Broken Wings
N.W. 2521
Fire and Ice
It was well into the afternoon when she came by. They'd crossed paths many times since Lloyd had settled in Doromir, but it was usually during the lunch hour.
Therefore, he was rather surprised when he stepped out of his workshop to answer the insistent ringing of the bell he'd placed on the shop counter, only to find that the woman standing on the other side of said counter was the very half-elf he'd had lunch with just earlier that day.
Corellia, it seemed, was just as shocked to see him, though she'd looked quite cross when he'd first spotted her.
He offered up a grin. "Sorry, I don't exactly have someone to man the front of the shop while I'm in the back working," he said, gesturing to the sign next to the bell which read 'RING UNTIL ANSWERED, PLEASE'.
Corellia snorted. "I'm surprised you could even hear this thing back there. I heard the racket you were making."
Lloyd laughed. "Such is the life of a blacksmith, I'm afraid. But as an angel, I have a much larger hearing range than humans or elves, and that bell's been very carefully made to emit a tone at an exact frequency that gets my attention really quickly."
"In other words, the faint 'ding, ding, ding' I hear isn't what you're hearing?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Actually, it's at a high enough pitch that it would give me a headache to listen to it for more than a couple minutes. I'm used to the noise of the forge. That bell, though..." He shook his head. "Anyway, given how strict your supervisors are, I'm guessing this isn't a social visit."
Corellia's eyes widened, and she started digging through her bag. "Oh, goodness! I was so surprised to realize you were the blacksmith that I completely forgot!" A respectable stack of papers was placed in front of him. "It seems Mr. Delphine was hoping that you'd be able to make the parts he's been shipping in from Kelduan. The specifics are there, as well as a request to meet him tomorrow for lunch to discuss it."
Lloyd found the letter in question and looked over it, eyes scanning through and finding the time the man had requested. "Fairly early lunch..." he noted.
"Yes, he does usually take off around eleven-thirty."
He smiled a bit. "I'll be happy to meet with him, but I'd much rather share my actual lunch with you, you know."
Corellia colored a bit. "I don't want to lose you out on a job..."
Lloyd chuckled. "Remember I told you I'm not exactly wanting for money? I'm the only blacksmith still alive that can use dwarven forging techniques. I won't need those skills for this order though," he added. "And no, this won't be my first time fabricating ship parts."
Corellia smiled. "That's something of a relief to hear. Well, I should get going. I have six more stops to make, and I'm expected back by four." She was already stepping backwards toward the door, though she paused as she neared it. "Do you... mind if I come by after work?"
Lloyd grinned. "Not at all! I could do with some company and, if you don't mind, that is, a second opinion on the loft," he replied, gesturing upwards with his thumb to indicate what he was talking about.
Corellia nodded. "I guess I'll see you in a few hours then."
"See ya later!" Lloyd called after her as she left.
He hadn't been lying. He'd worked on ship parts before, and nothing here looked entirely unfamiliar, though he was questioning some of the bits and bobs that seemed to be oddly sized for what he assumed they were for.
But, ship-building wasn't his job. Smithing was.
And he hadn't actually been contracted to make the parts yet, anyway, so he would likely get a chance to talk about it with Mr. Delphine the next day...
Stashing the papers away under the counter in a box he kept for that exact reason, he returned to the workshop. He hated making instruments of war, but the lord who'd commissioned the weapons he was currently forging had come all the way into town to have them made, and they were more ceremonial than anything else, something about his children and a birthday.
The problem was, it was an express order, not something Lord Orenterre had been entirely comfortable with, but Lloyd had assured him that completing it within the time frame given—a single week, which would culminate in pick-up the next evening—was within his capabilities.
Except, that had been before three more express orders and a bad shipment of ingots had gotten in his way. He'd wasted an entire day using dwarven magic to purify and strengthen the metal of the ingots, and then the extra orders had taken up another day.
While he could do all of the detail work overnight, the actual forging had to be done during the day, when everyone expected him to be making an unholy racket in his shop.
Such was the reality of living inside the city limits, though, and Lloyd was well aware of how much time he had left, and what he needed to do in order to complete the lord's order to his standards... which were likely far higher than the lord's.
Lloyd was smiling to himself as the next-to-last blade was placed with the others in preparation for sharpening, and was still quite happy with his progress when he heard it.
Five quick rings of his bell, and no more.
His smile widened, because he had a feeling he knew exactly who it was. Still...
He needed to set this blade-in-progress somewhere that would be out of his way, and yet still quite on hand for when he returned to work. And that required him to not be hammering it flat.
It took him nearly ten minutes to get his work out of the way, but he found that he'd been correct when he stepped out of the workshop and back into the front of the building.
Corellia stood to one side, and at first glance appeared to be examining one of the more ornamental weapons he had hung up on the wall. He smiled to himself as he realized what she was really looking at, though.
"I'm surprised you can see the Vorpal Blade, even using that naginata's reflection."
The half-elf jumped, turning around in a fright and taking deep, heaving breaths. "Oh... good... spirits! Don't do that!"
Lloyd chuckled. "You rang," he pointed out.
She shot him a sour look. "And you scared me half to death."
He just grinned and waved toward where the Vorpal Blade hung, the mana that kept it cloaked from most eyes dispersing and revealing the gleaming blue sword in all its glory. Corellia's eyes were locked on it, and she walked over to get a closer look.
"You called this a... vorpal blade?"
He nodded. "Yes. It's the only one of its kind in existence. The Vorpal Blade is one half of a pair of swords known as the Material Blades. Combined with a Diamond Ring and an Aionis Ring of the Pact, they become the Eternal Sword... the weapon Mithos Yggdrasill used to separate Sylvarant and Tethe'alla at the end of the Kharlan War... and the same weapon I used to reunite the two halves of the world and germinate the Great Seed of the Giant Kharlan Tree... a seed that grew into the Yggdrasill I showed you decades ago."
The wide-eyed wonder on Corellia's face told him that he'd made the right choice in entrusting her with his past.
"You said it's one of a kind... but then you said it's part of a pair?" she asked, giving him an amused look that somehow managed to convey the message of 'challenge accepted'.
Lloyd smirked, a confirmation that she was free to do as she pleased.
She wouldn't find it the same way she'd found the Vorpal Blade. The blue sword was ice, and ice reflected light just as metal did.
The Flamberge was fire, which gave off its own light.
Green eyes raked over the displays, not focusing on the weapons and armor and other assorted metalwork, but on the spaces between everything.
Except, her eyes kept coming back to a shield.
A shield that was, in and of itself, a part of the disguise.
He knew she'd seen through the illusion when the grin began to spread across her face, excitement taking the place of her confusion and curiosity.
"That shield's shadows are wrong," she pointed out.
Lloyd chuckled and waved a hand again. The physical motions weren't necessary to control the mana masking the swords, but he did have a bit of a flare for the dramatic at times, and this... this was too perfect an opportunity to pass up.
The shield vanished altogether, the brilliant red Flamberge hanging above Lloyd's head with the tip pointed toward the ground, as opposed to being settled horizontally as the Vorpal Blade was.
"Ice and fire," Corellia said, her voice barely more than a breath upon the wind. "That's why I saw the Vorpal Blade as a reflection, why the shadows were wrong for the shield..."
Lloyd nodded. "I could hide them better, but if someone's bright enough to see through the illusions... well." He stopped here and shrugged. "I have loaned them out before. Never both at the same time, and always with the understanding that they must be returned to me upon the death of whomever I've loaned them to, but they don't see enough use if I keep them wholly to myself."
"But, aren't they the Eternal Sword?"
A shake of his head. "Not like this, they aren't. They are parts of it, but they exist just fine on their own. I used to use them to fight, myself... Haven't actually done a lot of fighting lately, though. The monsters either avoid me or greet me like an old friend. Then you have to consider that I typically fly anywhere I need to go, so bandits aren't usually a problem, and even when I am traveling by more common means, showing off my wings usually sends any potential problems running for the hills."
Corellia nodded. "That makes sense, I suppose. And... I guess you haven't actually used the Eternal Sword in a while?"
Lloyd nodded. "Last use was over a century ago."
"Not Thor?"
He winced, and from the look Corellia gave him, she'd noticed.
"That... wasn't supposed to happen," he confessed. "Zelos and I have done it before, of course. Meltokio, Terce. But... Well. It was just a few centuries from Meltokio to Terce, but it's been a millennium since Terce. And our angelic mana... it gathers within our bodies, collects, grows stronger, more potent... We hadn't realized just how much power we had at our fingertips. We were just going to destroy the facility housing the mana cannon, and let the rest of the excess mana do fairly arbitrary damage around that area... which means yes, the castle would have been hit as well."
"But you went overboard."
"We did." He wasn't quite wringing his hands yet, but it was damn close. "I probably could have destroyed the mana cannon by myself. Or Zelos could have done it. Both of us hitting the city was an excessive use of force... And to make things worse, we lost Aska because of it."
"Aska's a summon spirit."
"They can die just as surely as humans or elves."
There was silence in the moments that followed, and then Corellia walked over to the counter, laying a hand over Lloyd's, which were clasped in a mockery of prayer.
"Aska isn't the first spirit you've lost."
He shook his head, shifted as if to free his hands and grab a certain pendant that had never left his personage since its gifting, but then hesitated.
Did he dare share this part of himself with her yet? Did he dare not? She understood so much already... And the open-ended way she'd phrased the statement that was just shy of being a question...
He pulled his hands free and lifted the pendant free from his neck, mana shifted and dispersing as yet another illusion was dispelled for the half-elf woman in front of him.
He set the pendant on the counter, facing her, and took a deep breath. "I told you already that the Yggdrasill is the second mana tree Aselia's known. It's guarded by a spirit named Martel... but the original Giant Kharlan Tree was guarded by a spirit called Ratatosk..."