Allyria pulled her hood over her head as she advanced towards the village. The people in Bronn knew she was an elf, but she didn’t like people staring at her ears. A small flame flickered in her right palm, she squashed it and then lit it again, over and over, as she made her way through the last bits of forest. She did it every time her mind was bothering her, which was often.

As she passed the green field with the wooden fence that was the home of Esther and Theo’s cows, she stopped flaming and focussed her mind on her work. She hadn’t had a chance to get away from her elven duties in three days and wondered what Daniel was planning for today. As the smithy appeared in sight she smiled. She had gotten used to the sight of the thatch roof with the broad chimney, sucking out all smoke from the smithy. The building was open on two opposing sides; one wall being there just to support the roof and hang things on, the other being the connection with the cosy white stone house where the smith lived with his family.

She raised a hand in greeting when she entered the smithy. Daniel smiled and greeted her warmly.

“Ally, girl! Want something to drink first or shall we just get a move on? I’ve got an order for a plow we can dive into today. That’ll be some nice practice for you.

Allyria nodded and walked up to the furnace, then she eyed the broad-shouldered blacksmith questioningly.

“Yeah I got a mould for this one. Well, a basic shape. we’ll need to curve it out a bit after. It’s for Heston’s farm, so I thought it’d be fun if you could do something like an ear of corn logo on the base.”

Allyria nodded again, and helped Daniel move the iron. As they had positioned it in the container above the furnace, Daniel stepped back and Allyria lit the furnace. She watched as the metal slowly started melting, shining red hot in the black bowl. It was beautiful. Allyria liked the smell too, that was one reason for working at the smithy. The smell. The other reason was the beautiful things she could create with it when it cooled.

Together they poured the liquid metal into the mould, which Allyria had pre-heated a bit so that it wouldn’t break from the temperature difference. As they let it cool, Freya came by with her horse to get it shod. Allyria didn’t particularly like horses, but it was cruel to see them suffer from ill-fitting shoes, so she tried to mould the shoes to the horse’s feet as best she could. She took her time, heating the shoes in her hands, mere inches away from the horse’s feet, which Daniel held up for her one by one. The shoeing itself was Daniels job. No self-respecting elf would ever hammer nails into an animal. It didn’t bother her if Daniel did it though. You could only bother with so much.

When Daniel was done he smiled at her. “You’re leaking mana again.”

Allyria looked at her hand. It was doing the flame-on/flame-off again. She hadn’t noticed. It had almost become an unconscious habit, which was dangerous. A village of wood elves would consider playing with fire as a nervous tic extremely disturbing.

“I keep wondering what’s going on in that pretty head of yours…”

Oh, plenty was going on, and nothing at all at the same time. Every time a meaningful thought would develop itself, another part of her head screamed BURN IT! And then it burned, and gone would be the meaningful thought, just the blackened cadaver left, which was the only proof it had been there at some point. There were a lot of blackened once meaningful cadavers in Allyria’s mind, none of them useful, all of them a sad reminder of her conscious existence.

“Sandwich?” Daniel asked. Allyria nodded again. After he came back with the sandwich and a pitcher of apple juice, he talked a bit about things that had happened in the village in the past couple of days. Allyria liked hearing him talk. It was nice, she saw the stories he told in her mind so that she didn’t have to look at the blackness for a while.

Daniel was great. He had taught her a lot about blacksmithing in the past 16 months, and had helped her to build her dream: a light metal cuirass that fitted her exquisitely. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever made, and she couldn’t have done it without him. He had also taught her to fight with sword and mace, he thought that suited her cuirass and she had loved it. Besides being her mentor Daniel was always kind and attentive, and he never pressured her to talk. After all these months he almost felt like family.

“You think it’s cooled enough?” he asked. He was talking about the plow. Daniel didn’t ask the question because he didn’t know the answer, he wanted her to learn. Allyria considered the air temperature, the time they’d spent shoeing the horse, and the lunch chat.

“I think the core is still too soft, but I bet the outside is strong enough to do the drawing,” she answered. It was the first thing she’d said today.

“Well go and check,” Daniel said with a big smile on his face, which already betrayed the state she’d find the plow in.

Allyria started on the drawing, she used her nail to do it. Daniel was used to this now, but the first time he’d seen her manipulate metal with her hands he’d been so impressed he had spent hours telling her how amazing she was. Yeah right. As if being an elf with magical abilities was so amazing. At least half of them had at least some extent of magical aptitude, and Allyria was pretty sure humans knew that.

“How much bending does it need?” Allyria asked. If it was just a little, the plow had cooled enough by now.

“Here, check it out,” said Daniel, handing her a drawing. Then, eyeing her handiwork, sighed. “I keep being amazed at the beautiful things you make, Ally. I hope you’ll keep working with me for a very long time.”

Allyria smiled politely as she eyed the drawing of the plow. A couple of sharp bends, but none in the really thick part of the plow. She could pull that off now.

“Let’s pull it out together, yeah?” Daniel said, bending down next to her. He could’ve probably lifted the thing by himself, but he felt like getting a new piece out of its mould was something to take pride in, so he wanted her to be able to experience that too. This was silly, of course, because Allyria didn’t care about these things, but she’d never had the heart to tell him. Placing the unfinished plow on the workbench their arms touched, which wasn’t weird by itself, but the touch was accompanied by a strange feeling radiating from it. The feeling lingered in the air after they’d placed the plow on the workbench and Allyria was slightly confused by it.

“Hands or hammers?” she asked, turning around to face Daniel who had gone red in the face.

“Ehm… hands will be easier I think, considering the shape and weight?”

Allyria nodded and went to work, flattening the edges of the plow by heating the metal between her hands and stretching it to the appropriate shape. It was a slow process, but quite fulfilling.

“Wow, I can’t get used to that. The fact that there is this option, that you can just do this. You’re so special, so extraordinary…Ally…” two strong arms wrapped around her waist and something soft, warm and wet met the side of her neck.

Allyria froze.

“You’re so beautiful…” Daniel whispered, pressing himself against Allyria’s back. Then he kissed her neck again as he let one hand roam over her body.

“Daniel, don’t,” Allyria finally managed to say. Her voice had been only a whisper and was of no consequence. Daniel’s strong arms held her tight as he pressed her against the workbench, hand working its way into her pants.

“Stop!” Allyria started to panic.

“God, you’re so sexy…” Daniels voice sounded different, throaty. Allyria wiggled in his grip, but he managed to put his hand in her crotch regardless.

Everything in her head screamed NO! Her mouth screamed “NO!” Then a surge of heat went through her and everything seemed extremely bright for a second. Then the arms fell away.

Everything fell away.

The plow in her hand had gone completely liquid.

Her clothes and shoes were gone.

The smell of burnt flesh crept up on her like a bobcat on a bunny in a snare.

No…

No…

Allyria turned around slowly and crashed to her knees at the sight of the blackened cadaver. The smith had been burnt to a crisp in less than a second.

Allyria broke down but couldn’t cry. She just sat there staring transfixed at her friend’s body until someone entered the smithy.

“Dan!” a woman’s jolly voice sounded out. It was the voice of Anna, Daniels wife. Allyria jumped up.

“What the hell?!” Anna yelled out, seeing the naked elf rise up from behind the workbench.

“It was an accident!” Allyria heard herself explaining hysterically, throwing her arms up in a defensive manner.

“Oh, HELL, no, what accident, you were working so hard that suddenly your clothes fell off?! So that’s what you’ve been up to all these visits, stealing my fucking husband, how DARE you, you pointy-eared homewrecking CUNT, I’ll kill you!” she advanced slowly and deliberately, picking a large hammer off the wall in the process. Allyria backed away until she hit the wall.

As Anna turned the corner around the workbench her eyes fell to the charred remnants of her husband she dropped the hammer and screamed. The shock and pain on her face were enough to stop Allyria’s heart for a second. When it started up again it went in overdrive.

She grabbed a cleaning cloth and her cuirass from the wall, jumped over the workbench and ran. She ran across the village as fast as her legs would carry her, through the field and into the woods. Then she ran some more until her legs buckled under her and she fell onto the forest soil.

Her head was spinning and her insides hurt. She threw up the last sandwich Daniel had ever made, and then threw up some more, bile pricking at her gums. When the retching finally stopped, Allyria felt empty.

Empty stomach.

Empty heart.

Empty soul.

She put on the cuirass and tied the cleaning cloth around her hips, then continued her way back home. A concept which, like everything else, was empty too.