She woke early. So early that the sun was not even up yet. Dressing quietly and being careful not to wake her younger sister in the bed beside her, she tied her belt around her waist and turned into the hall of her home. Skipping the stair that creaked, a moment later she was out in fresh air. Sort of. She was in the forge underneath the house. It was cool and dewy outside, and the moon was just setting. Turning to the large wooden worktable that held the blacksmithing tools and was shoved in a corner, she snatched a box of matches and turned to the forge. Striking it against the side of its box, the match suddenly lit into being a flame. She stoked the fire and added charcoal. Soon, her hands and face were as black as the smoke escaping up the brick chimney.
"You're up early." She turned to see her older brother, William, who was leaning on the doorway rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
"I'm up the same time I usually am." She responded indifferently.
"Which is early." He pointed out. "Really Sween, your sleep schedule isn't making your life any easier." Sween shrugged.
"Are you going to help or just stand there making smart remarks?" She asked. William grinned.
"No, I'll help. Peter was wailing anyways and not letting no-one sleep."
"That's what toddlers do, William." William shrugged as he snatched an old plowshare and threw it into the now suffocatingly hot fire.
"I wish he wouldn't, anyways. I like six solid hours of sleep, at least." The sun was beginning to rise and the two worked in silence for a long hour. Blacksmithing was not a work that inspired conversation. Anika appeared, looking annoyed. Sween and William exchanged a glance. Their eight-year-old sister always wanted things done in a specific, particular way and was prone to whining when that didn't happen.
"Peter won't stop wailing." She said. William wiped sweat off his forehead.
"And what do you expect us to do about that?"
"Tell him to stop!" She snapped, stamping her foot.
"Anika, you are being just as awful as he is." William responded.
"Can you go start the fire in the kitchen?" Sween asked. Anika gave them the biggest eye roll Sween had ever seen as she flounced back up the stairs, muttering about bossy sisters. William sighed and picked up his hammer once again. He finished the nail he was hammering out of the broken plowshare and hardened it in the water with a satisfying phisss. He set the nail up on the brick wall to cool further. The sun was just casting golden rays across the smithy.
"What'll happen when I have to leave next year?" He sighed. "Ma can't take care of everyone. And you're still only a girl-Sween, you can't do all the work yourself." Sween didn't reply, just continued hammering at her own nail. He was right, as he usually was. At thirteen even Sween had to admit that she couldn't handle the smithy on her own. She needed help. But William would turn sixteen and he'd be forced to enlist. It was the law; 'all eligible bucks must enlist in the Natalian Grand Army or The Natalian Grand Navy' It was the law. Everyone knew it. And William was fifteen with his sixteenth rapidly approaching. And their mother was sickly and frail and had only gotten worse after their father's death. Sween shoved all thoughts regarding her parents out of her mind and focused on the nail in front of her. She finished it, hardened it, and set it beside the one that William had already made. "Really Sween," He protested, "What will you do?"
"Protest the law." She said sarcastically. No one was stupid enough to protest a law stamped with the king's signature and ring.
"Very funny. But you'll still have to go to school and Ma isn't strong enough to work in the smithy anymore, and Anika's too small and young to lift and of the hammers yet, so I repeat, what will you do?" Sween paused, the wind briefly stirring the claggy air and offering a short relief.
"I don't know." She said at last. "We've still got a year, and that's another year for me to learn." William slumped against the brick wall.
"I know. But the thing is, Pa couldn't teach me everything, and he'd only just begun to teach you. So, my knowledge is just as incomplete as yours. And we're the only blacksmiths for miles around and certainly the only ones in the Hollow. Besides-very few can even pay for things like nails or steel tools."
"You two come up for breakfast!" There mother called from the top of the stairs. It must be one of her good days. One of those days where she could get up and act their mother, not just an invalid that lay in bed while Anika or Sween or even William stayed home from school to tend her. Sween preferred the bad days. Then she didn't have to go to school unless William made her. And William usually didn't make her.
Exchanging a glance with her older brother, they put the tools down, poked the fire a bit, and went upstairs.
"Sween, you're a mess. Go clean up." Their mother ordered immediately. "You too William." Sween obeyed testily and returned with the soot washed out of her fur just in time to receive the last scrapings of oatmeal from the pot.
"We've got the nails ready for Mr. Olivier." William said. "We can drop them off on our way too school."
"Good. Peter, Edmund, eat your food, don't wear it." Peter and Edmund were four-year-old twins. Just beside them sat three-year-old Rosetta, eating her food carefully. She had just been born when their father had been killed.
William was named for him. The Senior William had been a kind, wonderful buck, a good father, A superior blacksmith, and an excellent soldier. He had just been promoted to Lieutenant when the attack happened. It had been further north; up near the Savoury den, not near Nick Hollow. Wolves had overrun the place, killing many and injuring more. Sween's father, a Half-Wind soldier, had been deployed along with a squadron of other fighting bucks to quell the wolves and send them running. It hadn't worked. Over run and outnumbered, the wolves made a massacre of the place. No one survived. The brutes took what they wanted and turned tail back to there territories high up in the northern mountains were sunlight never touched. Where even the birds of prey dared not go.
So, there were six of them; more than their mother could manage. But the neighbors helped take care of the little ones, so things had been better for a long time. But not for Sween. She stared at her empty bowl and after a moment stood and collected the rest, ordering Anika to help her with the dishes, and she petulantly complied. Never for Sween. Things never got easier for her; they never got simpler. They never got happier. They simply were. She was simply there. A moment passed and Anika said,
"You ain't rubbin' the dish, Sween. You rubbin' that foul old scar." Sween looked down. Her sister was right. Her fingers were pressing into the small cicatrix that ran the length of the back of her hand. Faintly pink skin replaced where there had once been dark grey fur. She swallowed hard and picked up a rag and scrubbed at the dish. "You all right Sween?" Anika asked, glancing at her worriedly. Sween nodded numbly.
"Let's just get these dishes done." She responded. She didn't want to think about the scar.