you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own

[serjeant]

Who: Seoraj and YOU.
What: The smithy is open for business, which means taking orders and working up basics for sale.
Where: Seoraj's Forge in Stoneshell.
When: Weekdays, business hours. Specify if it matters.
Notes: This is generally here for anyone to whom blacksmiths are relevant!
Warnings: Archaic sexism.

Business may not be booming, but nevertheless it is well underway within a short time of Seoraj's acquisition. Most of his work to start with comes in through the farming communities, and the occupation is familiar in a way that lays out most starkly how familiar so much of this place is not. Steel works under his hands as it ever has, and the world outside the smithy marches on in its own, new way. Immersing himself in that is his way, though he's never had an opportunity like this before; he insinuates himself into life here as if it were an old cloak and not so crisply new as it is.

People begin to talk to him. That will be good, he thinks, though he doesn't yet know what for.

Comments

[suninhades]

"Seoraj." A nod; well met, apparently. Her own polished accent miraculously doesn't trip up the pronunciation of his name. There's silence after that, but it's easy, and after she's watched long enough to assure herself he's not going to murder her horse's hooves, she just... wanders off.

Well okay.

She's not gone for a terribly long time (just long enough to make a man wonder, not long enough to actually be annoying), and when she returns, she's got a brown paper box with gyros and fried potatoes, and two glass bottles of lemonade. She sets one bottle on the patio railing nearest to Seoraj's workspace, and then sits right down on the wooden area's edge to eat lunch. It's not a peace offering or a bribe (as by now it's obvious she needn't employ anything of the sort), but she'd feel rude without the gesture.

[serjeant]

It may not be beer (which he's agreed to accept payment in for someone else, being one of the businesses in the area that accepts payment in trade), but he's not going to turn his nose up at a cold drink on a hot day and he gives her a grin as he takes a short break in measuring to taste it. Where 'taste it' means 'swig heartily', because even if it isn't good, it'll be cool still and he's put stranger things in his mouth.

He'd wondered, but he hadn't worried; she's not going to leave a pretty animal like this behind. (Shame.)

He's half-finished the lemonade when he goes to hammer out the new shoes.

[suninhades]

It's either trust or arrogance that lets her feel comfortable enough to leave her horse in the care of a veritable stranger; perhaps she's naive, or perhaps she's just confident in her ability to decapitate anyone who'd do something as idiotic as turn that moment into a crime. (Spoilers: it's the latter.)

Integra is privately quite pleased to get out for a bit, even if it's just to eat food that isn't Hellsing kitchen sandwiches and sit on the wooden porch of a wild-west looking smithy and watch a man who looks like a bloody Hun shoe her horse. She catches herself thinking that the sun is irritating, for a moment, and promptly squashes the thought with prejudice. Once she's done eating, she pulls her CiD and a notebook out of a saddlebag, and is content to work quietly while Seoraj works probably rather loudly.

[serjeant]

The fall of his hammer isn't a delicate affair, and it'll be hard for anyone passing to fail to note the familiar sound of strenuous work, the ring of steel and grunts of effort making a surely pleasant backdrop to Integra's nice day out. His sturdy leather apron offers some measure of protection, and he falls into the rhythm of what he's doing with ease that's every day getting, well, more easy.

In Arum, he had no illusions about leaving soldiering behind for good. In Baedal, he wonders, sometimes.

[suninhades]

Perhaps impressively, her horse doesn't react more than throwing his head back once at the start of the hammering. He looks over at Integra a few times, as if assessing her for a cue on how to proceed, and then settles in like he can't even hear it. Integra finishes up correspondences, goes over schedules, sends a few emails - at one point one of her employees calls her, and she speaks evenly through the background noise. The cadence of her voice is strong and calm, and it's clear that while she is a stoic woman, she is not an unkind leader.

It is a thing that transcends species, that restlessness, and Integra is no stranger to it. When one is limited, one always wishes to do more. (She wants to burn down the whole city, some days, with how confined she feels.) Working oneself to the edges of capacity means you think about it less - or that you sharpen your edges to razors.

[serjeant]

Shoeing a horse hot is a time consuming business, and there's a bit of back and forth before he's satisfied enough to dowse the steel and set to the work of hammering in the new shoes. A proper farrier might do this in another place, but in his village it was the blacksmith's business and he sees no reason not to offer it among his services here, too. It's good work, tangible work, like settling into this city and like learning the way to be the person his fellows feel comfortable talking to.

(That's a little less straightforwardly honest, but for now all he's doing is listening, and there's nothing nefarious about staying abreast of recent events. This city is not a safe place.)

"Easy, now," he says, and, "Be still," as he takes hammer and nails to the horse's new shoes. Thoughtfully, to Integra, "What d'you think of 'Althalus'?"

[suninhades]

It'd be more suspicious if he wasn't trying to keep himself informed, in context. That kind of stupidity is concerning, and if it were it be present in Seoraj, Integra wouldn't be here.

She's smoking a cigarette by the time the blacksmith addresses her, and she doesn't respond right away. "What does it mean?"

[serjeant]

Seoraj is not unaware that his willingness to embrace Baedal in the first place might mark him a fool to his fellow cohort; those it suits so well aren't the sort he's entirely sure he wishes to impress, beyond well enough that they leave him be. (The Militia, for instance, seems to like a great deal the notion of going along to get along. With them.)

"He was the greatest thief in history." This is not all, but she can anticipate pauses as he works, taking care with her horse. "A man by his name led my people to war a few years ago- all the warriors of Arum amassed behind one Arya's banner, that's no mean feat." No, it isn't ... he's not going to babytalk her horse. "Althalus was the first to hire every clan in Arum, for his Arya of Osthos. We went to war for the world, so they say. I'm a plain man, sir; I can't explain what we saw and I wouldn't try. Rumour told he was the same Althalus from the legends, and around this place, I don't know. Maybe rumour knew something I didn't."

He tests the weight of the hammer in his hand, thoughtfully. "There'll be other wars. It's the nature of men. But not like that one, and not soon. He bought and paid for that peace. Good man."

[suninhades]

"Bought and paid for," she echoes. "Doesn't sound like a much proper thief." But her tone isn't belittling; in fact it's a bit distant. Talk of war puts her in that mood, and quite often, considering how frequently the subject manifests amongst the citizens of Baedal. It should be sad. Integra only feels something hollow.

"No war is like another." She rises then, and goes over to let her horse keen its neck out against her shoulder. She palms his nose and then pats over his neck. "Althalus, then."

She peers over to look at his work, after.

And maybe a bit of his kilt.

[serjeant]

The already-developed reputation that Seoraj is building with his forge barely open is a good argument for his competence, which is now self-evident for her examination. He knows what he's doing.

(And he's got cute knees.)

"It was a clever trick." He doesn't know what the trick was, but even only comparing how long he knows he was gone to how long his aunt knows they were gone - there was a trick. One day, maybe he'll find out. Probably not, though. That sort of thing is miles above his pay grade, just like Sir Hellsing.

[suninhades]

Althalus is fine, she decides; it's aesthetically functional and mysterious enough that she won't have to give any particular reason to anyone who asks beyond 'the blacksmith named him'. She suspects, considering how much of her employee base is American, that it'll shortly become 'Atlas', but that is also fine.

"How long were you a soldier?"

[serjeant]

True to his word, Seoraj will knock the price down some when she pays him for the work. Now, though, he glances to her to answer that question, looking for all the world as though he's never been asked. (He hasn't; he suspects some of the lowlanders think Arum warriors spring from the mountain rock, fully formed.) "Always," he says, with a shrug, but in more detail, "Trained since I was a boy. First campaign would've been something like thirteen years ago, give or take a summer." He'd have been seventeen when he started marching.

[suninhades]

She tilts her head, typically expressionless, but all the same seeming like she's never heard that sort of answer before. (It's not that she doesn't think these sorts of people exist - people more like her - but they always seem to come from other dimensions. She's not sure how to feel about that, so she doesn't feel anything.)

"Good."

[serjeant]

Without a trace of falsehood (he is no braggart), he says, "You won't find finer warriors where I come from than my kinsmen. It's just as is the world." He frowns briefly at one of the shoes, filing the nail back, and adds, "Can't half imagine if the lowlanders had to go fighting their own wars."

He's envisioning the nobility half-heartedly waving swords at each other, by the way.

[suninhades]

Integra pulls the black leather saddle over, and yanks up a strap, so that she can scrawl the horse's name inside it. Now it's done, and as official as it will ever be, as there's no registry in Baedal, only the passing of favors and marks and old ledgers in farmhouses. Perhaps months ago, this might have felt as a coffin-nail; permanence, to name something, to make it hers, as when the small things fit in along the edges she knows she's well and truly trapped. She doesn't care.

For a long time, she says nothing, and thinks of Dracula.

[serjeant]

The lapse in conversation suits Seoraj well enough; he redirects his chatter in a low, amicable voice to Althalus (who he promptly nicknames, as well, rolling out my lord with rich amusement at an animal that seems temperamentally suited to his mistress) as he finishes his work.

He takes to permanence, by the look of him - solid as the mountains he was bred in. (Maybe that's all it is. A look.)

"Those should last him a while," he says, when he's done, straightening, wiping his hands off on his apron. "Shouldn't give him any trouble."

[suninhades]

He really is an impressive horse - large and black and strong, carrying that stubborn edge of 'could be ill tempered'. Most riders would balk from that temper, but in a horse that needs to be worked hard in inhospitable conditions, it's good. A mean streak is helpful; he won't back down, even if it's just out of pride.

Integra comes over to inspect Seoraj's work (all four), and from the way she pulls and presses, it's clear she knows what she's doing. If Seoraj was anything less than impressive, she'd see immediately. But she straightens up, and there are no complaints.

"What do I owe you?"

[serjeant]

As he steps clear to let her saddle Althalus, he's grinning. "Five marks, sir." It'll cost her six and a half next time.

[suninhades]

Five marks it is. That's not a terrible price for workmanship of quality even without the discount, so she doesn't mind. Her eyes travel over the inside of the forge while they sort out payment, and then she goes to re-tack her horse. She'll go easy on him on the way back, and tomorrow she'll tear through over every terrain out there, and really see how Seoraj's work holds up.

"Thank you," she says, and while the timing seems like an afterthought, her tone is sincere.

[serjeant]

He swings the hammer in his hand, shrugs, lets his smile fade into something amiable and less mischievous. "My pleasure. He's a beautiful animal."

He has every faith she'll be impressed.

[suninhades]

Kitted up, she swings on the horse with ease. "Until next time."

And she's off.