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The squat rectangular building at one corner of the castle had always been simply a place of business for Aki. Between assisting with the pegasus knights’ weapons orders and gathering batches of horseshoes for their mounts, she made her fair share of visits to the smithy. And she always made sure to keep her distance, proceeding just far enough into the building to obtain her needed goods and ducking out again, before the heat of the grumbling fire could suffocate her… before the thought of it coming alive and leaping out at her could become reality. A silly thought, really—and she knew this, so she kept it to the recesses of her mind. She was here only for business—important business, at that.
She never considered that this regular errand of hers could turn into something where she didn’t have to push down that subtle yet nagging dread, let alone something she might even look forward to, if she searched within herself even deeper beyond that fear. She also hadn’t expected to learn that, with their expertise in a bewildering variety of weapons and even the heftiest of clubs, warriors of the Flame Tribe often were apparently also proud blacksmiths.
Such had been explained to her as one day she entered the smithy as her routine prescribed, and had looked evidently more surprised than was appropriate to see Rinkah tending to the forge.
As Rinkah made the necessary repairs and compiled the pegasus knights’ list of requested items all with her head held high, Aki insisted to her that it wasn’t that unexpected. But her expression must have said otherwise.
“Or are you impressed?” Rinkah had bantered, gathering a group of horseshoes into a sack and passing it to Aki so effortlessly that the Falcon Knight had nearly forgotten how much it would weigh as she took it.
“…Something like that,” Aki could only concur.
Rinkah wove her way to the back of the forge, around the various shelves and tables occupying the center of the space. Then, delicately—a word that Aki had thought one could never use to describe Rinkah, but her movements really were delicate—she took the tongs that rested at the mouth of the forge and turned something over underneath the glowing coals. The red heat flared for a moment between the gaps in the coals, but it never burst—only settled down again and revealed the carefully crafted metal shimmering almost white within.
Even from back where she was standing, Aki could feel the wave of heat against her face, but Rinkah remained unperturbed by her own proximity to the heat’s source. Somehow Aki imagined that even without the heavy gloves and blacksmith’s robe that protected her from the bite of the flames, Rinkah would have navigated without so much as an ember’s singe on her skin. Every movement was expert, and her eyes, as red as the flame, held as sharp a focus as ever. It was as if she could sense the invisible edges of the flame’s outermost reach, intuiting just how close, just what motions were necessary, without crossing that intangible boundary and inciting the fire’s rage. As much as it required strength and stamina—which, Aki guessed, anyone so much as glancing at Rinkah could see she possessed—it demanded great skill, great calculation behind every movement.
Then Rinkah stepped away from the forge, retrieving something from a pile of weapons propped against a wall at the back of the shop. She emerged carrying a long pole weapon with a talon-like blade on each end, and she returned to the front of the smithy and handed it to Aki, who took the grip at the midpoint of the pole smoothly in her free hand.
“Was that all you needed?” Rinkah prompted, and at the slight tilt of her head, the red and gold oni mask at the crown of her skull blazed like a halo of fire in the muted light.
“That’s everything,” Aki confirmed, hardly even needing to review her mental list. Horseshoes for the pegasus, and repairs to her own dual-bladed naginata—neither was something she was at all inclined to forget. She blinked and gave a quick nod. “Thank you.”
“See you next time, then.” Rinkah remained facing Aki squarely for a heartbeat more. Then she turned, the tails of her mask giving a concluding swish, and the low pitch of her voice was lost among the hushed roar of the breathing flames and the punctuated clang of metal from deeper in the smithy.
Next time… As routine as her errand was, until now, Aki hadn’t entertained even the faintest possibility that Rinkah might be a recurring part of it. Typically, the two had only interacted as necessary in passing, perhaps in exchanging a background awareness of one another among the troops as they surveyed the battlefield, or in Aki offering the healing power of a festal as her specialty dictated—and the occasional sparring session, on days where Aki was feeling particularly brave (or perhaps Rinkah particularly accommodating). Aki had gathered that it was a way of life for the other, as a member of the Flame Tribe, to restrict interactions with those outside of her tribe to only what was required of her as an ally to Hoshido in their war effort. And true, this was just another aspect of that business as well… But for some reason, a thought as small as the idea that their interactions might come with even a hint of predictability… it had caught Aki by surprise, made her forget ever so briefly her wariness of the fire that lay in the forge like a sleeping dragon that could hear her very presence. She hadn’t dared to linger any more than necessary to observe the art of smithing, on which she simply hadn’t focused her awareness before, but for a moment—in spite of her own aversion to the heat of the space and in spite of Rinkah’s aversion to meaningless pleasantries—she had wanted to.
But maybe next time.
Aki had already started along the motions of walking the most direct path back to the stables as she mentally turned over their encounter. She walked briskly, lest her shoulder complain from carrying the weighty bag of horseshoes in one hand for too long. The buildings and scenery of the castle were nearly the same as every other time she had taken this route, but the trip held the faintest touch of newness in her mind. Was it wrong to pin any expectation on “next time,” to see it as not just another mere errand just because Rinkah might be there?
Just because…
Aki quickly smothered the ever-so-slight warmth that threatened to rise from her core. She could worry about that later. Mentally, she searched for other more immediate, more discrete things that could demand her attention. What was her next order of business?