[Deaths] a pair of De'Aths
Title: playing with fire
'Verse/characters: Death be not Proud; Edmund De'Ath, Julian De'Ath
Prompt: 99A "song"
Word Count: 380
Notes: after play, before shan't say nevermore.
I have done no real research into non-modern smithing. My apologies if anything reads Wrong, and please let me know if you have good resources. :)
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He found her by following the ringing from the makeshift forge.
They'd built it the year before, after the local smith and both the man's apprentices had ripped up roots and headed for the city. Though they'd never have used the man for sword-work, keeping a house required more mundane iron, too, and the man had been good at what he did, and the apprentices promising.
He made a mental note--again--to ask his brother to check up on them, next time Eduard wandered through, as he leaned against the post they'd sunk to tether horses to for shoeing, and watched his daughter work in the shade of the forge's lean-to.
She was as stripped as she ever got, down to a faded old beat-up man's shirt and hose beneath the leather apron keeping her from burns, singing drinking songs--off key--to the rhythm of her hammer striking iron and anvil.
She was streaming with sweat, actually splashing the piece she was working with occasional drops off her hammer-arm. She'd knotted her braid out of her way with leather thongs, but what little had pulled loose was glued to her face and her neck, soaking from there into her hair and the leather. She'd probably have to cut the ties later to get her hair free. God knew he'd had to before, in her place, and she kept her hair longer than he did his.
If she didn't toss herself into the millpond with the eels before she came in for a meal, he mused, he'd do it himself. He was still taller and broader than her, after all, for all she'd hit growth spurt early and strong.
As the bar of iron went back into the charcoal fire, bellows pumped a few times absently, she inquired "Did you need something, Father?" without looking away from the forge.
"Just wondering where you were. Need a hand?"
She did look up at that, checking to see if he was joking or mocking or serious, then shrugged, inclining her head towards the other faintly charred leather apron, draped over a failed knife experiment salvaged for a hook. "I'm trying to work out folding from examples of finished work. If you want to trade blows?"
He thought about it, then shrugged, walking over to the hook and shedding his shirt before tying the apron on. He had nothing better to do with his afternoon.
And she knew more verses of at least two songs than he did.
'Verse/characters: Death be not Proud; Edmund De'Ath, Julian De'Ath
Prompt: 99A "song"
Word Count: 380
Notes: after play, before shan't say nevermore.
I have done no real research into non-modern smithing. My apologies if anything reads Wrong, and please let me know if you have good resources. :)
---------
He found her by following the ringing from the makeshift forge.
They'd built it the year before, after the local smith and both the man's apprentices had ripped up roots and headed for the city. Though they'd never have used the man for sword-work, keeping a house required more mundane iron, too, and the man had been good at what he did, and the apprentices promising.
He made a mental note--again--to ask his brother to check up on them, next time Eduard wandered through, as he leaned against the post they'd sunk to tether horses to for shoeing, and watched his daughter work in the shade of the forge's lean-to.
She was as stripped as she ever got, down to a faded old beat-up man's shirt and hose beneath the leather apron keeping her from burns, singing drinking songs--off key--to the rhythm of her hammer striking iron and anvil.
She was streaming with sweat, actually splashing the piece she was working with occasional drops off her hammer-arm. She'd knotted her braid out of her way with leather thongs, but what little had pulled loose was glued to her face and her neck, soaking from there into her hair and the leather. She'd probably have to cut the ties later to get her hair free. God knew he'd had to before, in her place, and she kept her hair longer than he did his.
If she didn't toss herself into the millpond with the eels before she came in for a meal, he mused, he'd do it himself. He was still taller and broader than her, after all, for all she'd hit growth spurt early and strong.
As the bar of iron went back into the charcoal fire, bellows pumped a few times absently, she inquired "Did you need something, Father?" without looking away from the forge.
"Just wondering where you were. Need a hand?"
She did look up at that, checking to see if he was joking or mocking or serious, then shrugged, inclining her head towards the other faintly charred leather apron, draped over a failed knife experiment salvaged for a hook. "I'm trying to work out folding from examples of finished work. If you want to trade blows?"
He thought about it, then shrugged, walking over to the hook and shedding his shirt before tying the apron on. He had nothing better to do with his afternoon.
And she knew more verses of at least two songs than he did.