smith.txt

The goldblood finishes up her last orders for the evening; a set of armor here, a new blade for a matesprit there. Trolls come and go, in and out of her small blacksmithing stall as the night wears on. While she treats most with respect and dignity, there are occasions where her temper and irritableness get the better of her. One upset customer vows revenge for being forcibly removed after insulting a lowerblood for bumping into him; she simply walks back into the shop, resuming her well-worn seat behind the counter.

As the clocks indicate morning is starting to rise, the shutters roll down, her stall closed and vacated for the inevitable daybreak. But she stays inside, excusing herself by mumbling something about inventories and unchecked order forms; the other staff member leaves unperturbed by the sudden focus on business. As the back door slams shut, theres a rustling of cloth and a clinking of bottles, the smith pulling out a handle of booze, not even bothering with a glass, taking a long drought from the bottle as if it were water and she had been without it for too long.

Minutes tick by, and the goldblood aimlessly shuffles about, poring over half-done work, completed orders, forms asking for specific pieces and weaponry. She has more than a lot could dream of; a stable business, a very nice home, others who fill both quadrants and the oddly diseased part of her called friendship. Yet there claws at her an emptiness, the nagging doubt in her mind that all this was a ruse, a thinly-disguised facade that she's thrown herself into in order to try and fill the void left in her being.

She chokes down more of the alcohol, finishing the whole bottle before leaving the darkened stall, somehow still able to lock the door behind her as she stumbles home. A few times she's bothered as she wanders down the street; those few times end with someone upended into a bin, most likely not getting up anytime soon.

In time she gets home, the smith exhausted but yet not tired, instead grabbing another handle from her kitchen and stumbling into her workshop. Taking a huge gulp from the bottle, she weaves to and fro, occasionally stopping to look over some of her work. It's a frustrating feeling for her, all this time put into finely-crafted pieces; not out of a sense of perfection, but out of a sense of uselessness. Long ago she might have been able to work magic, bringing simulated life into her art, gears and iron and technology rolled into one. But she can't remember now.

As she downs more of the booze, the thought of him passes through her head again. It's enough to bring a rise in her emotions, the void starting to whisper back at her from the darkest depths of her mind; thoughts she tried to discard, to tell herself weren't true, things she's tried for so long to deny for her own peace of mind. He isn't coming back, they say, he's never coming back because he can't stand you. Because you weren't enough, and you will never be enough. Look at you, they purr, let yourself sink so low, tried to believe that you really weren't left behind.

She argues with them, yelling and growling at them that no, he wasn't gone, he hadn't left her behind. One day, she screams, he'll be back and I know he'll be back because he'd never leave he wouldn't he would be back she just knows it. Yet now her words sound hollow to even her, a facsimile of what was maybe once a truth but now rings empty as if she were shouting to the empty seats of a cathedral. Slowly and surely her voice goes quiet, the only sound in the workshop now the plip plip of gold-tinted tears falling to the floor.

Without even realizing it she's picked up the last piece she knows will work; it's one of the finest works she crafted, not an ounce of extraneous iron yet it has all the elegance of the work higher of blood than she could dare to dream of. It's cold in her hands as she turns it over and over, trying her hardest to choke back the sobs that threaten to burst forth in a torrential emotional outpouring. It'd been the last piece they'd worked on together; he'd done the machining, the mechanics, making every piece fit and mesh together into a coherent whole. She'd created the intricate clockwork parts and plates, each finely crafted particle in the work imbued with her body and soul right down to the cogs in the finger joints.

It was meant to be their new venture, a new outlook for them, a business even, had they played their cards right. But then he'd vanished without a word to her. There hadn't even been a note, a letter, not a single indication that he'd wanted to give her a peace of mind for whatever travels he'd elected to take. And every night when she rose from her recuperacoon that lack of knowing, the lack of being able to truthfully tell herself that he was okay and that he was coming back, it consumed her thoughts and heart until she had nothing left to be eaten away by doubts and fears. More an empty shell than a troll, the days afterwards had been a daze, the world like it'd lost its luster and color, everything just fading to grays and blacks.

Then her blindness was starting to set in. She would test herself often, trying to read small text or work on delicate machinery, and every time the book would be set down because of an oncoming headache, bits of machinery flying into the wall as she tearfully fumed, unable to make the pieces fit, unable to see how to make them work no matter how close she leaned in. To her, it was like everything she'd ever worked for, ever put her heart and soul into, all of it was slowly crumbling, rotting, falling apart at an ever-increasing rate the more the nights dragged on. She knew she was going blind, and deep in herself she knew he wasn't coming back; the unflinching reality only deepened the despair that was settling in, and more of her time was spent drinking as her eyesight worsened, fingers trembling as she still desperately attempted to keep progressing in her work, to keep some part of what they'd had alive through the machines she sought so desperately to craft.

But her fingers would slip, parts would break as she tried to force them into holes that weren't there, and her aggravation continued to rise with each passing attempt to keep them alive. Sweeps pass, and one night, a particularly cold and windy night, she can no longer maintain her facade. With the snapping of a delicate rod she'd been trying to place into a powered gauntlet, she breaks down, the time and space and loneliness smashing down her resolve, her will to keep a spark of life in her. She collapses where she stood, on her knees as she wails and howls in agony and that feeling of being so goddamned alone, left behind by a world she can no longer put trust into. The night goes by as she throws half-finished work at the walls, drinking several bottles of alcohol, sobbing and screaming at things noone but her could see.

And then, when all is said and done, curled up into a ball on the floor surrounded by the shattered machinery and smithwork, she just stares at the only thing untouched by her rage and sadness. Dragging herself over the shattered metal shards, not even noticing nor caring that her side is split open and bleeding, she drunkenly snatches the prosthetic arm off her workbench, cradling it as if it were the last shard of her that hadn't been touched by the overwhelming madness. She strokes the metal, fingers tracing over the grooves as she sobs and whimpers in mental agony until her body finally forces her to sleep through sheer exhaustion.

The next night her shop is cleaned, bottles thrown out into the garbage, side patched up and cleaned. But from that night onwards, nothing for her was ever the same. Her routine never differed; she'd rise, drink, go to her stall in town, drink, fill orders and make a few caegars before closing up and returning home, and then drink herself to sleep. While her schedule stayed the same, and while her attitude resumed its usual snarky self, there was something now inherently broken within her, a crack in her universe that she alone couldn't fix. Were someone to take the time (and the risk) to look closely at her, they'd see it; behind the snark and the attitude, the smith was decidedly quiet. Only speaking when spoken to or addressed in passing.

She was broken, so broken into so many different pieces that even she had doubts as to whether or not they could be put back together, and as the shop shuts for another daybreak, and as she start to make the trek home, she quietly reassures herself that maybe giving up was the best choice she'd made in a long time.