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caffeinewitchcraft · 6 months ago

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You are a Blacksmith

Set in the universe where your destiny is written on your arm

(The Hero and Hope) (Being Villagers) (You are the Demon King)

You are a Blacksmith.

That’s why the dragon’s fire doesn’t burn you.

“Pretty sure dragon fire is hotter than a forge,” your party’s leader pants. Kent is a veteran adventurer of twenty years to your two years and he’s seen his fair share of dragon fire before today. There are curling scars dragging the corner of his mouth down into a permanent scowl that pairs oddly with how high he has his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. He exhales noisily. “I think you’re just a freak, actually.”

“Not nice,” Sella says. The archer is your age with twice your experience. Her leather armor is well-beaten by four years running around with Kent and getting far closer to battle than an archer should. Her red hair is tied with golden thread that matches the golden charms dangling from her necklace. She adds a new one with every successful monster kill. It’s lucky she’s so stealthy or else she’d be jingling with every step. “Mande is an exception, not a freak.”

You’re a party of exceptions. Most adventurers are Villagers or Guards, common destinies that don’t always find a place within a town or village that have so many of each already. There are days you report for a mission, and you’re offered a blacksmith’s job on the spot just because of the mark on your arm.

Kent is a landless Lord. There’s a story there, you know, but it’s not one he’s ever volunteered. You can see his destiny pull at him in the remote reaches of the Kingdom, where no Lord has laid roots and the monsters run roughshod across the barren soil. Nights where you’re too far from civilization find him gazing up into the stars, his fingers curled like claws into the earth. The look on his face then is so hungry that the first time you saw it, you offered him provisions from your own pack. He’d shaken his head wryly, his scarred frown twisting, and walked off into the night by himself, only returning in the morning light.

Sella is a Guardian without anyone to look after. You knew her story before she told it to you, whispering it like a bedtime story before the end of the world. She was part of a traveling theater group. She looked after them, feeding them and retrieving those with wanderlust from their journeys before curtain call. When a monster siege led by a Demon King fell upon the city they were performing in, the Lord called his people into his castle and locked the doors.

The troupe were not his people. But they were Sella’s.

Until they weren’t.

You drag your battle hammer up and over your shoulder. Conveniently, the dragon fire has burned away the wet viscera that had been clinging to it. The metal is dark with soot, but undamaged.

The things you smith can’t be melted by any fire except your own.

The skeletal trees make the scene of this final battle oddly silent. Ash drifts from the sky, carried by a wind too high to feel. You can hear your party sniping at each other behind you and the gentle gurgle of the beast’s body settling comfortably into death.

The red dragon is beautiful. Its scales gleam and sparkle like rubies in the late afternoon sun and its talons shine like obsidian. Each part of the creature could make an average family rich for a month. You consider it from an arm’s reach away. You chew your bottom lip as you think. Your adventures have taken you across the continent from the southern coast you call your home, to the western land of rivers, to the northern desert and then here, to the eastern dry lands. After all your travels, you find yourself still thinking of home often. Crab is a delicacy where you’re from despite being so close to the water. The preparation can be tedious which makes it a dish reserved from significant occasions. Cracking the shell was always your job…

“Oh,” Sella says faintly. She makes an attempt to rise and nearly tips over in the process. If it weren’t for her bow, she’d be on the ground. Her knees shake as she uses a combination of a tree and her bow to pull herself up. “Mande, rest first! In an hour I can help you—”

You bring your hammer down on the jaw of the dragon. The bone shatters after just two blows. It’s best not to think about how beautiful it looked flying overhead or the intelligence in its eyes. You’ve always had a single-minded focus and you rely on that now.

“Leave her to her dismantling,” Kent grumbles. He’s now curled up on the ground is if in his sleeping roll, hands tucked neatly under his chin. It can’t be a comfortable position given his full suit of armor no matter how peaceful his expression. “If she’s got the energy for it, who are we to argue? Just keep the ribs intact. That’s what the client wants.”

Smash!

“It’s our turn to do the dismantling,” Sella says. She glares down at Kent. “Mande already did last week’s gryphon and the hydra. Get up!”

Smash!

“I’m an old man who needs his nap time.”

“You’re an irresponsible leader who needs to do his part.”

Smash!

“Once Mande stops swinging that thing around, I will.”

“She won’t hit you—”

“She hit me last week!”

“And I apologized for that,” you say through gritted teeth. You let your hammer fall by your feet. Your last blow sent tremors through your arms. The dragon’s jaw is like glass compared to its skull. “Sincerely.”

Sella makes a gagging sound when you fall to your knees next to the cracked skull. “Mande, don’t put your hand in there, that’s – oh, that’s so gross.”

“The book I read said it’d be…aha!” Your fingers graze something cool and metallic. You abruptly feel like crying. It’s been seven months. Seven long months of endless missions and danger and being away from home. This entire dragon is priceless, but you’ve forfeited your share for this. You blink rapidly to keep your tears at bay. You aren’t going to cry. Not until you’re sure that you’ve really found it. “Quick, hand me my waterskin.”

Your urgency gets even Kent up and bustling towards the dragon’s corpse. With trembling fingers you accept the water from Stella, pulling out your prize. It’s smaller than you thought, only about the length of your arm or a third the length of the dragon’s skull.

With bated breath, you gently trickle water over the length of it. Your party kneels beside you, watching just as raptly.

“What is it?” Sella breathes.

Kent is wide-eyed as, inch by inch, your treasure reveals itself.

“A dragon’s silver wit,” you say. The silver is mottled by the dragon’s black blood and grey brain matter. “The last ingredient I need for a Hero’s Sword.”

-----.

“You can’t just make a Hero’s Sword,” Kent is still saying a week later. He throws his hands up to the sky. “Heroes make them from air and magic and righteousness. Blacksmiths just repair them!”

You didn’t ask for Sella or Kent to follow you home. In fact, you assumed they wouldn’t. The slaying of the red dragon marked the end of your time in the Adventurer’s Guild. Now you’re ready to return to your position as the southern port’s best blacksmith and you thought they’d be ready to return to the best two adventurers the Capital Guild had.

“I’ve heard legends about it,” Sella says. She’s walking backward. You’ve already warned her that the roads this far away from Capital aren’t as smooth, but she’d scoffed at your concern. Now it’s pure stubbornness to prove you wrong that has her continuing to walk backwards despite nearly tripping twice already. “Excalibur was manmade.”

“The legend of Hero Arthur is manmade,” Kent retorts.

“If you believe that,” you say, “you really don’t need to come home with me.”

Kent blinks. “Well,” he says slowly, “on the off chance it’s not a fairytale, I desperately want to see it.”

“Then shut up and follow Mande,” Sella says. She elbows him and mutters under her breath. “Or else she might not let us stay at her house.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m sure the dragon fetched enough coin for the both of you to get your own rooms at the inn.”

“Sure,” Kent agrees. He grins wickedly and the expression makes him look ten years younger. “But we’re not going to do that, are we Sella?”

“Nope,” Sella chirps. She loops an arm through yours before you can protest and squints at the horizon. “Is that your hometown over there?”

A hazy line of blue and white roofs is barely distinguishable in the fading light of day. Sella has better vision than you. You’re sure she can see the masts of ships in port, the green and yellow flag waving over the chief’s house, maybe even the orchard that creeps right up to the edge of the bluffs.

You can’t wait to see it yourself.

You aren’t sure how long you’ve been smiling, but your face hurts by the time you find your voice. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

----------.

Mom hurls a loaf of bread at your head when you walk through the front door, Kent and Sella in tow.

Kent catches it an inch from your face. “Whoa, whoa!” He waves the bread as if unsure whether he should drop it or throw it back. “It’s your daughter! Mande! Put down the bread basket!”

“Mande and friends,” Sella says cheerfully. She waves at your Mom, Dad, and little brother. “Hello! I’m Sella.”

“I threw it because I know who it is,” your mom says. The grey streaks on either side of her temple are wider. Her round, kind face is pale with anger. “We thought you were dead.”

“We got your letters,” your dad says before you can ask. His hair hasn’t changed; he’s bald. He’s wearing his leather apron from the forge at the table. He takes a bite of soup. “All three of them.”

“Not nearly enough,” Mom snaps. Then, “And they could have been forgeries.”

“Who would forge a blacksmith’s letters home?” you ask in exasperation. Is that why she never replied? “Mom, please.”

“Don’t giveme that when you’ve been dead for seven months,” she says. She stands abruptly. “Three of you? Sit down. I don’t have enough soup, but bread will fill anyone’s stomach.”

“I’m Kent,” Kent blurts out before Sella can push him into a chair. He sits with a thud. “Sella, it’s rude to sit before introducing yourself!”

“Ruder than not knocking or coming for dinner without an invitation?” Sella hisses at him. She turns a charming smile on your little brother. “Sorry to intrude. You must be Axton. A pleasure to meet you.”

Axton doesn’t return her greetings. His eyes are fixed to the package strapped to your back. “Is that…?”

You swallow hard as your family’s eyes turn to you. You carefully pull the cloth-wrapped rod from your back. Your little brother isn’t so little anymore. You can see he’s taller than you as he stands in unison with Dad to clear a spot on the table. His long, thin hands make quick work of the ties.

There’s complete silence as the burlap falls away to reveal gleaming silver.

Axton’s throat bobs. He’s barely eighteen with the soft look of a fawn hovering around the edges of his jaw and cheekbones. Mom and Dad have done a good job feeding him while you’ve been gone. Seven months ago your brother looked like a wraith, all the light taken from him as if it all came from his hero’s sword.

“You’re going to make me a sword,” Axton says at last.

You’ve thought about this moment for seven months. You imagined you would say something like it’s okay now or maybe big sister fixed it. When his hero’s sword was taken from him, you thought about all sorts of things. It took a month for you to set out on this quest rather than one of revenge. It wouldn’t have helped Axton if you’d forged a hundred weapons of war to punish those who’d hurt him. It wouldn’t help Axton to pretend you fixed anything.

So instead you tell the truth.

“It won’t be the same,” you say. “It won’t work the way you want it to. Not right away. You’ll need to train with it and learn it as you would any other weapon. Your instincts won’t help you. But…it won’t break when I’m done. It won’t bend or chip. It won’t melt. It will serve you, Axton, until the exact moment you don’t need it anymore.”

Axton flies around the table to throw his arms around you. It’s amazing you came from the same parents. Where you are short and stocky, he’s really like a deer. His long arms could encircle you twice as he lifts you with a hero’s strength. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—”

And then you’re being hugged all around. Your dad’s strong, Blacksmith arms are crushing you to your brother, your mother’s soft cheek is against your shoulder, and there’s plate mail digging into your spleen while a sharp elbow digs into your spine.

You manage to turn your head just enough to see Kent hugging your from behind and Sella hugging him from behind. It’s her elbow that’s jabbing you.

“This is sweet,” she says. Her voice is a little muffled from how her face is pressed against Kent’s back. “We should hug more.”

“Does this make your brother a Hero?” Kent asks.

“This is a family hug,” you say.

“Duh,” Sella says. “That’s why we joined.”

You really can’t argue with that.

(Patreon)

Next week's story: Everyone in LA has two job. You've got a big smile and a talent for seeing ghosts. It's no surprise what your jobs are.

#my writing #second person #you are a blacksmith #found family merges with first family

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lovelyyandereaddictionpoint · 5 months ago

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Yandere King Naga // Part 1

Thinking about living in the forest once you’ve transmigrated to another world. Instead of getting caught up in some romance plot or adventure you decide to just live in a little cottage. Where you catch and cook your own food, making some passive income when you do venture into the town. On your way back from one of these trips you happen upon a little bundle crying on the dirt path.

“Oh my, who forgot you little sunshine?”

You smile when their crying ceases when you lightly rock them, beginning to notice a few odd-looking patches on their cheek. Then when those tiny eyes finally open little slits look back up at you while their mouth with little budding incisors open to coo at you. All of it leads to you opening up the bundled wrappings around them to find a wiggly and stubby little snake’s tail. It is then you make the perilous decision to raise this little naga in secret.

In this world, you could tell it wasn’t advanced enough to accept monsters or anything not human into the community. That you might be branded a monster as well just for caring for the creature. Nonetheless, you rationalize that this is perfect for your forest life–where you’re more likely to meet other monsters than humans. Thus your life with this little one begins and you thank his naga-biology that he grows up fast.

“I caught a mouse! Are you proud of me!”

“Yup, I’m real proud! Now come on you need a bath.”

But not too fast. Life is good for a while while you tend to the house your little one—Nox ventures to the perimeter of the forest to play before returning to you. He is still a child. Things go on normally until he comes slithering to you with snot in his nose, tears in his eyes, and babbling through tears. Hugging and holding him you check for injuries and when you find none you try to convince him to talk to you.

“What’s wrong, Nox?”

“I-I-There’s a guy out there! A-a-and he keeps following me! Look!”

Hiding behind you and clutching your pants, following his finger to the underbrush of the forest around you harden your stance. Thinking about the knife in your pocket and your other hand holding onto Nox, keeping him behind you. Watching the leaves and branches rustle with movement you prepared yourself for a fight.

“Are you this child’s guardian?”

It’s another Naga, standing tall on a tail adorned with patches of gold in his white tail. Hiding further in the brush you can tell there are black rings around the tip of their tail which seems to be coiled a lot closer. He’s lean but muscular and his golden eyes are glaring at you.

“I am. Why?”

He hisses, “To think a human would take in a hatchling purely out of goodheartedness is ridiculous. I’m going to take this child home where he belongs.”

“Nooo!”

“He’s my kid and if you want to fight for him I will do that.”

With a final pat on Nox’s head, you tell him to stay near the house. You goad the naga man into a place near the forest saying you’d rather not do this in front of Nox before taking off running. You know he’s following as you hear him angrily hiss and slither through the wood. Bringing him to a desired spot you turn keeping your knife behind you as he launches his tail in your direction. Expecting it, you dodge finally revealing your knife and aiming it at his tail creating a gash that has him hissing.

“Haaaa Insolent Human! How dare you!?”

Usually, with a knife like yours, you never would have broken the protection of the scales but taking care of Nox offered some invaluable insight. You tried to dodge again but failed as his tail coiled around you in the blink of an eye. Squeezing immediately it took you a moment to turn your knife around to stab at what scales you could. He grunted but seemingly had settled for the stab at the expense of strangling you.

“I’m going to enjoy watching the life leave from you, human! Your kind makes me sick.”

The pressure was unbearable but your adrenaline was high and with the simple gesture of bringing you closer to spit in your face you took a leap of faith. Abandoning your knife for some wiggle room you launched forward clamping onto his neck your only weapon left—your teeth.

That seemed to catch him off guard his tail unraveling enough to let the rest of your body go. Now allowed to pin him down, using your feet and hands to pin down his own as you continued to bite into his neck you didn’t stop until you heard him moan.

“Aaaa~! Wait no, please! You’ve got to let aah~!

In your peripheral, you could see his alabaster tail twirl and twist oddly. From your position, you couldn’t see his face but you could imagine what his expression was. Considering you could feel the connection of his hips bucking against your own. The final nail in the coffin other than his constant streams of wonton moans you could hear the familiar worried slither of your son coming through the wood.

He was calling for you. Hopefully, so loud he would miss the Naga continuing to make the loud moans despite you standing over him and wiping your teeth of his blood. Finally, looking at him you could see the darkened tips of their ears and cheeks as they continued to oddly curl on themselves. You didn’t bother trying to stop him, not wanting to trigger another fight you just ran scooping Nox up and barricading you both in your home. Hopefully, by the time the Naga man comes to his senses, he will have accepted his loss by then and leave.

Unbeknownst to you that Naga would spend all night shifting and rolling in their ground replaying the fight. All the while moaning and groaning, driving all the smartest predators far away. This would continue until daybreak when he finally stopped but the heat in his cheeks was far from gone.

“That–that human is perfect…a human…who would’ve guessed.”

After a day you venture out, Nox sticking close to you while you undo the locks of the door with a knife in hand. Looking out you hoped you’d find no one in the clearing near your home—that was not the case.

“Hello human!”

Slamming the door on his face, you replay the expression and the closeness that they were standing outside the door. If only to sate your curiosity you opened the door again.

“Hi–”

Slam

“How are–”

Slam

“You?”

When he seems to stay in that same place the whole rest of the day, you eventually encourage Nox to keep his nose down and help you with your chores. Ignoring the smiley Naga who was oddly no longer hostile.

“What are you doing? Hanging your human clothes? How cute can I help?

“Is this how humans catch their food? How human-like so clever I would’ve never thought a net would be how you do that!”

“You are such a good parent to your little one? Would you like to have some more?”

Once you're able to shoo the intrigued Nox away, you decide to hose this guy down for answers. Good thing he’s happy to provide them. He finally introduces himself as a King of Naga who was coming to pass judgment on a Naga child living with a human from the smaller snakes of the forest. You hold your complaints about his presumptuous assessment, to ask why he’s still here assuming the fight said that you were capable enough to raise Nox.

“Yes well, now I’m courting you!”

“Excuse me?”

“You not only bested me in battle, you also did the most submitting action and claiming that a Naga could do. You…bit me~”

“Even so…I’m not a Naga.”

“Well usually that’d matter but I am the King of all Naga once my neck has been bitten and claimed there can be no others that is until you die.”

“Can’t you just pretend I died in the battle?”

“Preposterous your my destined mate! No other will do!”

Thus your days are spent trying to explain to Nox why the Naga you fought with was hanging around so often. On top of that the King Naga whose real name was Shian, had begun to ramp up his advances. No longer happy to just wave at you behind trees or happily follow you with your chores. He gets closer, testing your boundaries and breaking them as he intends to instigate some kind of reciprocation.

He is a King, And he’ll get what he wants....eventually.

Part 2: Here

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