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[Cyrene Everwind]

Date: 4th Winter 516AV

Time: 8:12AM

Description "Cyrene" Thoughts Isur Tukant Others

Sleep was something Quinlain was never really used too. Despite her overall affinity with the night she always had to get up early meaning the morning wasn’t something she was particularly fond of. However with her seeming shifting it simply meant at most she’d get around two hours and feel almost completely rested. A strange by-product but something that wasn’t unnatural.

Slipping her clothing on and her backpack over her shoulder she snapped her neck lightly before starting to head out down the stairs of the heralds arms. Her first step out into the mist of the cities streets and she was immediately swallowed by the number of people that seemed to pour out from every direction filtering into the main through fare. Perhaps this time od day wasn’t the best to be out. No, not at all.

A few seconds after the initial decision she darted off into the small side street, partially trying to catch her breath partially trying to keep herself sane. What in the name of Hai was it with crowds?! She hated them not for any reason that they were just too loud. He couldn’t hear herself think let alone speak. No she’d much prefer to walk the small backroads hoping that the layout was much the same as fifty years ago. Instead what she found was something she didn’t fully expect. She was hopelessly lost within the bowels of the city.

“Ah for the love of…I used to know these streets so well!” She exclaimed aloud voice cutting the stillness as her right arm found purchase against the stonework, leaving a small series of ridges in the stone and no damage to her hand. Not intentional just out of sheer frustration, both with herself and with the city. Why did everything have to change so damned dramatically!?

[Garland]

Garland was busy day dreaming, his patrol in the city had taken a strange turn. Mostly because all of his routes were in the dark alleys, a few no one when patrolled regularly, some were even known to have a small gang here and there, a group of ruffians that were fast enough to outrun the knights in full-plate and dexterous to steal a few coin pouches.

They had become a problem, but somehow evaded the knights just as quickly. They were dangerous if cornered, but otherwise they were only petty thieves, and the higher-ups would see to their disbandment, either by dismemberment or imprisonment.

A bit harsh if you ask Garland, but he hoped that they were just give up sooner rather than later. Thieves usually aren't bad people, just got dealt a bad hand and have to do things to survive.

Garland walked down one alleyway, busy day dreaming like a fool, which was very hazardous in his line of work. He walked down the alley, oblivious to the rather muscled woman he was about to walk into.

And so he did, walk into her that is. "Oh sorry, I was lost in thought." He was mostly thinking about fighting and his swordplay. He turned to the right and saw the small ridges in the wall, almost like an imprint of a hand.

"Oh... Ahem, you seem lost. I'm Garland squire of Sera Catherine, if you need directions, feel free to ask." Garland voice was monotonous like he was reciting a speech he had practiced a thousand times.

[Cyrene Everwind]

Description "Cyrene" Thoughts Isur Tukant Others

The sudden collision of steel into her was something that made her almost fall over her own feet. Spinning on her heel after catching herself she turned to stare daggers at the one who’d done so. In all honesty and actuality, he’d expected it to be one of the knights perhaps a little busy not one so clearly either drunk or lost in his own little world. Before he could say much more than his barked apology and reticent speech that sounded like someone speaking something not because they meant it but rather because they had too, she almost reached her left hand up and gripped his plate by the collar. But no she restrained herself, this was the best chance she’d had all morning of actually catching her bearings and finding her way over to the Ironworks.

“So.” She spoke with a hard word that was almost like her in general. Tough and made out of what seemed to be moving stone. “Garland was it?” She stepped a little closer only a few inches shorter than him her a hard glare in the corner of her eye. “I do need directions. And just for the future you need to watch where yer goin, or next time I’ll be introducing ya to my fist.” She spoke her last words through a full bodied smile like she was almost daring him to push her to see what she could do. Knights were well trained sure but up this close she’d just hit him hard enough to dent the plate into his torso and walk off.

“I’m looking for the ironworks. Need to start my new work there. I was wonderin if ye’d be able to either gimmie the directions or take me there yerself.” She lifted her arms lacing them beneath her breasts almost taking a posturing pose trying to take the high ground as the offended party.
“Well. What ya waitin for?”

[Garland]

Even when an imposing figure like the Isur in front of him was talking, he was still daydreaming, more like thinking.

Earlier that day, he found himself on the ground of the armory, awakened from a very very realistic dream. Maybe it was more than a dream because when he woke up, he had a sling-bag, and not just any sling-bag, a bag from a girl in his dream; Dust.

Not only that, his armor was dented and nearly broken when he came to. He did some minor repairs here and there, horrible patchwork job really, but it would do in a pinch.

"Sorry, yeah I hear. I'll try to be more careful." Garland was still replaying the dream's events, everything was so vivid and so lifelike, he thought maybe it wasn't just a dream after all.

He snapped back to attention when she asked to be taken somewhere. "O-Oh! I'm sorry, I'll take you there right away. Ironworks you said? Right, I know where that is." This was a very intimidating lady, almost sexy if that was your thing.

It wasn't Garland's though.

Garland started walking a brisk pace toward where he had come from. They had to go north to find the Ironworks, as large the place was, it would be hard to spot for someone new in the city.

Garland waited by the entrance of the alleyway, looking over his shoulder to the Isur. "Do you mind if I ask you name?"

[Cyrene Everwind]

Description "Cyrene" Thoughts Isur Tukant Others

Flippant. That was what she first thought. Perhaps that wasn’t the worst thing but then again she hadn’t come across too many people that had stood up to her and not wavered when she pressed them. Though upon closer inspection his armour quite clearly wasn’t up to knight standard, heck it was barely serviceable.
“By Izurdin, how is that suit even held together?” She almost spat the words out as she looked at the steel plates ram shackled together.

As he finally snapped to attention and back into what she believe to be some kind of reality, and out of the stupor he was lost in. Finally he agreed to take her where she needed to go.
“Finally!” She growled out shaking her head. As he started to walk off she followed him her arms still folded, and actively annoyed but this time more of a focus on the problem in front of her. The shoddy repair work on the armour. It wasn’t sitting right with her, and she knew she could fix it.

“Name? Thus fare you’ve done begger all to earn it. But you can call me Quinlain.” And even from the angle at the back the suit was still battered and dented and dinged. The walk wasn’t long and as they drew closer to the sound of the waves the rhythmic slam of hammers on anvils filled the ambient air. It was her safe haven the slow rhythm of the hammers and the controlled fall of the ring of steel.

“Right follow me in then.” She spoke rather abruptly almost willing to grab him by the collar of that ruined suit of plate and take him in with her. As she pushed the doors in the first thing which smacked her in the face was the familiar heat of the forge. A soft soothing blanket of steam and fire.
“Aye, I feel at home again. Right now you’s can follow me.” She spoke as she led Garland further into the force almost muscling into an empty anvil and toolset. With a small smirk of knowing aggravation she spoke only one word with no context.
“Strip.” She spoke with her eyes locked onto Garlands own, her left hand picking up the hammer. Her eyes then flicked across the room to the smaller forge to her side the flames licking at the edge of the furnace.
“Well what are ya waitin for!?”

[Garland]

The two of them were finally there in the Ironworks, Garland was ready to get as far as he could from the scary Isur lady. She almost pulled him in with her voice.

"W-Wait what?" Garland couldn't help but follow, it was a strange feeling, it was like he was trained to follow, he couldn't resist, even though he was rightly scared by her.

They passed through anvils, swords, hammers, shields, armor and other manner of weapons, tools and farming implements. He didn't really know why he was here, he had no clue of metal working or any of it's variations.

He was a carpenter, not a blacksmith! He shook off his daze, he felt tired, but he knows that it was still relatively early in the day. He gave a small smile to himself. Don't worry about it, I'm sure this Quinlain character just wants to show her appreciation for taking her here... Right?

"Stirp."

Oh gods... Garland was reluctant to follow that order. She was holding a hammer, she just told him to strip and she looked over to the furnace, all signs that would send lesser man either running out the door or eagerly waiting what's about to happen next.

Garland was a bit stronger willed than that.

"Well what are ya waitin' for!?"

"Yes ma'am!" With that Garland started a panicky armor removal. He almost tripped several times while he was trying to take off his armor. After a full-chime of manic undressing, he was now left with his gambeson and trousers. He then started removing those as well.

[Cyrene Everwind]

Description "Cyrene" Thoughts Isur Tukant Others

Cyrene shifted her hands across the anvil before reaching into her bag and pulling her apron free. Slipping her head through it the moment his plate left his body she snatched up the pieces. And before long once the full suit was off she didn’t even turn her head having it all next to her.
“How in the name of Izurdin’s hammer did ya break this this badly?! And how is the patch work this damned shoddy. What kind of hai did you put this stuff through!?” Shaking her head she stuffed the plate into the fires and let the steel heat up to a dull red glow and with her right arm pulled it free from the fires.

“Blasted piece of shoddy patchwork…” Her hammer flew into the steel with a dull soft ring falling in a rhythmic pattern that almost seemed to draw the entire sound of the forge into a solidified almost rhythmic motion hitting her hammer in time to make the dissonant sounds almost harmonize into their own music. Subconsciously humming along in time with the hammering, which slowly turned into a small series of lines from a song.
“Hammer’s fall and the steel gives, moulded like clay, in my hands the steel lives.”

The first piece fixed she started to work on the next of the pauldrons fixing the crack that had formed upon the rear edge. Each pound of the hammer slowly shifting the heated steel back together against itself.
“The next time you break armour this badly, pray to whichever god you follow that you don’t come across me. Else you’ll find this hammer shoved so far up your ass that you won’t see the handle!” Cyrene then turned her head to the side placing the steel almost immediately back into the water so that the temper wouldn’t be lost nor ruined. Pulling the steel again back from the water, letting the light catch it and show off the new shine and the point of fixing. Shame she couldn’t cover up the seam but it was better than looking at a crack in the plate.

[Garland]

Garland just kept stripping, from fear of what Quinlain would do if he did.

He threw the gambeson on the ground and started removing his trousers. He received the odd stare from people working in the Ironworks but so far they just kept quiet and rather not get involved with the squire that was being forced by the very intimidating Isur lady.

Garland then threw his pants on the ground as well, along with his sword, that was when Garland noticed something about his blade, he unsheathed the weapon and saw that it was recently bloodied.

"This is weird..." He said, in his underpants in the middle of the forge talking to himself like any normal person would.

He snapped out of it when the intimidating and small Isur lady started berating him for damaging and denting his armor. He visibly flinched at each and every swing of her hammer.

He half-expected the hammer to fly towards him if he said anything stupid. He just kept quiet and stripped down to his birthday suit, people just stared or avoided looking at Garland general direction, never in the middle ground.

“The next time you break armour this badly, pray to whichever god you follow that you don’t come across me. Else you’ll find this hammer shoved so far up your ass that you won’t see the handle!”

He felt himself clench at that, and tried to keep some of his dignity by covering up his private bits.

[Cyrene Everwind]

Description "Cyrene" Thoughts Isur Tukant Others

Each hammer fall drowned out the sound of the surrounding murmurs and each hiss blocked out the unassuming gazes. Though his two words weren’t lost on her as she kept slamming the business end of the hammer into the steel.
“What’s weird Garland, is how the petch you managed to damage steel plate this heavily! I’ve never seen the fractures in this I’ve seen in this!” Her hammer found it’s mark again searing and pressing the steel into itself an fixing another of the deep cracks, that split the mail.

Another long hiss of the steel as the water hit it. Now she was just left with the most heavily beaten up piece of kit out of them all. The chest plate. Shaking her head at the state of the thing she slipped it into the fires letting the searing heat build-up around the steel. She took this opportunity to glance back towards Garland. Only to see him standing naked as his name day in the middle of a forge of all places. And without a second thought she let out a small chuckle.

“Y’know I didn’t say you had to keep stripping.” She shook her head lightly as she pulled the steel chest plate from the forge and began to fix the dents and cracks. Switching between a doming hammer and a regular welding hammer to make sure that the overall shape was held even with a small nick or dent she was keeping carefully to the line.

“Right, now come over here and look at this.” She pulled the steel from the forge once more as she finished out fixing the last of the dents and began to quench the steel plate in the water again. “Fixing the dents and cracks in the armour is a helluva lot easier than simply making it in the first place. At least here I’ve something, to work with." As she took a half step back she arranged the pieces of the steel plate atop the anvil to let him see the now repaired armour that he was used to wearing.
“Right how’s it look? And put ya damned pants back on, people don’t want to see that. Not to mention there might be kids around.” Shaking her head she lifted her left hand to wipe her forehead lightly and pull the newly formed sweat from her brow.

[Garland]

Garland just stood there, a blush formed on his face, as people just stared at him. When she finally looked over to him she gave him a small chuckle, he couldn't help but smile back.

He picked up his clothes and walked over to Quinlain, still covering his man-bits. He looked at his armor, it looked like it was brand-new. "It even looks better than when I got the darn thing!" Garland couldn't help but smile, he had gotten use to his old dented armor, and occasionally gave it a shine when he needed to be presentable, but right now even at it's shiniest it doesn't compare quite like this.

"This looks absolutely amazing, Ms. Quinlain!" Garland then looked down to see he was still in the nude and hastily threw on his clothes. Garland was about to pick up the armor but paused and looked over to Quinlain.

"How much do I owe you?" He narrowed his eyes still subconsciously covering himself even though he was fully clothed right now. He had no money on him and if he knows anything about commerce, they would just charge him for their work even if he didn't ask for it.

Garland let the suit of plate cool before he would put it on. "I didn't bring my coin purse but I always pay my debts." When the suit finally cooled, he started putting it on, boots first, then leggings, and the chest-piece, then pauldrons and finally the gauntlets.

Garland sheathed his blade, it was recently used, but it was in far better condition than Garland's armor was in. He actually took care of the sword. "It was... a pleasure Ms. Quinlain, if you need anything, I'd be... more than happy to help." If he didn't owe her for the armor he would have just left with whatever shred of dignity he has left.