The Well

[Kruger]

Take Hold of the Flame

So take hold of the flame
Don't you see life's a game
So take hold of the flame
You've got nothing to lose, but everything to gain ~ Take Hold of the Flame lyrics © Tri-ryche Corporation Dba Queensryche Publishing Company



Kruger had been avoiding taking orders, Maggie had called him out on it. How or why she knew that immediately the smith didn’t know. He did the only thing he could think of at the time, took the order. It was easier than explaining why. Surely the kid, Jackson if he remembered correctly, with the need couldn’t know what it took. It was too late now, hell it was too late the moment the kid had explained his need. If he’d managed to push the order off to one of the other smiths in the city, Kruger could have left the solutions to pure speculation. Now he needed to put it into practice.

His mind was already working the problem the moment the measuring tape was in his fingers. The numbers involved was something he knew he’d get lost in. Kruger probably could have managed to do this in the forge at his shop, but he knew from experience that there would be too many distractions from the work. He didn’t want to work this from a stop and start perspective. It was always better for something like this to complete the work in one forging. It was gauntlets, that was good. It would require a lot of intricate pieces, but there wouldn’t be the same in depth concentration it took to create a weapon. He already had the pieces measured and cut to the dimensions of the boy’s hands.

Along with the Темний steele, and far less dangerous than the ebon steele the alloy had come from, Kruger had cut and paired out a set of leather gloves made from stingray leather. The black and pearl material would match up with the dark metal nicely if he said so himself. “What is it with kids and black these days? Nobody ever wants anything done in chromatic purple anymore.” Kruger’s voice echoed through The Well, his underground creation which was more cathedral than forge, at least until someone climbed the five hundred twenty eight steps leading up to where all of his equipment lay.

Kruger checked the pieces of the forge one last time, using a tuning fork of all things to be certain that all was as it needed to be. Only when he was completely satisfied did he begin. The cut pieces of steel went into the blackflame forge, and sound began to emanate through the building, soft and slow at first. It was soon joined by the sound of the smith’s song.

”We see the light of those who find
A world has passed them by
Too late to save a dream that's growing cold
We realize that fate must hide its face.”

It had been more than a year since this place had heard Kruger this way, and it seemed to give a rumbling purr at the event. Heat and hammer, the smith worked through the scent of expended sulfurous emanations. Sweat slicked his skin, most of that from the effort of manipulating the bits of metal to the right curvature. The rest was in the singular performance he was granting to an audience-less chamber. Far above him the dome’s features were obstructed by the maelstrom like tunnel which had opened once all those variables found their climax.

The hours passed him by, but the work went without incident, two dark gauntlets formed together one slip of metal, one rivet at a time. Through it all, Kruger kept his song going, even as he beat the treble clef into the back outer edge of the arm guard. Around the base of the symbol an iridescent circle manifested itself. It could have been an rainbow shaded eye with a pupil dark as the metal on which it rested. It could simply be a view into all that was possible. Whatever it was, it marked the completion of the work. Kruger took a step away from the anvil, and fell forward to the floor, the sweat standing amongst the myriad of whip scores upon his back pooling and running as it willed. The smith just lay there letting the exhaustion of the work wash over him and carry his mind into the depths of oblivion.

[Kruger]

Nothing Compares to You

It's been so lonely without you here
Like a bird without a song…

…'Cause nothing compares, nothing compares to you. ~ Songwriter: Prince


“Sometimes my soul hurts.” Kruger said the words into the heat and darkness of The Well, his underground forge. They echoed through the place, never quite dying even as they touched the furthest walls. “It takes every bit of strength I have to keep it from touching my face.” He tightened his grip on the handle of the hammer in his fist. He brought the head of the tool down on the white hot billet before him, the sound didn’t mask the sound of the sigh which came from behind him. Kruger didn’t need to see the figure behind him, his awareness of the diminutive dark haired elven woman was so acute that he knew her exact position. He could feel every step of her feet as she approached. He knew the moment she reached out to stroke sword callused fingers delicately along the whip scars along his bare back. Kruger closed his eyes and held his breath behind clenched teeth in an effort not to flinch at her touch. He wanted it, hell he needed to feel it, but it was still so difficult to let himself be that vulnerable to anyone. She knew the effort he made. It had been that way the very first time she’d done it, well it was almost the same. Back then he hadn’t been able to stop the way he pulled away from that touch. He was flawed, scarred so deeply from the misuse of those who should have loved him.

“What eats at you, Shale?” Her voice was a melody, a song softly spoken just to him. The sound nearly had him gasping for breath. He’d been without that sound for so long, except for in his memory. His memory was nearly perfect, still it would never be able to let his skin feel the air from her lips as she spoke like this. She’d used his true name, the one which had been taken from him when he was a child. He didn’t correct her, not like he would anyone who remembered and tried to use it on him. It always felt like a weapon when anyone uttered it, anyone but her. Ali could have used it to cut him to the quick, and he would only have loved the sound of it from her.

“I stare into the abyss, try to understand its black depths…try to find the pieces of me that I cut away when you were lost to me forever.” Her death had torn a hole inside him that nothing could ever fill. Nothing but her could, at least. She was here, surely it was a miracle. No, it wasn’t the same Ali, for her it wasn’t the same Kruger…the same Shale. Kruger spoke to her knowing that the same things inside him were in her as well. For her he’d been gone just as long, he was an almost perfect fit to that emptiness. Both of them understood the truth, they needed each other desperately. Kruger couldn’t find the strength to keep working, so he took the cooling billet in the tongs and thrust it back into the depths of the dark fire within the forge.

Kruger turned to face Aluderial, letting his amber eyes slide along her features shamelessly. “I’m broken Ali. That place where you live in me aches whenever I’m away from you for too long.” Her fingers went to his lips to stop the words from coming. It was the same for her, and he knew it. There was something more though, that thing which took her away from him so often. It was the guilt. Ali couldn’t stay away from him, she’d crossed time and space to be with him. They were happy when they were together, got lost in each other every time she returned. She was almost perfect, and likely for her he was the same. That was the problem, they were happy. Eventually the memory that this was not the person they’d fallen in love with would surface, bringing with it the guilt. For him that meant having to say goodbye to her. He would have to watch her ride away knowing she loved him, and that love was bringing her pain.

“I will always come home to you.” Ali’s eyes seemed to drink him in and still want more. It was almost ironic to Kruger’s way of thinking. If either of them were exactly the same as the one they’d lost, they wouldn’t be together. It was the differences which let them live, brought the two of them together against all the odds. It was the same differences that left just enough to miss. Would he change things? He doubted that he could. He was also certain that somewhere, or somewhen, they were together and had never been parted. Neither one of them would recognize that happy couple as being them. Sure, they’d look the same, but that would be the end of the resemblance.

Kruger put an over muscled arm around Ali and pulled her hard against him even as a tear leaked its way from her eye. They would make love. When he woke she’d be gone again, and Kruger would push every ounce of his despair into the billet which sat waiting for the pain to begin.

[Kruger]

Breathe (2 A.M.)

…So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe, just breathe… ~ Anna Nalik

Solitary, Kruger stood alone in the dark with only the sound of his own breathing. His eyes moved to the dome ninety meters over his head. He gaged the time by the ache in his arms and shoulders. Sometimes the emptiness had a weight that hit him harder than any hammer blow he’d ever given. He turned to the ornate anvil at the center of the forge, or rather the pair of ax heads resting upon it. The Damascus metal was infused with Ordanian gold. He imported it from off world, a necessary but expensive prospect. It was, to his knowledge, the only gold which was capable of being forged together with the billet he’d created for these weapons. They were to be a gift, something special for a person whose value was worth every extra mark in the cost.

The present wasn’t from him, he was just the artisan bringing them to life. Kruger understood the sentiment well, and the understanding had him feeling isolated. He pulled a case from a shelf before moving back to the anvil and the waiting work. The case was opened to reveal a set of chisels with edges so fine they looked fragile by comparison to the pair of axes. He fingered their delicate lengths and fought down the longing in his heart.

“What can I do about it?” The words self chastising words slipped from him in defiance of the slight tremble to his fingers.

“Just breathe, Kruger.” His hand closed around one of the elegant tools, he reached overhead for a light hammer, this would take an immense amount of control. Kruger knew that just beneath the surface of the steel lay the gold. He couldn’t see it with his eyes, but here, deep in the earth surrounded by every element required to create… Kruger could sense the metal. It wasn’t something he could easily explain to anyone. Admittedly it sounded too fantastic to be a real thing. He didn’t have the words to convey it to those whom he tried to tell. Sometimes he could show them, but it required a sacrifice from him. He didn’t give that to just anyone, because he could never get back what he lost in the effort. He’d traced the pattern on the sides of the axes, he could see the way the dim light hit the score marks. His eyes traced along every part of the design, from the mountains and on the haft end all the way out to the tiger looking outwards at the edges. He knew before ever beginning exactly where to hit and how hard. He studied the tool in his hand, caressed it with a thumb too callused to actually feel the instrument.

He laid the edge of the chisel to the first ax head at an angle designed to reveal the stunning color just below the surface. “Just breathe.” Had there been anyone to hear it, they may have thought he was repeating himself, and in a way he was. Still there was more to this utterance of the two words. That would have become clear a moment later as the air began to hum, and energy began to flow through the crystalline conduits that lined every part of the underground cathedral to his craft. This was how it worked, how he conveyed to the piece what he needed from it. Kruger brought the hammer down even as he began his song. Damascus steel slid almost willingly away from the tip of the chisel, shedding anything and everything that stood in the way of the vision the master smith held in his mind. It seemed to grieve along with him, solid metal teardrops falling away from the work to disappear into oblivion. They left the hint of a memory as they hit the floor with a sound like rain on a rooftop.

It wasn’t jealousy, the smith had too much understanding in him to let something so petty sneak into this making. It was, to him, quite simply a wish. A smile briefly touched his lips as he worked. It was only a side effect of one of his own memories. A light whisper in his ear, words meant only for him from someone who would only ever speak to him that way. The hammer continued to fall, its staccato rhythm a match to the flow of the words out of the past. He could feel it again, just a memory, but a perfect one. Summer sun, air penetrated by the scent of Zinnias and Hibiscus, and they had all of the future to live and love. “Just breathe…” The warmth fled away from him, but that memory seemed to play on a loop that could be called almost cruel. Kruger kept his hands working, the sound of the hammer striking the chisel lost in his focus on what was before him, and what was before for him. This piece would be stunning, and he would rip it out of the void inside him which could never be filled completely.