Fiction: With an Edge of Honor
This post is brought to you by today's Crowdfunding Creative Jam, with the theme of manipulation. The relevant prompt is by 
alexseanchai, who asked for "handicrafts, art in physical media, mechanical work, baking, whatever so long as it involves dexterity and getting one's hands, if not dirty, at least involved", and also for "fantasy genre" as an additional option.
This piece features mention of various crafts (though not necessarily a specific focus), as well as a bit of people getting their hands involved in various things, both real and metaphorical, including the art of change.
---
"With an Edge of Honor"
Maiya went to the water to cut reeds, carrying her new metal knife in its wooden sheath. Her pride, evident in her face, surely spoke of the work she was there for, and how well it fed her family. Sova was already there, cutting reeds also, his wooden cutter freshly faced with a thin bronze strip and polished to a good edge.
"Maiya, good to see you!" he called. She smiled, giving him a wave.
"And you, Sova. How is the work?" she replied. Sorrowful, she thought but did not say, to have no apprentice to cut reeds for you. At least his new child-to-be would be helping in a few years.
"Hard enough, but there are plenty of reeds. I'll be making papyrus tomorrow, for the new school!"
Maiya smiled wider. "The schoolmaster asked me to provide some fresh mats and baskets. Save a few reeds for me, yes?"
"Of course!" was the reply.
She did not flash her knife near him. He did not need the embarrassment of an old wooden hack next to her beautiful steel. Instead, she settled herself a bit further down, closer to the flax plantings, and quietly sliced away.
Within a few minutes, Sova had gotten close enough to see the flash of white metal and identify it as something a traveling merchant had brought, since the local smith, Ciocian, had not yet managed to wheedle the secret of steel from his old master.
"What's that," he asked, "a new blade? That looks like it cuts beautifully!"
Maiya acknowledged that it did.
Sova grinned. "May I borrow it to compare?"
She let him borrow her new knife for a few minutes, standing close with a careful eye. The man cut two reed stems and gave her one, then spent but a few moments stripping the leaves from the bulrush with short, clean strokes before giving it back.
"Most excellent work! I hope Cioci can manage to learn it soon."
"How comes it, Sova, that you cannot afford a metal knife yourself for the reed?"
"Ah, well, I have a new debt that has come up, and my wife cannot work hard as she is soon to give birth. And too, this old bronze still cuts."
Mayia made a wry face. "You and your debts! Who is it to this time? Another spirit?"
"No, it is in fact to Ciocian! I made a bet last week, and he wishes to collect on it."
"What, did anyone witness? You can't get out of a private bet somehow?"
"Oh, Mayia, you know I won't. A man's honor is important to his keeping."
"A woman's as well, but you should feed your family first!"
"Better to be honorable in the small things than to lose my wife's love or my friend's respect for being untrustworthy."
At that, Mayia was satisfied. "Well enough," she declared. "I suppose honor is better, then."
Sova gathered his fresh-cut reeds into several bundles, said his farewell, and went on to the scribery to prepare the leaves and stems for paperwork. Maiya kept cutting until she had five bundles as thick as her thigh, which she tied up with spare grass stems. As she started to walk away from the river bank, a beast swam near. Startled, she leapt faster out of the reeds and drew her knife for defense, backing away.
"Woman!" cried the creature, something not a crocodile but also not a horse, though it resembled both. "I have need of you!"
"No you have not," came her reply. "I was taught to make no deals with a spirit that is not honest."
"Remember that, then," said the beast. "It will serve you well, O spirit-in-flesh!" It turned and swam away.
**
"I could almost swear it had wings folded to its back!" Mayia was talking with the local priest and his deacon. The encounter had shaken her a bit, as spirits were not known much in the area, and every meeting with them was fraught with distrust. "I wonder if it wasn't waiting for Sova to be alone," she continued. "That man and his dealings..."
Van, the priest, tutted his tongue. "Yes, we know about his dealings. The butterflies in his shop, the golden knife he had to give back, the gnome who sold him strange beer. Sova is too much in love with adventure, and with fey dealings, and I pray for his soul every time I see him."
Carl, the deacon, sighed. "At least he had the sense not to ask for unending wealth or unlimited wishes, or other such nonsense. Even dragons are not trustworthy with wishes!"
Van nodded, stroking his beard. "I think if this beast approaches you again, you should ask for its name, and bring its quest to us. We can surely find someone worthy if it will benefit the town or the church."
"Or the new school," added Carl. "Speaking of which, or construction anyway, I should be getting back to looking over the roof. I found a new hole the bats have been getting in through, yesterday, and I don't doubt it'll leak should a storm blow up strong enough."
After some talk about the weather, the group broke up with farewells and a quick blessing. Maiya walked back to her house to see about getting dinner put together, while the priest and his deacon considered.
Carl hefted his ladder. "Do you think it was a dragon? They've been seen a bit north, at Port-by-Oslain, lately," he said, mentioning a town further up the river.
Van nodded. "Oh, probably. There's no reason to worry, as long as they stay to the water and don't ask for anything, though. We'll simply keep to the shore's edge and be well enough!"
Having settled that, they went then to their tasks, though a prayer for the town's safety rose from Van's lips as he passed the altar on his way out to the day's visiting.
**
Ciocian smiled as he lifted the new, unfitted blade from its water bath with long tongs, giving the metal a careful look-over as he did so. "A good one, I don't doubt! Adam! Come put a handle on this knife!"
Ciocian's apprentice turned from the task of sweeping and came forth, picking up a pair of tongs as well to grasp the warm bronze. "As you say, Master!" came gladly from his mouth. Finally, a task worthy of a young smith!
Ciocian patted the young man on the shoulder. "I'll check your work once I've got this batch of horseshoes ready for fitting."
As Adam was rounding the end of the blade's tang into a pommel rivet to hold its new peach-wood handle on, Sova walked into the public space at the front of the forge house.
"Hallo?" called the older man. "I have a bit of money for you, Cioci!"
"Welcome, then!" laughed Ciocian as he looked up from his work. "I don't mind that at all. Good to see you, Sova. Let me finish up this last shoe, and I'll come over and chat a bit."
As Ciocian stepped over to the counter, Sova counted out the three silver pennies. "I got this from a dragon just today, you know, in exchange for promising to find the answer to a riddle. I was hoping you could help me."
"Me? What could I know that would answer a dragon! Didn't they teach us smithing and war themselves?"
"This one wanted to know the name humans use for the bronze in our shields, the ones polished 'til you see your face in them. I have seen the one you keep over your mantle, and thought you might know it."
"Well, you've paid your bet, and a name won't teach you the mix. We call it Fire's Honor, for it makes an excellent mirror and good fire-lighting bowls as well. I hope that dragon is not so foolish as to try to make fire or war around here, however. Perhaps it wishes to take a mate, for I hear they love beautiful, shining treasures."
"He said he was looking to impress his mate, in fact, but did not desire to enter our town. I took in mind we have ward-stones against spirit folk at the crossroad and the pier, but I didn't say any of that to him."
Adam spoke up. "My da says that Fire's Honor was a gift from a human smith-god, not a dragon. Maybe they don't know it."
"So said my master," replied Ciocian. "I doubt the story myself, as I've seen him trying to learn about metals by mixing different material and working up tests for them. I think we mortals did it ourselves, and that god-story came about because a spirit couldn't tell the difference."
Adam nodded. Best not to mention his master's atheism to his da, he reminded himself. Instead he held up the knife. "When you're ready, Master. I'll get back to sweeping while you talk."
Ciocian smiled as he turned back to Sova. "A good boy, he is. Too bad his father has so little fondness of me, but a talent's a talent. One I hope to see quite fruitful someday!" He took a moment to settle himself against the counter. "So, how's the wife? Any signs?"
"No, not yet, but surely soon. Maybe another week, says the doctor. I hope it is soon, but then I shall have a new baby in my home, and I know that will keep me terribly busy and tired for days."
As they concluded their business, Maiya walked by outside, unnoticed by the group under the roof.
**
The creature was fully out of the water, and definitely a dragon. It wore a loincloth about its hips, and a scarf around its neck with a copper bell on the end. It was also standing next to the boundary-stone near the crossroad, close by the potter's house.
"Woman!" it called. Maiya turned and without responding went the other way.
The dragon sighed, and went back to waiting for the man Sova to return with his answer. When Sova did come back and give him the name "Fire's Honor", he smiled and bowed.
"Thank you, goodman! This knowledge will let me buy a mirror in a town that lets us in. It is too bad you did not want to purchase one for me."
"I know too many of the people here would think me buying a spirit trap to give you. Best not to let them, I say. Besides, silver is silver, and I would hardly want to damage my honor so close to a day of joy."
"I hope this day of joy is good for you, then. Perhaps your town will eventually learn to let some of us in; then it would be a day of joy for everyone."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. I know these people are not so easy to change, even when our God lets his man keep copies of my contracts."
And with a few more small pleasantries, Sova and the dragon went on their separate ways. The scribe sighed as he settled into his preparing-room, where newly beaten papyrus was pressed and dried, then cut to shape and size with a large scissors. He opened the press and lifted the flat stone on top to check on the drying of a previous batch, and decided it was time to cut them so there would be room for the new.
The dragon flew on to the open city, Zahl's Hold, where he could buy a mirror made not of tin, but of Fire's Honor for his wife, and finally settle her so his house would have peace.
Maiya, however, sat quietly in her own house while her sister cooked dinner. In her hands were the reeds she had cut with her new knife, and the second basket was starting to take shape.
"Dragons," said Maiya, "love honor. But do not trust them." She braided past one of the strakes, the bones of the basket, and had to undo the weaving a little to fix it. The smaller reed strips bent around the larger, out and in.
Her sister, Sofi, nodded quietly, but said nothing as she washed the chopping-board. She merely thought of steel knives, and the words in her own ear when she had bought them for her sister and herself.
"A dragon made that one and its twin, here, and claims the technique was invented by a smith-god. Maybe it is the same god that taught us bronze! I'd ask the priest, but your church looks like one for the New religion, not the Old."
Sofi tasted the soup, added a pinch of dried thyme, then stirred it and put the lid on. Perhaps it was all a conspiracy anyway, but at least dragon metal made a good blade.
This entry was originally posted at https://zeeth-kyrah.dreamwidth.org/41021.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
alexseanchai, who asked for "handicrafts, art in physical media, mechanical work, baking, whatever so long as it involves dexterity and getting one's hands, if not dirty, at least involved", and also for "fantasy genre" as an additional option.
This piece features mention of various crafts (though not necessarily a specific focus), as well as a bit of people getting their hands involved in various things, both real and metaphorical, including the art of change.
---
"With an Edge of Honor"
Maiya went to the water to cut reeds, carrying her new metal knife in its wooden sheath. Her pride, evident in her face, surely spoke of the work she was there for, and how well it fed her family. Sova was already there, cutting reeds also, his wooden cutter freshly faced with a thin bronze strip and polished to a good edge.
"Maiya, good to see you!" he called. She smiled, giving him a wave.
"And you, Sova. How is the work?" she replied. Sorrowful, she thought but did not say, to have no apprentice to cut reeds for you. At least his new child-to-be would be helping in a few years.
"Hard enough, but there are plenty of reeds. I'll be making papyrus tomorrow, for the new school!"
Maiya smiled wider. "The schoolmaster asked me to provide some fresh mats and baskets. Save a few reeds for me, yes?"
"Of course!" was the reply.
She did not flash her knife near him. He did not need the embarrassment of an old wooden hack next to her beautiful steel. Instead, she settled herself a bit further down, closer to the flax plantings, and quietly sliced away.
Within a few minutes, Sova had gotten close enough to see the flash of white metal and identify it as something a traveling merchant had brought, since the local smith, Ciocian, had not yet managed to wheedle the secret of steel from his old master.
"What's that," he asked, "a new blade? That looks like it cuts beautifully!"
Maiya acknowledged that it did.
Sova grinned. "May I borrow it to compare?"
She let him borrow her new knife for a few minutes, standing close with a careful eye. The man cut two reed stems and gave her one, then spent but a few moments stripping the leaves from the bulrush with short, clean strokes before giving it back.
"Most excellent work! I hope Cioci can manage to learn it soon."
"How comes it, Sova, that you cannot afford a metal knife yourself for the reed?"
"Ah, well, I have a new debt that has come up, and my wife cannot work hard as she is soon to give birth. And too, this old bronze still cuts."
Mayia made a wry face. "You and your debts! Who is it to this time? Another spirit?"
"No, it is in fact to Ciocian! I made a bet last week, and he wishes to collect on it."
"What, did anyone witness? You can't get out of a private bet somehow?"
"Oh, Mayia, you know I won't. A man's honor is important to his keeping."
"A woman's as well, but you should feed your family first!"
"Better to be honorable in the small things than to lose my wife's love or my friend's respect for being untrustworthy."
At that, Mayia was satisfied. "Well enough," she declared. "I suppose honor is better, then."
Sova gathered his fresh-cut reeds into several bundles, said his farewell, and went on to the scribery to prepare the leaves and stems for paperwork. Maiya kept cutting until she had five bundles as thick as her thigh, which she tied up with spare grass stems. As she started to walk away from the river bank, a beast swam near. Startled, she leapt faster out of the reeds and drew her knife for defense, backing away.
"Woman!" cried the creature, something not a crocodile but also not a horse, though it resembled both. "I have need of you!"
"No you have not," came her reply. "I was taught to make no deals with a spirit that is not honest."
"Remember that, then," said the beast. "It will serve you well, O spirit-in-flesh!" It turned and swam away.
**
"I could almost swear it had wings folded to its back!" Mayia was talking with the local priest and his deacon. The encounter had shaken her a bit, as spirits were not known much in the area, and every meeting with them was fraught with distrust. "I wonder if it wasn't waiting for Sova to be alone," she continued. "That man and his dealings..."
Van, the priest, tutted his tongue. "Yes, we know about his dealings. The butterflies in his shop, the golden knife he had to give back, the gnome who sold him strange beer. Sova is too much in love with adventure, and with fey dealings, and I pray for his soul every time I see him."
Carl, the deacon, sighed. "At least he had the sense not to ask for unending wealth or unlimited wishes, or other such nonsense. Even dragons are not trustworthy with wishes!"
Van nodded, stroking his beard. "I think if this beast approaches you again, you should ask for its name, and bring its quest to us. We can surely find someone worthy if it will benefit the town or the church."
"Or the new school," added Carl. "Speaking of which, or construction anyway, I should be getting back to looking over the roof. I found a new hole the bats have been getting in through, yesterday, and I don't doubt it'll leak should a storm blow up strong enough."
After some talk about the weather, the group broke up with farewells and a quick blessing. Maiya walked back to her house to see about getting dinner put together, while the priest and his deacon considered.
Carl hefted his ladder. "Do you think it was a dragon? They've been seen a bit north, at Port-by-Oslain, lately," he said, mentioning a town further up the river.
Van nodded. "Oh, probably. There's no reason to worry, as long as they stay to the water and don't ask for anything, though. We'll simply keep to the shore's edge and be well enough!"
Having settled that, they went then to their tasks, though a prayer for the town's safety rose from Van's lips as he passed the altar on his way out to the day's visiting.
**
Ciocian smiled as he lifted the new, unfitted blade from its water bath with long tongs, giving the metal a careful look-over as he did so. "A good one, I don't doubt! Adam! Come put a handle on this knife!"
Ciocian's apprentice turned from the task of sweeping and came forth, picking up a pair of tongs as well to grasp the warm bronze. "As you say, Master!" came gladly from his mouth. Finally, a task worthy of a young smith!
Ciocian patted the young man on the shoulder. "I'll check your work once I've got this batch of horseshoes ready for fitting."
As Adam was rounding the end of the blade's tang into a pommel rivet to hold its new peach-wood handle on, Sova walked into the public space at the front of the forge house.
"Hallo?" called the older man. "I have a bit of money for you, Cioci!"
"Welcome, then!" laughed Ciocian as he looked up from his work. "I don't mind that at all. Good to see you, Sova. Let me finish up this last shoe, and I'll come over and chat a bit."
As Ciocian stepped over to the counter, Sova counted out the three silver pennies. "I got this from a dragon just today, you know, in exchange for promising to find the answer to a riddle. I was hoping you could help me."
"Me? What could I know that would answer a dragon! Didn't they teach us smithing and war themselves?"
"This one wanted to know the name humans use for the bronze in our shields, the ones polished 'til you see your face in them. I have seen the one you keep over your mantle, and thought you might know it."
"Well, you've paid your bet, and a name won't teach you the mix. We call it Fire's Honor, for it makes an excellent mirror and good fire-lighting bowls as well. I hope that dragon is not so foolish as to try to make fire or war around here, however. Perhaps it wishes to take a mate, for I hear they love beautiful, shining treasures."
"He said he was looking to impress his mate, in fact, but did not desire to enter our town. I took in mind we have ward-stones against spirit folk at the crossroad and the pier, but I didn't say any of that to him."
Adam spoke up. "My da says that Fire's Honor was a gift from a human smith-god, not a dragon. Maybe they don't know it."
"So said my master," replied Ciocian. "I doubt the story myself, as I've seen him trying to learn about metals by mixing different material and working up tests for them. I think we mortals did it ourselves, and that god-story came about because a spirit couldn't tell the difference."
Adam nodded. Best not to mention his master's atheism to his da, he reminded himself. Instead he held up the knife. "When you're ready, Master. I'll get back to sweeping while you talk."
Ciocian smiled as he turned back to Sova. "A good boy, he is. Too bad his father has so little fondness of me, but a talent's a talent. One I hope to see quite fruitful someday!" He took a moment to settle himself against the counter. "So, how's the wife? Any signs?"
"No, not yet, but surely soon. Maybe another week, says the doctor. I hope it is soon, but then I shall have a new baby in my home, and I know that will keep me terribly busy and tired for days."
As they concluded their business, Maiya walked by outside, unnoticed by the group under the roof.
**
The creature was fully out of the water, and definitely a dragon. It wore a loincloth about its hips, and a scarf around its neck with a copper bell on the end. It was also standing next to the boundary-stone near the crossroad, close by the potter's house.
"Woman!" it called. Maiya turned and without responding went the other way.
The dragon sighed, and went back to waiting for the man Sova to return with his answer. When Sova did come back and give him the name "Fire's Honor", he smiled and bowed.
"Thank you, goodman! This knowledge will let me buy a mirror in a town that lets us in. It is too bad you did not want to purchase one for me."
"I know too many of the people here would think me buying a spirit trap to give you. Best not to let them, I say. Besides, silver is silver, and I would hardly want to damage my honor so close to a day of joy."
"I hope this day of joy is good for you, then. Perhaps your town will eventually learn to let some of us in; then it would be a day of joy for everyone."
"Perhaps, perhaps not. I know these people are not so easy to change, even when our God lets his man keep copies of my contracts."
And with a few more small pleasantries, Sova and the dragon went on their separate ways. The scribe sighed as he settled into his preparing-room, where newly beaten papyrus was pressed and dried, then cut to shape and size with a large scissors. He opened the press and lifted the flat stone on top to check on the drying of a previous batch, and decided it was time to cut them so there would be room for the new.
The dragon flew on to the open city, Zahl's Hold, where he could buy a mirror made not of tin, but of Fire's Honor for his wife, and finally settle her so his house would have peace.
Maiya, however, sat quietly in her own house while her sister cooked dinner. In her hands were the reeds she had cut with her new knife, and the second basket was starting to take shape.
"Dragons," said Maiya, "love honor. But do not trust them." She braided past one of the strakes, the bones of the basket, and had to undo the weaving a little to fix it. The smaller reed strips bent around the larger, out and in.
Her sister, Sofi, nodded quietly, but said nothing as she washed the chopping-board. She merely thought of steel knives, and the words in her own ear when she had bought them for her sister and herself.
"A dragon made that one and its twin, here, and claims the technique was invented by a smith-god. Maybe it is the same god that taught us bronze! I'd ask the priest, but your church looks like one for the New religion, not the Old."
Sofi tasted the soup, added a pinch of dried thyme, then stirred it and put the lid on. Perhaps it was all a conspiracy anyway, but at least dragon metal made a good blade.
This entry was originally posted at https://zeeth-kyrah.dreamwidth.org/41021.html. Please comment there using OpenID.