Chapter 2: Fragile Welds
She was there, soft and beautiful, the knowledge of time itself echoed in her eyes. A name, she told me, was a precious beast, a magic unto itself. I was told there was a name inscribed on my soul, and that name was my destiny. What is in a name, I wondered. What is it that I was destined for.
Hearth and Fire
Kovar took me back to her shop near the entrance to town, carrying me in her arms along the way. I was in and out of consciousness, but I got the distinct sense that no one was looking at us. Who would look at a woman like that carrying a bloody mess in her arms?
The smithy was occupied by five people when we arrived. A skinny woman standing at the counter and four smiths hammering away in the back.
"Boss!" the skinny woman shouted as Kovar stepped in. Every other noise stopped. Then all eyes were on me for a few seconds. "Ladies! Run a bath. We need bandages and salve. And from the look of it, she going to need a hair or seven cut."
Without another word, motion picked up as four filthy women and the front counter woman directing traffic. After a few minutes, the skinny woman was directing Kovar to lower me into a large basin.
"Alright, love," she said, wiping my forehead as Kovar brought me to the heat of the water. "This is going to hurt. You're probably going to pass out. If you need to scream, no one will judge you. And screams are common from the shop, so you'll cause no trouble." She looked up and met Kovar's gaze. "The lady have a name, or we just going to call her 'lady' and 'love', sweetheart?"
"Flux," Kovar smirked just before lowering me the last little bit into the water.
I didn't hear anything else. I didn't feel anything else. I simply woke up in a bed, wrapped in soft silk. A tray table was positioned next to the bed with water, some sort of fruit, and a brick of cheese. Practical rations for an invalid.
The skinny woman from before was seated in a large armchair across the room, watching intently.
"Well, Flux," she said softly, "it was a tight thing for a while, but when you started breathing again, we knew the worst was past. That's going to hurt like fire for a few suns. But you're safe."
"Thank you." I tried moving to properly face her, but everything lit up as I twisted my body, draining me completely in an instant.
"Oh, don't move, you," she was up and crossing the room. "I'm happy to manage food, clothes, bathing. Even the necessaries are under control. You have one job for the duration: rest."
"Again," I groaned around the aches, "thank you. May I have a name to call you?"
"Ko calls me Nico. Short for Fernico," she smiled. "My folks thought I'd be a smith. Then I turned out like this." She gestured up and down her form. "She and I have been together since before it was just her."
"Can I call you Nico? Or would that be weird?"
"You can call me Ma if you like. Or Fer. Or Fernico. Nico is typically reserved for my belle." She took a bit of the cheese from the table and broke some off to feed me. "But I suppose if Ko doesn't mind, it won't hurt."
I chewed on the sour cheese for a minute before swallowing. "Thank you. I'll think on it."
"Ko tells me you don't remember none, Flux." She cut a small piece off the fruit and brought it to my lips. Sweet, soft, wet. It felt like love. "It's okay. We'll still find a place for you. You look like you know how to use your hands."
"If I do, then someone will need to remind me what I do."
"Oh, it'll be fine, I assure you." She held the glass of water to my lips, letting it gently trickle into my mouth. There was salt of some sort dissolved in the liquid, and it puckered my whole face. "Most hand skills are muscle deep. Same for arms and legs. It's the head skills you have to worry over. Once the memory's toast, the skill's toast, too."
"And what if I didn't work with my hands?" Another piece of cheese. After the water and the fruit, it tasted different. Sweeter somehow. "I'm happy to learn, but it may take time."
"There's a woman who passed through here, Flux," she began petting my hair. I realised at the touch that they had indeed cut off a lot of what had been there. "It was about twenty years ago now. A healer. A fighter. A noble spirit like none other. A few years later, her husband followed. A nurturer. A defender. A scholar's mind." She gave me a bit more water. "Everyone has skills. Everyone is useful. Everyone finds a way to contribute."
"You just named off two people with six skills between them." I fought the pain to turn and face her properly. "I'm one person with possibly zero skills. How can you be so sure of this philosophy?"
"I suppose it's because you look a bit like them. Like if the two of em had a couple daughters, you'd be one." She smiled. "His eyes and lips and hair. Her build and chin and ears. Their shared love for something far off."
"And what if you're wrong?"
"Then we sell you for meat, obviously," she smiled as she pushed me back to my previous position. "And then we tell stories to the next stray about the girl who was useless. Serve a fine purpose then."
"Nico," I said, tasting the name on my tongue. "Thank you."
"Go to sleep, Flux," she grinned as she stood and walked toward the door of the room. "You've a rough sun before you on the morrow."
The Crack of Iron
Morning came before the sun. An odd series of words to say 'I woke up in searing pain because I rolled over in my sleep, and nothing felt right until I was fully uncovered and incapable of returning to sleep'. But it served well enough in the moment, so
Morning came before the sun. The weight of my injuries held me largely in place. From the tightness of open wounds knitting together too quickly, to the fatigue of muscles that had been crushed by fear – and probably actually crushed in some cases – I was bound to the bed, but I had apparently sorted how to roll over.
I began the work of sorting what functioned and what was simply there for show. The sooner I rose from invalid to receiver of care, the sooner I could begin contributing, after all.
Toes seemed to move without much issue. Shifting to larger, I gave my feet a couple of test flexes. Left was struggling, right was mostly fine. Moving to my knees, I found neither quite wanted to bend, but I sure couldn't blame them after the running. Fingers wiggled without issue. Wrists locked slightly in some positions, but that was to be expected. Elbows were weak but willing.
Each motion proved I was better than I expected, so I gave an effort toward sitting proper. The remainder of the food Nico had fed me was still on the side table, and my stomach announced proudly that rebellion was imminent without satisfaction.
A first pass at getting vertical seemed to tear open skin I hadn't known was weak, and I fell back to the sheets. My back burned in streaks that seemed to have little concern for order or direction. Had I been clawed by a beast?
Something inside me nudged itself forward, an aching for light, and suddenly my hand was awash in yellow cold-flame. It felt foreign but correct. Like a friend returning after a lifetime apart. Under its pale yellow glow, I looked worse than beast-mauled. I should have been dead.
Nausea gripped me, and I was grateful for the pail situated at the bedside.
Slowly, I worked my way to a proper vertical, burning lashes be damned. The room spun, but I needed food in me. The room would need to wait its turn for attention.
I took a bite of the fruit. In the absence of the cheese, it simply tasted like a wet, sweet, tart thing, but it nourished me nonetheless. Following the fruit with the cheese was horrific. Like eating the smell of unwashed clothes. Still, I swallowed the thing and proceeded to gulp down water and wash away the taste. I nearly spat it out, but I was thirsty.
"Noted," I whispered, "order was intentional."
A long time passed as I sat, barely enough food in me to be worth it. I knew standing was out of the question, but I wasn't ready to lie down and await Nico's return. So I sat in the silence.
Dasara the Dolly was sitting beside me. The name felt misplaced, but it was better than nothing at all.
Taking her in hand, I finally let myself take in the details. Dasara was lovingly crafted. By hand, from the look. Her face was carved from bright wood. Ash. How did I know that? There was a deep crack down one side of her face, like she'd been crushed just the same as me. Glass beads had been carefully inlaid as eyes, bright blue. She wore a bright yellow dress, brand new. Hand made by a caring soul.
"We both seem to be far from home, Dasara," I whispered, "but so long as we stick together, we won't be far from love."
I stroked Dasara's not exactly golden hair, removing tangles as I went. We had to be presentable for the proper morning once it arrived. She and I, both. There wasn't much to do for me, but at least she'd be a bit better for the care.
Lying back down, I clutched Dasara tightly and counted my breaths. One. Two. Three. The sounds of children laughing, a memory caught up on tangles, seemed to echo back from the darkness. Four. Five. Six. Finally the first strike of steel on steel. The forge was coming to life for the sun.
Nico opened the door slowly at first, probably an effort to avoid waking her patient. The light fell on the small table first, revealing I'd been eating, and she immediately threw open the door, brightening the room far more than my cold-flame had.
"Awake enough to eat, strong enough to move," Nico said without looking at me. "Both good signs. But what did I tell you, Flux?"
"You'd take care of me."
"Right. I'm taking care of you, and if you ruin my —" her eyes went wide and she rushed to the bed, throwing the sheets back and yanking my dressing gown up to inspect my back. "What did you do to yourself, woman?"
So I had been bleeding again. I couldn't be surprised. And she shouldn't either. Who could heal that quickly?
"Well, this mean's you'll be in bed at least another sun," she said with a click of her tongue. "But that's for the best probably. I see you lost your stomach in the bin just there. A bit of the vertigo, have you?"
Her manner of speech was strange, I noticed. Shifting between dialects of several cities and several regions. I couldn't pinpoint any of it, but I knew it to be wrong on some level.
"Could you try asking that, again, Nico?"
"Dizzy when you sit up. Nauseated when you move. World spins when you don't." She raised her brows. "That sound like you at all, Flux?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Don't ma'am me, Flux. That's for Ko's sister. We're just humble workers here." She smiled with just half her mouth. Not a smirk. A memory. "Iron was a whip and a half. And her hammering arm was unrivalled. Wouldn't think it to look at her, but she could cut your throat fifty ways before you had a moment to ask her name."
"She retired from 'the game'," I parroted the words Kovar had said. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"How old are you, Flux? Thirty? Forty?" She slapped her forehead. "Sorry, I suppose you wouldn't remember that. Or why the game matters, now I think of it." She sat on the bed next to me. My stomach tried to jump out of me at the move, but it could've been worse. "Suffice it to say that Iron showed us we could stand up. Her and Ko's mother was also called Iron. And her mother before that. Kovar and Iron's smithy goes way back.
"A long time past, a woman came in from a city down phobward. Not really important who she was, but what she did." There was a fondness in the words. This was a ghost story told to children for generations. "She paved the way for two warriors to come and change the game. Left strict instructions to take care of those souls and then vanished. So Kovar and Iron became something of a place for rest for the weary traveller.
"Well, Ko's sister, she was taken. Turned into a weapon mostly by accident. A Thorn," Nico mimicked stabbing someone. "And what does a weapon do to a villain?" She smiled broadly. "She came back, and she was already a legend by then. Rumours of an Iron Thorn. Silliness. She just wanted peace.
"But legends don't get peace. Legends get followers. Followers get attention. Attention gets danger," she paused, blinking against glistening eyes. "She headed out of town, taking the strays with her, and then found a way to leave even them behind. Last I heard, she's married to a shopkeep in a podunk town out eveward. Good on her."
"Wish I'd known her, Nico." My own eyes betrayed a sadness from somewhere lost. "Sounds amazing."
Gold, Ash, and Fury
The rest of the sun was an amalgam of Nico berating and tending to me, Kovar checking in and fussing about the state of the room, and various smiths popping in to keep me company. It would've been a nightmare if it weren't somewhat endearing.
I noticed they all seemed to bear the same tattoo. The smith's hammer, just below the collar. A mark of pride? A symbol of something greater?
When the time came for supper, Nico came into the room with a scowl. "Ko's demanding you come down to eat. 'Like a family,' she says." The scowl shifted into a smile. "I may not like the idea, but at least it will confirm how you're recovering. We're going to dress you like a working girl, but we'll keep the silks. No sense making things a kerfuffle, you know."
She really wasn't giving me the chance to argue or adjust. Just cold calculus to convince me it was time to try my legs.
"Now, first things first." Nico pulled the blanket off of me and inspected all the injuries. "You look like you took a beating, which you did, but it's passing. So. Out you pop."
She yanked at my feet with a practised elegance, turning my whole body in a single harmless motion. The soul-deep ache of my muscles fighting the effort was little consolation for the forceful, successful, manoeuvre. My feet swung down and barely brushed the floor as they bumped into the bed I sat upon.
"Alright. Now swing them with feeling, prawn mouse," she said gently. When I barely moved my feet, the left slower than the right, she started rubbing and moving them on my behalf. "You're doing right well, Flux. Right well indeed."
"I'm relieved someone thinks so." I inhaled sharply around an intense shock from my knees. "So tell me, what exactly is a prawn mouse? You and Kovar have both called me one."
"Little rodent. They live in caves and castles and courtyards. Anywhere really. Tiny things that wouldn't harm a thing." She laughed. "Though you look the part of one who could, had she the need of violence."
"Only because I'm covered in open cuts and scrapes that look like a warrior."
"No. Not quite." She pulled me to my feet, slipping herself under me for support, and dragged me toward a brightly polished steel panel. "How's that neck work, prawn mouse?" I twisted it freely and painlessly. "Good."
Nico faced me away from the mirror and lifted my dressing gown, revealing my bare back. A battlefield all its own. It was covered in red steaks interweaving with each other. All the way from my shoulders, just below the neck, down to my legs.
"Lashes of one punished, Flux. Someone wanted you to learn a lesson." She lowered the gown back into place and moved to a closet in the corner of the room, leaving me wobbling, but holding my ground. "Based on the state of you, I'm not sure you learned it."
I worked myself about and took in the woman in the mirror. A stranger who moved as I moved.
Her skin was a pale sort of olive colour, not exactly tan, but certainly not the pink of a proper lady. Her eyes were a silver blue, not grey but something brighter. The short hair, hacked away with a purpose, was a choppy sort of orange gold. Lips a bit too plump. Nose a bit too pointy. Ears too small for the head that carried them.
A flash of something stabbed at my awareness. Remembering something? Perhaps. But what?
"You know," Nico's voice relieved the pain for a moment, "it's a shame we have windows in the dining area. You cut a fine figure in that dressing gown. Minus the hair anyway."
We laughed together before returning to the task of readying me for supper. The clothes were that of a working woman. A yellow linen dress and an apron white as snow. Tied about with a sky blue sash, the whole thing made me look almost like a
"Dolly," I whispered, feeling my eyes moisten and burn.
Dasara was in my hands. How did she get there. I looked from the doll to the mirror. Something was so close to the surface. Skin and eyes matching my own. Hair and clothes as well. We were almost twins. Why?
What did it mean?
A man's voice echoed in my ears. "Everything she'll ever want for. Everything she could need." A warm smile, but only the lips. Perfect lips and brilliant teeth. "Even a little dolly, love."
The world went golden. A fire from within. Not my hand, but my whole. Not a burn, but a cooling freedom. Who was this doll? Who was that man? Everything began to collapse around me. What did it mean?
I didn't hear Nico's voice. I knew she was screaming. I didn't hear Kovar rush to my side or feel her gentle hands. But I knew she was moving me to safety.
Did I have a daughter?