Forging a Future
The next day, Fionrah met with Anton. He wanted to practice fighting with a pike with her help. That's when she told him about her plan. Anton didn't dare to laugh, as Fionrah had threatened him with a beating if he did. He said, "I'll ask my father. If I'm knight in training, he could surely use an apprentice, and you're strong enough." With these arguments, he then set out to presented the case to his father. However, Anton's father had concerns, especially because Fionrah was not very popular at the court. The court was on the other end of the Arneravine, but it was still his best customer base. But if the king ordered a apprenticeship certificate from the scribe and signed it, he would take Fionrah as an apprentice. Fionrah had given up on wanting anything from her father or the court years ago. She had nothing to lose but everything to gain, so she would simply write the apprenticeship certificate herself. After much back and forth, Johlanda agreed to help her, but Fionrah still had to buy parchment, as Master Recht had locked up the ones at the castle. So she sold her Sunday dress that she received for her sixth birthday to the seamstress. The scribes took long lunch breaks and when Fionrah snuck into the writing room in the castle, Johlanda was already ready, and had spread out a document hand-written and signed by King Ferohn on her desk. This they used as a template. On the first day, Fionrah practiced her father's handwriting and on the second day she wrote the document and put the royal seal under it, which she still wore around her neck since she received it as a gift from her mother. When Emil Smith showed the document to Justus Recht, he wondered why the king had written it himself, but he thought that the king wanted to keep it discreet and assured the blacksmith that it was genuine and not to show it to anyone else. This, of course, was a big favor to Fionrah. From now on, she no longer lived in the castle, but had a place under the roof of the blacksmith's shop.
The start as a blacksmith's apprentice was tough. Gathering the strength to arise each morning was a challenge, but after a quick breakfast in the kitchen, she headed down to the forge. There she lit the fire, stoked charcoal and then started the mill that fueled the forge with two large bellows.
Next, she put the first pieces of iron in the fire heating them carefully to the glowing yellow needed for forging. When the blacksmith had finished each piece of iron and it had cooled down, Fionrah had to clean it with a wire brush or grind down the rough edges with a whetstone. Sometimes she spent hours polishing a sword, the tip of a pike, or a knife with leather and abrasive powder. But over time, she got used to the hard work. Her muscles became toned and her hands developed calluses where she held the tools every day. Eventually, she could stand at the anvil and nothing filled her more with joy than witnessing the glowing metal, spurting sparks, being shaped by the monotonous sound of her hammer into the form she had only imagined.
One of her first blacksmith works was to make two dull training swords for Anton, the blacksmith's son, and herself. When work allowed, Fionrah and Anton could compete in sword fights in the afternoon. Anton was now more skilled than she was, but it was fun to let off steam this way. When there was a lot of work, Anton also helped out in the workshop in the afternoon.
Two years went by and Fionrah became not the best, but a decent blacksmith. She also knew how to handle a sword, occasional confrontations with Xavier who had not yet digested his humiliation always ended in a draw. When she successfully completed her final apprenticeship piece, a decorated halberd, she received her apprentice wage.
