A/N: Thank so much for reading. This is a new story about a woman names Adira Crosshand and the struggles she will endure...well you will just have to read!
Please Review. I love hearing what you have to say.

Oh and I would be honored if you would so kinldly check out my other stuff: We Live in Grimm and See No Evil
thank you.

Truly
Sue

I
Steel Tears

It is really hot. Very hot. Searing pain kind of hot. Metal pulling hot. Adira's rough hands are curled inside raw leather gloves. One hand gripping the tongs, holding the malleable substance over the flames. The other clenching a heavy mallet. She strikes the white-hot steel repeatedly. Pulling strength from every piece of her body to throw into the mallet head. It comes crashing down on the sword's tip, sending sparks soaring through air. Dark, black-red hair falls into her face, and sweat mixes with her tears.

An unopened envelope lays on the cutting block on the other side of the workshop. It is addressed to Adira Crosshand. But she has let it sit there for two whole days, looming over her. She avoids it with fresh daggers and dazzling shields. Her hands have never been so torn. But she will not open the letter.

"Ahh!" she screams with every powerful blow. She glances up at the letter in the dark room. The sun can barely creep through the cracks in the great, oak sliding doors that open her workshop. The only light is emitting from the glow of the fiery embers of her work. Her mother's cross is pressed tight against her chest and she holds it there as she releases the mallet.

Her hair is falling from its braid and her golden-brown eyes are sinking with exhaustion. She has barely slept in the last three days. Too much to think about. Too much to do. Far too many things get in the way of sleep. Restless dreams and sheets too course and thread-bare to comfort.

She holds up the blade of her new sword. She opens a window to the light of a new morning. There were still traces of orange across the sky. She looks at the blade in the sun, happy with her work. Swallowing back tears and wiping her face with her dusty, rugged gloves, she leaves ash on her face.

She turns on an oil lamp and sat down at the cutting table with the blade. As she picks up a chisel and a small hammer she catches notice of the unopened envelope she has been avoiding. She slides it off the table and lets it glide to the dirt floor.

Hours pass by and Gaelic words of bravery and power have been scrawled along the blade. Her eyes have grown tired and the chisel is becoming dull. Adira takes off her gloves and rubs her eyes with a sigh. Silence fills her shop. No grunts of power, no laughter of friends. Just her heavy breathing and the low crackle of the fire. There comes a rapping at the door. Her neck cracks, she turned her head too quickly.

"We're closed!" she calls out without even standing. More rapping. It does not cease and Adira stands and walks to the door. Irritable as she is, she opens one side just enough for her to step out. "We're closed!" she exclaims. But then she catches sight of the man sitting on a great horse in front of her.

"I am not here to buy from you! I am looking for someone." The man has long black hair that falls to his shoulders. His eyes were nothing but black dots; no life, no love. Just anger. "He lives here, in this village. Could you help me?"

"I suppose so. Peekwood is small enough. I know everyone here." She saw something in this man and his black as night horse that she couldn't not trust. He was condescending, he was cold, and did not seem interested that she was a person just as him. He talked to her the way you might speak down to a dog.

"Well, then..." he waited for something. "Are you going to help me?"

"Are you going to tell me who it is your looking for?" she retorted. She took off her other glove and held them both in her left hand.

"Talon Roderick. I am looking for Talon Roderick." He rolled his eyes. Adira gasped a little. She avoided eye contact as her eyes began to well again. "You know him!" he said. "Where is he?" How could he be asking for Talon. What would this man want with Talon? "Hello? Are you going to tell me or..."

"He's gone!" she was at the top of her voice, strong and strident. "He left here, two days ago." she said quietly. She could see anger fill the man as his body tightened. "What do you want with him anyway?"

"That is my business, girl!" he said. There, there it was. His condescending voice. Girl? Adira was hardly a girl. Nineteen years of age, running her own blacksmith shop, taking care of her mother. She could probably cut him down to size if she had a sword in her hand. "Do you know where he is?" he said. She shook her head. "Well?" like he didn't notice.

"NO! I don't know where he is!" He stared through her.

"You're lying! You are hiding something."

"Perhaps, but that is my business!" she shot back at him. He got off his horse and started towards her.

"You have a sharp tongue, girl. What is your name?" he asked.

"What do you want with my name?" she asked standing tall to him. He only had but two inches on her height. But in her thick heeled boots they stood eye to eye.

"Nothing. It would be worthless to me, you are right. Did you know him well?" he asked.

"Who?" she played.

"Oh stop being foolish. Roderick. Did you know him well?" he asked again, his voice rising.

"Yes, I did. We were close, if you must know." He pushed past her and into her shop. "Hey! Hey, no get out of here. No! We are closed!" She feared he might see the unopened envelope on the floor. He looked around and touched every hilt and brushed every blade.

"Oh do not get your knickers in a twist...Adira," he said. He was looking at her bills. "Adira Crosshand? That's so familiar...Like Cedric Crosshand, the brilliant swordmaker? Are you his daughter?" He turned to look at her closely. He walked closer to her. She bit her tongue to keep from shouting at the man for bringing up her father. "Yes, yes. You are his daughter! Well, you must have been close to the Roderick family. Swordmakers and swordsmen!" He laughed a dark, cynical laugh. She slyly pulled a fresh sword from a near by rack.

"I want you to leave, now," she said, sword in hand. "I have nothing for you!"

"Oh, no, you have much more than I expected." She began to raise her sword as he came closer to her. And as she was about to swing at him, he smiled and shot a hand over her forehead. She stopped where she was and dropped the sword. She stopped breathing for but a moment and collapsed to the floor. He leaned over and picked her up and thrust her over his shoulder. He carried her out of the sliding doors and slung her over the back of his horse. He climbed on in front of her and reared his horse back and rode out of Peekwood. Her letter was left unopened on the floor and she laid unconsious riding behind a stranger.