Ash and Memory...
The hammer moved with practiced precision, slamming down aggressively with force that spoke of years of practiced movements. The metal groaned under each hit, the flakes of red hot metal flew away
Ashar gripped the hammer with practiced ease that spoke of decades of experience, but his youthful face burrowed in concentration, contradicted his experience. However there was an air of absentmindedness around him, as if his mind wasn't on the task at hand, but daydreaming or remembering something...
Even now the memory still stuck to him like ash. He remembered a city burning, the harsh orange glow from the flames a stark contrast to the white and grey of marble and stone the city was once made out of.
He watched as his soldiers butchered people, their grips unyielding as steel. The gleaming beauty of their weapons and armour stood in stark contrast to the brutality and ugliness of war.
"Ashar!" A harsh voice broke him from his revere. Ashar's mind snapped back like a soldier to attention. His attention switched to the large man standing in the doorway, his muscular body, almost as if forged by iron itself, blocking the sun from entering the forge.
His beard was more soot that hair, and his thick arms were crossed like rope would. Kael immediately noticed his Masters displeasure. Kael almost recoiled in anticipation for a punishment. Hiss master was known for being harsh but fair.
"You strike like a butcher today, boy", Rhurik growled, steeping in and allowing the door to slam behind him.
Ashar looked at the blade below him, its form warped beyond repair, a stark contrast to the beauty of the other weapons littered around the forge.
"Sorry", he muttered. "I--"
"Your distracted today, yet again" Rhurik replied, stepping towards Ashar. he grabbed the broken blade from Ashers hand and looked at the design with an admiration hard to notice under his gruff features.
"Strange shape" Rhurik muttered, "it would have been a good blade, even if this isn't the way i taught you to forge".
Ashar felt his jaw tighten. "Just experimenting."
Rhurik didn't argue. He rarely did. Instead, he held the blade to the light, watching how the metal caught firelight like water. "You mutter in your sleep, you know," he said casually, as if commenting on the weather.
Ashar froze.
Rhurik glanced at Ashar from the corner of his eye, "half the time i cant understand it. The other half..... Sounds like old tongue. one not spoken in this land in a long time".
Asher merely grunted, neither confirming nor denying. The silence stretched thin between them, tension as thick as iron.
Rhurik placed down the broken blade, slowly as if he would damage it more if he didn't treat it with the highest respect. "You move with experience unbefitting your age, you understand things children your age don't even know to ask questions of...".
Asher looked away, his gaze drawn towards the fire. its flickering lights painted the walls with shadows that danced to there own tune, unheard by anyone nearby.
"Do you believe that people have lived older lives?" his voice tensioned like a wire.
"I've seen too many things not to" Rhurik replied.
Ashar's fingers curled into a fist, his fingers going white with the strain he put upon them. He didn't trust himself to open up to Rhurik, not yet....
The voices spoke to him more recently, showing him visions of what could be and could have been, they twisted him in ways even Asher doesn't understand himself.
Asher was worried, he was changing. Not only into a man but something more, something darker and it seemed Rhurik was catching on.
Asher took a large breath before picking up his sturdy hammer, the embers glinting off it as if it was jewels.
"Ill fix the blade" he said instead, stepping towards Rhurik.
Rhurik simply nodded, this wasn't the time to push this young man in front of him.
The time would come where Asher's desperation would lead him to ruin, he just hoped that Asher trusted him enough to help him before he fell into damnation. Or even worse, dragged others with him.
Rhurik walked bad to the old oak door, but as Asher turned to fix his mistake, he looked back to him.
"Keep Locking it all away boy..... and those memories wont stay buried. They'll come digging back through the cracks, like a trapped animal. And when they do, they wont ask who you are or who you want to be. They'll tell you who you are".
He stepped away from the light, leaving Asher to confront his own issues with nothing but his will, and the heat from the dying ambers.