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Their barn was built as a large building, of stones and wood, like few barns in Corona were. Many were still in adobe and straw, drying under the sun as the summer days passed. For their barn, Cassandra and Rapunzel needed something stronger. Stones and wood were what they found and needed.
A big stone oven was built in the middle of the high barn. A whole wall was missing, not an omission, it was simply better without it. Better air, better light, better sight.
Rapunzel blew air over the tool in her hand. Marble dust flew away from the chisel. She hummed and looked at the big chunk of marble before her. It was taller than her and yet she knew she’d see the end of it. It wasn’t the first one she had turned from a block of stone out of the quarry into a true piece of work on which light always had new details to show as the sun ran around it along the day.
Clang.
The sudden sound of the hammer on the metal stopped her daydreaming. She looked near the over, where Cassandra was bent over a piece of red hot metal, just out of the crackling oven. It was a small oven on the side of the bigger one, a perfect one to give enough heat to make a sword. Or hundreds.
Cassandra had made so much of those, she had lost count. There had been a time she wanted nothing more than to hold them in battle.
Now, something in her life had changed, and it was better to her to stay behind the oven and keep hammering the swords in making, instead of hammering her own swords on her enemies’ heads. Now her enemies were the quality of the metal and her tiredness after hours of holding so much work at the end of the day. She knew she could rest. She didn’t want to though.
Behind her, she knew, was Rapunzel. The quiet chatter of the chisel against the hard marble was the sound of her days, from dawn to dusk. It was better than the hard sounds of her hammer, Cassandra knew it. Yet it was what she heard the most.
Clang .
Another hit, followed by little jumps of the hammer on the metal. She let it finish the movement, let her arm follow the momentum of the big piece of metal at the end of the wood handle she held firmly in her hand. Slowly, the long shaft of metal was built into a better shape. From daggers to saber, from claymore to rapier, she had tried many blades.
From a rough piece was born a gracious blade. She would make the handle next, but first, the blade. As sharp and hard as the chisel Rapunzel held to carved her marble. She had made those chisel s from nothing too , months ago.
Months ago… her mind drifted as her hands knew the movements they had to do to mold the metal into what she wanted.
It had been a day like most at first.
Them, together, in town, arm in arm, as they walked down Corona’s streets. Rapunzel had her sketchbook in her bag, and Cassandra one of her many swords at her waist. As they arrived at Xavier’s, Cassandra had let the blacksmith handle her sword, that had been damaged during a training. Rapunzel, as she often did, took her sketchbook and started to sketch the wise legends teller blacksmith as he worked. As the minutes passed, and Cassandra looked more and more above her friend’s shoulder, it had been so natural, to imagine herself on this page, drawn with these light charcoal lines and shadows.
And as perceptive as Xavier was, he proposed his hammer and anvil to Cassandra, who had said no word, yet the blush on her cheeks spoke for her. At first, it was heavy, like the first time she had used a sword as a kid. Then, the movement came so easily, and Rapunzel’s lines on her cream colored paper followed her every move.
Beads of sweat appeared on the paper, falling as the artist of drawings showed her work to the artist of metal. Muscles, days after days, became clearer, as sleeves disappeared, too warm near the heat of the oven’s fire. And of charcoal they appeared on Rapunzel’s sketchbook, elegant, the lines dancing to the sight of their model.
In a week, Cassandra had made her first sword. It took some time, to make it right, but with the right teacher, it was perfect.
Now, she forged on her own. In this barn in the training grounds, their humble nest of creation.
It often happened to them, to stay there at the forge while Cassandra would stay awake during hours, nights and days, until she would get the metal into the right shape . Sometimes too, Cassandra fell of exhaustion on the hay on the side, and rested for hours, while Rapunzel would draw, and carve her friend in the marble. She worked several blocks of stone at once. Choosing the pose, she couldn’t. She had to make them all. Every step of forging, every moment resting, every smile and memory, frozen in stone.
O nly in the morning, they would go in town get a bimberriy cake, a cupcake and a hot chocolate, and finally rest, a smile on their faces. This was the life they had built themselves, like one builds a house to stay in many years . T hough it wasn’t easy everyday , often tired, yet, the love for this life and the love for one another was keeping them doing what they wanted, what they hadn’t truly known they always wanted.
Curls carved their way from Rapunzel’s chisel into the stone under her blade. So hard, yet so soft, the hair, the smiling lips, marble white with veins of gray. Even the discreet beads of sweats on the corner of her mouth and her cheeks, arms and neck, were like pearls on the stone.
The look in Cassandra’s eyes was a determined one, looking to the blade she was forging, in the flesh meters from Rapunzel, and in the stone, under her chisel.
When Rapunzel had first known her, it had been the determined look of a soldier against her enemy. Now it was the determined look of the blacksmith, of the artist, molding matter into something more, something new. A determined look, yet so strong. Strong not a blind rage, looking for acceptation anymore. But of the strength of someone who knows her worth. Her worth. And what worth! Rapunzel knew it, even probably more that Cassandra herself.
A worth that was the heart of her sculpture. A heart, beating in her chest to the beating of her own chisel on the stone, as the gray marble dust and pebbles fell. To the beating heart too of Cassandra’s hammer, on the blade being forged on her anvil.
A blade like one of the first she had ever forged. These blades, Rapunzel had waited days for them, sketching every step of their creation.
When Rapunzel had first wanted to sculpt, she had waited. She knew who she wanted to forge her tools. She didn’t want some expensive tools from a renown faraway blacksmith her parents could have bought for her, and not even from Xavier. As her tools were forged under Cassandra’s hammer, her pages of paper and charcoal sketches slowly left her sketchbook, to be bound to marble, granite, or any stone she wished to try her chisels on.
It was hard, like revealing with each hit a new facet of Cassandra she had learned to know, the one beneath her usual stern look that didn’t existed anymore when they were together. Each new day, and even though they were so different days, she felt like rediscovering her girlfriend, and her own work, with a new light, at each piece of stone falling, like an armor, revealing the truth underneath.
Several hit on the blade and pounds of marble powder fallen to the ground later, the face in the marble was nearly finished. And Rapunzel was not working on it anymore. Cassandra knew it. She kept on hitting the metal with her hammer.
Psssh .
The cold water in the bucket next to her anvil cooled it down instantly. She wiped her hands of the soot that had fallen on them after the long day of work. She realized as she walked away from her workplace that it was later than she had first thought it would be. It wasn’t unusual for them to stay all night in this barn in the training grounds. The worst that could happen was the night patrol coming to check the sounds of the smithy. New recruits would soon run away when they would see the collection of homemade weapons their captain’s daughter had hanged on the walls.
She smiled to herself. Those swords were gorgeous. But not as gorgeous as the ones in marble Rapunzel was working on. Speaking of, she turned around her small oven. It wasn’t as big as he one Xavier had in his smithy in town. She didn’t need a fire that big. It was enough to warm the cool barn when she wasn’t working.
Letting her fingers carry trails of soot away from the oven’s border, Cassandra walked to the place on the side of the barn. It was a little room, closed by four simple wooden planks walls, and a thick yet not completely opaque curtain closing a window. There was a side on the curtain, where she put her hand, that had so much soot from the previous days and weeks, if not months by now, when she had that same little movement. She lifted with few fingers the curtain, just enough to see behind it and not attract the attention from inside.
Not that Rapunzel, asleep, could notice much her girlfriend approaching. Cassandra opened the door, which gently creaked. Next to it stood on a small stool a bucket of clean water. Better than the one she plunged her metal in all day. She grabbed a handful of water and splashed it on her face. The sweat fell off, as she took a soap just at hand’s reach. It was the usual after a day’s work when they wouldn’t check the time enough to get back to the castle early. Sure they could still get back to their rooms and sleep in the warmth of the castle. But truly, was it really what they wanted, to sleep several rooms away from each other? The thought was so short, it was as though it had never been suggested.
There had been a day after the first weeks in the barn, when forging and sculpting had worn them out so much, they had to stay. On the hay in a side of the barn, they had fallen, exhausted, yet, so happy.
Happy to have time together, happy to finally do, create something they were proud of, happy and serene to be true to themselves by what they were doing, and who they were doing it with. So exhausted, when they woke up on the morning, after being brought back to their rooms, they were suddenly distressed, far away from each other, not having realized their family had brought them back home. The next day, they hadn’t forged nor sculpted. They had brought wood and nails, and put the walls up so the next time, they could rest in a comfortable place where they wanted to.
A sight paused Cassandra’s daydreaming. The cover resting on Rapunzel rose and fell, following her every breath.
Peace. It was what Cassandra felt as she watched her. How long? Perhaps minutes. Time didn’t matter anymore, when it was just the two of them, alone, together in their barn, with their work always behind the door.
It felt odd sometimes. A bit domestic even. But it was what they realized they loved doing. To do what they wanted, what they liked during the day, between etiquette lessons and weapon training. And when the night comes, after a long evening of forging and sculpting, to rest, there, with no princess nor lady-in-waiting, but two close friends holding each other in their sleep.
Cassandra went to the couch by the wall. On the other side of this wall was the fire for her forge, so they would never feel cold at night. The couch wasn’t really a bed, too small to be one, nor was it a proper sofa, too big to be one. It had taken them a couple of days, for Cassandra to forge the structure, and to Rapunzel to find and sew the thick wool-filled fabric, creating mattress and cover.
Light was dim, Cassandra mostly found her way thanks to the fading yet still hot hearth behind the window.
The walls were bare of any decoration. They didn’t need any decoration. It was always nighttime when they went to rest in this room. Yet tonight, Cassandra noticed a darker patch on the wall above the bed’s head. She didn’t mind it much. In the morning, she would see what it is. But now, she needed to rest. She sat on the bed, the mattress sinking under her and she stretched to get a ribbon to tie her hair into a ponytail for the night.
A weight caught her waist. Giggling, arms ran around her, bringing her close.
“Happy new year!” mumbled Rapunzel, half asleep.
“Happy new year,” said Cassandra.
She laid down beside her, with the tired smile of one who has worked too much during the day.
“You look sad,” told her Rapunzel.
She lifted a hand to move the stray hair out of the ponytail away from Cassandra’s face.
“Yet I am very much happy,” affirmed Cassandra.
She reached for Rapunzel’s hand, and brought it to her lips to leave small caressing kisses on her knuckles. The light from the town outside couldn’t enter much the room. Yet Cassandra knew how they had built it, and tonight, though cold, was a night the walls would open. There was another window facing the city, on the wall above them, a window they always kept closed, yet a window tonight she opened.
Behind it, the light of the moon rose in the night sky, among the many stars. It was a chilly night, yet a clear night. A night so clear, those stars were not only in the sky, they had fallen in their eyes, constellations to discover as they both dived into their loved one’s gaze. Happiness. Joy. It was what they both saw. Rapunzel saw more tiredness in Cassandra’s, she had worked longer, too long they both knew that, and for what? Happiness.
“You’re beautiful,” she said in a whisper.
A little mist left her mouth in the chill of winter.
“You’re wonderful,” replied Rapunzel, losing herself in the night sky of her lover’s eyes.
Yet her eyes left Cassandra’s, and she looked above them. Cassandra followed her gaze, and found out what was the dark patch on the wall. Mistletoe. She smiled.
Something, a little white stone was tied to the mistletoe bouquet, discreet, dangling on the wall with the wind from outside. Cassandra brought her hand to it, and it fell in her fingers. She gasped, but to Rapunzel’s smile, soon knew the fall was on purpose.
A little sword. Elegant, carved in marble. With the gray veins of the stone, like thunder in the white sky. With a handle too small for her hand, but big enough to let a collar run through it. A personal charm from one who could carve mountains and pebbles. This was where happiness was. Not in the light of day. Not in the town, so noisy and alien now that they had learned to be together. For years they had learned how to be alone. And now the opposite was all they knew. Hands in hands, around this sword of stone.
“I… I don’t have anything for you, Raps, I’m sorry,” whispered Cassandra as she closed her eyes.
“Shh, you don’t need to do anything for me, Cass. Everyday, you are a gift to me.”
Her fingers caressed Cassandra’s cheek, before resting on her hand holding the sword. Hand in hand, together, lovingly.
It was like a dream come true. A dream they had stopped looking for in clouds, a dream they had found not in the sky nor in faraway lands, but yes, found at home. Home. Where the heart is.
Cassandra’s eyes fell once more on the mistletoe. She smirked.
Rapunzel locked eyes with her. Outside, the fireworks of the new year created a myriad of stars in Cassandra’s eyes. Not for long. Her eyes closed, as their lips locked. On the rhythm of the fireworks outside, with the light and shadows moving like waves on the sea on their skin and the walls all around, a new day, a new year opened their arms to them.
~ The End ~