Twisted Destiny Chapter 158: Chain

Brianna hands over a couple of vases to which I imdiately teleport back into the safeness of our vault back at the mansion. “Thanks a lot.”

“Absolutely no problem.” Brianna replies. “If you ever need more vases or flowers, feel free to co and see .”

“Well, we’ll see each other often enough with our little combined enterprise.” Hilda replies and shakes Brianna’s hand.

“That’s true.”

“But it’s about ti we head back now. See you around, Brianna.” My sister shakes Brianna’s hand as well, after which I do so too.

“Bye bye, Brianna!”

“Bye!”

The three of us leave the store and enter back into the street.

“Ready to teleport us back, Amicia?”

“Mhmm.” I give Hilda a nod and turn myself around. But before I continue, sothing in the distance catches my eye. It’s the sign of a blacksmith.

“What’s up, Ami?” Lise asks.

“Well… would you mind if we take a look at that before we leave?” I point at the sign in the distance.

“A blacksmith?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh, sure thing. It’s not like we can miss the bus or sothing.” My sister shrugs. “What do you need a blacksmith for? Are you buying your favourite sister a new suit of armour?”

“Not exactly.” I giggle. “It’s for sothing Sam and I discussed.

“Oh.”

“Want us to co along or do you want to do it yourself?” Hilda asks.

“Feel free to join . Maybe there’s sothing you want to buy too.

“Well, the chance that I’ll find a cooler sword and armor set is pretty low though. But I’ll co along anyway.”

“I’ll join too.” Hilda nods.

We walk over to the blacksmith down the street, the sign that hangs in front of the door says it’s open but from the windows we can’t really tell there’s any activity inside.

I push against the door and it quite easily swings open, making a little bell ring that’s installed just above the door. We are t with the sight of all kinds of weapons and armors that are displayed on the walls and on so of the tables. Pretty much all of the armors look Dwarger sized.

“Hmmm, I’m pretty sure these are all a little bit too small for .” Lise looks at one of the armors and runs her hand over it. “looks like good quality though.”

“Hello? Is soone there?” The voice of a man cos from the back of the store. His voice sounds rather old.

“Yes, you’ve got custors.” My sister calls out.

“Custors?” The voice sounds a bit louder and we start hearing footsteps. That’s when a very old looking Dwarger man walks through the door, with a can, supporting himself.

“Are you the blacksmith?” Hilda asks.

“A blacksmith… I used to be.” The man nods. “Now it’s my grandson who has taken over.”

“Is your grandson here at the mont?”

“If neither nor you can see him, then he mustn't be here at the mont.”

“What do you want to do, Ami?” Hilda asks. “Want to wait for the blacksmith to co back or should we just head off and co back later.”

“Well… I don’t want to waste too much ti…” I scratch the back of my head.

“Do you know if he’s going to be out for long?” My sister asks.

“I don’t know. I didn’t even know he was gone.”

“Uh, I suppose we should head off then.” I turn around towards the door. At least we didn’t really waste too much ti.

Right when I’m about to open the door again, soone else opens the door before . I take a couple of steps back as a very young yet very muscular Dwarger man walks in, a two sacks of coal in his left hand.

He looks surprised when he sees .

“Uh, hi.” I slowly raise my hand to give a shy wave.

“Hello.” The Dwarger man closes the door behind him and now looks at our entire group. “Are you custors?”

“Potential ones, yes.” Hilda replies. “I take it you are the real blacksmith.

“I am.”

“Ah, there you are Roderick.” The old Dwarger man waves his cane at his grandson. “These people were about to leave because we had no idea where you were.”

“Grandpapa, I left a note for you on the counter saying I’d only be gone for ten minutes to go and buy so coal.”

“Note?” The old man lowers his cane and walks over to the counter. “Is that this silly piece of paper?” He starts reading the note before putting it down again. “Don’t you younglings understand it’s hard to read when you’re as old as ?”

My sister and Hilda both start chuckling.

“Yes grandpapa, next ti I’ll shout in your ear, okay?”

“You better!” The old man slowly trudges back to the back of the house.

“I’m sorry for that.” The man sighs slightly and walks over to his counter with his bags of charcoal. “Were you interested in buying anything?”

“Well…” I raise my hand again. “I wanted to know sothing.”

“Yes?” Roderick looks at .

“Would it be possible to make rings out of Gold Dwargons?”

Roderick looks a bit confused but after a couple of seconds he nods. “Yes… but I don’t see why you’d do that. You can just use golden bars too, can’t you?”

-Ah…-

“Oh…” I scratch my head and start blushing. “I suppose so.”

-It had really not co up in my mind at all that we could just pay a blacksmith with the golden Dwargon to make golden rings for us… That’d definitely be the better way to do things and probably also a lot less illegal.-

The young blacksmith starts laughing as he sees my reaction. “Don’t worry, I’m not judging, sotis I also make strange connections in my mind like that.”

“Don’t we all?” Hilda chuckles.

“So you would like a couple of rings? I got to say that I’m not really that experienced with jewelry but it’s sothing I can definitely do.”

“Uh, yeah.” I reply as I get wiggle myself out of my shy situation. “I would actually like three golden rings if that’d be okay. I want to use them as promise rings for and my girlfriend.”

“Promise rings?”

I nod and explain what the concept is behind promise rings to our blacksmith friend.

“Oh, I see.” He nods. “Rings aren’t really used in these lands to signify connections like that, but I can definitely imagine how significant it can be.”

“Not even for marriage?” My sister asks.

“No, not really.” Roderick shakes his head. “It’s clear that you are not from around here so I will explain it. A bond of marriage here is made only at the ceremony itself. A chain that’s interwoven with fabric get’s bound around the two partners during their ceremony. Afterwards, that chain becos a sort of family treasure. So people fra it, others hang it in their houses on the walls, and then others put it away in a chest in their bedrooms. But that’s really the only material sign us Dwarger people use that symbolizes our bond.”

“And nobody breaks a piece of that chain to hang it on a necklace or sothing like that?”

“No, no, no. Absolutely not.” Roderick waves his hands and shakes his head at the sa ti. “That’s not done. The only ti the chain gets broken is when partners separate willingly. When the relationship has run its course. Breaking a chain would therefore symbolize the breaking of the relationship.”

“Oh wow, that’s really interesting.” Hilda nods. “I didn’t know that at all.”

“Dwarger people don’t really like sharing that much, so it’s pretty normal if you don’t know our most intimate traditions. Especially if you haven’t been here for that long.”

“Well, thank you for explaining it to us.” My sister gives him a big smile.

“No problem at all.” He then looks back at . “So, these rings, would you like to have sothing special about them.

“Hmmm.” I scratch my cheek. “Could you maybe engrave our nas in the rings?”

“Definitely.” He goes behind his counter and takes a piece of parchnt and a quill.

“It’s Amicia and Sam.”

He starts writing it down and then turns the paper towards . “Like this?”

When I look at the piece of paper but I can only see runic writing. “Oh, those are runes.”

“Oh, would you like it in so other language?”

Hilda and Lise look over my shoulder at the piece of parchnt too.

“I think that actually looks really cool, and it’s definitely going to be pretty unique as far as promise rings go.” My sister replies and puts a hand on my shoulder.

“The way your nas are written in runes also looks really pretty, don’t you think?” Hilda says.

That’s not initially what I had in mind, however, what both my sister and Hilda say is true. The runes do add sothing really unique to all of this and I actually also really like that aesthetic.

“Yes.” I give Roderick a nod. “I think that would be good.”

“Great.” He smiles. “Then I just need you to pick a style and the sizes, and then I’ll get to work imdiately.”

-I am really excited to see how the rings end up looking!-