90th Frost, 123
For a time the smith had feared that his final set of gifts would not be ready for the dawn of the new year. The struggle with them had started nearly as soon as he'd laid them on his runeforger's workbench to begin their careful preparation for the kiln and the forge. A part of any runeforged item needed to be pulled away before one could begin making it into something new. It often wasn't significant, this breaking down of the aetheric idea of what a thing fundamentally was. If one was making a sword into a stronger sword, one that did not dull or lose its edge, the idea of what the sword was need only be prised slightly open. Just enough to allow the new ideas of sturdiness and lasting sharpness to be laid into the opening, making the finished project a new thing but also whole, connected tightly to the original idea. It was like if you cut open a loaf after it was shaped but before it was baked and slipped in another kind of dough. When the loaf was baked the two parts became a single whole, pulled together and solidified.
When you were taking an item and adding something to it which was not part of its original idea, not already contained in its nature, it was more like an actual breaking. Sometimes, when you took an object that was entirely unlike what it would become, you have to break it down completely, until it had no idea of itself, and rebuild it wholly. The more different the original concept was from what it was to become, the more difficult the forging was. A knife was a simple thing with basically one universal idea of use; to cut things. It could be used in nearly unlimited ways but all of them boiled down to that one, basic concept. A knife forged to be better at cutting in almost any way was easy as breathing to a runesmith as experienced as Torin. Taking a knife and enchanting it to be able to mend things, that would be far and away more difficult. The concept of being a cutting device would have to be broken open and stripped away before the new concept could be laid into it.
This was added to by the complexity of the original idea and the new one. If the object had more than one conceptual purpose, things became cascadingly more difficult. A hat might be used to keep one warm or keep one cool, keep off rain or show affiliation to a specific group or religion, to express rank, status or profession. Almost all clothing was thus, at least, outer clothing that could be seen by anyone. If one was careful and made the item themselves, concepts could be kept simple, or simpler, at least. This was one of the reasons that, despite the intense amount of time runeforging took up, most practitioners of the magic also had training in several other, mundane crafts. Runeforging changed the way one saw the making of any thing. It certainly had changed the way Torin worked with metal and leather, even the clay and wood he used incidentally in his work caused his mind to fall into that place of very carefully assigning intention to the objects. It was second nature to him now, to inform a thing of what its purpose was as it was formed under his hands or tools.
The gloves, however, he had struggled with from before he had even purchased the expensive silvery metal they were to be made from. Their concept was, frankly, beyond him, beyond most mortals. And yet, a part of him understood them well enough to finish their schematic, to know that it could work. Working the exceptionally tiny rings into their lace-weaving had required the use of his Elementalism, for they were too small for traditional tools, too delicate. That, he believed, later after much thought, significant confusion, and no small amount of fighting with the gloves, was where the problem had started.
They were delicate. They were beautiful certainly, but armor could be beautiful without it contradicting its fundamental concept. Delicate, however, armor could not be, or, if it was, it was a flaw. Delicate implied easily broken or damaged and that was the exact opposite of what Torin was accepting to create the gloves to be. He had poured so much care into forming the metal, his technique so gentle and coaxing that, when the time came to open them up to accept the aether and their new concept, they had been entirely unwilling.
No, that was wrong, the resistance had not been entirely, nor exactly unwilling, and that had made it worse. If an object refused to change Torin could either force it (which he knew would make for a less perfect item so rarely did) or start over in the creation of the physical object. With the gloves, however, he could feel their resistance but there was something more. Once or twice, when he'd been exceptionally tired, mind utterly tangled up in the attempt to break open their concept, he'd seen... something. It felt like the gloves were pulling away from his attempts rather than simply refusing his advances. Like they knew what he wanted from them but were letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was going about it the wrong way. This frustrated him to no end and the feeling was only exacerbated when, each time he gave up at the end of a long struggle to understand, he got the distinct impression that the gloves were disappointed. As if they were trying to coax him to some new understanding, rather than he them.
After weeks of this, leaving him near to, or even in, tears of frustration and failure, one night he found himself in that state of exhausted fugue that came over him when he'd been lost inside a runeforging for far too long, that his mind opened to that place that it did sometimes. It was rare, but not wholly uncommon any longer. The state frightened him as he knew somehow that it left him entirely open to the magic around him such that, without defense, it might affect him as much as he might affect it. He did not reach out to the gloves, but they did reach out to him. They slipped into the part of him that understood magic on a level far too fundamental for his fully conscious mind and explained, softly but firmly that they were supposed to be delicate. Delicacy need not be the opposite of strength and the one whom they were being crafted for, the one to whom he had hummed quiet, wordless hymns to as he formed them, was herself both beautifully delicate and boundlessly strong without being a contradiction at all.
This revelation rang in Torin like a bell, clear, echoing and bright through all of him. Of course. It was Kala he had thought of through all of the crafting, not always in the fore of his mind, but always there, in his emotions, in the very ideal of what he was trying to do. No words passed between man and creation, the place where they could communicate did not contain any, but what they each needed was passed mutually. It felt, in fact, quite like a conversation with Kala when they were working together. She was almost always instructing him in her gentle way but was always willing to listen, take his suggestions and, in the rare cases that he knew more, learn from him in turn.
From then on, the work became smooth, a collaboration. When he encountered resistance he reevaluated what he was asking of the magic, how it would change the final product and adjusted it to better fit with the concept they had come to together. If there were times he found himself speaking aloud his thoughts to better understand them as he worked alone, it wouldn't be the first time it had appeared that he was talking to his work.
Bastion had seen the change the first time he had come in to continue to help, instantly. The boy's level of understanding of the deeper parts of the craft was difficult to gauge and while Torin could teach a lot, he yet had no idea how to impart the sort of thing that had happened when he and the gloves had come to an understanding. Blessedly, he hadn't asked, had only gathered close and watched with an intensity that was rare even for someone already so intent on learning.
Weaving strength into the platinum lacework was no longer a fight, bending aether into each tiny ring and metal stitch felt like bending it into a part of himself until he could feel where there would be resistance before it came and adjust for it. This seemed to please them in a way so similar to how Kala expressed pleasure when Torin had a breakthrough that it made him blush to feel it. He dreaded the completion, as he had dreaded the completion of the pendants he'd first made for Aurin. There would be joy in it, but also loss, such loss. As though sensing this the gloves took on a sense of comfort, reflected from him or to him or both, and this fit into their concept so well that he devoted additional aether to it.
When, at long last, just in time and yet still too soon, they were completed, it did not hurt so much as he had feared it would. He did not spend the day broken, but instead sat for hours holding the gloves in his hands, weeping some, but softly. Partly it was loss, but there was also a joy so pure he didn't know how to hold it inside him and had to cry it out. More than either, though, it was his sense of wonder.
What he had created was strong and delicate, beautiful and practical, gentle and comforting and filled wholly with a sense of its own unity. There was also something playful threaded through them that he didn't remember putting in at all but knew was right.
He stayed there, in his forge with them until Aurin had come to find him. The redhead had taken a long, searching look at him and then came to wrap his boy in his strong arms. Gently the gloves had been taken from him and put aside. They had not protested, knowing that they would not be long without the one to whom they belonged, nor did Torin. He was with the one to whom he belonged and that would always be enough.
For a time the smith had feared that his final set of gifts would not be ready for the dawn of the new year. The struggle with them had started nearly as soon as he'd laid them on his runeforger's workbench to begin their careful preparation for the kiln and the forge. A part of any runeforged item needed to be pulled away before one could begin making it into something new. It often wasn't significant, this breaking down of the aetheric idea of what a thing fundamentally was. If one was making a sword into a stronger sword, one that did not dull or lose its edge, the idea of what the sword was need only be prised slightly open. Just enough to allow the new ideas of sturdiness and lasting sharpness to be laid into the opening, making the finished project a new thing but also whole, connected tightly to the original idea. It was like if you cut open a loaf after it was shaped but before it was baked and slipped in another kind of dough. When the loaf was baked the two parts became a single whole, pulled together and solidified.
When you were taking an item and adding something to it which was not part of its original idea, not already contained in its nature, it was more like an actual breaking. Sometimes, when you took an object that was entirely unlike what it would become, you have to break it down completely, until it had no idea of itself, and rebuild it wholly. The more different the original concept was from what it was to become, the more difficult the forging was. A knife was a simple thing with basically one universal idea of use; to cut things. It could be used in nearly unlimited ways but all of them boiled down to that one, basic concept. A knife forged to be better at cutting in almost any way was easy as breathing to a runesmith as experienced as Torin. Taking a knife and enchanting it to be able to mend things, that would be far and away more difficult. The concept of being a cutting device would have to be broken open and stripped away before the new concept could be laid into it.
This was added to by the complexity of the original idea and the new one. If the object had more than one conceptual purpose, things became cascadingly more difficult. A hat might be used to keep one warm or keep one cool, keep off rain or show affiliation to a specific group or religion, to express rank, status or profession. Almost all clothing was thus, at least, outer clothing that could be seen by anyone. If one was careful and made the item themselves, concepts could be kept simple, or simpler, at least. This was one of the reasons that, despite the intense amount of time runeforging took up, most practitioners of the magic also had training in several other, mundane crafts. Runeforging changed the way one saw the making of any thing. It certainly had changed the way Torin worked with metal and leather, even the clay and wood he used incidentally in his work caused his mind to fall into that place of very carefully assigning intention to the objects. It was second nature to him now, to inform a thing of what its purpose was as it was formed under his hands or tools.
The gloves, however, he had struggled with from before he had even purchased the expensive silvery metal they were to be made from. Their concept was, frankly, beyond him, beyond most mortals. And yet, a part of him understood them well enough to finish their schematic, to know that it could work. Working the exceptionally tiny rings into their lace-weaving had required the use of his Elementalism, for they were too small for traditional tools, too delicate. That, he believed, later after much thought, significant confusion, and no small amount of fighting with the gloves, was where the problem had started.
They were delicate. They were beautiful certainly, but armor could be beautiful without it contradicting its fundamental concept. Delicate, however, armor could not be, or, if it was, it was a flaw. Delicate implied easily broken or damaged and that was the exact opposite of what Torin was accepting to create the gloves to be. He had poured so much care into forming the metal, his technique so gentle and coaxing that, when the time came to open them up to accept the aether and their new concept, they had been entirely unwilling.
No, that was wrong, the resistance had not been entirely, nor exactly unwilling, and that had made it worse. If an object refused to change Torin could either force it (which he knew would make for a less perfect item so rarely did) or start over in the creation of the physical object. With the gloves, however, he could feel their resistance but there was something more. Once or twice, when he'd been exceptionally tired, mind utterly tangled up in the attempt to break open their concept, he'd seen... something. It felt like the gloves were pulling away from his attempts rather than simply refusing his advances. Like they knew what he wanted from them but were letting him know, in no uncertain terms, that he was going about it the wrong way. This frustrated him to no end and the feeling was only exacerbated when, each time he gave up at the end of a long struggle to understand, he got the distinct impression that the gloves were disappointed. As if they were trying to coax him to some new understanding, rather than he them.
After weeks of this, leaving him near to, or even in, tears of frustration and failure, one night he found himself in that state of exhausted fugue that came over him when he'd been lost inside a runeforging for far too long, that his mind opened to that place that it did sometimes. It was rare, but not wholly uncommon any longer. The state frightened him as he knew somehow that it left him entirely open to the magic around him such that, without defense, it might affect him as much as he might affect it. He did not reach out to the gloves, but they did reach out to him. They slipped into the part of him that understood magic on a level far too fundamental for his fully conscious mind and explained, softly but firmly that they were supposed to be delicate. Delicacy need not be the opposite of strength and the one whom they were being crafted for, the one to whom he had hummed quiet, wordless hymns to as he formed them, was herself both beautifully delicate and boundlessly strong without being a contradiction at all.
This revelation rang in Torin like a bell, clear, echoing and bright through all of him. Of course. It was Kala he had thought of through all of the crafting, not always in the fore of his mind, but always there, in his emotions, in the very ideal of what he was trying to do. No words passed between man and creation, the place where they could communicate did not contain any, but what they each needed was passed mutually. It felt, in fact, quite like a conversation with Kala when they were working together. She was almost always instructing him in her gentle way but was always willing to listen, take his suggestions and, in the rare cases that he knew more, learn from him in turn.
From then on, the work became smooth, a collaboration. When he encountered resistance he reevaluated what he was asking of the magic, how it would change the final product and adjusted it to better fit with the concept they had come to together. If there were times he found himself speaking aloud his thoughts to better understand them as he worked alone, it wouldn't be the first time it had appeared that he was talking to his work.
Bastion had seen the change the first time he had come in to continue to help, instantly. The boy's level of understanding of the deeper parts of the craft was difficult to gauge and while Torin could teach a lot, he yet had no idea how to impart the sort of thing that had happened when he and the gloves had come to an understanding. Blessedly, he hadn't asked, had only gathered close and watched with an intensity that was rare even for someone already so intent on learning.
Weaving strength into the platinum lacework was no longer a fight, bending aether into each tiny ring and metal stitch felt like bending it into a part of himself until he could feel where there would be resistance before it came and adjust for it. This seemed to please them in a way so similar to how Kala expressed pleasure when Torin had a breakthrough that it made him blush to feel it. He dreaded the completion, as he had dreaded the completion of the pendants he'd first made for Aurin. There would be joy in it, but also loss, such loss. As though sensing this the gloves took on a sense of comfort, reflected from him or to him or both, and this fit into their concept so well that he devoted additional aether to it.
When, at long last, just in time and yet still too soon, they were completed, it did not hurt so much as he had feared it would. He did not spend the day broken, but instead sat for hours holding the gloves in his hands, weeping some, but softly. Partly it was loss, but there was also a joy so pure he didn't know how to hold it inside him and had to cry it out. More than either, though, it was his sense of wonder.
What he had created was strong and delicate, beautiful and practical, gentle and comforting and filled wholly with a sense of its own unity. There was also something playful threaded through them that he didn't remember putting in at all but knew was right.
He stayed there, in his forge with them until Aurin had come to find him. The redhead had taken a long, searching look at him and then came to wrap his boy in his strong arms. Gently the gloves had been taken from him and put aside. They had not protested, knowing that they would not be long without the one to whom they belonged, nor did Torin. He was with the one to whom he belonged and that would always be enough.
