71st of Spring
71st of Spring
Sweat dripped from Antelokes’ brow as he crouched over a large stone where it lay in the sand. Adjusting his hands to get a better grip, the young man lifted with his legs, managing to stand and lifting the stone. Then, with considerably more effort, he heaved the stone up to chest height. His arms and shoulders shook with the subtle vibrations of muscle under tension, and he shuffled a little on his feet to balance the weight. He gritted his teeth. His feet were pressed deeper into the beach’s loose sand by the considerable weight of the stone, and his fingers ached from the force required to keep it steady.
Antelokes took one halting step forward, then another. His strides were short, but he slowly managed to find a walking rhythm with the weight in his hands. Slowly, the blacksmith paced out the distance he had appointed for himself to walk. Several steps short of the mark, (a stick he’d laid out on the sand) he considered calling it good. After a brief pause in his progress, the moment of weakness passed and he berated himself for the notion. Several more steps carried him to his goal. With a grunt and a heave, Antelokes thrust the stone farther up into the air while simultaneously dropping his body below it. He let his shoulders lock with the stone held over his head and his legs bent. His limbs complained under the pressure, and he blinked the sweat out of his eyes.
With one last push of exertion, Antelokes rose to his full height, the stone held far over his head. With a sigh of mixed triumph and relief, he dropped the weight, pushing it forward while stepping backward to avoid its path. The large stone fell to the ground with a dull thump. Antelokes soon joined it, collapsing to the beach to sit, breathing heavily. He wiped the sweat from his face with his forearm.
He'd been here for much of the last bell. The forge work today had been frustrating. It was one of those days where the metal seemed to be fighting him, snapping, warping, and just not responding to his attempts to shape it how he wanted. After spending most of the day throwing himself at his work to little avail, he’d been eager to go and do something simple and difficult. Tests of physical strength fit the bill.
It had taken some time to find a stone of the right weight. Too light, and it wasn’t hard enough. Too heavy, and you couldn’t do anything meaningful with it. Eventually he’d found something serviceable though, after some time searching. Maybe it would be worth it to construct something metal of the right weight? He could be sure that the weight was distributed evenly in that case.
Just as the blacksmith had begun to consider this thought, he felt an odd shape poking into his backside where he sat. He hadn’t noticed it in his initial exhaustion upon sitting, but now it was becoming uncomfortable. Thinking it was just an odd shaped stone in the sand, he moved to swipe it away with his hand. However, his fingers brushed against a much more refined, artificial texture. He frowned, then rose to his feet—ignoring the protests from his legs—to examine what he had inadvertently sit on.