Levali Rödal Iceglaze 20th of Summer, 516 AV The summer morning was just as any other in Avanthal. Cold, dark, and with the ever present trace of light snowfall. Small flakes of frozen crystal fell against Levali's face as she did her best to keep up with the one who was supposed to be her teacher for the day. His name was Forden Iceglaze, her boss and co-worker all in the same. The man - who was easily double her age - always had an impressive spring in his step, such as he was on his way to a reward when he reached the icewall gates they had been tasked with repairing. This was to be her lesson on combining ice reaving with masonry, which Forden had made sure to tell her multiple times separated the Novice masons in Avanthal from the experienced ones. She wasn't all that interested in getting much better at the slave-like task, but developing this technique would result in an increase in pay. Overall, it was certainly worth it. The icewall gates were not actually made of ice of course, but repairing it with ice was just how it was done. After all, using mortar to attack clear bricks would look odd to say the least. Despite this, it was Levali's task to bring a large bucket of the stuff. She had been told to mix the previous day for reasons she would soon find out, and she doubted that whatever it was for was worth the weight of the large pail. It was about as tall as her knees, and as wide as two thirds of a doorframe; Almost completely full of mortar. Luckily it had a steel handle along the top, but is almost bent with the weight of it's contents. The struggling worker waddled over with both her hands holding the thin wire of a handle, her weight obviously shifted forwards from how heavy it was compared to her general lack of strength. A few minutes later she arrived by the wall, dropping the bucket by her feet and feeling a great deal of tension alleviated from her person. Standing back up almost felt like a blessing, except that her job to do was apparently quite large for a repair. A whole chunk of the wall was missing - The bricks either shattered or lying in decently thick layer of snow beneath the gap. It was wide enough to fit two horses, and it seemed everything from the ground up in that section had fallen over with the wall, forming a neat V shape where the damage was. ..And leaning alongside the broken wall was Forden, pretending to have fallen asleep waiting for her. She could see a small smirk on his face as he angled his head downwards, his eyes shut and slightly and his greying hair covered in snow. It was not until just recently that the greyish taint had started to form over his head. For the most part his hair was a dark brown quite similar to her own, with a shimmer of green whenever the light shone at the right angle. He rested a hand on his short beard, twitching slightly when he heard the bucket drop against the ground. Forden was smaller than most in terms of both height and size, making him quite nimble. It was known to her that he also had an interest in carving, which his more fine hands would certainly help with. "Fallen asleep waiting for me? I hope you didn't get too bored waiting for me to bring this over for you." The girl called playfully. There were no other people around where they were aside from the icewatch guard posted to protect the small gap, way out where nothing had yet been built. Her eyes were a dark amber, indicating interest or playfulness on her part. His opened slowly in response, reaching out his arms as he stood and stretching them, faking a yawn while his worker waited blankly. He smiled at her crossed arms, gesturing to the array of tools he'd brought that lay in a brown leather satchel beside the wall. A trowel was one among a flat mallet, and a regular iron hammer. These were all tools she knew well, and was quite familiar with from her day to day employment. Forden's voice came warm in contrast to the cold weather, a usual deep and jolly tone as it always was. "Only for a couple minutes I suppose.. Did you crawl here or something? " He chuckled to himself, waving it off in response to Levali's raised eyebrow. "No matter. We've got work to do. Training, to be specific." |