodies seemed to strike him as a poorly choreographed dance. "Kin to the moon." She spoke the thought when she had purposed for it to simply drift past. Suddenly bound to the words she had intended to subdue, Fia had to complete them with color rising under her freckles. "I mean... Odd thing to say aloud," she laughed weakly at herself. "I've been indoors overmuch or breathing in too much smoke. But you-- I see the strings— the moon is in the same place in its seasons in the dark and brisk. Keeps a perfect shape but when you squint a mite… it's pocked up like the rest of us. All the stories he wears on his skin." Unwittingly her thumb ran over the pink and white scars on her hands, the small marks haphazard as the sparks that made them. "I think I have a measure of what to do. You've been more generous with fair words than I would have figured." Her smile played with mirth. "There's a bit of a bard in you." |
by Dariel on December 17th, 2012, 12:47 am
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