Phoenix Arms:

The story of Lock Ostrie.

Part: 3

Vamir

I lock the door as I exit my home and walk down the street. Between my house and the town there is a small valley with a few houses and a couple of farms. Walking down the paved road, I remember all the times I walked this route with Sapphire and grandpa on the way into town. It isn't that bad of a day for a walk, it's still around midday, about one o'clock, and the sun is out with some clouds. It is about 50 degrees out side. Yes, I know the world uses the metric system, but I converted to the imperial system when I was in the navy. Why? Well, it was the simple fact that all the gages on our ship where in imperial units. You see, my fleet, the 4th fleet, is a 'reserve' fleet. In other words, we were to go to potential trouble spots and if a war broke out, we would be there to defend the area until the other fleets could get their to carry on the war. As such, we were equipped with old… no… better described as antique equipment.

Our fleet was a motley collection of old ships from different navies, hell, we even had two battleships from World War Two, I think they were Iowa class. The only thing I remember about those two ships where the 16in main gun batteries. Those sexy guns… I just droll at the thought of them. The raw, sexy, firepower of those guns… heck, when the Union of North African and Arabic states started to attack some of our merchant marine, we attacked their fleet in Alexandra. Those guns ripped the shoreline to pieces (I was flying in an escort for the jammer aircraft so the fleet could get close and not be detected, and saw the SAM and AAA sites get pummeled along with the fleet first hand.) and allowed our landing craft to come in and land the troops. (In fact whole reason for bringing the big guns in was to raise the moral of the ground forces as well as to save our cruise missiles for hitting targets further inland as well as for supporting the army when the counter attack came.)

That's not to say they we were completely primitive, the navy did spare us funds every now and then to upgrade our ships, and they were pretty effective, our flagship, as well as my ship, the Kestrel, was a pretty modern for an Aircraft Carrier. Although the aircraft on board was more diverse than the people who attend the UN, hell, even some squadrons had a different aircraft for each pilot. To compensate for our equipment, they were very, I repeat, very flexible with the rules, and nobody particularly cared for them unless you screwed up your job.

If you have seen photos of a pink F-4 Phantom, Su-33 Flanker-D, F-18 Hornet and F-14 Tomcat (I envied that girl for getting F-14, she was a year younger than me, and Sapphire nearly tossed me overboard once because she thought I was hitting on her when in reality I was obsessing over her aircraft.) in formation, you can be assured that was a real squadron of all female pilots that thought it would be funny to do that. (Also, we really did use aircraft that old, after all, how do you think we got our nickname the 'junkyard fleet'). Well they started a new tradition that if you lose a bet and are unable to pay for it, you would 'Join the pink squadron' and your bird would get a temporary coating of pink paint. It would wash off pretty quickly after a mission or two.

Where was I… Oh… that thing with the units. Well, I had just rolled out of bed when I looked at the temperature outside and the thing said 38. I thought it meant Celsius when in fact it meant Fahrenheit. Not knowing the time, and not particularly caring, I went topside in my shorts and t-shirt. When I had gotten up to the flight deck and outside I received quite a few looks from the aircrew bundled up as well as a gust of cold air from the night sky. I would have backed up inside if a long procession of aircrew and pilots got up for routine flight patrols. Finding the nearest door, I jumped in and crawled back into my bunk. Sapphire was awake and looked at me and laughed, "Are you awake now Lock?". Ah yes, finally a good memory, don't get too many of those nowadays. Anyways, that's why I know both systems now.

Well, that was a long tangent; I have a tendency to do that… my bad. Anyways I now stand at the edge of town, a 25 minuet walk isn't so bad if you know the road and don't focus on the walk its self and just do it. It goes by quicker than you'd think. Anyways, I now head to one of my favorite spots, veering right; I head up into town until I see an open space ahead. It has a small, curricular park in the center with a pavilion and flower garden in the center and a road that goes around the outside. A few cars drive around the road and all sorts of buildings surround the plaza. Looking to the far side of the plaza and across the way, I see a familiar sight, the local inn and tavern nestled between the road leading out along the edge of town, and the road to the left leading gradually up and to the center of town. Its wide concave surface is covered in brick and stained glass windows. I walk across the street, looking both ways before I cross, and walk though the park.

The brick pathway was worn smooth with time and it was a cool red. I gaze out at the few picnickers and couples sitting down and enjoying this nice spring day. The dating scene out here is actually bleak as most single people leave this town and mostly older people or married coupled with children. Children are little devils… all they do is run around screaming their heads off, bang into something, and then cry some more. Such a waste of resources… and people think they are so cute. I personally find them annoying, but I'm still nice to them, as they will (hopefully) outgrow that stage. Oh well, at least we have a game store.

Getting my mind back on track, I smell the fine scents of roses and tulips in our garden as I pass though it and the pavilion. It's always pretty out here in the spring with all the flowers.

I soon reach the other end of the park and spy my target. Looking both ways, I gaze upon the one and only "Daniel's Tavern and Inn" as I cross the street. I walk over to the heavy dark oaken door and look at its fine wood carvings and open it. Walking inside, I look upon the familiar settings, the carved wooden bar with the barstools, the high backed and very comfortable booths next to the windows, and most of all Daniel.

Daniel has run this place for all his life, as it has been the family for centuries. I've heard that he has a big family, so I guess that's true. Anyways he's the owner. Nice guy, average build, and good at fiancés and drink mixing as well as general knowledge of the town, he also runs the only local hotel witch is above me. Their's also the chief, Jean-Louis, as you can tell, he's French. He found this little spot while on his journey to become the world's greatest chief, and has stayed here ever since. Their's also the two waiters Dom and Eric.

"Hey, if it isn't our good old buddy Lock." Said Daniel, "How are you doing?"

"Good, and you?"

"Preparing for the 2:30 storm."

I laughed a bit, this place always go busy around two o'clock, "Anyways it's just me today."

Eric came up from behind the counter, "It's good to see you Lock, your favorite spot is open."

"Sure." I walked over to the right and sat down at the booth with a gorgeous stained glass window of a forest and some animals. Sitting down on the padded both I take off my coat and put it beside me.

"So, what would you like to eat?"

I didn't need to look at the menu on the table as had memorized it from the numerous times I've been here, "Potato soup, grilled cheese sandwich, and a Lime-Lemon soda."

He walked away with my order to go tell Jean in the back. Now, a Lime-Lemon soda isn't like sprite or sierra mist, rather it is plain soda water with pure lime and lemon juice, and lots of it. It's very fresh and I rather like it, better than the regular soda that is.

As I sit and wait for my food, I look at how the colored light from the windows shines in on the bar as well as the lights above us. I listen to the few other customers speaking about the town's events, including the upcoming fencing tournament that will be held the town square next week. That's when I saw this woman walk in the place, she wore an old military coat and officers cap, probably Russian army surplus. I did notice that she had a small pack on her back and that her hair was black and was tied in a ponytail that came out the back of her neck.

She looked at Daniel and asked him a question, "I'm looking for a smithy…" (Oh) I thought, (maybe she's looking for one of our many goldsmiths for a ring, or some kind of decoration. Our little town of Vamir's nickname is after all Smithtown for all the metalworking facilities we have here.) I shrugged, she shouldn't have a hard time finding one.

Daniel smiled, many visitors come in asking for locations of shops and what not. A goldsmith and a guy who've I met a few times, Ivan, smiled and looked at the lady. Daniel asked the female, "What for? We got all kinds of smiths and metalworkers in this town Miss…

"Dyne, I'm here for a sword smith."

Now this is were the fun begins, normally, people who ask for swords around this time want to join the main sword fighting tournament we hold every year in the spring. Now you see, we don't have any qualifying matches, but we don't like it when people who have no idea what they are doing that come to our town try to join the expert class. We have an expert, advanced, basic, and rookie classes so people can fight at their own level. Our biggest gripe is rookies and basic people in expert since experts need their own real swords to use in the matches and we don't want idiots getting hurt, even when we dull our blades. Anyways, we play a little joke on them that involves sending them to all the smiths in town in the hope that they would give up and leave with something form one of us. While any smith could produce a practice sword, only a swords smith could produce the fine weapons needed for the tournament.

That being said, I'm the only sword smith in town who can make combat swords, the only other person who could up and left while I was gone. There are two other guys who can produce replicas as museum pieces or for people into collecting swords as art pieces and investments, but swing them and they'll shatter or bend on impact.

So begins another year of fun and games for us smiths, as well a little extra gold in our pockets. Some of the customers, blacksmiths that I knew, started chuckling and planning out this year's snipe hunt. Ivan, who had seen me come in smiled and gave me the here-we-go-again look. I shrugged, this was the first time I was going to have to go though this whole song and dance personally. Eric came back with my drink and whispered to me, "Here we go again Lock."

I nodded and looked as Daniel asked her, "What for? Are you looking for a replica, a practice sword for fencing or…" he waited as he wanted to draw attention to the point "… a real one for combat?"

The eyes of every smith looked upon Miss Dyne, who must have figured out that something was up, reaching inside her pack she bought out a katana in its sheath, "My sword is damaged and I need someone who can repair it. It's broken into two pieces with a whole lot of nicks in it. In fact…" She brought out a post-it sized note and read off it. "I'm looking for Ryan Ostrie of the smithy Phoenix Arms in particular."

The room grew silent for a moment, two guys toasted to that name and the rest glanced at me, I remained in shock.

She was talking about my grandfather. I had always known someone was going to mention that name, as he was a somewhat well-known smith who was respected by people who knew swords.

Ivan smiled at me and said and nodded, I got up from my booth and the room remained quiet, "I'm sorry."

Miss Dyne looked at me, and for the first time I saw her soft yet firm features, I could tell she was a mercenary like me, and most importantly that she was about my age, if not exactly it, "Huh?"

I didn't want to say it directly since I myself was getting over his death, but I forced my self to say it, "Ryan Ostrie is dead."

"Oh." She said with a downcast voice, "Do you know where I can find someone who can fix my blade?"

"I can. I'm Lock Ostrie of Phoenix Arms and the grandson of Ryan Ostrie. I'm a sword smith as well. Would you care to discuss your request over lunch?"

"Sure." As she walked over to me I thought one thing about my first costumer…

(She's cute.)

Occ: From here on out their will be more talk and less monologue. Enjoy! (And don't be afraid to post your comments, Lets me know what you guys and gals are thinking.)