Work Text:
March sat behind the workbench with a ledger opened beneath one elbow, the morning light barely beginning to reach through the front windows as he counted the remaining pieces of iron for the third time.
Eight bars fit for nails, three that could be cut down for smaller work, and another handful of scraps that might be useful if he was willing to spend more time heating and hammering than the finished pieces were worth.
The peat for the forge wasn’t any better off. A single crate with enough left to keep the fire burning for another week if he was careful or if Balor got lucky finding a shipment.
March scratched another mark onto the paper and leaned back with a tired exhale.
The earthquake had made everything worse.
Now every shipment from the Capital was late or smaller than expected, and what did arrive had to be divided between repairs that couldn't wait and whatever tools were needed to keep everyone fed.
Nails were mundane enough that most people didn't think twice about them until they ran short. March had already reached the point where he was calculating how many could be made from each length of iron.
With a huff, he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, feeling the grit of a bad night's sleep beneath his palm. He had gone to bed late because there had been another list to finish and had gotten up early because the list had doubled overnight.
Somewhere beneath the exhaustion was the unpleasant certainty that if he could just work a little faster, waste a little less, and stop sleeping as much then the shortage would become manageable.
The kitchen door creaked open behind him.
He heard the familiar scrape of Olric's boots across the floor and the muted clink of ceramic against ceramic as his brother wandered into the shop proper. A moment later, the smell of coffee reached him, stronger than the lingering scent of coal and hot metal.
March finally looked over his shoulder to see Olric with two cups balanced carefully in his hands, his hair still slightly mussed from sleep and his expression carrying the kind of easy cheerfulness that March found offensive before sunrise.
Steam curled from both cups catching in the morning light streaking in from the window. There was a slightly discolored layer of foam clinging to the top of Olric's coffee.
He looked back at his ledger. "You put butter in yours again?"
Olric's grin widened as he walked over. "Yeah bro, gotta get my morning protein. 'Sides, its tasty."
"It's disgusting."
"Come on, you've never even tried it."
"I don't need to eat a block of butter to know it's going to taste like a block of butter." He said, biting the inside of his cheeks so he wouldn't say the next thought that came tumbling after.
With the way Hayden's farm was set up now there was no way to make up the lack of produce coming from the city. Even if he had a higher capacity for more animals, he wouldn't have the supply of grain and hay needed to feed them.
It had gotten around that the request Adeline put out for someone to deal with the farm that had been abandoned since he was a child. Followed by the information that the person who accepted the offer wasn't actually a farmer – so what could they do besides waste time and resources he didn't have?
Olric set the cup free of fat beside March, then leaned over the workbench to inspect the rows of iron. His gaze moved from the piles to the ledger and back again. The easy smile on his face didn't disappear, but it softened around the edges. "You were up early."
"I always get up early."
"I mean," Olric shrugged, "Earlier than usual."
March picked up his coffee. It was black and still hot enough that he could feel it through the ceramic. He took a drink before answering, letting the bitterness settle his stomach. "There's work to do."
Olric glanced at the ledger again, "There always is."
March ignored that. "We've got enough iron for the nails that Hayden needs," he said as he flipped to another page and tapped a number with one finger. "But if Holt and Nora sill want replacement hinges for the general store's front door, I'll have to cut the order down." He paused for a moment, going over the checklist he'd been forming in his head, "Adeline's still waiting on the quota needed for the mill but knowing her she's going to show up in five minutes asking for it. And I haven't even started going through the parts we need for the bridge."
"You could ask for more time?" His brother smiled at him in the soft way he always did when he was mentioning something difficult, "And… more help?"
March's eyes lifted.
Olric took a drink of his coffee, buttered foam leaving a faint mark against his upper lip. "From the Capital, I mean. Or talk to Balor or Ryis? Maybe somebody knows of another shipment coming through."
"I know where the iron comes from."
"Yeah but–"
"I can do this." March snapped his words and then his attention back to the ledger. "We don’t need to go begging the Capital for anything."
Olric stood there for a moment, drinking his coffee while March sorted another handful of scraps into another absurd arrangement. The silence stretched until Olric wandered around the side of the workbench and started looking to the crate beside him.
"I could go back in the upper parts of the mine and get more peat?" Olric was talking slower than normal, picking his words carefully, "Errol's doing somethin' in the museum I don't think he'd notice if I popped a few boards off the entrance and squeezed in."
"You're not doing that," March reached for the box of fuel before Olric could get to it. "'nd stop going through everything, you'll get my piles mixed up."
Olric gave him a look that March deliberately refused to meet.
If he let someone else start sorting his materials, he would have to explain exactly how little he had left. He would have to admit that the numbers worried him, that every request from town seemed to add another line to a list that was already too long, and that he had no idea how much longer he could keep stretching what they had before something finally gave.
He couldn't tell Olric that every time someone came into the shop asking whether he could make something, some ugly part of him was already calculating what he would have to take away from someone else to make it happen.
Mistria had raised them. It had given them work when they needed it, fed them when things were difficult, and continued to make room for two brothers who had spent most of their lives learning how to depend on one another and very little time learning how to depend on anyone else.
March knew what the town had lost in the earthquake. He knew what people needed from him now, and the worst part was that he couldn't hammer the damage back into place no matter how hard he tried.
There was only so much metal, only so many hours, and only one pair of hands.
He closed the ledger a little harder than necessary.
Olric's eyebrows rose, but he didn't comment.
March immediately reopened it.
"I'm going to figure it out," he muttered, more to the page than to his brother. He began running his finger down the list again, recalculating everything from the beginning. "But if someone comes into the shop asking for something that isn't essential, they're getting told no."
"What if they ask really nicely?"
"They're still getting told no."
The bell above the door gave another faint chime, followed by the clicking of footsteps crossing the wooden floor. March kept his eyes on the ledger, already bracing himself for whatever interruption was about to make the list in front of him even longer.
"Morning, Adeline," he said, flipping the pencil between his fingers. "If you're here about the repair list, I know. I've got the nails started and I'll have the hinges finished by–" He finally looked up, and the rest of the apology died behind his teeth.
The woman standing beside the counter might have been the same height but she most certainly wasn't Adeline.
March's eyes narrowed as he took her in, trying to place a face he had never actually seen before. She wore an old moleskin jacket that hung a little too large on her frame, the sleeves rolled up, the shoulders sat lower than a fitted jacket would. A sun-faded bandana held back her black hair, though a few strands had escaped around her face to curl slightly around her cheekbones.
There was something about the way she carried herself that made him immediately less inclined to mistake her for someone who had spent her entire life behind a desk. She looked tired in the way people who travelled too much tended to look tired, but not fragile. The weathering on the clothes and dirt her shoes were trucking into his showroom suggested they had seen considerably more road than Mistria's main street.
Olric, predictably, recovered first. He set his coffee down and came around the side of the workbench with a grin already spreading across his face.
"Hey, you must be the new farmer." He offered his hand without hesitation, introducing himself before March could think of anything useful to say. "I'm Olric. That's my little bro, March. Lady Adeline told me what your name is but I completely forgot it."
March gave him a flat stare.
"Jasper." She looked between them before taking Olric's hand.
Her grip was firm enough to make Olric's eyebrows shoot upward, and when he looked down at their clasped hands, his grin widened into something boyish. "Whoa-ho! You got some major gains, Jasper."
She blinked at him then repeated quietly, "…major gains?"
"Yeah, you know." Olric released her hand and lifted both arms, making a ridiculous show of flexing his biceps beneath his shirt. "Cool muscle." He held the pose for another second before dropping his arms, "I guess you gotta have some when you're out adventuring, right? That's what Lady Adeline said you were, anyway. An adventurer?"
Jasper's mouth pulled into something that was not quite a smile before looked away for a moment, the motion carrying a weariness that March thought was out of proportion for such a harmless question. "Is that what Adeline's telling folks?" she asked, before glancing back at him. " I'll take adventurer over ex-mercenary any day."
The answer made March's attention settle more fully on her.
Not because of the word mercenary itself. He had heard enough stories from travelers passing through town to know that the Capital was full of people willing to sell a sword arm to whoever could afford one. What caught his attention was the complete lack of embarrassment in her voice with 'ex' added in front. She said it matter-of-factly, as though there was nothing worth dressing up or apologizing for. However, she did shift her weight to the other foot.
The movement turned her just enough for March to see her back properly from where he sat.
A sword rested between her shoulder, worn but well maintained, the leather of the sheath darkened from use. Tucked into the strap beside it was an axe that wasn't faring nearly the same.
Its handle was scarred and dulled in the places where years of handling had worn away whatever finish had once protected the wood. The edge its copperhead had been ground down to sharpen the blade so many times that one hit against a stubborn tree would split it. It would need to be replaced altogether and to replace what had been lost to years of improper care he'd have to meltdown what remained of the axe as well as his copper supply. March found his eyes lingering on it for a second longer than he meant to before he looked back toward her face.
Olric, oblivious to the sudden seriousness in his expression, gestured toward the counter. "So, what can we do for you?"
Jasper reached over one shoulder and patted the axe's metal. "I need this little guy sharpened." She shrugged the strap forward enough to make the weapon easier to see. "Ryis mentioned the town blacksmith could help."
"Why are you asking for an axe to get sharpened?" March tapped the end of his pencil against the ledger. "You're supposed to be farming, aren't you?"
He knew the moment the words left his mouth that they sounded harsher than they needed to, but the irritation behind them had been building since the moment the bell rang. They needed more iron – and copper. They needed more nails. They needed more tools, more food.
Now the person everyone had been talking about was standing in his shop asking him to spend what little time he had sharpening a blade instead of being able to do it herself.
March could see her deciding whether it was worth answering him as her eyes narrowed.
Whatever remark she had been debating over was tucked away as the axe was slid out from behind her back, "Have you seen the state of that place?" She asked.
The question caught him off guard enough that he stopped tapping the pencil.
"The plot's overgrown," she continued, voice level. "Trees, stones, roots. There's barely any bare soil visible." Jasper looked back toward him, and there was a touch more steel in her expression now. "Hard to grow anything when you can't put a seed in the ground."
March's jaw tightened. He had seen the abandoned farm himself, had played tag and hide and seek within the overgrown orchard as a child with Olric and Reina. The property had been sitting neglected for longer than he'd been alive, the fields swallowed beneath brush and debris that would take weeks to clear even with a full crew.
"So, can you sharpen it?" Jasper's attention was fully on him now, "I don't want Ryis and Landen doing the hard part of clearing the overgrowth on their own."
He pushed the ledger aside, the stool scraping across flagstone as it was pushed back. "No," he said, already crossing the shop. "I can't sharpen that."
Jasper's brow rose. "Can't or won't?"
"Both." He stopped in front of her and held out his hand. "Give it here."
She looked at his hand for a moment before placing the axe into it.
March adjusted his grip around the haft and turned the head toward the morning light, angling it enough to see the full length of the cutting edge.
The copper had lost so much material to repeated sharpening that the original shape was barely recognizable. The bevel was uneven enough that the edge had developed a hook toward one side. Whoever had maintained it before had kept grinding away at the same section instead of correcting the profile, leaving the metal thin where it should have had strength and thick where the cutting edge should have transitioned cleanly into the cheek.
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
"This isn't getting sharpened." He rotated the axe in his hand and tapped one finger against the damaged section of the metal. "See this? The edge is too thin here, and you've got a stress line running farther back than the bevel." He ran the finger down the section he spoke about, "The copper's already been worked too many times, 'sides the grain around this section is shot."
Jasper leaned closer, watching the axe rather than him.
March continued before she could interrupt, turning the weapon so the edge caught another angle of light. "If I put it on the wheel, I'm either going to take so much off that there's barely a cutting edge left, or I'm only going to leave enough metal that the first time you bury it in something hard, the weakened section's going to give. You get the wrong angle on a knot or something and a chunk could shear straight off."
His expression hardened as he pictured it. "And if you're working with Ryis and Landen while clearing that place, the last thing I need is half an axe head coming loose. Best case, it drops harmlessly. Worst case, it goes flying into Ryis' head."
Olric winced. "Woah, that's a pretty specific worst case."
"And a stupidly preventable one." March huffed then turned the axe over once more, examining the socket and the remaining thickness around the eye. The design wasn't one he had worked on before, and the proportions were just slightly different from the tools he and Olric usually produced for Mistria, with an older style to the cheek and a broader shoulder. It had probably come from the Capital, or one of the older settlements that traded with it.
He ran his thumb over a shallow mark near the base of the head, not quite a maker's stamp anymore so much as the ghost of one. But even if the one he was looking for had been reduced to a single remaining curve, he'd be able to recognize it. This wasn't his mom's, therefore he had no quarrels about melting it down.
Jasper gave him a questioning look when he had been quiet for too long.
He turned toward the shop's door and lifted the axe slightly, finalizing his decision. "I'll melt this down, add more copper to it, and recast the head from the start. It'll be stronger than this thing is now, and I can fix the proportions while I'm at it."
Olric's eyebrows rose. "I thought we weren’t going to–"
"It's fine," March's jaw tightened, "I'll– we'll manage." March turned the axe once more in his hand before looking back at Jasper, "Come back tomorrow and pick it up." He looked away when he saw the surprise cross her face. "Before noon. I've got other things that need doing that don't include babysitting and acts because you're too lazy to get a bed."
She gave him a look that made it abundantly clear His remark was taken as an insult, "Well, aren't you charming."
He opened his mouth, reaching for whatever retort would put the conversation back where it belonged, when Olric suddenly lifted both hands between them.
"Okay, alright," He waved his palms through the air as though physically pushing the tension back toward the walls. "We're all friends here, right? I mean we will be!" Olric turned toward Jasper before March could come up with another argument, leaning one elbow against the counter as his expression brightened. "If you and Ryis and Landen are clearing out the old farm, that means there's a lot of stones that gotta be moved?"
Jasper nodded, shifting the strap of her sword's sheath where it rested against her shoulder. "More than I expected." She glanced toward the ledger and the piles of iron scattered across the workbench. "Ryis says there will be enough to fix the bridge when we're all done, so I figure we'll be hauling rocks for most of the day."
Olric let out a low whistle. "That's a lot of lifting."
"Yeah." Jasper sighed.
He glanced toward the axe in March's hand and then back at Jasper. "Well, I'm real good at lifting rocks." He bumped March lightly with his shoulder as he passed, earning another irritated look. "I can help with the stones."
Jasper looked at him, seeming genuinely surprised. "You don't have to."
"I know but I want to!' Olric turned his head toward March, the question plain in his expression.
"Yeah, sure, whatever." He waved one hand dismissively toward the door. March could handle replacing an axe head on his own. "I can deal with the forge while you make sure Landen doesn't throw his back out. Again."
Olric spun toward Jasper, "Come on, then. We'll stop by the inn and grab some breakfast sandwiches!"
Jasper adjusted the strap of her sword before following him to the door, though not before giving March one last glance.
March couldn't tell what the look was supposed to mean.
Maybe she was still annoyed with him. Fair enough. He hadn't exactly gone out of his way to make a good first impression, though he had also never been particularly interested in making one.
Tomorrow she'd be back for the axe, assuming she actually remembered, and he would have to make good on what he'd just promised.
He wasn't worried about that part.
The bell chimed when Olric opened the door, and the morning sounds of Mistria spilled into the shop for a brief moment before the two of them stepped outside. Olric said something that made Jasper laugh, the sound faint enough that March couldn't make out the words, and then his brother glanced back over his shoulder into the shop. He gave March an encouraging grin and a little wave before disappearing after her.
The bell settled.
Silence returned.
March stood in the middle of the shop with the axe still in his hand, staring at the closed door for several seconds longer than he meant to. He looked down at the damaged head again, turning it slowly beneath the light. Now he could already see what it could become once it had been broken down and worked properly. Something solid. Something dependable. Something that wouldn't betray the person holding it the first time they asked it to do a difficult job.
His eyes drifted toward the ledger.
There were still three pages of numbers waiting for him.
March exhaled through his nose and returned to the workbench, setting the axe carefully beside the ledger rather than in the scrap pile. He picked up his pencil and stared down at the again, but his attention kept snagging on the axe. The new farmer – Jasper, had walked into his shop asking for a simple sharpening and walked back out with a promise that he'd make her something better.
He rubbed at the edge of the paper with his thumb, then abandoned the book all together to grab the axe and head towards the forge.