Covered from crown to foot in sweat and soot from the fires, Cicero, the best blacksmith's apprentice for about two miles around, dropped her forge's hammer to the ground. She panted lightly as she admired her newest piece of armor, a breastplate designed for a General from the North. It was not her best, but she was certain the General would see little to complain about.
This was not the first piece that she had completed without the blacksmith, Goron, directing and overseeing her. Cicero had been working with him for several years now, since her father, a General in the King's Imperial Army, had found her a spot here.
Goron was a kind enough man, though at first Cicero had thought him a cruel taskmaster, always scolding her and shouting orders at her; but initial views, Cicero had come to realize, were often wrong. Goron had sat her down three months into her training as his striker and told her she had a talent but she wasn't using it to its full potential. They ate dinner together that night and talked and discussed her future and both their lives. That night Cicero learned that he had a child (a boy) and wife who were far away and that he missed them greatly and Cicero loved him for it; though her father had been a general he had raised Cicero to empathize with those who may be seen as an enemy—not to the extent that they kill you, of course. But that was long ago, when Cicero had been a delicate eighteen.
Walking slowly across the wide open room Cicero cleared her head of old memories. She sat down quietly and watched her breastplate glitter in the sun that bounded in through the archway. It had taken her a month to manipulate the metal into the elaborate crests and designs that the General had insisted upon having and now Cicero was certain that the General would pay her at least a hundred gold for the work she had done for him. There were vines crossing over and under the General crest, a great hawk ready to strike and three spears. Behind the crest was a dragon, lashing his tail at the bird and yawning toward a shoulder. Spirits and flowers pecked lightly along the armor, but it did not distort the idea. Either way, she thought, if a man came close enough to laugh at a flower the general would have his head.
The light patter of feet could be heard outside, closer than the townsfolk but slightly hesitant. Cicero stood from her bench and made her way back to the forge, dragging her wrist across her forehead. She was anxious for new work, and hoping that a soldier had dashed his shield or cracked his helmet, she fixed her eyes on the archway, heat licking at her back.
Had she expected a friend to come in through the door Cicero might have made herself more presentable. As it was, she had not thought a thing of her appearance and not spared a thought for a friend. Ramas strode through the door, smiling at her. As she knew he would not speak first she bayed him a "Good morning, Ramas" and made her way toward him.
"Good morning. How are you today?" he asked, a merry smile running across his face.
"I'm well enough. You haven't brought me any new work have you? I'm afraid I have a horseshoe and a kettle to mend, and that's all." She let her knees buckle playfully and looked up at her friend, "I'm dying."
Ramas too was a kind soul, very bright and charming with a dash of star-crossed fate on his side. He reached one tender hand down to Cicero, taking her callused blacksmith's hand in his own. Never once did his smile fade away.
"I have a sword that could use some mending." A small and devious thought passed through her mind as he unsheathed his belt, but it was quickly dash as the blade came into view.
"Good god, Ramas, what on earth did you do to it?"
"A horde of zombies, three trolls and a necromancer attacked me in the middle of my watch." His eyes shifted to Cicero who had walked into the sunlight to get a better look at the bent metal. "I smashed them all to pieces. I admit, I was lucky to escape with my life."
A low laugh slipped out of Cicero's mouth before she turned around, the sword rocking against her hip. "There is no need to lie to me, Ramas." There was a sweet and gentle smile playing at her lips as she spoke but Ramas' face did not reflect her emotions. His eyebrow twisted up, opposing his mouth which was turning at the edges into a frown.
"Lie to you? Do you not believe me?"
Though she tried to press her lips into a straight face Cicero found her smile to be too much for her to control. The thought passed through her mind that her wide smile might appear as more of a wicked grin, and she turned away from Ramas. The blade bit lightly into her flesh as she suppressed herself.
"Oh, Ramas, I love you dearly, but I would be a fool to think that every word from that pretty mouth of yours was an honest one. Now come, Pied Piper," the sword was balanced on two of her fingers just above her head and the light from it shone in her eyes, "tell me how you did it."
Though she could not see his face from the door a bright blush had risen into Captain Ramas' cheeks. His thumb rubbed absentmindedly at his nose as his jaw fell open to say that he had not wholly lied. "They were there," he swore "but the sword… I hit it against a boulder as I ran away."
Sunlight splashed against her hair when she turned to face him and burned in a bright halo around her head. Cicero smiled and wiped a smudge of soot onto her face, then walked across the room and placed the sword by the hearth.
"Honesty, Ramas, is all that I needed." She realized something and turned on the pad of her foot, quickly making her way to Ramas. She could tell now that he was blushing and her smile widened.
"Oh, my sweet Captain. What a silly creature you must be. Were you… were you trying to impress me Ramas?"
Though he towered over her, the sturdy blond seemed to be shrinking to the size of a mouse trapped in a corner.
"That's preposterous! Why would I—"
With one swift movement Cicero silenced him, though it seemed rather impractical that a hand on his forearm might be the culprit. Cicero looked from her calloused and soot speckled hand to Ramas whose mouth had hardly parted and could not close again. There was something very warm stirring in Cicero's breast, but what it was she could not imagine. A tenderness came over her as she said to him, "It's actually rather sweet," and after a long moment turned back to the sword.
"The gash isn't too terrible. Come back for it at the end of the week and I promise you no one will be able to tell the difference. Your sword will be even better than it was."
"Y—yes. I'll come back."
The shush of fabric and the small clinks of clips and pins told Cicero that Ramas had left, though she swore she had heard him stumble. It was, was rather ridiculous that he would fall, but he was a ridiculous man… but for all his ridiculousness she wouldn't have given him up for… She swept the sword up in her hands and set to work on it. She would not lie to him: the blade would be better than it had ever been, and she would make sure of it.
"Oh, but Goron, it is so hot. I don't think I could lift my foot, much less a hammer."
Cicero had sprawled herself out beneath the forge which most certainly was not helping her situation. The heat was intense enough without lying beneath the throbbing flames, but she could not bring herself to move. She felt as though an immense creature had set itself upon her head and drain all energy from her body. A piece of her thought that is she moved her head would fall right off her shoulders and into the fires.
Goron was sitting at the other end of the airy room, his giant's feet hanging listlessly from a table. One of his great paws was covering his face and the other had found a bucket of water and was lamely submerged into it, as though it were waiting for a fish to latch on.
"Augh, what I would give," moaned his hand "to lie here all day. But there is work to be done, little pea, and it will not do itself."
One eye in Cicero's head, the one, she felt, that had not yet melted into wax, glared helplessly at the bear of a man. "Why Goron, you do seem to be working splendidly today, I might as well join you."
"You are a right smart little ass, pea." For a quiet moment they two lay in their respective retreats but the silence was broken by a low beastly growl. "All right, I'm up, pea, now let's get to work. There's a blow hard general and three of his men who need their armor repaired and we'll have no time if we don't get to work now. Up with you."
Something dull but painfully was hitting Cicero's stomach and though she didn't want to move through the deep ocean of insatiable heat much less work, she saw little choice in the matter. She swatted at the foot (Oh! the effort!) and brought herself onto her hide, her palms pressing into the hard earth beneath the forge.
"You, my good sir, are an ass."
One great meaty paw landed clumsily on Cicero's shoulder. She put her fingers under it and waited for Goron to lift her up, which he did with a considerable effort.
"Watch who you're callin' an ass. I pay you."
"I make most of your goods and clients."
"Cheeky."
"Old."
"Ah, the love and care and time that I put into raising you and all I get is a brazen young creature who can weld a piece of copper to a shield. Oh aye, aye, I am old little pea, but when you are my age may your children give you the same lip that you give me. Old, aye."
"Is she taunting you again, Goron?"
Lingering in the door way was the tall and lithe figure of a soldier, a silhouette of man in their door way. Goron placed his hands on his knees a moment, resting his large gourd above them. His burnt beard ends shook when he spoke.
"Oh, fer the love of all things, yes, she is. She as intelligent a woman as her father was a man, with all the same wit, though she has a nasty predisposition to bitterness. I can't say that isn't natural though, it certainly seems to be a running trait." He pressed himself off his knees, his great head thrown back with little flickers of sweat. He eyed the shadow for a moment before a rascally smile stretched from cheek to cheek. "Maybe you, young Ramas, can help our little miss break her terrible ways. They say a soldier is best to tame a shrew."
"Goron!"
Ramas strolled into the room, one hand on his belt the other waving through the air. "You needn't yell, Cicero. I think it would take far more than a mere soldier to tame your sharp tongue." The two men laughed at their cleverness while Cicero sneered and tried not to look too offended.
"And you say it is my sex prone to mockery Goron?"
The old smith wrapped one of his great fur covered arms around Ramas' shoulder, making the fellow look twice as small. "Ah, but Ramas is a reasonable man. He only presses when pressed." And the two men laughed again, though Goron's was more a roar.
"Of course, Goron," Cicero drew a gloved hand across her forehead, a great black streak replacing her sweat, "but you can tell me that the next time he comes in when I'm working and tells me that I've a nice rump." She turned away from the two when she saw Goron's face drop. There was a mallet that she lifted and tossed the thing over her shoulder. As she picked up a breastplate and set to work, already pouring sweat, she could hear Goron, even over the thunderous clang of metal work, shouting at the man he had been hugging only moments ago. Cicero smiled coyly to herself, thinking of the wonderful reprieve she might find in the nearby lake.
Clear crystal spring water was irrationally hard to find within two days of the capital city. It had only taken Cicero a week to learn this. Cicero had grown up in a remote house in the forest where her father, the general, had gone away to retire. The woodlands were filled with unexplored lands and there had always been a warm spring within walking distance where Cicero could relax after a hard day's training. She had become so accustomed to talking a long walk into the woods to find relief that when she first moved into the capital she had searched high and low for a public bath house that might have suited her tastes. Each house was unfortunately worse than the next and she had quickly turned her eyes to the forests to the east. It was a day long walk to the forest and another to find the spring, but tucked away in a mountain ridge there was a small mineral spring, bubbling and just ready to step into. It was here that Cicero found herself, three years after moving in, and dying for a dip in the warm waters.
With nose touching water it would have been hard for any other human to breath, but Cicero found comfort in the proximity of the surface. She had been doing this for so long that breathing water was second nature. She could hold her breath for several minutes when she wanted. Sometimes Cicero even thought that if a thief tried to drown her she could just swim away. Her head slipped beneath the water, but even with her eyes closed she could see the sun smiling at her from the sky. After a minute she immerged, settling her head once more on the stony shores.
In the middle of the wilderness she was at peace. There was something therapeutic to the great outdoors, though she had no idea what it was, just that it was. She loved being out in the wide world with no human contact to hush her thoughts. Out here all there was was nature and thought and herself.
"Mmmm…"
Of course, there was also that. She had tried not to think about it, because, well honestly, it was a little bit embarrassing. She hadn't been infatuated with a man since… since Lukas, the smith's apprentice in the village to the south of her father's mansion had proven to be so sweet and kind and susceptible to her feminine wiles. He had been such a dashing boy, covered from head to toe is soot with those little white trails falling across his muscled body like adventures. Oh yes, Cicero thought, letting her hands fall to her sides, he had been quite the perfect boy to be enamored with, the perfect first love. And now she had a tin soldier to stand in place of her dirty working hand. This man was polished and refined and had such a humor that poor little Lukas, who though terribly sweet and older than she, was very easily embarrassed, looked a bit like are fool next to him.
A tin soldier, yes, that was what he was; in his smart baby blue jacket, with those ridiculous shoulders like smelted joints. He had that handsome smile, where his eyes would crinkle up, mischievous and young, which reminded her of a doll that her father had given to her as a child. The doll had bright polished brass buttons, maybe gold, running up and down his breast, two lines, and a bright satin cape wrapped round his shoulders. Cicero's eyes opened and she sat up straight. It was rather eerie how much Ramas was like her little soldier. Ramas of course was much more handsome than any doll, but… they even had the crossed straps along their waist that led into the jetting coat tails.
"Oh my…"
Cicero stood up from the water, splashing her way across the shallows of the spring and to the opposite shore where, just up ahead there was a little fall that she would sit beneath and cool off in. And then she would start her way back into town. And maybe… when she got there she would write to her father and ask for her doll, and tell him how wonderfully she was living and that… that she had met a man who she was falling in love with.