"The stars are coming out, is it already this late ?"

"You know what they say, time moves faster when you're working. You can thank that caravan for the fast shift."

Two guards were discussing at the post west of Ironedge as the sun went behind the mountains and the veil of darkness descended upon the area. The day had been quite hectic with a lot of traffic entering the town so they had to spend a lot of time inspecting the carriages and inventory. Their shift was at its end as they waited for the next pair to release them from their duty.

The guard pair was happily chatting and writing down the number of people and vehicles that had entered the town.

"Oi, look someones coming."

Far away in the distance illuminated by the snow, a spec of light could be seen coming towards the town. As it got closer a cloaked figure could be seen carrying a torch as they traveled towards the outpost. The scene was unusual as normally no one would dare to travel so late in the evening and they had just inspected a caravan which could have been used for transport.

As the figure got closer the guards took their weapons out in case the suspicious person was hostile.

"Stop! Who goes there!"

"Settle down boys, its just me."

The figure took off their cloak to show their face and the guards immediately recognized the person and lowered their guard.

"Why in the world are you traveling alone so late at night Cybil? There was a caravan just a few hours ago, you could have taken that and been a lot safer."

The lone figure was indeed Cybil. Pretty much all of the guards knew him as he supplied all of the towns tools and metal equipment. He had traveled from Dvalfgar to Ironedge alone late in the evening. Something that was normally discouraged due to the weather and wild life.

"My errand ran a bit late and I really wanted to get here today. Got a problem?"

The guards really wanted to scold him but they knew it was futile. They returned to their post and waved Cybil off.

"Oh by the way, you should expect to hear from the town hall tomorrow. Most of the guard equipment need some maintenance." One of the guards yelled at Cybil who had already moved on past.

"Figures, you guys can't seem to take care of em for longer than a month." Cybil waved the guards off and threw his torch into the snow as he could now see the lights of the town.

The door to the workshop opened and Cybil walked in. The first thing he saw was the workers crowding around a table in the middle of the house. He took a peak over the workers shoulders who after noticing him quietly gave him more room to see. Once he could see the whole picture he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Aleyn was having an arm wrestling match with one of the biggest workers in the workshop. Sweat was rolling down both of their arms and heads as they struggled. Slowly but surely Aleyn was losing the battle which made her opponent grin in an evil manner.

She saw the grin and took a deep breath, her concentrating face showed a cheeky smile as she turned the tides in one slow motion and won the match. The crowd exploded into cheer and laughter as Aleyn stood up in a victory pose.

She walked behind the guy who had just lost and patted him on the shoulder.

"Whoooh, you're one strong man. Good thing arm wrestling is a all about technique or I would have definitely lost."

The guy snapped out of his shocked expression and awkwardly answered.

"Erm, yes definitely technique. I lost in technique, yes definitely."

At that point Cybil had had enough and exploded.

"The hell are you guys doing? I leave for two days and you guys are having arm wrestling competitions? Get back to work!"

Everyone now noticing Cybil stopped laughing and turned towards him. Having had Cybil yell at them everyday already had made his explosions lose effect.

"Oh Cybil, when did you arrive?" Aleyn raised her voice and asked.

"Just now! That's not important, I thought I told you I wanted to see some work done before I got back and you're just having fun? I'm disappointed."

Having witnessed Aleyn in a different light he had second thoughts about having her go learn from his teacher. He was furious enough to kick her out of the shop.

"We finished all the work a few hours ago though, I even took some time to sharpen some tools and polish em and with so much time left the guys started playing cards which sort of escalated to this."

Aleyn answered with a calm and expressionless face. She understood what Cybil thought was going on perfectly so she didn't judge him.

Cybil didn't believe it at all.

"What? I left you with more than two days worth of orders."

The workers started defending Aleyn and gradually Cybil started to calm down.

"Yeh she even did the paper work, its right there in your office."

Cybil after hearing this took quick strides as he went to his office and indeed there was a stack of papers. Cybil took a moment to think and then yelled from his office.

"Okay I get it. Aleyn come in here!"

The workers took a seat and gave apologetic looks towards Aleyn thinking she would get yelled at for something. She waved them off before heading to Cybils office.

"There a problem?" She asked Cybil who was going through the stack of papers.

"Everything seems fine here, different to what I usually do but that doesn't matter." He had obviously calmed down.

"How did you manage this?" he took his eyes off the paper work as he asked her.

She lied down on a make shift bed in the corner.

"Hey where did that come from!? Cybil asked in confusion, he didn't have a bed in the room before.

"Oh, I put it together an hour ago while waiting since I felt tired. It's mostly my things though so you're not keeping it." She said as she closed her eyes for a bit.

"Anyway. Yesterday when you left I addressed everyone and told them about your little challenge and asked them if I could take control of the work for the time."

"What challenge?" Cybil was confused as he wasn't aware of giving a challenge.

"You know,""I want to hear the workers praise you when I get back."" I thought that clearing that order list would be pretty praise worthy so I wanted to take control for the two days."

Cybil stared blankly at her while she was resting herself.

"And what did you do then?"

"I told everyone to finish what they were working on and take a break until everyone was free, once they were done I ran through the orders and picked out the more complex ones to do and focused on them for the first day. "

She paused for a breather and continued.

"With a little bit of ordering and yelling we got them finished late in the evening and had time to do some less stressing work for a few hours until closing time. We spent most of today doing the rest and finished early."

"So what work did you do other than yelling and ordering?" Cybil asked with a stern voice.

Aleyn sighed and started listing all the work orders she remembered, sometimes Cybil would ask regarding a specific one and she would give him the details. Having gotten the whole picture Cybil smiled.

"You must be tired, that's a lot of work in a short amount of time."

Cybil narrowed his eyes on Aleyn and asked

"The quality didn't suffer did it?" He sounded more serious than before.

"Naah, I personally checked every order. No damaged goods." she assured him.

Cybil sighed and put the stack of papers in his drawer.

"You're making this really hard for me.." Cybil said with a sad tone.

Aleyn opened her eyes and turned to face Cybil in confusion.

"Huh?"

"Oh nothing ignore that." He quickly fixed his sad expression

"More importantly, I met my teacher when I went to Dvalfgar. I had to boast about my little apprentice." he gave a slight chuckle.

"Your teacher ? The one you told me about when you asked me to learn from you guys?"

"Yes the very one. How would you feel about going to Dvalfgar and becoming one of his pupils?"

Aleyns eyebrows rose in shock for a moment.

"Why would I do that? I'm still learning from you."

Cybil shook his head.

"You learned the ropes in a month and have been working here as an equal worker for a long time. You even used your spare time for a project and you ran the shop for two days with excellent results. It's safe to say I have nothing left to teach you."

Aleyn went into thought for a few moments and silence fell in the room until she asked the key question.

"Why would I want to learn from him if I've got nothing left to learn here? What's so special about him."

"My teacher is one of the worlds most known blacksmiths he has royalty asking him to have his students craft their weaponry from all known regions, just having his students work on your request is highly sought for. Do you really think he is below you?" Cybil said with great pride, slightly ridiculing her for saying what she had said.

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Aleyn knew very well that his teacher was a very powerful person, she had said it more out of spite than anything. After hearing Cybil defend his teacher she felt slightly overwhelmed.

"You're saying you have nothing left to teach me, yet you were his student. Why can he teach me something you can't?"

"There are things which when lost can cripple you in more ways than one. You're just going to have to believe me when I say I have nothing left for you to learn." Cybil sounded normal but you could feel a slight sadness in his tone if you tried.

Aleyn having heard his explanation went through an exchange of feelings, from sadness to curiosity and from curiosity to loneliness. She had really come to like this little towns workshop and people. As she was thinking she was interrupted by Cybil.

"It's not like I'm happy to let you go you know. A person like you is very nice to work with and you're a good friend. But I feel if you stay in this village you're wasting talent. Besides wasn't your intention to leave eventually anyway?" He said with a honest tone.

She didn't need to hear that, she knew very well he was only thinking about her future. She lift herself to stand on the makeshift couch and took reached for her backpack and with a calm voice declared.

"I guess there's nothing to it then. What do I need to do?"

Cybil calmly ran through some things to prepare, she needed to get a hold of a map of the region and the city. Regarding work, she was basically laid off at the spot technically but there was no ill intent. He needed to write a letter for his teacher as well. While talking Cybil had a sudden rush of realization.

"Oh yes, I heard that a caravan entered the town just today. You should go and ask them if they're heading west so that you can hitch a ride."

Aleyn nodded.

"I'll be off then."

She picked up her things and head for the caravan. The caravan had set their post on the west side of the town and the whole camp seemed to still be awake. It turned out they weren't going to Dvalfgar but they were heading west so she could hitch a ride for a fair price. They were departing the next day in the early evening.

Having heard the the schedule she paid the caravan leader the price and returned to the workshop to tell Cybil that they were departing tomorrow. He was already working on the letter and still sat in his office. Having heard the time frame he still had something to ask of her.

"Could you come to the shop early in the morning after you've gotten yourself set?"

"I will." was the last thing she said with a gloomy tone as she left the workshop.

The next day was exceptionally sunny and there were no clouds in the sky. It was a pity it didn't elevate her mood more as she strode towards the workshop for what would be her last time.

She entered Cybils office where he was already waiting while looking over his letter. As he heard someone enter the house he folded the letter and sealed it with wax. Aleyn entered the room as he was just finished with the letter.

"Here's your introduction, you got a map right?"

Aleyn pulled a rolled up map from her backpack and placed it on the table. Cybil unrolled it and looked at it for a second or two then placed his index finger on a specific end of the city.

"Camedyr placed his workshop on the south east side of city, if you enter from the current south entrance you should be able to see it. If not then you should have hard time finding a passer by who doesn't know of the place."

Cybil took a look at the slightly quiet and gloomy Aleyn who nodded at his explanations. After having done so he rolled the map and gave it to her.

"Come with me to the backyard." He said with a stern voice and left the office.

Aleyn and Cybil entered the backyard, and to her surprise there was a person waiting there. Tavin was leaning next to a huge rock which didn't used to be there.

"Morning girl." Tavin said as he pushed away from the rock.

"Morning Tavin." Aleyn answered and after noticing the rock she had to ask both of them.

"What's this about then?"

Tavin stayed quiet, but Cybil had an explanation.

"There's a tradition amongst blacksmiths, where others who have a lot of respect for a certain one encourage them to leave their personal hammer as a memento to a workshop they are leaving. Some give it to them as a gift, some make more of a show of it and use their strength to leave it in a stone block forever. I asked the boys to help me carry this stone here for this purpose yesterday. It would honor us if you followed the tradition. "

Both Tavin and Cybil put up a serene smile which hit Aleyn with a wave of emotion, she dug into her backpack and took out her forging hammer.

"What do I need to do then?"

"Nothing special, hit the rock with all your strength and leave the hammer there. It's probably good outlet for you today in fact."

She took a quick glance Cybil who still had his smile on. With nothing more left to do she walked up to the rock and focused on the center, she readied herself to strike at with a few steady breaths and lifted her hammer behind her back.

Aleyn used all of her strength in her right arm for that one blow, you could feel the something bottled up being released through the air as she swung the hammer in a huge arc and yelled loudly enough to leave an echo in the mountains.

It sounded like her voice chords were being clawed, but the sound paled behind the huge crackle that followed the impact of the hammer. As she hit the rock it felt as though it was parting away under her hammer while splinters and clusters of rocks flew past her.

In the end she had used enough strength to leave her having to support her right hand as it ached and hanged loose. In one perfect motion she had put all leverage on her right arms swing which normally could dislocate ones shoulder, but not this dwarfs it seems.

Cybil and Tavin having stood a bit further now walked towards her, they both took a look at the hammer up close and marveled.

"Monstrous." Tavin said in admiration. A blacksmith could easily break a piece of rock, yet it took a lot more to pierce it without making it grumble completely.

Cybil smiled solemnly, and approached the girl holding on to her right arm.

"You okay?" he asked

"It'll be fine." She assured him.

"Feel better?" he threw another question

She took a moment to realize what he meant. As she gave herself the same question she realized her mood was a lot higher and she didn't feel as sad as she was before.

She raised the corner of her mouth small smile and as a small tear fell from her eye she replied.

"A lot better."

"Good." he patted her left shoulder.

Cybil had the letter in his hand, but instead of giving it to her he dug into his pocked and pulled out what looked like a small hammer.

He handed both the letter and the small hammer to her and explained.

"It's not that hard to forge a letter, so hand him that pin as well. It's the one I got from him when I left his workshop. It's quite expensive so keep it somewhere safe and don't show it around too much or people will get handy. When I come and have a visit him in the future I can take it back."

The pin he had given her looked like a simple forging hammer but occasionally if you looked closely the hammer got engulfed in a silver coloured flame. Was it the material or was it an enchantment? She didn't feel like figuring out. All she had to do was present it to Cybils teacher.

Aleyn picked up her things and gave both Tavin and Cybil a handshake and a hug, wishing them both a good health. As she left both of them looked at her leave, her hair and cloak were being assaulted by the wind but she ignored the fact and left for the caravan early.

"I think we're gonna be hearing about her in the future. What do you think boss?" Tavin said without letting his gaze off of Aleyn.

"Without a doubt." Cybil answered.

Once Aleyn was out of both of their vision they entered the workshop carrying the rock inside. As the workers arrived they heard the story and marveled at the memento of that little lady that had been working with them for just a few weeks.

None of them had voiced an opinion when Cybil had entered the workshop and told them his plans yesterday, they all agreed she was worthy. Eventually as it was time to start up the forge they took a last look at the hammer and went back to work. There was no stopping the wheels of production after all.