The air in here is hot and smoky, with a metallic twang to it.
There is a woman in front of me, hard at work shaping some sort of bronze metal. Each motion she makes is deliberate and precise, her large black wings folded behind her to keep them out of her way. As she crafts, she sings. Off-key, but in perfect time to the rhythm of her movements.
I join in. Not with words, because I haven’t mastered too many of them yet, but by humming instead. The result isn’t particularly pretty, with our pitch and tone discordant against one another. But it doesn’t matter, she laughs approvingly anyway, breaking her usually serious facade.
I desperately want to help her. So I keep clambering off the stool I am sat on; quite a task considering it is taller than I am and I don’t have full control of my wings yet. But each time I finally make it to the ground she picks me up in a deft motion, eyes barely leaving her work, and places me back on my seat.
“You’re too small, little one. I’ll teach you when you’re older.”
And I am too small. Just a nestling, really. I probably shouldn’t be in here. (But after half a dozen times of me wandering in and her dutifully taking me back outside she gave in and got me this stool to sit on.)
After sitting me down again she hands me a large silver bracelet, perhaps in an attempt to keep my hands busy and get me to stay sat down. I guess it works, because I find myself caught between fiddling with the bangle in my hands and watching her work on fashioning something with a similar shape on her anvil.
The metal in my hands feels cool to the touch as I watch her bend the ring she is working on, throw it back into the coals, and then bend it some more. She picks up her song again and I hum along with her, trying to copy what she is doing.
I attempt to bend the bracelet in my hands, to mold the metal like she is. It won’t move.
She puts her ring in the fire again. The bracelet is beginning to warm in my hands. It still won’t bend.
I stare at the bracelet, my previously melodic humming turning into a frustrated buzz. The metal is hot now, almost uncomfortably so. So I throw it.
I glare intently at the bracelet as it clatters to the ground and the woman, in a smooth instinctive motion, bends down to pick it up and hand it back to me, tutting gently. But as her hand touches the metal, she stops.
“This is… hot…”
There is emotion in her voice, but I can’t place it. I’m surprised, because she is usually so calm. I try to look at her face, to understand… but I can’t. It is like looking through water. It won’t come into focus.
And then everything fades.
[Written one morning during the journey from the Mithral Mines to Pamplaxia, the handwriting of this note is messier than usual, seemingly written by a slightly shaking hand.]
I was glad to leave the mines. The heat, the smell, and even the sounds were all so familiar. So painful. I thought it must have been memories of the Dragonlords resurfacing and bringing sorrow with them. But it isn’t them the mines reminded me of. Or, at least, it is not them that I dreamt of last night.
It was my mother.
Her name was Dione. She was a smith, like Volkan, though she mostly made much smaller things, like jewellery and trinkets. She was so talented, and perhaps the strongest woman I ever knew. Though, perhaps all children think of their parents so...
But, oh, was she a terrible singer! She could barely hold a tune; though that didn’t stop her!
When Volkan spoke of his relationship with Kyrah I thought my heart was aching for him. But now I realise it was aching for my own mother too. I suppose our relationship was not so different from theirs.
My mother and I were never very similar people. She was measured, stoic, and utterly unflappable. And I, well… I got her stubbornness, but little else. And we shared very few interests… she would have liked to have passed on her knowledge as a smith to me, I think; but by the time I was old enough for her to teach me, I was no longer content to stay still for long enough to learn. I was much too restless. Too eager to explore. Her life was slow, practiced, and safe… and I wanted none of those things.
She saw that in me and, although she maybe didn’t understand it, she tried her best: supporting me whenever she could, encouraging and indulging me when she probably shouldn’t have...
We were destined to be different people. It must have been hard for her.
Just like Volkan, my mother was never really one for words, but she would make me trinkets to show her affection. And I would… I would take these little treasures that my mother had spent so much time and effort crafting... and I would hide them! Near and far… lots of places we definitely shouldn’t have been exploring. And then I would lead my friends on adventures to find the things I’d hidden. Gods… I used to make fake maps, and riddles… and off we’d go! I used to get us into so much trouble...
And you know what? My mother never complained when I inevitably lost her latest present by dropping it in the ocean, or forgetting where I buried it. Though she definitely should have. She would just… smile, and pat my head, and then set about planning something new to make.
Oh, how could I forget all this? Forget her? I wish… I wish I could remember her face.