Contributing to the Pile || Open

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At this point Inek was making a mess on purpose, not a terrible mess but one none the less. It was difficult to make the already scatterbrained forge worse but there were paths in the clutter. Inek knew that, he had poked his head into the forge enough times to know this place was always a mess. The debris on the floor would never be cleared. Rhiannon on the other hand came only when she needed something, and she had a nice hand held whet stone to sharpen her sword anywhere she wished. It was normally in the forest, and she had even gotten some oil specially made to sharpen and clean blades instead of the usual water treatment. She loved her weapons, and it showed. Tough love anyway. She knew why her sword broke this time, it was her fault. She hadn't taken the time away to sit down and care for it properly recently, while training more with it at the same time. The poor thing was bound to break. Rhiannon hated the face she let her weapon break, the beautiful smooth metal surface and perfect balance. She hoped Edmund could treat it well, he was supposed to be a good forger. Supposedly all his weapons were well balanced and straight, and supposedly he didn't stop short of mechanically perfect. Hear say was never a thing to be trusted though.

Rhiannon gave up on the fox, and decided she would just pick up after him when he was done. With a sigh she walked back over to Edmund's station, pulling the slightly bend sword from her belt. The thing was going no where near her scabbard, heck it didn't even properly fit in it's own. She supposed she'd have to go back and grab it. "This ones bent, despite being in the armory where only good finished weapons should be go." she said a bit annoyed. There were plenty of poorly done weapons in that armory, and she wondered if they could go through and toss all the imperfect ones back to the scrap pile. A lot of the weapons were good, however the balance points moves around, different strokes for different folks. There was also grip size, guard size, and a million other things Rhiannon looked for in a weapon. Of course there was the blood groove too, so many people didn't put in a blood groove.

After a short time Inek noticed Rhiannon had stopped following him, and started shifting things back into place. As much in place as they had been to begin with anyway. He cleared the walkways again, and left what he hadn't messed with alone before trotting back to the two people his tail waving slightly back and forth. "You done?" Rhiannon asked him, a small quiet bark was his reply and Rhiannon nodded. "You clean up your mess?" a low growl, then a high pitched yip came from Inek and Rhiannon smiled rubbing the top of his head. "Good job"

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credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

Edmund ignored the fox's running around and messing up the forge. He'd clean it all up tonight, just like he always did. He tried to keep in clean during the day, but with other idiots using the forge, it never stayed organized. He spun the wheel again and started the Fix-A-Sword process. Warlow split this one up pretty badly; it must have been some sword fight. He had split his swords once or twice... or more while on Jolly's training courses. Edmund took the best care he could of his weapons, but this was the Legion. Any fight related tools were abused to the point of exhaustion (that included humans too). At one point or another, they were bound to break, no matter how well they were taken care of. Demigods (except him) went to the infirmary. Weapons either got dumped in the armory, or got taken to the forge. Hopefully the forger entrusted with the weapon would get it right. Edmund continued to move the sword down the grinding stones, sparks starting to fly all over the place. His body tensed in the slightest at the sight of a potential fire starter, but then relaxed a second later. Sharpening things had been one of his first "forge lessons", which, in reality, was just him watching other people around the forge and then mimicking. Back when he was in danger of hyperventilating in the forge every other minute. It was actually more like he had an internal gut instinct on what to do and then just watched others for specifics and to confirm.

He looked over slightly and nodded as she placed the other sword on his work bench. "I'll do that after this." From the glance he had gotten, it was merely bent, and not anything like the sword he was trying to whip back up into shape now. Even if it had been as equally wrecked, he would have probably done it anyway. It was something to keep him busy. Her second sentence evoked a semi eye roll from him. That should be his next project. After the daily armor and sword orders, after all the special orders, after cleaning the forge, after finally clearing the WIP and dump tables, he should go through the armory and remove poorly made weapons. The weapons that weren't made properly posed a hindrance and even potential even danger. No wonder he never slept. He lived in a danger zone, number one. Number two... he just didn't like sleeping. For multiple reasons. Besides, a roof top, or a tree, or even his workbench made for a good bed, whenever he decided to sleep that was. Best he could get was three hours... and then periodic catnaps. Maybe. For better or for worse, his body had adapted to short, spasmodic, non routine sleep patterns.

Finally, the forge lulled back into comfortable silence. Thank the gods. For a few minutes, the only sounds were the sword on the grinding stone and Edmund making subtle adjustments. Then the silence broke. At Warlow's question, Edmund looked up, taking the sword off the stone for a second. He was about to tell her no, when she realized that she was talking to Inek. The sixteen year old should have known. Her tone had become a bit more mellower. She was like him in that sense. Got along better with non-humans. Either that, or he just had a really negative effect on people. Probably both. Seriously, a fox. A fox was more mature than some of the humans who stepped into this place.

IC: 606

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The forge was filled with the soft sound of metal on the grinding stone, and Rhiannon wondered how long since she had actually used one of those contraptions. Probably not since Forging 101. She liked to hold the blade in her hand and slowly drag it across the smooth stone perfecting the edge. It could be tedious at times, but it gave her a much greater pleasure than that silly spinning stone. Rhiannon looked down at the slightly bent blade now sitting on Edmund’s little work bench. It should be easy enough to straighten out, but she did not trust herself with it. No way no how, forging was not her thing and she had learned that in class. She liked sword fighting, and she loved the blades that came from true craftsmen, but could not make them herself. That was okay, normally it took a person many years to earn what some of the other kids knew by heart already. It was just the trait of some of the demi-gods here. It probably also helped they started when they were ten years old, instead of high school or collage or wherever people learned blacksmithing.

It was still quiet when she left, returning temporarily to the armory. She knew right where she left that scabbard, the one that was supposedly for the sword she picked up. It took her only a moment to remember where she put it, and pick it up. Luckily the scabbard looked like it was in pretty good condition. It may have just been some dunce bent the sword. Rhiannon had the highest opinion of the people at this camp, can you feel the sarcasm? Rhiannon looked over the scabbard as she walked back to the forge, not too much ornamenting but it was pretty nice. She wasn't a fan of all that pretty stuff all over a weapon made for killing anyway. There was nothing pretty about what the swords were meant to do after all.

Inek was sitting there at Edmund's table waiting for both of them, his fluffy white tail flicking back and forth as he watched the sparks fly from Rhiannon's old blade. He watched Edmund curiously, he often came by to make sure he hadn't hurt himself but that was about it. Inek had seen what happens in the forge on accident, and knew it could be bad to leave a person by themselves in such a place. He would have ventured to all the places with water deep enough to drown, but the water nymphs were very goo at their job. Inek was pretty sure that was saving campers, because who doesn't want to save the campers? His tail started thumping against the floor when Rhiannon walked back into the forge. His excitement brought a smile to her face again. She could never think of terrible things, or annoying people when he was there with her. At least not unless those people were directly there talking. That was harder to ignore.

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credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com/

The grinding stone was probably one of the forge tools that was used most. This was Rome, or a good copy of it, anyway. The Legion, full of soldiers who fought... all the time. For hours. If they were (depending on the person) fortunate/unfortunate enough to be in the first cohort, they even had fighting for forty eight hours. Of course everyone needed a sharp blade to keep their fighting up to par and to keep their sword properly maintained. Edmund took Warlow's sword off for a moment before slightly pushing the pedal again. It picked up more water and the demigod placed the sword on the wheel once again. He started counting rotations; it wasn't long before the sparks showed up. At least it wasn't as immediate as before. The sixteen year old started to move the sword along the stone to different angles; it was to get it evenly sharpened, a good sword wasn't only sharp on tip, but the entire blade. Besides, it helped with balanced too. After he reached twenty two, Edmund took the blade off and flipped it, starting the process all over, but on the opposite side. The job of sharpening became rather rhythmic when someone did it as often as he did; it was pretty often too since Jolly would usually give him weapons from the arena to fix and sharpen.

Ten... eleven... The wheel kept continually rotating. It would until Edmund stopped stepping on the pedal. When he had first tried to sharpen something, he remembered that the grinder pedal had reminded him of a piano one: don't told it down all the time, but give it a tap when the beat was right. After he sharpened a couple of dozen, Edmund realized that he could even stop counting if he really wanted to: the feeling was in him. Odd and borderline weird to some people, but it was true for him. He had tried piano and even guitar to occupy himself during that one year. Neither had really done anything for him, although that could be in part because he had gotten into major trouble for sneaking into and lock picking the music room. True, his forging had been slightly delayed three years because of his aversion, but he had worked hard to pick it all up. It kind of helped that he didn't exactly socialize: the forge and cohort training became his life. His gaze semi turned up, hearing Warlow move away and back into the armory. She'd be back: she still needed her blades and her familiar. Speaking of the fox, Edmund looked to the side, feeling a pair of eyes looking at him. It was indeed the fox. It wasn't the first time that the sixteen year old had caught the animal watching him either.

Edmund moved the blade and his foot off the wheel and went to stand up in order to inspect the blade. He turned it, the sharp side facing his face. Seriously, if someone wanted to kill him, they had an easy way: ask him to sharpen their sword, and then when he was checking it over, push his hands back. A newly, properly sharpened blade would probably split his face in half. Edmund held the blade a foot or so away from his face, just looking at it for a second. No more glinting. Good sign. He walked over to his bench and placed the finished sword on it. Then he took the bent one. Slightly different cure for this. He took it by the hilt, slid it into the fire for moment, and then quickly pulled it out. He took one of the hammers near at hand and started bending the sword back into its original shape.

IC: 634

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The thing Rhiannon did next was unusual to say the least, since she loved Inek and he was the only thing she really trusted. She produced a knife, a well balanced throwing one and while she could not throw very far with accuracy this distance was short enough. With a flick of her wrist she threw it at Inek who was waiting on the floor. "Think fast" she said with a little smirk, it had been a while since they had done this. She hoped it hadn't been too long. Inek moved and caught the daggers handle standing and twisting rather quickly sending the blade back at her face with greater accuracy than she had managed. As always, she loved her little fur ball. Rhiannon moved and went to catch the dagger by the handle, her hand moving a bit too soon and she ended up catching the guard, her first two fingers and thumb sliding along the sharp edge. She had gotten faster, that was certainly interesting. It was probably from fighting Josh. Switching hands Rhiannon put her dagger away with her left and began to lick the blood off her right hand. Inek trotted up to her feet looking up with a fairly worried expression on his face. Rhiannon knelt down and held out her hand which promptly began to ooze blood again. Inek cleaned the wound for her, the enzymes began the clotting process and it stopped bleeding soon after. "You still have it." she chimed happily, speaking softly to the worried little fox.

Inek's head turned quickly to the forge boy, leading Rhiannon's eyes to the same place. He was inspecting the blade, possibly only a foot away from his face and with the sharp end towards his face. Rhiannon normally looked at the blade along the edge instead of straight at it, leaning the blade forward so she could see the imperfections that always lay in it. She supposed she'd let Simmons do it his way, not her problem. Not Inek's problem either. She stroked the top of his head, his ear perked up all the way as he watched Simmons closely. "He'll be fine" she said quietly, attempting to make Inek feel more reassured. He never was, always looking after people and trying to make sure they didn't hurt themselves. She could remember feeling that way at one point in her life, but she learned quickly that only brings more pain. Still she wouldn't have Inek be anything but him.

It was only a moment before Simmons was moving again, placing what Rhiannon assumed to be a finished product on the table. He took the other blade and immediately went to work on it. No pleasantries, nothing. Good. Rhiannon preferred that. She'd have to remember to get this one to do anything else forge related she needed, he didn't seem to object to any work so it should be fine. She couldn't think of anything at the moment, but in the future perhaps. Well with being in the legion it was highly likely, since it was that kind of place. Swords were going to be battered and bruised same as the people who wielded them, albeit easier to repair than people.

Picking up her sword Rhiannon took a look at it, the scratches and of course the major problem that was the crack were gone. Smoothed out with the sharpening stone she had guessed. It looked nice, and the balance felt just as It had before. She supposed it would be hard to go wrong with sharpening especially when Simmons probably did it several times a day. She traced her finger along the flat of the blade a smirk coming across her face. She loved her weapons, more than most of the people around her at least. She did very much enjoy seeing it in top shape again, you couldn't get this kind of quality from just a hand held whetstone.

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credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

Edmund automatically looked up when Warlow called think fast. Jolly had done that plenty of times during training. The dagger flew, but not to him. Instead, it was aimed at Inek. Practicing accuracy with animals. This was the Legion. Fair game. It wasn't like he hadn't ever done it with Jadis (Ryley was too small). Besides, if it ever did come down to a conflict, she had to know to move away from the sharp projectiles, not towards them. Sharp, flying, aimed at you objects=dangerous. Not too hard for animals to comprehend. It would probably be best if she learned how to catch them. Edmund paused for a moment to watch the two. The fox had some pretty good skill, no denying that. Animals could be just as good as a solider if properly trained. Especially Inek since he was a familiar or whatever Warlow had called him. Actually, Ed wasn't sure if that made the animal more trainable, but it certainly made it seem more personable and person friendly. It seemed to have a really close bond with Warlow and vise versa.

He made a mental note to continue to try to teach Jadis how to do this: after his own training, forging, and everything else being Edmund Simons implied. Maybe he could start out in the field of Mars and with a wooden stick and then progress to daggers and more dangerous weapons. Even though he knew that he'd have to let Jadis go eventually, it wouldn't hurt to teach her while she was still here with him. He watched with a calm expression as Inek returned the dagger, slightly nicking his human. Kudos to him. As expected, Warlow didn't really react to being cut. Getting nicked with a dagger in the Legion was trivial in all the wounds they could get here. For him, a slight dagger cut was comparable to a paper cut. Annoying and stingy, but not the end of the world at all. He had fought through worse. If Warlow needed/wanted a band-aid or whatever badly enough, she'd ask or just find the medical box, but from what it looked like to him, it didn't look like it required much. Besides, within moments, she had found her own healer: Inek's tongue. He had heard that animal saliva was good for closing/healing wounds. Ed also vaugely remembered reading it somewhere: probably the book Weingarten had given him.

The sixteen year old's concentration went back to bending the girl's sword back into its original shape. It was just like the cases that Jolly gave him day in and day out: bent swords, cracked swords, swords that were no longer usable. The no longer usable ones went on the scrapping pile for parts. It was probably more common for thoroughly broken swords around here than it should have been. Seriously, people either (A) had to learn how to take better care of their weapons or (B) fight with a little less intensity, although the latter was probably never going to happen. This being the Legion and all. While getting the sword back into shape, he heard Warlow open her mouth again to talk to Inek. Pft. The fox shouldn't be worried about him. Yeah, Edmund Simons would be fine. He worked in here day in and day out with little to no injuries. He was fine. Everything was always fine with him. Forever and always.

Finally, he was able to straighten the sword out. After another inspection to make sure it was absolutely level, it was grinding stone time again. Edmund spun the stone, dipping it in the water once before starting to press on the petal and putting the blade onto it again. Sword sharpening. Seriously, if he asked for a tip every time he did this he could get rich. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Warlow testing out the blade herself; if it needed any more corrections, she'd probably tell him. She seemed weapon literate and seemed to care about the quality of them. If he did something wrong, she'd probably be the first (along with Jolly or Petty or himself) to tell him.

OOC: Ed the talkative >.>
IC: 711

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The blade was immaculate, and Rhiannon could not help but fall in love with the short sword all over again. Some times she really thought she was born to the wrong god, though she could hardly imagine her mother getting together with almighty Mars the egotist. Her mother kinda hated the whole macho man thing, and Rhiannon pretty much associated Mars with Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Positively primeval. Would probably thank her for calling him that too, same as the idiot in the movie. It didn't matter much, since he was never around very long. Probably long enough to be a thorn in the side, but that could probably be said about all the gods. Well except her mother, she'd never seen that woman, no nothing from her. Didn't matter, the woman, goddess, whatever, birthed her and had nothing to do with her after that. As far as Rhiannon was concerned she was an orphan, her parents had both died in a crash and that was the end of it.

Sitting down at Edmund's work bench Rhiannon waited. It wasn't comfy, but in the legion you had to deal with sitting in the same uncomfortable place for hours on end sometimes. That was if you didn't decided to skip, which Rhiannon often opted to do. She was pretty sure there did not exist a time in the legion where she actually sat and listened to anyone. Other than the few times she had been forced to the floor with a knee in her back and her arm twisted behind her. She was getting better at avoiding those situations, mostly by avoiding the people who caused them. Namely Praetor Remus Stone. He was about the only one who could make her listen, mostly because she greatly disliked the pain he could inflict, yet some how manage to not knock her unconscious. He was also the reason she really trained seriously in the first place, though still not at actual training sessions. Fourth was full of weaklings anyway.

Rhiannon was not sure how long the process normally took, but it seemed to go by faster than she thought. Edmund had moved onto the sharpener again. She smiled, that was wonderful. Soon she'd be able to go out and train with two blades at once, sure Zidane recommended she not do it but again, who listened to the management around here? They had no idea what they were doing anyway. Remus could fight, oh yes he could fight, but look at this place. The legion was a constant mess, and it was a bunch of kids in charge of a bunch of kids. ADHD kids with weapons at that! Who gave an eight year old a sword and shield? Whomever was in charge of fourth cohort when Rhiannon first joined, but so did Lupa. Crazy wolf. Crazy parents that actually sent people here. Crazy gods having kids they don't even want. Was Edmund done yet? Rhiannon couldn't keep herself from growing angry once her mind started down this path of thought. Not unless there was a little fox on her lap, which soon enough the moment she started tapping her foot there he was. His chin flopped on her bouncing knee and she stopped, her gaze immediately softening. Who could resist a cute face like that?

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credit to my-teen-quote.tumblr.com

Being at the Legion for six years, surrounded by weapons, it was easy to say that a nearly everyone (not just Mars kids) kind of became their own kind of expert in them. Heck, most people needed to be semi-expert at something, particularly standing their own in the Legion or they were dead. It didn't have to be weapons either, it could be their inherited power from their immortal side, or just being sneaky (like the Mercury kids which he wanted to kill half the time). Like there was this kid he had made a staff for a year or so ago: wooden with an engraved vine wrapping around one way and a real vine going the opposite direction (the kid was probably either Bacchus or Ceres). Edmund didn't exactly make him out to be someone who liked fighting with blades; heck, he had almost surprised Edmund when he said he just wanted a staff. No blade coming out of the top or transforming or anything. Just a plain, simple, wooden staff. Odd for the Legion, but Edmund had started to make automation toys, so who was he to talk? Besides, the Ceres/Bacchus kid looked around his age... and everyone had to be in the Legion by ten, so he had survived, what, five, six, seven years somehow. Ed supposed pacifist Romans weren't impossible, but it would be quite the paradox.

Edmund continued to use the grind stone on Warlow's blade, a few sparks starting to jump out. Even after three years in the forge, Edmund still had to keep himself in check 25% of the time. Getting triggered by fire and being around fire every day/near to all day (besides training) made for a trigger house, but he had slowly gotten used to it. Since he didn't need to buffer out any cracks on this one, just make it sharp and straight, it would a bit faster. Faster didn't mean he'd be clumsy though; especially when there were sparks involved. Sure, Edmund had made a self imposed rule of "no clutter within three yards of the sharpener" but who ever listened to him? He cleared the clutter himself and usually kept it at bay, often evoking glares from other forgers. Well excuse him if he didn't want the place to get burned to the ground because of some carless forger igniting a pile of junk. It would/could happen too and Edmund wasn't ready to take that "oh, it won't be me who does it" chance. Maybe Edmund was just foolish: taking all his time with the weapons, but he wanted to do his job right the first time. He had failed rather horribly in the mortal world, perhaps he could make it up in the demigod one.

Finally, the second blade was ready. Edmund used the same check method (vertical with no glinting, which was a good sign) and then held it by the handle, horizontally, to make sure it was pin straight with no bends. Yup, second blade seemed done. He silently walked up to Warlow and handed it over. "Both seem alright?" Edmund didn't exactly have a problem if she came back a couple of hours later since it took a few fighting swings to see if it was actually alright, but if she felt something wrong with her blades now, it would be a good time to speak up. Besides, Edmund didn't doubt that Warlow would have any quips about telling him if there was a problem.

OOC: Your post then TADA?
IC: 597

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Rhiannon smiled at the little fox, he was just the cutest most adorable thing that existed. So caring and defiantly worried about her a lot. She had to admit she used to be a lot more while when she first got to the legion, unable to control the powers she had and started fires, explosions, and the occasional earthquake. She did her best to stop those as soon as possible, mostly because she was out cold for a few days after such an episode. She still did not have good control over those things, major attacks or whatever you wanted to call them. They used up too much energy, and had a terrible track record. A syllable off and suddenly it was a completely different spell, or if her concentration broke it would simply explode in her face, or fizzle out with all her energy if she was lucky. It was also lucky for anyone else around her, but they didn't really matter. Except Inek, he always mattered. She never found it odd to love and trust an animal more than people, because people are the ones who back stab and leave you when you need them. Yep, humanity was not a nice thing, at least not in Rhiannon's mind.

The spinning wheel stopped, and she could not help but look up from fluffing Inek's face. That Simmons was looking directly at the blade again, just a quick jab to the back of his head and it would probably be all over for him. She could only think how annoying that would be, her nice new shiny sword bloodied and not by her hand. She certainly would not jab the little helper elf on the back and cut his face open, so someone else would have to. She waited patiently at the work bench. Her original sword sitting inside it's scabbard on her hip, the new swords scabbard still sat on Edmund's desk. He handed it to her, and she gripped it by the handle taking it from him standing up and away from his work area at the same time. She made a very good inspection of this, not that she had not given her old one a good look over, but this one was the one she worried about. She turned it over in her hands, and felt the weight with her left hand. Much better without that little bend in it, though she was not quite able to do anything good with her left hand yet, fighting wise, she only swing it a few times. He did a much better job than she would have given him credit for, though she still needed to battle test the things.

“Yeah, they look good. Really good in fact, thanks Simmons. If you don't hear from me they're either fine or I killed myself, other wise I'll come back for any adjustments.” She pretty much guessed from his rather cold demeanor that he wouldn't care no matter the outcome, and that was fine by her. She honestly didn't care about his safety while he was looking at the sharp sword from so close, not worried a bit. She wasn't eying the shadows to make sure no one hurt him, she just wanted her sword to not quite draw blood yet. She grabbed the scabbard from Edmund's desk and sheathed her nice new sword, strapping it to her other hip and picked up her nice shiny new gold shield. This was certainly the best haul she had gotten from the forge, at any point in her life. “See ya, thanks again.” She was not about to stick around in the fiery, way to warm forge any longer than she needed, and this crazy kid wore pants and long sleeved shirts. She was pretty sure she'd seen him in a jacket once or twice too.

OOC: explosions? >_>