Brianna hands over a couple of vases to me which I immediately teleport back into the safeness of our vault back at the mansion. “Thanks a lot.”

“Absolutely no problem.” Brianna replies. “If you ever need more vases or flowers, feel free to come and see me.”

“Well, we’ll see each other often enough with our little combined enterprise.” Hilda replies and shakes Brianna’s hand.

“That’s true.”

“But it’s about time we head back now. See you around, Brianna.” My sister shakes Brianna’s hand as well, after which I do so too.

“Bye bye, Brianna!”

“Bye!”

The three of us leave the store and enter back into the street.

“Ready to teleport us back, Amicia?”

“Mhmm.” I give Hilda a nod and turn myself around. But before I continue, something in the distance catches my eye. It’s the sign of a blacksmith.

“What’s up, Ami?” Lise asks.

“Well… would you mind if we take a look at that before we leave?” I point at the sign in the distance.

“A blacksmith?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, sure thing. It’s not like we can miss the bus or something.” My sister shrugs. “What do you need a blacksmith for? Are you buying your favourite sister a new suit of armour?”

“Not exactly.” I giggle. “It’s for something Sam and I discussed.

“Oh.”

“Want us to come along or do you want to do it yourself?” Hilda asks.

“Feel free to join me. Maybe there’s something you want to buy too.

“Well, the chance that I’ll find a cooler sword and armor set is pretty low though. But I’ll come along anyway.”

“I’ll join too.” Hilda nods.

We walk over to the blacksmith down the street, the sign that hangs in front of the door says it’s open but from the windows we can’t really tell there’s any activity inside.

I push against the door and it quite easily swings open, making a little bell ring that’s installed just above the door. We are met with the sight of all kinds of weapons and armors that are displayed on the walls and on some of the tables. Pretty much all of the armors look Dwarger sized.

“Hmmm, I’m pretty sure these are all a little bit too small for me.” Lise looks at one of the armors and runs her hand over it. “looks like good quality though.”

“Hello? Is someone there?” The voice of a man comes from the back of the store. His voice sounds rather old.

“Yes, you’ve got customers.” My sister calls out.

“Customers?” The voice sounds a bit louder and we start hearing footsteps. That’s when a very old looking Dwarger man walks through the door, with a can, supporting himself.

“Are you the blacksmith?” Hilda asks.

“A blacksmith… I used to be.” The man nods. “Now it’s my grandson who has taken over.”

“Is your grandson here at the moment?”

“If neither me nor you can see him, then he mustn't be here at the moment.”

“What do you want to do, Ami?” Hilda asks. “Want to wait for the blacksmith to come back or should we just head off and come back later.”

“Well… I don’t want to waste too much time…” I scratch the back of my head.

“Do you know if he’s going to be out for long?” My sister asks.

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“I don’t know. I didn’t even know he was gone.”

“Uh, I suppose we should head off then.” I turn around towards the door. At least we didn’t really waste too much time.

Right when I’m about to open the door again, someone else opens the door before me. I take a couple of steps back as a very young yet very muscular Dwarger man walks in, a two sacks of coal in his left hand.

He looks surprised when he sees me.

“Uh, hi.” I slowly raise my hand to give a shy wave.

“Hello.” The Dwarger man closes the door behind him and now looks at our entire group. “Are you customers?”

“Potential ones, yes.” Hilda replies. “I take it you are the real blacksmith.

“I am.”

“Ah, there you are Roderick.” The old Dwarger man waves his cane at his grandson. “These people were about to leave because we had no idea where you were.”

“Grandpapa, I left a note for you on the counter saying I’d only be gone for ten minutes to go and buy some coal.”

“Note?” The old man lowers his cane and walks over to the counter. “Is that this silly piece of paper?” He starts reading the note before putting it down again. “Don’t you younglings understand it’s hard to read when you’re as old as me?”

My sister and Hilda both start chuckling.

“Yes grandpapa, next time I’ll shout in your ear, okay?”

“You better!” The old man slowly trudges back to the back of the house.

“I’m sorry for that.” The man sighs slightly and walks over to his counter with his bags of charcoal. “Were you interested in buying anything?”

“Well…” I raise my hand again. “I wanted to know something.”

“Yes?” Roderick looks at me.

“Would it be possible to make rings out of Gold Dwargons?”

Roderick looks a bit confused but after a couple of seconds he nods. “Yes… but I don’t see why you’d do that. You can just use golden bars too, can’t you?”

-Ah…-

“Oh…” I scratch my head and start blushing. “I suppose so.”

-It had really not come up in my mind at all that we could just pay a blacksmith with the golden Dwargon to make golden rings for us… That’d definitely be the better way to do things and probably also a lot less illegal.-

The young blacksmith starts laughing as he sees my reaction. “Don’t worry, I’m not judging, sometimes I also make strange connections in my mind like that.”

“Don’t we all?” Hilda chuckles.

“So you would like a couple of rings? I got to say that I’m not really that experienced with jewelry but it’s something I can definitely do.”

“Uh, yeah.” I reply as I get wiggle myself out of my shy situation. “I would actually like three golden rings if that’d be okay. I want to use them as promise rings for me and my girlfriend.”

“Promise rings?”

I nod and explain what the concept is behind promise rings to our blacksmith friend.

“Oh, I see.” He nods. “Rings aren’t really used in these lands to signify connections like that, but I can definitely imagine how significant it can be.”

“Not even for marriage?” My sister asks.

“No, not really.” Roderick shakes his head. “It’s clear that you are not from around here so I will explain it. A bond of marriage here is made only at the ceremony itself. A chain that’s interwoven with fabric get’s bound around the two partners during their ceremony. Afterwards, that chain becomes a sort of family treasure. Some people frame it, others hang it in their houses on the walls, and then others put it away in a chest in their bedrooms. But that’s really the only material sign us Dwarger people use that symbolizes our bond.”

“And nobody breaks a piece of that chain to hang it on a necklace or something like that?”

“No, no, no. Absolutely not.” Roderick waves his hands and shakes his head at the same time. “That’s not done. The only time the chain gets broken is when partners separate willingly. When the relationship has run its course. Breaking a chain would therefore symbolize the breaking of the relationship.”

“Oh wow, that’s really interesting.” Hilda nods. “I didn’t know that at all.”

“Dwarger people don’t really like sharing that much, so it’s pretty normal if you don’t know our most intimate traditions. Especially if you haven’t been here for that long.”

“Well, thank you for explaining it to us.” My sister gives him a big smile.

“No problem at all.” He then looks back at me. “So, these rings, would you like to have something special about them.

“Hmmm.” I scratch my cheek. “Could you maybe engrave our names in the rings?”

“Definitely.” He goes behind his counter and takes a piece of parchment and a quill.

“It’s Amicia and Sam.”

He starts writing it down and then turns the paper towards me. “Like this?”

When I look at the piece of paper but I can only see runic writing. “Oh, those are runes.”

“Oh, would you like it in some other language?”

Hilda and Lise look over my shoulder at the piece of parchment too.

“I think that actually looks really cool, and it’s definitely going to be pretty unique as far as promise rings go.” My sister replies and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“The way your names are written in runes also looks really pretty, don’t you think?” Hilda says.

That’s not initially what I had in mind, however, what both my sister and Hilda say is true. The runes do add something really unique to all of this and I actually also really like that aesthetic.

“Yes.” I give Roderick a nod. “I think that would be good.”

“Great.” He smiles. “Then I just need you to pick a style and the sizes, and then I’ll get to work immediately.”

-I am really excited to see how the rings end up looking!-