Mairumo

>Mairon and Curumo sat back together on the bench in the back of the workshop and stretched out their sore limbs, tired from a long, hot day working the forge. Mairon twirled his hammer in his hand and admired the stability of the soft leather grip, worn from ages of use. Curumo noticed that, though their tools had both been gifts from Aule, Mairon's seemed imperceptibly larger.

>Curumo held his own hammer in front of him to test the size by comparison. His own grip was quite more well-intact and free of abrasions or scuffs. Mairon looked over at it as he held it aloft. "Your grip seems fresher than mine, Curumo," he said, "might I take your hammer for a moment and feel for myself?"

>Curumo was startled by the question. Though they'd long worked together, Mairon had never cast notice upon his work, which Curumo felt sorely inferior to his master. "Of course, master Mairon," Curumo replied, and handed over his hammer. Mairon tested it in his hand. The springiness of the new leather comforted him as if he'd been taken back to his first day in the forge. "Ahh, a fine hammer you have, young one." He offered Curumo his own in kindness. "See how it'll feel once you've got a few years into it."

>Curumo took his master's hammer in his hand. The withered grip felt at once disheartening yet comfortable, and Curumo could hardly imagine he would wish to work with such a beleaguered piece of equipment. "Does it not tire you excessively to have to grip so tightly, Master?" Curumo asked. Mairon, still remarking in his own mind on the comfort of his apprentices' tool, replied in the negative. "Once he's gotten used to it, changing a smith's hammer will feel as wrong as if his wife changed her face."

>Curumo blinked at the wisdom he'd received and thought to himself how lucky he was to have so sage an instructor as he'd been give by Aule. "Still", Mairon said "I would like to see how yours feels in action, if only to remember my younger days." Mairon swung downward in the air.