54th of Ash, 4617
Days. Several days had passed in the foundry with not a single full night's sleep, living off the rats that scampered about the grungy alleys of Westfalen's lower districts. The only rest between the backbreaking and muscle-shredding labor was the few hours that he got to sleep.
Every morning he woke on that hard factory floor, Arkash was reminded of all the risky moves and the brutal intensity of the time he'd spent in the forge the day before. His body did not relent in begging his surrender, and the subconscious thought of the three that had died on the foundry floor pulled at the corners of his mind; the thought that he could end up trampled or set ablaze as they had been kept him on a constant stressful edge for the entire time that he was at work.
There was no rest for the body or the mind, no knight-given relief between the endless hours of labor... So Arkash made some.
Every once in a while, whenever the Overseer would change shifts with another, he would step outside and take a clump of snow with both hands. That snow would melt under the intensity of the heat that his body retained, hydrated him, and cooled him off substantially when he ate and smeared it about his scales. The water steamed in the hottest parts of the foundry, and Arkash resolved not to spend too long there while he processed the Argent's steel.
After what felt like a lifetime of suffering and brutality, the end was in sight. The final day of their job was there, and the nameless would be taken back to Nivenhain as promised.
He sighed, pressing his clawed hands into his knees while they bent for support. His scales steamed in the glow of the hot steel and his claws trembled under the numbness that the vibrations caused. A startled breath roused him, and his eyes widened hard. A curl of his nose brought his attention back to the task at hand.
Again, he gripped the cooled end of the metal with the pliers he squeezed, and lifted his hammer to bring it down on the glowing head of the metallic slab. It took all his meager strength to budge the red-hot formation, and he'd been at it for hours. Almost, he was done. The slab of metal had taken a large square shape that elongated on one edge; someone's hammer, he imagined.
The burst of sparks that came with striking the hot metal showered his scales, but his carapace of bone and keratin didn't burn easily. It stung occasionally and left him hot, but he vented the heat through his open muzzle and drooled over the most affected parts to cool them.
He couldn't swallow his spit with how severely the ash had mixed with his saliva, so he made use of its evaporation in cooling him, even if he was a mess by the end of it.
The nameless weren't offered protective equipment, but they were given some of the lowest quality tools for the sake of completing the job.
The pliers he'd been assigned were so rusted that he had to use both hands to open and close it, and the head of the hammer slid about with an inch of room. He had no apron, no goggles to protect his eyes. So, he shielded his gaze with his eyelids and shut his eyes with every impact.
The pain in his arms stirred some deep, repressed energy in his chest while he struck at the metal. His nose curled as every subsequent strike caused him another fresh flash of pain. No hesitation, just the will to carry on. Like a machine, Arkash hammered at the metal without mercy to himself or the block. He struck harder and harder with every strike thereafter, and his messy muzzle shut tight while he continued full throttle.
The fire of the forge reflected in his yellow eyes while he slammed the metallic clump and ruined his hands. Grunts eventually came while he bared his teeth to the glowing flame, and he ramped up the speed and weight of his strikes. The idea that his body would return a pain response in an attempt to stop him was unbelievable. He would not slow, he wouldn't hesitate.
The agony in his back and knuckles didn't phase him, he didn't pause to even think about what his body demanded of him. Instead, he hammered away with building ferocity and growled through his bared teeth. Sparks flung at his facial features in the dark of the Foundry, and he merely shut his eyes in response. The striking didn't cease until he was done, and then he set the hammer down while he gripped the pliers and turned over the metal.
Again he continued blasting away at the steel, nose curled while he spent all his adrenaline on fighting the heated steel.
Over and over again he collided with the metal until it was finally too cool to work with. Lost in a fit of Rage, Arkash continued hammering the steel and finally stopped when the head of the hammer snapped and dropped to the floor beyond the anvil.
Arkash let out a startled cry and stepped back as he dropped the splintered wood, breathing heavily while his arms and legs shook with constrained energy. Tremors ran through him while he breathed in an attempt to cool off, and found little to no success. Quickened breathing accumulated to heavy, deep breaths before his nose curled and he loosed a rage-fuelled "FACK!!"
The shitty hammer had broken; no doubt the Knighthood was going to make him pay for it with his wages.
Could he fix it? Quickly, he recollected the splintered handle and tried to collect the head on his knee, but the iron was hot. As the surface hissed and burned his scales, Arkash shot up with a pained growl, and returned a primal, threatening grunt.
Mind and body raw with exhaustion, Arkash's pent-up stress manifested as blinding anger.
When the whistle blew, his heart sank and the wind was robbed from his sails. It was over; the pain and the heat were over.
Arkash shuddered intensely and began to remove his ragged, burned, hide jerkin. With the fabric balled in his fist, he moved to collect the hot head of the tool, and sloppily tried to stick them back together while he hurried through the foundry floor. He found a position where the grooves of splintered wood stuck together and somewhat supported themselves, but Arkash didn't trust the weight of the tool with its handle.
His brow softened with worry, and he looked up as he weaved through the hollows and finally arrived in the queue at the Overseer's booth.
Like the rest of the Nameless, he fell in line and tried to cool off the metal of the hammer. He focused so intently on trying to fix the thing that he didn't notice the distinct lack of coin being delivered to the workers, or the disgruntled curses that left the lips of his peers as they passed.
In the end, he settled for gripping the handle of the hammer to the head with a squeeze of the pliers.
He swallowed and assumed a neutral smile as he approached the front, one foot after the other. His heart raced under the immense pressure that was his pitiful attempt to lie to the knighthood. Finally, it was his turn to collect his money, and the overseer rose a brow when they made eye contact. A brief look down from the Knight's gaze to the ledger that was kept hidden from view was all Arkash had to see to know when was screwed. The knight had recognized his appearance from some written description. The fact that he stood out wasn't good news; it never was.
"Arkash?" Asked the knight. The young Rath just about died.
"Yes Ser," he replied as he set the hammer and the pliers on the desk.
The knight rose a brow. "Seven doubles at doubletime; you came with that group from Nivenhain, right?" he nodded hesitantly. "...You took no meals, but slept under our roof for six nights-."
Arkash blinked. "-Ew sed I could," he clarified with some degree of panic. Why were they keeping track?
"Who did?"
"Errant-Knight Gustav, Ser," he explained. His heart raced and his jaw was tense. They really were told they were allowed to sleep on the factory floor, Arkash would not have done so if it would have cost them.
The knight laughed. "Errant-Knights have no authority here; you were misinformed." Arkash's pupils narrowed to pinpricks while he stared down the knight, who barely paid attention as he flicked through to the next page of his ledger. "...You were seen taking several breaks during production hours, even leaving the facility for undisclosed amounts of time."
"I wuz out faw firty secun's!" Arkash exclaimed, defensive. "I jus' wan'ed sum watah, Ser! Please!"
The knight rose a brow with the scowl of some unclear threat. Arkash swallowed his sooty spit and held his mouth shut. The knight continued listing various other grievances with his performance and productivity over the past week. He began to tremble as reality clawed at the edges of his mind, and the narrative that he'd barely worked at all was spun like an expansive web of lies. "All in all, that leaves you with... Two farthings."
His heart sank. Two farthings... For all his hard work, the twenty-eight he'd put together in his head, the money he was promised for all his effort and labor. Everything moved in slow motion as the knight fetched two coins from his bag and reached for the handle of Arkash's hammer with the other. His jaw pressed hard, and as expected, the head of the tool fell off just a second after it left the desk. The knight blinked, and grinned beneath the shield of his helm.
"Nevermind," he said, putting the two farthings back in the sack before he swiped the broken tool with a flex of his gauntlet-wrapped hand. "This leaves you in debt to the Knighthood," the Overseer began to explain. Arkash was shaking. Was he about to be arrested? No, the knighthood didn't take prisoners; not from the Nameless. "But... You're in luck. We can just penalize you the train ride back to Nivenhain, and that just about covers the cost of the tools you destroyed."
The knight began to write in the ledger, dismissing the Rathor where he stood with a wave.
Arkash made his way down the line, jerkin held tight in his claws while his mind raced. He wasn't getting paid, he wasn't even going home to Cojack. That was it, he had no shelter and no money so very far from where he lived. As he left the facility, he shut the door behind him, then fell to his tail with his back slumped against the wall.
Devastated and lost, Arkash sat there with no mind to continue, and no hope to survive the trip back to Lower Nivenhain. What would become of the sickly horse he cared for? His medicine wouldn't last much longer.
Alone in the ash-mixed snow, Arkash drew a ragged breath of the biting cold air and began to weep. He'd done all of that for nothing after all.
Days. Several days had passed in the foundry with not a single full night's sleep, living off the rats that scampered about the grungy alleys of Westfalen's lower districts. The only rest between the backbreaking and muscle-shredding labor was the few hours that he got to sleep.
Every morning he woke on that hard factory floor, Arkash was reminded of all the risky moves and the brutal intensity of the time he'd spent in the forge the day before. His body did not relent in begging his surrender, and the subconscious thought of the three that had died on the foundry floor pulled at the corners of his mind; the thought that he could end up trampled or set ablaze as they had been kept him on a constant stressful edge for the entire time that he was at work.
There was no rest for the body or the mind, no knight-given relief between the endless hours of labor... So Arkash made some.
Every once in a while, whenever the Overseer would change shifts with another, he would step outside and take a clump of snow with both hands. That snow would melt under the intensity of the heat that his body retained, hydrated him, and cooled him off substantially when he ate and smeared it about his scales. The water steamed in the hottest parts of the foundry, and Arkash resolved not to spend too long there while he processed the Argent's steel.
After what felt like a lifetime of suffering and brutality, the end was in sight. The final day of their job was there, and the nameless would be taken back to Nivenhain as promised.
He sighed, pressing his clawed hands into his knees while they bent for support. His scales steamed in the glow of the hot steel and his claws trembled under the numbness that the vibrations caused. A startled breath roused him, and his eyes widened hard. A curl of his nose brought his attention back to the task at hand.
Again, he gripped the cooled end of the metal with the pliers he squeezed, and lifted his hammer to bring it down on the glowing head of the metallic slab. It took all his meager strength to budge the red-hot formation, and he'd been at it for hours. Almost, he was done. The slab of metal had taken a large square shape that elongated on one edge; someone's hammer, he imagined.
The burst of sparks that came with striking the hot metal showered his scales, but his carapace of bone and keratin didn't burn easily. It stung occasionally and left him hot, but he vented the heat through his open muzzle and drooled over the most affected parts to cool them.
He couldn't swallow his spit with how severely the ash had mixed with his saliva, so he made use of its evaporation in cooling him, even if he was a mess by the end of it.
The nameless weren't offered protective equipment, but they were given some of the lowest quality tools for the sake of completing the job.
The pliers he'd been assigned were so rusted that he had to use both hands to open and close it, and the head of the hammer slid about with an inch of room. He had no apron, no goggles to protect his eyes. So, he shielded his gaze with his eyelids and shut his eyes with every impact.
The pain in his arms stirred some deep, repressed energy in his chest while he struck at the metal. His nose curled as every subsequent strike caused him another fresh flash of pain. No hesitation, just the will to carry on. Like a machine, Arkash hammered at the metal without mercy to himself or the block. He struck harder and harder with every strike thereafter, and his messy muzzle shut tight while he continued full throttle.
The fire of the forge reflected in his yellow eyes while he slammed the metallic clump and ruined his hands. Grunts eventually came while he bared his teeth to the glowing flame, and he ramped up the speed and weight of his strikes. The idea that his body would return a pain response in an attempt to stop him was unbelievable. He would not slow, he wouldn't hesitate.
The agony in his back and knuckles didn't phase him, he didn't pause to even think about what his body demanded of him. Instead, he hammered away with building ferocity and growled through his bared teeth. Sparks flung at his facial features in the dark of the Foundry, and he merely shut his eyes in response. The striking didn't cease until he was done, and then he set the hammer down while he gripped the pliers and turned over the metal.
Again he continued blasting away at the steel, nose curled while he spent all his adrenaline on fighting the heated steel.
Over and over again he collided with the metal until it was finally too cool to work with. Lost in a fit of Rage, Arkash continued hammering the steel and finally stopped when the head of the hammer snapped and dropped to the floor beyond the anvil.
Arkash let out a startled cry and stepped back as he dropped the splintered wood, breathing heavily while his arms and legs shook with constrained energy. Tremors ran through him while he breathed in an attempt to cool off, and found little to no success. Quickened breathing accumulated to heavy, deep breaths before his nose curled and he loosed a rage-fuelled "FACK!!"
The shitty hammer had broken; no doubt the Knighthood was going to make him pay for it with his wages.
Could he fix it? Quickly, he recollected the splintered handle and tried to collect the head on his knee, but the iron was hot. As the surface hissed and burned his scales, Arkash shot up with a pained growl, and returned a primal, threatening grunt.
Mind and body raw with exhaustion, Arkash's pent-up stress manifested as blinding anger.
When the whistle blew, his heart sank and the wind was robbed from his sails. It was over; the pain and the heat were over.
Arkash shuddered intensely and began to remove his ragged, burned, hide jerkin. With the fabric balled in his fist, he moved to collect the hot head of the tool, and sloppily tried to stick them back together while he hurried through the foundry floor. He found a position where the grooves of splintered wood stuck together and somewhat supported themselves, but Arkash didn't trust the weight of the tool with its handle.
His brow softened with worry, and he looked up as he weaved through the hollows and finally arrived in the queue at the Overseer's booth.
Like the rest of the Nameless, he fell in line and tried to cool off the metal of the hammer. He focused so intently on trying to fix the thing that he didn't notice the distinct lack of coin being delivered to the workers, or the disgruntled curses that left the lips of his peers as they passed.
In the end, he settled for gripping the handle of the hammer to the head with a squeeze of the pliers.
He swallowed and assumed a neutral smile as he approached the front, one foot after the other. His heart raced under the immense pressure that was his pitiful attempt to lie to the knighthood. Finally, it was his turn to collect his money, and the overseer rose a brow when they made eye contact. A brief look down from the Knight's gaze to the ledger that was kept hidden from view was all Arkash had to see to know when was screwed. The knight had recognized his appearance from some written description. The fact that he stood out wasn't good news; it never was.
"Arkash?" Asked the knight. The young Rath just about died.
"Yes Ser," he replied as he set the hammer and the pliers on the desk.
The knight rose a brow. "Seven doubles at doubletime; you came with that group from Nivenhain, right?" he nodded hesitantly. "...You took no meals, but slept under our roof for six nights-."
Arkash blinked. "-Ew sed I could," he clarified with some degree of panic. Why were they keeping track?
"Who did?"
"Errant-Knight Gustav, Ser," he explained. His heart raced and his jaw was tense. They really were told they were allowed to sleep on the factory floor, Arkash would not have done so if it would have cost them.
The knight laughed. "Errant-Knights have no authority here; you were misinformed." Arkash's pupils narrowed to pinpricks while he stared down the knight, who barely paid attention as he flicked through to the next page of his ledger. "...You were seen taking several breaks during production hours, even leaving the facility for undisclosed amounts of time."
"I wuz out faw firty secun's!" Arkash exclaimed, defensive. "I jus' wan'ed sum watah, Ser! Please!"
The knight rose a brow with the scowl of some unclear threat. Arkash swallowed his sooty spit and held his mouth shut. The knight continued listing various other grievances with his performance and productivity over the past week. He began to tremble as reality clawed at the edges of his mind, and the narrative that he'd barely worked at all was spun like an expansive web of lies. "All in all, that leaves you with... Two farthings."
His heart sank. Two farthings... For all his hard work, the twenty-eight he'd put together in his head, the money he was promised for all his effort and labor. Everything moved in slow motion as the knight fetched two coins from his bag and reached for the handle of Arkash's hammer with the other. His jaw pressed hard, and as expected, the head of the tool fell off just a second after it left the desk. The knight blinked, and grinned beneath the shield of his helm.
"Nevermind," he said, putting the two farthings back in the sack before he swiped the broken tool with a flex of his gauntlet-wrapped hand. "This leaves you in debt to the Knighthood," the Overseer began to explain. Arkash was shaking. Was he about to be arrested? No, the knighthood didn't take prisoners; not from the Nameless. "But... You're in luck. We can just penalize you the train ride back to Nivenhain, and that just about covers the cost of the tools you destroyed."
The knight began to write in the ledger, dismissing the Rathor where he stood with a wave.
Arkash made his way down the line, jerkin held tight in his claws while his mind raced. He wasn't getting paid, he wasn't even going home to Cojack. That was it, he had no shelter and no money so very far from where he lived. As he left the facility, he shut the door behind him, then fell to his tail with his back slumped against the wall.
Devastated and lost, Arkash sat there with no mind to continue, and no hope to survive the trip back to Lower Nivenhain. What would become of the sickly horse he cared for? His medicine wouldn't last much longer.
Alone in the ash-mixed snow, Arkash drew a ragged breath of the biting cold air and began to weep. He'd done all of that for nothing after all.
