Heirlooms

"Grandpa?" The young voice was coming from the doorway. It was late, the moon was high in the air, and they were both supposed to be asleep. So Girald didn't shoo or criticize the child. He turned the light on and smiled down at her instead.

"What is it, Francine?" he asked gently.

Francine blinked her eyes a few times at the lights. It had been very dark in the house, and her eyes had long since grown accustomed to that darkness, so the sudden light was momentarily painful. "I wanted to ask you something, but mommy specifically told me not to talk to you about it."

Girald chuckled at that and nodded to the girl. "Well then, I suppose this is the only time of day you could get away with asking it of me," he said. He invited her to come and sit in his lap, which she gladly did, having to wiggle her way up onto his legs in the chair and make herself comfortable. In the dark of the night, by a solitary candle, Girald had been polishing an old sword that had been past down in his family for several generations. He had tried to pass it off to his own son, but he had rejected it. Girald was disappointed, but did not speak out against his son's wishes. "What is it you would like to ask me?"

Francine looked down at the half polished sword before looking back up at her grandfather. "Why do you keep that around?" she asked. "I've seen you swinging it at nothing out in the yard sometimes. Aren't you too old to be playing pretend? And mommy said it was dangerous to touch it, but it seems like what you do is way more dangerous than just touching it."

Girald chuckled again and absentmindedly ran his hand through the young girl's hair. "First of all, you should learn "its" name. It's called a sword." Francine nodded at him fervently. She was a curious girl, and she loved her grandfather's stories. "It's been in our family for over six hundred years, passed down from father to son."

Francine's eyes flared up at that. "It's that old?" she asked, mystified. "Where did it come from?"

"That's a good question," he replied. "Some say that one of our ancestors was a blacksmith, and he made it himself. Some say that ancestor was a master of combat, and had the sword commissioned for his personal use. Either way, it is a magnificent blade." Francine was too busy staring at the sword in wonder, so Girald smiled and continued with her other questions. "When you see me in the yard with it, I am practicing my sword fighting. When my father passed it on to me, he insisted that I not only care for it, but permit it to care for me."

Francine frowned and looked at him in confusion. "How is it supposed to care for you?"

"I learned to fight with a sword for two reasons. Firstly, it keeps me healthy and strong. Doing so ensures that I have a good amount of control over my body, that my muscles stay strong and limber, and that my heart and lungs remain powerful. Secondly, it protects me. If anything were to happen to me or my family, I know that I will be able to pick up my sword and do something about it."

Francine paused and looked at the sword, and Girald allowed his words to sink into her mind. When she looked back at him, he could see the burning question in her eyes that he had anticipated. "Why didn't you give it to daddy?" she asked.

"I tried to," he replied. "But your father didn't want it. He's a pacifist. He believes in solving problems through words, not fighting. And there's nothing wrong with that. The world needs more people like that."

"But then why do you still want to be able to fight?"

"Because as long as there are bad people out there, I want to be able to protect my family from them."

Another long pause.

"Can it only be passed down to sons?"

Girald smiled warmly. "Every tradition will be broken eventually," he said. "But not tonight. When you are a little older, and a little stronger, I will teach you how to use this sword. If you still want me to."

Francine smiled brightly for a moment, then frowned, remembering her final question. "But mommy..."

Girald ruffled Francine's hair lightly. "Mommy will love and support you no matter what you choose. And I will teach you how to use this sword safely and properly. I will teach you when to rely on it, and when not to. Mommy knows that I will teach you that well. When you are ready to learn, she will be ready to let you."

Francine smiled brighter than ever and tightly hugged her grandfather's neck. "You're the best grandpa," she squealed.

Girald chuckled. "I try to be," he told her. "Now you should be getting back to bed, so you can dream of the good things you will do someday."

Francine giggled, but jumped out of his lap and raced back to bed, before her mother caught her out and about.

Apprenticeship

Raine smiled softly as she looked down at the necklace between her fingers. She had lost her old one in an accident, and Leo had seen how heartbroken she had been over it. Three weeks later, he had shown up during her lunch shift, covered in sweat and ash, a crushed up paper towel in his hand that he pushed into her hands with the biggest grin on his face she had ever seen him give. Inside was an exact duplicate of her necklace that Leo had forged for her. She had kissed him right then and there, completely disregarding the mess that he was, or the fact that she was still at work. It had taken ten minutes to clean up afterwards, and the customers and her co-workers had teased her about it for the rest of the day, leaving her face beet red until the end of her shift.

She had gone straight to the smithery afterwards to wait for Leo to get off work, a large nalgene full of ice water tucked into her bag for him. He smiled when he saw her, but she handed over the water before he could say a word, and he gratefully drank heavily from it.

"So I take it you like it, then?" he asked teasingly. Raine looked up at him and smiled. They were walking together now, and she was letting him lead her, and and she had gotten distracted thinking about the effort Leo had gone through for her. She had let him examine her old necklace before she had lost it, and he had faithfully recreated it to precise measurements. He had told her that that was why it had taken so long - he wanted to get it just right.

"I love it," she said happily.

Leo chuckled. "Yeah, it sure seemed that way, the way you kissed me."

Raine blushed and shoved on Leo's arm fruitlessly, but couldn't hide the shy smile on her face. It had felt good kissing him, even if she didn't want to admit it. She wondered if her had felt the same.

They walked in comfortable silence for some time longer before Raine spoke up again. "I know you told me why you got into blacksmithing," she said, "but you never really told me how."

Leo hummed to himself as he sometimes did before speaking. Raine had learned that that meant he was choosing his words. "Funny story, that one," he finally said. "My dad took me to a Renaissance Faire. It wasn't the first one we had been to - we both had full outfits at that point - but it was the first time we both kind of had ideas of what we wanted to do, and they didn't really match up. So we agreed to go our separate ways. I must have watched the blacksmith there working for a couple hours straight. Eventually he asked me if I wanted to feel what it was like to swing the hammer. I accepted, of course. Then after a while it was to feel the heat of the forge. By the time my dad came to find me so we could leave, I was working on my first piece. I kept in touch with that smith. And when I started looking for work, he hired me."

Raine giggled and smiled brightly. "I'd like to see that outfit of yours one of these days."

Leo smiled. "Why don't you come on up and I'll show you."

Raine's eyes widened as she very abruptly realized they were standing in front of the door to an apartment building. He had lead her back to his home. She tried to stutter out a response, but the words weren't coming to her.

Leo chuckled and hummed as he turned away and went inside, leaving the door open behind him for her to follow. She hesitated until he was almost out of sight up the stairs before she rushed in after him.

On the frontlines

Kingsley held up his hand, signaling the relatively small group of two hundred marching behind him to come to a halt. They had a series of groups like this marching around to their positions along the high ground of the hills, preparing for the battle that would take place in the valley below the next day. Knights dismounted their horses as squires gathered supplies to make camp for the night, and Kingsley stayed mounted, looking out into the valley and making plans.

Greeves pulled his own horse up beside Kingsley's and greeted him with a soft, "Commander." He waited patiently as Kingsley thought about what was to come the next day, what orders were, and how to go about executing them. Greeves had worked with Kingsley for ten years, and fought beside him in three separate wars. He had watched Kingsley climb the ranks, learn to lead, and become a force to be reckoned with. Most knew that Greeves was no lesser man than Kingsley, but did not feel the need to climb, and was satisfied to work beside Kingsley. They had learned to trust each other. They were forged as a pair, a sword and shield for the king, to protect his lands and bring him new ones.

"We have the tactical land," Kingsley eventually spoke aloud. "Our archers will be able to rain death upon them as they approach. But the moment we need to descend, we will find ourselves struggling. The cliffsides are too steep. The horses will hardly want to attempt them, and our enemies will find themselves on much more solid footing as we slide down to meet them."

"The logical decision would be too find a more gentle path down," Greeves said, knowing already what his friend would say in response.

"Yes, but that path would take significantly longer to descend, and leave an open path for them to advance upon. If they were to send even a few up the center as we moved around to meet them, they would be able to attack not only us from behind, but our allies as well."

"Would we truly have a need to fall on them? If we can make them come up to us on the top of the hill, we will be able to simply hold them back from a-high."

"That is assuming that we can make them feel like they can approach. They know that we have the advantage as long as we stay up here. They would have to be insane to approach us."

Greeves fell quiet, an the two looked out over the valley. The sun was hanging low in the sky, painting the horizon brilliant shades or red and orange. The next day, the valley would be painted with those very colors. They hoped to be the painters, not the paint.

Kingsley sighed and dismounted, leading his horse back to camp, and Greeves followed suit. "Perhaps it would be best to eat before giving it anymore thought," Kingsley said. "It has been a long day."

"Aye," Greeves agreed. "That it has."

Language of the smiths

James let the massive bag he had been carrying on his shoulders drop to the ground, making a massive thump as it did so. He had been wandering the wilds of an entirely separate continent on his own for nearly a month, and the backpack he had brought with him was significantly lighter than it was when he began, but still heavier than most average people could lift, much less carry for extended times. He smiled to himself, looking up at the building that he had come across some distance from the town where his journey was to come to an end.

The smell was powerful and instantly recognizable to him, even in such different lands than those he had grown up in. Smoke filled the air, loud ringing noises accompanying it, and so he began to dig through his pack.

James was an experienced camper. He knew that any weight he put onto his shoulders needed to be vitally important, else he ran the risk of putting himself in needless danger of injury. But from within his pack, he pulled a small, three pound hammer, and a pair of iron tongs, both of which he had been unable to use in any useful capacity until this very moment. With a fresh lungful of smoke, James pushed his way into the shop.

Almost immediately eyes fell on him, his complexion and stature visibly different from those of the workers in the smithy. They called out to him in their own language, but to James they sounded like little more than babes speaking before they could fully form words. He knew better though, assuming they must have asked something about what he wanted and, without a word, held his hammer and tongs up with a smile.

The smiths blinked for a moment, recognizing the tools, but untrusting of the man brandishing them. They called out to him once more, questions clearly being asked, but James had no idea what questions those were or what answers were being hoped for. He just smiled once more and held out the tools again, attempting to urge the men to understand he was one of them.

The men looked at each other and muttered back and forth for a moment. Finally, an apprentice was sent forward, and brought James to one of the forges given a small piece of steel, as if as a test that he was indeed who he claimed to be.

James happily set to work pumping the flames of the forge, heating and shaping the metal into a new form with a new purpose. The apprentice watched him closely and, having eventually decided that James was in fact who he claimed to be, the men were content to return to their work and let James use the spare space.

James grinned a toothy grin to himself as he worked and watched the other men work. Their styles were massively different from one another, and they each had much to learn from each other. This was what he had been hoping to find when he had set out on his journey. A chance to learn and share. Speech did not matter. The language of steel and flame was enough.

Order

There is a small part of story writing that seems obvious and simple, and yet I quite frequently see it played with, both to a stories benefit and its downfall. The order in which thinks happen. This can mean a variety of things, of course, but the first and most obvious is the timeline of your story. You want there to be an order of events, an understanding of when things happen, and a clear distinction of the relationship between one event and another. At least, most of the time you do.

Rules can always be broken. When you want your story to be unsettling and uncomfortable, telling the events out of order is always a good starting point. And of course, there are many stories that start just before the pivotal moment, and then flashback to the story of how they came to that point in the first place. Many don't even reveal until the very end of the story how it began, revealing in the final moments that the narrator is really the main character telling their story from some other point of view that casts the entire thing into a different light.

But there is another type of order in stories. An order of how things must be done, rather than an order of how they are actually done. On a very basic level, this is more or less the same. A character can't die before they are born, after all. But assume that a character is on a quest? An errand is set before them, an errand of epic proportions, and in order to accomplish that adventure, they must do things in a very specific order. Talk to this person to collect this item so it can be brought to another person in exchange for another artifact, so on and so forth until he ultimate goal is accomplished.

But what happens when these orders are broken?

As I see it, there are two possibilities. The first, and the more preferable, is that the rules of the world begin to collapse, giving the main character new capabilities and importance in their story, as they become the moving force, rather than an effect of that force being pushed on them. The second possibility is that nothing changes. The order becomes irrelevant. The entire story begins to fall apart, because by changing the order, you reveal that nothing actually matters. Any growth that once could have been is eliminated, because the events that built upon each other to culminate in that growth are torn asunder.

An excellent example of what I mean by this is the film adaptation of the book, The Dark Is Rising. Under only one circumstance should you ever watch the movie if you enjoyed the book - because you want to see how spectacularly something can fail. Many things are changed needlessly in the movie, but the biggest of them all is order. In the book, five rings must be collected, and in a very specific order, for only with the power of the previous can the next be unlocked. In the movie, this order is shot to hell. Not a single ring is collected in the same order in the movie as they are in the book.

Why was this change made? What advantage did it have over the original?

None.

It completely changed the pacing of the story, making the rings completely irrelevant to each other. In fact, the climax of the book, the big final battle, in the movie is moved to before the rings are even fully collected, forcing the final ring to be changed to an idiotic explanation that has absolutely nothing to do with anything that has happened. Each scene in the movie is its own beast, completely unrelated to any scene that preceded it, other than the fact that the main character is in them.

It's amazing how important such a small detail can be. It can make or break a story. It can instill a sense of time, or it can make a reader question what the hell is even going on. Such a small matter, yet one must think long and hard about what they want their story to be before deciding on it, else risk utter ruin. Pretty impressive for something that seems obvious.

Artistry

Lately I've found that I am much more capable of writing based on visual prompts than textual ones. Images of vivid worlds and wonderful creatures fill me with inspiration, and they make me think about what kinds of stories might be told in those worlds, or take place in them. What events might have brought those worlds about, and how an outsider might think of it looking in from the outside. They make me want to be able to make a reader see those worlds in their minds as they read. But I'm not particularly good at descriptions. It's good practice for me to be doing this, but it's also quite frustrating knowing the world I want to see, but not fully getting the image of it as I read back through my writings.

It's times like this that I wish I were more of an artist.

I've never been very artistically inclined. I often describe myself as not being able to draw a good stick figure. I've never understood color theory, or how to make lines align the way I want them too, or even really how to make a basic silhouette. I'm not one for measuring out my lines, as I have seen some artists do, although my free hand style often means that proportions are hilariously incomprehensible.

Further concepts, like shading, depth of field, and perspective are entirely outside of my field of vision. My handwriting alone is poor - what hope have I of ever making something beautiful?

Yet it seems as though everyone around me is capable of drawing. They complain frequently that they cannot, but in comparison to me, not a one of them can argue that they are lacking in skill. They may not be able to create lifelike paintings, but they can at the very least create an image with a recognizable shape. Meanwhile, I can create vague shapes that look like something a third grader might draw while they are bored in class.

I would never wish to trade away what little skill of writing I have for skill in art. I love being able to write, and I love the act of writing. I love the idea, however implausible it may be now, that I can paint landscapes and portraits directly onto a reader's mind with my words. That somehow I can impress my own imaginations on another person without ever showing them any sort of image.

But sometimes it would be nice to be able to put that image onto a piece of paper.

Learning to read

Albert pushed aside the book in disgust, having gotten not even a page into the story. It was miraculous that he had managed to get through even a paragraph before he gave up. "I hate reading," he muttered under his breath. His father sighed and slumped down into his chair. "It's so boring," Albert continued. "There's no pictures. Nothing happens. It's just words on a blank piece of paper. Why do you like it so much?"

Jim rested his head in his hand as he looked at his son. He didn't know how he was going to be able to explain all this in a way that made sense to the young boy. He had grown up in a world of tv shows and video games. How was he supposed to show the boy the wonders that only a book could contain? The wonders that he had grown up on.

"First of all, if there are words on the pages, then they aren't blank," he said. Albert rolled his eyes in response. "And second of all, it's not all about moving pictures. The words in those pages can show you things that movies can only dream of being able to show you."

"Yeah, right," Albert said indignantly. "What could a book possibly show me that the tv couldn't?"

Jim took the book that Albert had tossed aside and gingerly opened it, flipping to his favorite passage. "Let me show you," he said. "Close your eyes."

"Close my eyes?" Albert asked. "How is that supposed to help me see what you're talking about if I can't see anything?"

Jim didn't say anything to that - just waited for his son to do as he was told. With a sigh, Albert closed his eyes, and Jim started to read aloud.

"Arqez cast his line into the water, sending ripples out over the deep green water. He stood patiently in his tiny canoe, waiting for the fish to bite. He could see them just below the surface, bright white spots dashing around clearly in the water, unmuddied by the moss below."

"This is boring," Albert butted in. His father shushed him and continued on.

"He watched the waters, but the fish ignored his bait, swimming circles around it and his boat as if they were spectacles to be seen, and not touched. But Arqez didn't seem to mind." At this, Albert's attention seemed to perk. Jim smiled. "He had bigger fish to fry.

"It was an hour before anything changed in the water. Arqez waited, watching the fish swim around him. He wondered if they knew what was coming. He wondered if they were waiting too.

"A shift. Barely perceptible at first, and difficult to say where exactly it was coming from. But the shift grew quickly, and the ground beneath the surface of the water split open, just a dozen feet from Arqez's boat. He didn't move. He knew better. Any movement now, and he would lose this, the only chance he had."

Albert was practically straining to hear the next line before it came out of his father's mouth.

"Before he knew it, he was floating on his boat above a massive eyeball just below the surface, whipping back and forth, searching for that which disturbed its sleep. Arqez had dressed for just this very moment. His bright blue boat and rich red raincoat were sure to stand out amongst the colors of its usual surrounding.

"The waters shifted. It surged upwards and away from the eyeball, pushing Arqez away violently as the eye reached up to breach the surface. It took all of his strength to stay in his boat, which only barely stayed afloat. The eye parted the waters, lifting up its face, and the monster came to the surface..."

There was a long pause, and Albert grew impatient as he waited. "Dad!" he cried out. "You can't just leave me hanging like-"

His words were cut off as he opened his eyes to find his father had already left, leaving the page open on the table. Albert only hesitated a moment before snatching up the back and searching for where his father had left off.