Hester's Forge

Asteria grumbled to herself as she wove her way through the loud, crowded markets of the Agora, grimacing every time she ended up pushed against some sweaty body. Vendors shouted from the stands and the marketgoers haggled with the hawkers pushing wooden carts overflowing with cheap goods. Beautiful woven fabrics and ribbons in all hues shimmered like gossamer from the stalls. Textiles were a prime commodity in the city of the weaver goddess. Agricultural goods were bountiful, if limited in scope: glass amphorae filled with golden oil, olives in all manners of brines, aromatic soaps—also, apparently, made with olive oil.

Despite, or perhaps because of its affiliation with the Academy, Hester’s Forge was located in a central spot at the foot of the Acropolis. Athena’s giant statue, which stood at the center of the City and glared outward with her spear aimed to the East—in the direction of the land Pallas was trapped in, Asteria realized.

It was such a prime location that Asteria was completely blocked, unable to muscle her way through the thick crowds. She was meant to meet Alista somewhere around here, but suddenly she was swept away in the crowd. She tripped over a loose cobblestone and was unable to regain her balance in the rush. She tumbled down. How stupid it would be for a former titan to die of being trampled, she thought. Then, all of a sudden, the crowd had drained away.

“Are you hurt?” Rhei asked carefully, standing behind her. He looked much the same as the previous day, messy gray hair and scarf mostly covering his face, and bulky wintery clothes subsumed his entire form despite the heat of the sun. She stood, brushing the gravel off her legs, and shook her head brusquely.

“I am uninjured.”

She eyed the crowds parting around Rhei like oil in water. His reputation evidently persisted outside of the walls of the Academy. “Would you perchance be heading in the direction of Hester’s forge?”

“I’m going there, actually.” He looked surprised. “Did you need help finding it?”

“I am unfortunately not of an effective height to navigate in these conditions. I was meant to meet Alista, but she is nowhere to be found.”

“Ah,” Rhei laughed a little. “She gets a little flustered in crowds.” It was a funny picture, Alista’s hulking form meekly trying to avoid pushing people around. “She’ll be a bit late. I can accompany you,” he watched her a little distrustfully. “Please don’t get too close, though. I’m getting replacement gloves,” he held up his hands, clad in thick leather to demonstrate. “And the guarding mageia is running a little weak.”

Asteria shrugged her assent and allowed Rhei to lead her toward the shop. They made it there in no time, the crowd continuously cleaving before them. Asteria caught whispers of gossip.

“Get out of here, you monster!” Someone suddenly shouted, throwing a rock toward Rhei, which he deftly dodged. “You make these markets dangerous for the good people of our city!”

Rhei’s expression was difficult to read beneath his bangs and collar, but she noticed the slight droop in his posture. He didn’t respond. Asteria reeled back to dodge the spit someone directed toward him.

She eyed the crowd in disgust—rarely had she witnessed mortals being so vicious, unprompted, to their own kind before, and this man, a boy by her standards, was used to it. And well: Asteria wasn’t known as a protector of children, but it ran in her family. She crouched and picked up a small pebble. Balancing it on her thumb, she carefully aimed and flicked it precisely through the crowd. It hit its mark, smacking the heckler in the middle of his forehead. He gaped at her. Asteria smirked and gave him the katadaktylison: her middle finger. Happy with the look of affronted shock on the heckler’s face, she skipped off to join Rhei, who had stopped to watch her.

“You didn’t need to do that.” He said softly.

“I simply felt like it,” Asteria shrugged. He looked torn between telling her off before he turned away with a huff and lowered his head, trying to hide the small smile tugging at his lips.

“Here we are,” He announced, gesturing to the forge. The walls were made of rough-hewn stone surrounding a central anvil. A large conical forge was attached to the side of the building. Inside, a variety of tools were affixed to the walls, covering almost every surface. Asteria noted they were all of a very fine quality, with crisp, razor-sharp edges. The right third of the shop had a display of premade weapons in bronze and carburized iron.

In the center of the shop was a girl with wild red hair forming a cloud around her face, which was smudged with ash and obscured under a pair of goggles. She was wearing a leather version of the academy vest, but despite working in a forge where protective equipment would be generally recommended, she’d forgone the long undershirt and traded the long skirt for a short chiton she wore over the vest with only one sleeve on and the rest of the fabric draped around her hips. She was deeply focused on her task, expertly hammering at a rod of red-hot metal.

“Hester,” Rhei greeted, and her eyes snapped up.

“Ah, welcome back, dear client!” She cheered, shoving the metal into a bucket of water, which hissed in an explosion of steam. “Are you here for the new gloves?” She bounced forward and reached out to clap him on the shoulder, but he swerved around her hand. She pouted.

“Come on, just once!” She pleaded.

“No.” Hester stuck her tongue out at him and waved a dismissive hand behind her. “Then you can find the gloves yourself.” She turned to Asteria and leaned in far too close. “You’re new!” Asteria nodded, shuffling back. “How do you know my client? Never mind, convince him to let me experiment on him?”

“What?”

“I’m immune to pretty much all forms of physical damage,” She explained

Hester danced over to her anvil and casually slammed an iron mallet down on her hand. Asteria flinched, but Hester raised a perfectly whole hand and wiggled her fingers happily.

“Ares: Invincible…Out of combat,” she explained, leaning in and whispering the last part. “It wouldn’t be fun otherwise!”

“I wanna test my limits, but our cautious friend here isn't willing, even for the sake of knowledge. Tsk tsk tsk,” Hester wagged her finger toward Rhei as he returned, pulling on the new gloves; a thick black pair with an apotropaic glyph of protection etched in reverse on the palm. “Our Lady would be so disappointed!”

“So!” Hester turned intense gunmetal gray eyes on Asteria. “What are you here for?”

“I require a weapon.”

“Well, duh,” Hester laughed. “Here, hold this.” Hester pulled a thin-walled glass bauble out of seemingly nowhere and dropped it into Asteria’s hand, then roughly yanked at her bicep. Asteria glared at the mortal who dared to manhandle her. Hester ignored it and chewed at her lip as she turned her arm back and forth, considering her muscles carefully. Suddenly she pressed a thumb deeply into Asteria’s wrist, causing her fingers to clench around the bauble. Slight stress fractures appeared around her fingers.

“Hmmmm,” Hester considered. “That’s a strong grip you’ve got there. You subconsciously infuse low-level mageia around your body?” Asteria blinked. Spot on. Hester palpated her palm for a minute before nodding cheerily. “Alrighty then, I get the gist of it. Com’ere.”

Hester waved her over to one of the store’s displays. “You dual-wield, yes? Which type of weapon? I’ve got ‘em all!” Hester grinned. She pulled out a drawer with a flourish, revealing rows of gleaming silver and bronze.

Asteria opened her mouth to answer, but froze as the same lancing pain that accompanied her vague memories of the time before her death shot through her chest. She could remember the heft and feel of the blades, but couldn’t actually recall what type of weapon her daggers had been. Instead of answering, she frowned at the display and ran her eyes over each blade, eyeing the shape and imagining how they would feel in hand.

Frustrated, Asteria flung a hand out carelessly, not really caring what she ended up with as long as they were of high quality. “I will take these.”

“Hmm?” Hester peered over. She immediately laughed. “Yah serious?”

Asteria glanced down. It was a pair of nearly identical blades lying next to each other. They were long, sharp on the inside edge, and curved slightly inward. Two successive arches decorated with engraved acanthus motifs led the shoulder neatly into the tang. She grimaced. They were glorified scissors. She flushed angrily and doubled down as Hester mocked her.

“Yes.” She replied thinly.

“Those are just some oversized shears I made as an apprentice! The craftsmanship is great, of course, because they’re mine,” Hester bragged. She picked up a curved bit of metal lying near them, which Asteria had disregarded, and wiggled it.

“They’re usually connected, but it looks like the rivets have eroded.” Hester deftly attached the blades to the connector and spun the pair around her finger—halfway through, one blade went spinning through the air. Hester deftly caught it in her other hand. She squinted suspiciously at the metal. “Rhei, did you bump into these earlier?”

He peered over from and winced. “It’s definitely possible.”

“Oh well. It would be more work to remake a fitted connector than to add handles. I can make this work! Give me twenty to sharpen ‘em up, and you’ll be making all the shepherds jealous,” she snickered.

“Oh, but first, Hester, one of these glyphs is-” Rhei was too late, and Hester had shuffled off to a back room with the shears and an armful of tools. The door banged shut, and the clear click of a lock turning rang through the storeroom.

“No disturbances!” Hester called out, her voice muffled.

“Incomplete,” Rhei finished sadly.