Chapter Text
It is quiet in the Nailsmith’s hut, save for the clanging of his hammer. Once, there were people. People going in and out, people talking, people chattering. A normal amount. Patrons, knights, nobles, people wanting knives and cookware. Then blades, only blades, blades again and again and again. While the world fell around him, the Nailsmith forged blades and only blades - nails upon nails upon nails, named and modeled after the King’s own weapon of choice…
In truth, the Nailsmith found both a name and a calling in them. Though perhaps that was always a weak word for it. After all, he had taken so long to stare at the same image of the royal blade, day after day, forging replica after replica. In truth, what had taken root in his heart was more like an obsession. The Nailsmith… for his name to mean anything, he didn’t just have to make blades. He had to make that blade. The King’s blade, of purest Pale Ore…
Only then would he be satisfied.
The Nailsmith stirs from his reveries when he hears shouting, sharp orders and annoyed syllables snapping against his door. From the sound of things, an older sister shepherding a younger charge - a family member slow to obey. No doubt someone half infected already.
He doesn’t want to be the one to tell them. Not this time. Too many lost travelers, not understanding when the sickness takes one of their group. Let them go, let them go. The Nailsmith cannot hear them above his hammer. He does not want to hear them above his work. The work that keeps him focused, keeps him pure.
“Hello- will you stop that for just one- no, I’m not going to leave you, I just-” The young woman sticks her head in, and the Nailsmith carefully lays down his hammer as she glares at him behind a white mask. A native, then? Someone superstitious enough to believe that the old charms will protect you from the sickness.
“You. You’re the source of the hammering - you’re a smith, then, I take it?”
The Nailsmith motions around him. To the anvil in front of him, to the walls lined with tools, to the nail in front of him, to the hammer on his forge.
“Hmm. Yes, I believe you could say that. People do tend to put ‘Nail’ in front, though.”
“Great. I need something done, so - come on, in the door - duck down, come on now-”
The Nailsmith watches the young woman dance, crimson cloak flaring as she pulls and yanks and pulls on a black hand. The Nailsmith makes the mistake of focusing on the young woman - specifically on her back. He’s admiring her nail - or rather, her needle. A thin option, more of a foil than anything, but beautiful, beautifully made. Someone must have loved this young woman very much to give her such a deadly sting.
Yes, it’s a mistake to watch her, because the… thing, she pulls in, is far more concerning. He should have stopped her at the door, should have recognized the pure black of the hand as not the leather of a gauntlet nor the sheer satin of silk, but the strained and clarified shadow of a…
The Nailsmith isn’t sure. It’s too tall to be one of the pitiful Empty Golems - those vaunted Vessels that the King assured everyone were mere husks of void like the Kingsmolds that came before them, empty and without feeling. They’d served as guards and seekers of corruption, for a time - eerie little watchhounds of the king, until someone had removed the white helm to find not the swirling abyss of empty armor, but the pitiful eyes of a child staring back…
This looks like one of those children, stretched far, stretched way too far. Long and wide and broad and wild, like something left out in the rain. It staggers towards the Nailsmith on uncertain legs, and he can feel it’s gaze upon him. It is no Kingsmold. There is intelligence there, intent in the hollows of that helm.
The Nailsmith is already backing away on instinct as it grows closer. One shuffling footstep in front of the other. He feels his back hit the wall, sees the thing looming, gazing down at him, ragged and terrible, and all at once the Nailsmith is struck with awe and fear. Elemental, there is something elemental about this creature, as if it’s very presence fills the room with pressure…
And then it seems to bow, coming forward, head laying down, pressure bursting like a bubble as it lays it’s head on the anvil. Sedate. Calm. Silent, limbs dragging and gangly like seaweed on the shore.
Dully, belatedly, the Nailsmith realizes that it is staring at him expectantly. Head on the anvil. Head on the anvil, hammer nearby. Empty eyes begging. Open. Pleading.
The Nailsmith feels his hands begin to sweat as he gains an inkling of what it might want. He can almost see it, too. His hammer, coming down cleanly, into that darkness, scattering it like liquid, banishing the cursed shade back to the abyss. It would be a mercy, wouldn’t it? A kindness. The right thing to do. And yet...
“...No. I…” He brings a hand to his beard and runs his fingers through it’s wiry length. “...I… whatever it… you… want…”
“...Knight.” The Nailsmith snaps from his trance as the woman - the sister, sighs, running a hand down the thing’s back. It shudders at her touch. Shudders and… somehow, somehow he knows those eyes are closed now. Closed, and the pressure is gone, relieved from him. “You’re scaring the poor man. Pick your head up - he’s drawing all the wrong conclusions.”
“...And what,” The Nailsmith asks, his mouth dry. “might the right be the right conclusions?”
The woman straightens, as much as that’s possible. Certainly, she seems to grow a bit taller, pulling her head back and her chin up, staring down her nose at the Nailsmith, as if noticing them for the first time.
“We’re here to remove their mask.” A pause, like the slightest of missteps in a dance. “...Well. It’s more of a helmet. Really.”
The Nailsmith takes a breath, deep and shuddering, one he hadn’t realized he was holding. He looks to the helmet, to the head, lain on the anvil - his anvil. Smooth. Perfectly smooth at first glance, but here and there, yes, he can see marks, signs of welding? Ah. A single piece. The poor thing must have gotten stuck.
“Hmm… All right. Lift your head up and bend down so I can get a look at you.”
He thinks the thing doesn’t hear him at first. Thinks that maybe it only responds to the sister. But no. It’s just slow to move, slow to start, swaying on creaking joints, bending forward. Into a knight’s pose. On one knee. Trained. Honored.
What is he looking at? What, exactly, is the Nailsmith looking at, under that faded cloak, under that intense pressure? Because it moves like a kingsmold given purpose, stands like one of the Five Great Knights, and stares… stares like a Vessel. Like the little one, the empty child that wanders into his shop now and again, to dump geo on his counter...
The helm. The Nailsmith forces himself to look at it. He can see now, that it’s too tight, even if it is finely wrought. It has an almost cruel design, one that seems almost to have been put on too early in the thing’s life - outgrown and outstripped. It pinches into black flesh, and while finely wrought and durable, the worker was too hasty with their work as if time were pressing in. But that doesn’t matter, because they’ve sanded down the ore... The Ore. The Pale Ore....
“...White Wyrm Ascending…!” The Nailsmith breathes, stumbling back. “Is… is that helm made of pure Pale Ore?! ”
“Maybe. Will it be a problem?” The sister is looking at his nails. Back turned. Somehow, the Nailsmith knows she is still watching him. The thing. The knight, is still staring at him, silent and impassive. Subdued, switched off.
“It’ll be the very abyss to pry off, but it should be fine. Pale Ore tends to bend before it breaks or even warps, is all.”
“Hmm.” Is all the sister has to say. It’s a strangely loaded “Hmm.” Frankly, the Nailsmith isn’t sure which is worse. The knight or the sister. Probably the knight. Definitely the knight...
He turns his attention back to the helm… and it dawns on him slowly. Like rising water around his throat. The way the helm is constructed, the faint lines of the hammering. The imprints around the collar.
This helmet… wasn’t made and then slipped on. It wasn’t even made and then outgrown, though certainly the knight who bears it is now too large for it. It was hammered into place, piece by piece, one scrap of Pale Ore at a time, around the knight’s head. The knight before him… either had to choose to stay still for the whole procedure, as hammers banged and imprisoned, as fires blazed hot and forges shaped and scraped and sizzled around their very skin…
...Or they had no choice.
And the Nailsmith, as he reaches for his pliers and slowly, carefully presses them into the very edge of the mask, taking up Pale Ore and the barest hint of something black, isn’t sure which is more terrifying.
“...Is there something wrong?” The sister speaks, and her voice is sharp. The Nailsmith has lingered too long in thought for her liking.
“Hmm. Just some peculiarities in how the helm was made is all.” He remarks, his voice pretty level, all things considered. “It seems… it might have been constructed, or at least finished around their head.”
“It does not surprise me to hear that.”
The sister does not turn her head, but there is something in her voice. Bitterness, perhaps. Frustration. Not quite anger, but something hot and sharp and close. Either way, the Nailsmith sets his hands to work, so as not to get any more entrenched in her affairs than he is simply by way of having his tools in her… golem’s? Sibling’s? Pet’s? ...Knight’s helmet.
For minutes, there is only silence and the soft creak of twisting steel. Pale Ore bends slowly, gradually, over time. Even under immense pressure, even with repeated bashing, even under harsh use, it refuses to do anything else. The only thing that will change it is willpower, willpower, a steady hand, and time.
Time enough to think. Time enough to see, yes. The Nailsmith is pulling up… void? That’s what it’s called, what the people call the stuff that leaks out the king’s constructs. Perfectly safe, except in large quantities. Except, no one ever tells you what a “large quantity” is, and you think it doesn’t matter, until your pliers slip, and dips into “skin” and it runs in a channel on your floor, spilling black motes and the smell of mold and miasma and somehow, the distant stink of the sea into the air…
The creature is silent. Utterly, absolutely so. Their silence is sucking, swallowing. But the Nailsmith can feel, as he works, a certain stirring. A restlessness. The crack, the seam he works in the mask, grows deeper and deeper, and the thing in front of him grows if anything, more silent, but he can feel it in the air. Impatience. Anticipation. Desire.
He will die here. The Nailsmith can feel it. He will die here, with this helm in his hands. In a way, it is almost correct. For defiling such a thing, should he not be slain?
His hands are shaking when the helm is two thirds broken. He takes his tools away, reaches up to remove the helm, but the knight is already moving, their hands wrapping around the gently sloping horns to pull up, up and away…
The thing
breathes
and the Nailsmith
chokes.
This, this is too much void, void spilling out, so much so that the Nailsmith has to rush outside, head spinning, to cough and cough and wheeze on his knees - and he blearily realizes that the sister is already outside, shouting, that the thing is throwing open windows, that the motes are dissipating, the void dispersing…
And when he catches his breath and stares inside, he sees them. One of the King’s woeful children - a Vessel. Empty, white eyes. Limbs too long, a face devoid of features, like a black silk bag pulled taut over someone’s entire body leaving only suggestions, and a head full of rank, swirling black hair that waves and dances like seaweed…
“...Hmm. I didn’t know they could grow up.” The Nailsmith murmurs. He hears the sister laugh, even above the clatter of geo. Counting. Payment. Of course he’ll be paid. He’d better, for a harrowing job like this…
“They don’t get to, generally.” She holds out a bag. Bulging, thick. He takes it. The Vessel moves to take the helm, and he shakes his head. It’s coated with void, and something almost red. Blood? Can they bleed? Can any of them bleed, coated head to toe like that in the abyss?
“It won’t fit. It’s too small for you, now. You’ll have to get it converted if you want to keep wearing it, but... “ The Nailsmith shrugs. He could probably do the job, but…
The way the vessel is staring at him. He feels… bad now. Bad for ever having been afraid. Because without the visage of that frightful helm, he can see how hurt it looks, how tired, how inquisitive. Like a child. But it didn’t look like a child, not before.
“I understand, Nailsmith. You make weapons, not armor. I think I know someone who can help.” The sister replies smartly, stepping in where words fail him. The Knight walks forward. Slowly. He can see now that the movements of their body are not just clumsy and awkward. They are painful. The vessel is wounded. The sister is caretaking…
They are both at his door. They are in fact, all outside his door. The void is almost gone. The night is dark. His home is bright, and that little splash of red looks so, so small against the shadows… The Nailsmith makes a snap decision.
“...Hmm… A minute?” He calls out, softly. Two heads turn. Only one set of eyes glow in the dark, faintly luminous like the light of lumaflies. “Wherever you are going, rest here for the night.”
“There is no need.” The sister replies, her voice clipped and short, but the Nailsmith shakes his head, thinking quickly.
“Your needle. It is finely made… let me look at it, tonight. Consider it a part of payment.”
She pauses. Considers… and then nods. She leads the vessel back. They follow her, like a lost child. So much about them seems lost. Two children, in the night.
The least the Nailsmith can do is feed them and shelter them and hope it will be enough.