A few hours later, a blizzard blew through the town and covered everything in snow. The wind howled through the town with enough force. It sounded like a hurricane was passing through. Luckily, the cabin guest house had a fireplace, and Haze had me use my newfound chakra to start the fire. Apollo grumbled about it, saying it was a waste of his power, but Fengbao convinced him otherwise. You’d think, since I’m a hivemind and all, I would be used to people arguing inside my head. I wasn’t. It gave me a headache.
Scritch scratch, scritch scratch. I turned to see Yuki scratching at the door to get out. “Yuki,” I sighed, “there’s a blizzard outside. You shouldn’t go out there.” Yuki yapped at me and pranced around in front of the door. It was her bathroom dance.
I looked to Haze, who was picking at her teeth with one of her clawed fingers. She noticed my gaze and said, “What? It’s not mine.”
I sighed, “I know. I’ll be outside for a little while.” Then I stood, walked to the door, and braced myself for the bracing cold. I looked down at Yuki and said, “Okay, you ready?” Yuki yapped and pranced around, ready to go. I turned the doorknob, and it blew open with a loud whoosh.
“AHH! Close the door! It’s freezing!!” Cami yelled over the rush of wind.
“Leave it open! It feels nice!” Xiao countered.
With a mighty heave, I closed the door before the argument could ensue and watched as Yuki disappeared into the snow-covered lands. The snowflakes blew so fast I could feel them stabbing into my skin like millions of little daggers that quickly melted when they touched my skin. I quickly grew eight more tails and my four wings, wrapping them around me to keep warm.
I looked around for Yuki to try and see where she had gone, but I couldn’t find her in this damn blizzard. I saw a soft orange light from a few houses up the snow-covered road as I looked. My feet were freezing, and I didn’t know where Yuki was or how to find her. So I made a decision and began walking up the road to the light. It was an uphill battle against the wind and snow as I trudged through the thigh-high snow. After what felt like twenty minutes, I finally made it to the light.
The light emanated from a forge, and the sound of a hammer striking metal rang clear over the howling wind. I got a few steps closer and saw the forge itself. Hammers, tongs, boxes of scrap metal and raw ore, and a tall, broad-shouldered woman stood hunched over a red-hot piece of metal. It was Shimal. She did say she lived at the house with a forge. I drew closer and stepped over the stone wall around the forge area. The forge was warm and hot, but the biting cold overcame the tremendous heat.
I sat down against the wall and held my frozen toes. They looked blue and almost blackened. I cycled my Healing chakra to them to prevent frostbite, but that only helped a little. My toes were still freezing, so after my Healing chakra, I cycled my Inferno chakra through my body, which helped. As I did this, something interesting happened. My wings which I had wrapped around me, changed color. They went from their usual violet and blue to a yellow, orange, and red color, in that order too.
Marveling at the new color of my wings for a moment, I began to feel warmth return to my body somewhat. Although the blizzard still bit at my body, it wasn’t as bad as before. So, with nothing better to do, I watched Shimal hammer away at the glowing piece of metal, re-heat it, and hammer away again, repeating the process over and over. With each repetition, she looked increasingly agitated by her work until she finally snapped.
“GODS FECKIN’ DAMN IT!” she yelled in an accent I recognized as Scottish. Then she hurled the hunk of metal behind her without a second thought directly at me! I reached up, caught the hot piece of metal with my hand, and dropped it, expecting the hot iron to burn me, but it didn’t. Thanks to my thick skin and new inferno chakra, I am essentially immune to the heat. But it’s not something I want to put to the test too much. Shimal sat with her head in her hands and her back still towards me as she began to sob and curse metal working, “Ah feckin’ hate thes. Ah hate it. Ah hate it. Ah hate it.”
I hesitantly walked over to her, stepping over the hot piece of metal on the ground, and carefully asked, “Are … are you all right?”
Shimal jumped in surprise and turned to me with a curse, then remembered her manners as she wiped away tears, “Ah’m sorry, ah—” she stopped herself and cleared her throat before continuing with a non-accented voice, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
I shook my head, “No, no. It’s fine. I’ve had worse things than a hot piece of metal thrown at me.”
“Oh, did I— shit. I’m so sorry about that.”
“No, like I said, it’s okay. But you didn’t answer my question. Are you all right?” I asked again.
Shimal sighed and said, “As the host, I shouldn’t burden you with my troubles.”
“As the guest,” I countered, “I don’t like being in the presence of people upset. So, I am trying to remedy that. Are you all right? What seems to be troubling you? And what race are you? I’ve never seen anybody as tall as your people. Are you frost giants?!” Shimal blinked at me in confusion, and I blushed a little. “Sorry,” I added after a moment, “As the guest, I like knowing things.”
“Because you add ‘as the guest’ to your words doesn’t make them any less rude.”
“I know. Now I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Shimal chuckled at that and sighed, “Fine. I’ll answer your questions. Firstly, we aren’t frost giants. Those are monsters and far bigger than us. We are Goliaths. We live on tall mountains like this one cause if we get too hot, we may overheat and die. And secondly, the thing that’s bothering me is blacksmithing.”
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“Why is blacksmithing bothering you, and how do you stay warm in a place like this if being warm kills you?”
“So many questions,” Shimal chuckled, then pointed to her left arm, “You see how our skin is grey. It’s a particular part of my race that retains heat. And now that I think about it, I don’t remember you having wings or so many tails. Why is that?”
I walked up to her giant form and gently grabbed her massive hand with my right placing my left on the back of her hand. Then I imagined my left hand growing three claws. My hand immediately began to bubble and morph. Ten seconds later, my hand turned changed into three razor-sharp claws. Shimal tried backing away, but my other hand held her firmly as I gave her a tiny scratch with my new claws, drawing the tiniest amount of blood before letting go of her. She immediately backed away as I licked the blood from my claws and shifted it back to a normal hand.
Shimal’s blood tasted warm and rich. It was almost like the best thing I’d ever eaten before. Wait, wait, wait. Did I just enjoy the taste of someone’s blood?! Umm, fuck. I did. It was so good. I want more. No, no, nope, no. Don’t go down that rabbit hole and clear your mind. Clear your mind of that … that delectable blood. Ah! Shit, I did it again. Okay, focus on the blizzard. The biting cold. Fuck it’s cold now that I think about it. Oh, hey! I just got the DNA of people who are immune to cold environments. I should use that.
I focused on my skin and used Goliath DNA to change it to theirs. Soon my skin began to crawl and itch as my skin changed from Caucasian to a dull grey, and ten seconds later, the cold was gone. I felt warm, and the biting snow that struck my skin did nothing to me. In fact, it felt good. Good enough that I could un-grow my eight tails and four wings, leaving one tail behind.
Shimal pressed her back against the far wall and picked up an iron poker, pointing it at me threateningly. “Whit th’ buck ur ye!?” she asked, fear in her Scottish-accented voice.
Smiling, I answer, “I’m a monster. But not a bad one.”
“Whit did ye dae tae me?” she asked, still pointing the iron poker at me.
“Wow, that is a thick accent. Umm, are you asking what I did to you?” I asked back, with my hands clasped and pointing at her.
“Aye.”
“Ah, well, nothing really. I just took some of your DNA to have the same cold-resistant skin as you. I know I should’ve asked, but it’s a lot easier to show this sort of thing,” I explained, answering her question, but Shimal didn’t put down the poker. I sighed, “Could you please put down the poker and relax? You still haven’t told me why blacksmithing is bothering you, and if you could explain without the accent, that would be helpful.”
“Yoo’re nae gonnae—” Shimal stopped herself again before continuing without the accent, “You’re not going to kill me or anything?”
“No, no. I only fight people in self-defense or defense of others. I won’t kill you,” then I sat down and crossed my legs like the expectant child I am as I said, “Now spill.”
Sighing with resignation, Shimal put the poker down and sat with her legs crossed, mirroring me like a fun house mirror. Then she collected her thoughts, “So, as you know, I’m the granddaughter of Master Lii. He’s the leader of our village and makes all the decisions and has for the past hundred and fifty years.”
“Wow. I didn’t know he was that old,” I commented.
“Yeah, he is that old. Anyway, he’s more than just the leader of the village. His official title is ‘The Keeper.’ This title has been passed down through the generations to those who prove themselves as the best crafter in the world. And yes, there are ways to determine that, but I won’t get into it. To be considered for the title, you must prove you can craft anything asked of you. Something which I am failing at,” Shimal explained, the fires from the forge casting shadows on her saddened face.
“What do you mean by that? How are you failing?”
“I am striving to be the Keeper. Something neither my father nor my mother wanted to be. To achieve my goals, I must master all forms of crafting, as I’ve said before. I have mastered leatherworking, sowing, candle making, soap, woodworking, carpentry!” she listed these off and threw her arms up, gesturing to the house. “But the one thing I’ve yet to complete,” she continued, looking defeated, “Is making a simple blade. A piece of armor. Anything involving metalworking. Whatever I make is either too brittle or soft or won’t keep its shape.”
“Oh, I see,” I said, understanding, “You need to forge something that shows you are as good as you say you are, and you’ve been unable to do that.”
“Yep. That pretty much sums it up. When I made my forge, my grandfather brought me everything I needed and told me to make one single blade, which would be enough to show I was ready for the title. But I’ve yet to complete that simple task after ten years of hard work.”
I looked around the forge again, and now that I was looking at it, something was missing. I stood and wandered around, “So when your grandfather brought you all the equipment, was there a big metal bucket?”
Shimal looked at me quizzically, “Yeah, why?”
“Did he also give you a bunch of oil?”
“Yeah. What does this have to do with anything?”
“You don’t have a way of quenching your items,” I stated, “I may not be any sort of smith in any form of the word, but I do know that you’re supposed to quench the metal with ice water and oil. Ahha!” I exclaimed as I found the bucket atop a shelf way up high. I cycled some chakra to my legs, jumped to the shelf five meters above me, and grabbed the bucket before falling back to the ground.
“Quench it? What does that mean?”
“Quenching the metal hardens it, making it stronger. After you quench it and it cools to room temp, let it rest in the hot coals to heat it back up slowly, and then all you got to do is let it cool again, then sharpen it. Where’s that oil?”
Shimal stood, grabbed a metal box from a shelf on the other side of the forge, and said, “Here it is. Is it really that simple? Have just been fucking up this simple process the entire time?”
I reached over the stone wall and scooped enough snow into the bucket to fill it halfway. “Yep. Now, why don’t you make a proper sword,” I said as I took the heavy metal container the same size as me and set it on the ground next to the bucket of snow.
“But I—I—”
I cut her off there, “No, no, no. There’s a famous saying where I’m from. When there’s a will, there’s a way. You’ve been working on mastering metal working for the past ten years! You have the will to do this. I’ve just given you the way to go. Now stop counting yourself short and do it! Forge a sword worthy of legend!”
“I don’t need to make a sword worthy of—”
A muffled yap cut her off as Yuki hopped into the forge with a fat rat in her mouth. “See!” I exclaimed, “Even Yuki agrees with me! You will Forge a sword worthy of legend, and it will be perfect!!”
Shimal looked between Yuki, and I then sighed. She ran her fingers through her hair, took a deep breath, and said, “All right. I’ll make a sword worthy of legend.”
“Sorry, what? I couldn’t hear you. Could you say that again?”
“I said I’ll make—”
“Sorry! The wind is really loud! Could you say it louder!?”
“I said I’ll make a sword worthy of legend!”
“What was that?! I can’t hear you!!”
“I’ll make a sword worthy of legend!”
“ONE MORE TIME!!” I exclaimed, pumping my fists in the air.
“I’LL MAKE A SWORD WORTHY OF LEGEND!!” Shimal bellowed at the top of her lungs!
“YEAH, YOU WILL!” I yelled, matching her energy, and Yuki ran off with her rat to escape the loud noises.
“YEAH!” Shimal bellowed again before gathering everything she needed to forge a blade. A blade that would be worthy of myths and legends.
***