Crafting of the first gift

Once the blindfold was removed, Emp started working on the bracelet right away. He had done all that he could to help fix the village while he was blind, mostly filling in holes using a shovel and carrying the wood for Willow's house with someone to lead him there, but now, it was time to go back to work.

There would be nothing to disturb his focus anymore and he immersed himself in his important task.

The mold didn't take that long to finish and he was quickly ready for a first attempt at pouring the liquid crystal in it. He cast the spell and poured the crystal into the mold from a bowl. Immediately, he noticed a problem, he couldn't remove the result form the mold, try as he might, he couldn't make it slide back out of it and its surface was so smooth that he couldn't get a grip on it. He ended up having to break off the bottom part of the mold to push his first attempt out of its shell.

His next problem was that he knew he would need to hollow it out so that air could go through. As he pondered on how to fix that problem, he decided it would be easier to include the worst of it in the mold. He needed a long hole going through like a flute and believed he could achieve it easier by holding a narrow stick in the mold instead of drilling a hole in something already filled.

He also needed the main body of it at the end of the shaft to be hollow and he believed he would never be able to do it using the mold. Instead, he realised it would be better to fill some small part of the mold with some other material that would be easy to remove, like clay, and make a large crater in it. Then, he would only need to make a second top part using something like the gold he bought, fill it with holes and weld it to the crystal base.

He melted his first attempt back down and got to work on the mold again. He remade the bottom of it, hung a small iron hook on one side to drag the next bracelet out of it without removing the bottom, smeared a layer of clay on the inside of the mold, sticking it to the outer layer and finally, stuck a long baguette into that clay.

He poured the liquid inside carefully and the stick fell off, forcing him to redo it all again. After many trials and errors, he finally got a result closer to what he wanted.

In his hand, he now had a long tube of purple crystal with a large chunk missing in its thickness on one side because of the clay and a hook as well as a piece of wood sticking out of it. For now, it honestly looked like a piece of junk, but he had worked really hard for that base on which to work upon.

Now he needed to tackle the next problem, he had to remove the piece of wood as well as all the excess crystal. It was currently a tube but he needed it to be a cuff looking like the body of a tree with a single leaf.

He tried to yank the piece of wood out but ended up snapping it in the opening. He then tried to set fire to it to get rid of the wood remaining inside the flat opening before finally using a thin file to push out what was left. It was a lot of work for just a small bit of flat wood, a work he frustratingly needed to do again later after he misjudged his sculpting area and broke the main piece. The opening he had made was a weak point in the structure so when he hit the bits around it with his new set of tools to remove the excess crystal, it cracked towards the hole. It was frustrating but there was nothing else he could do other than restarting it all from the beginning again.

That crystal was freakishly solid but since he had to break the excess off, he needed to strike strongly and the crystal really wanted to snap were it was weakest.

In the next few attempts, he kept the piece of wood inside to better judge where he needed to sculpt and chisel but still needed days of trials before he could do the shape right. He even had to use a few more sticks he tied into the mold to create new weak points were he wanted them.

The end result was roughly in the shape of a leaf from an apple tree, curving around what would be the arm of Calla. The leaf sprouted from a tree that curved the other way around to hold the cuff in place and its roots melded together on one side to extend along the inner arm of the wearer. That was the currently hollow part, the very tip of the roots was a hole. The body of the tree was the thinnest part in the crystal because it was the portion where the clay had stopped it from filling the space completely.

Now, he would only need to make the polishing and the small details of that piece before it was ready. Well, that and engraving the necessary runes for the spell on the underside of the bracelet. That would be the most dangerous part because even a single tiny mistake would break the whole thing and force him to do it all over again.

He gathered his courage, his chisel and his small hammer and started practicing on random pieces of crystal he removed from his huge block. This was the first time he did runes by himself, Marcy never let him do it before. She was always the one to do them because it was almost always the most delicate and important task in the making of any piece of equipment.

The runes could not be either slanted or misshapen or they wouldn't work, the dept of each line needed to be the same as every other, each needed to be linked to the others in order to work and not in a random order.

He kept the book open at his side and took a while to translate the spell he needed into what he believed would be a functioning enchantment. After that, it took him two more full days and hundreds of tries before his trial set of runes proved to display the intended magic effect. He then took another half a day to find a way to fit them all inside his tiny bracelet and a full day to actually carve them into it with utmost care and precision. He was so glad that his new chisel could dent the surface of that crystal or it would have been way harder still. He did not place the magic in it yet as he had more work to do but that part was mostly done now.

At that point, he had already worked a full week on this. Marcy came a few times to silently watch him work and nod in approval. She seemed glad that he was able to display some originality by himself rather than following the same templates she showed him how to do a countless number of times.

He knew the other him was about to begin his journey towards the village so he could not stop yet, he needed to be finished by the time he arrived with the girls and the escorting soldiers. There were many pieces yet to make and many details to engrave to make it the best he could achieve.

Currently, his gift looked like a misshapen flute, which was close to what he intended to make. However, the opening at the very end of the long stick needed to be on the side rather than forward. To fix that, he needed to carve a bit of either gold or crystal like a small ring and bend it to have a tunnel curving at a ninety degree angle.

He decided to go with gold as this way, he would have some at both ends of the bracelet and it would be easier for him to shape. He very carefully made tiny dents into the tip of the "flute" so that the gold would grab and hold onto it when he would place it there.

What was very convenient was that gold was easy to heat and bend while that crystal was almost impossible to weaken with heat. This meant that once he heated the piece of gold, stretched it into a thin strip and rolled it around the tip of the object, he would not be afraid to reshape the main part by accident by heating it.

The gold was soon ready to work with and using violent hammer strikes on the anvil, he stretched the rose gold as thin as he dared before reheating it and beginning the real work.

He possessed, yellow gold, white gold and rose gold but he felt that the rose one was better for this as it was less jarring to look at when combined with the rich purple of the crystal and pink was Calla's favorite color. He was glad that the merchant Wren found for him presented him all these types of gold before he bought anything, it gave him some option.

As rose and white gold were alloys, he wasn't sure if he was supposed to make them himself with some gold and some copper but the merchant claimed otherwise. He said that as long as they were in ingots, it was good enough for the traditions. That was relieving for Emp because he already had a lot to do.

The rose gold was rolled around the tip, hammered into the dents to take their shapes and the end was curved upward. After it was cooled, he passed a long long time making sure that it seemed to be an integral part of the whole object, that it held perfectly in place, that there were no dents, no sharp edges, that it did not bulge out of the rest and that it did not extend too far or peek either towards the arm of the wearer or the opposite side.

After all, if it was thicker than the rest, it would be like a thorn in her side when she held her arms close to herself and poke into her flesh. He needed this to be comfortable and so, he needed the end of that bracelet to be perfectly flat and leveled with the rest of it.

In theory, that bit should be on the side of her arm rather than the delicate inward facing part of it making it hard to poke into anything. But, turning her wrists and hand might change that and he had to make sure it would not be less comfortable.

Next up, he needed to use more gold to cover the cavity of the tree trunk in the bracelet and fill it with holes to let the air escape it.

He had been inspired by the howling hills, always screaming so loudly as the air rushed through the holes in the sharp cliff edge of the hill.

He wanted to give Calla a tool that would let her be heard whenever the need arose. Sounds and air would enter from the tip of the root at one end, be amplified by the magic inside and come rushing back out from the trunk of the tree in a much louder manner.

This way, she could call for help easily if she was in trouble and people would be able to hear her meek wispy voice without having to make her repeat fifteen times or bringing their ears close to her face. All of these would be true as long as she brought the bracelet close to her face, something Emp could confidently bet she would since she kept hiding her face behind her hands and arms when meeting people.

That was his plan, the great idea he had for her, the one thing he felt would greatly help her and keep her safe as well by making it easy to call for help from anywhere. Normally, the spell he used was made to make your voice loud enough to stun and daze enemies close to the mage like the closing jaws of a thunder-chew would, but her, her voice was naturally so weak that he doubted such a thing would ever happen.

He took another piece of rose gold and put it to fire and hammer as well. In order to make the piece of gold match exactly the cavity he had to deal with, a lot of work was necessary. He hammered relentlessly and measured the pieces over and over in order to make a perfect match. He prepared carefully placed slits into the crystal to jab tongues of gold inside which he would be able to twist and lock place. He ground both crystal and gold with files to have their profiles match perfectly and finally, pierced holes into the golden cover with the smallest of hand drills and careful hits of a puncturing nail.

He heated the piece one last time and inserted it in place, hammered the locking mechanisms and made sure once more that nothing was out of shape or exceeded it's allowed space and finally, observed the result with great joy. Slowly, the object he had envisioned was taking shape.

The next step was to inlay gold into the leaf part in order to make it look like the veins of it, then, he would have to dig sockets into the whole thing to inset his pink gems and finally, only the detail work would remain. Emp didn't feel dispirited about all the work that he still needed to do to complete his project. He felt excited instead to feel the finished product in his hands.

By the time he was done, the other him might already have arrived. In fact, with how long he took with just the gold, he had no choice but to give up on the idea of finishing before the group arrived. The good thing was that Bor had already been informed of the group future arrival by the intermediary of Marcy. He knew already that a duke would be coming to visit so Emp didn't have to interrupt his work just to go warn him about this.

The days passed quickly as he dug lines into the crystal and set stones into it. The precious gems were really hard to work with and it was far from his favorite work. He knew no techniques in jewelry and had no knowledge on how to make them shine or polish them. He didn't even know the names of the stones he was working with, all he knew was that they were pink and cost him many a gold crown and silver scepters.

Once he thought he would never be able to do better, he locked them into the bracelet in way that they would never fall off, with tinny claws holding on to them and digging into the crystal. He set one at the head of the leaf, one at the heart of the tree and one in the roots opposite to the air tube. Any more than that would seem like too much in his opinion. The rest would all be a work of sculpting and line details.

Armed with his new tools, he sat under the light of the many lanterns hanging in the workshop and started to work on the details. He drew veins into the leaf and bark lines into the trunk, he divided the roots in clear limbs and worked carefully on the whole silhouette. He dug, scrapped and polished, rubbing off layers after layers of excess material and slimming down the rough shape he started with into what felt more and more like the single leaf tree he wanted.

He smoothed out the curves, erased all edges and brought out details as they came to his mind.

There was a commotion outside again, his escort and him had arrived, they had left the school over a week ago already. Time passed so quickly when one was focused on his work. The others must all be wondering what was happening and look curiously at the visitors like that time when a caravan of imperial knights passer through the village. This time however, they would be surprised to find out that those guys in heavy armor, elites of the knights working under a duke, weren't going through but staying here instead.

Emp believed that the him that was already there could handle this whole thing without his own intervention and so he just kept his attention on the object in his hands.

Using the same tiny pick he used to engrave the runes on it, he decided to write a few words in to the crystal, along the trunk of the bracelet.

"May luck be with you each day

May they hear my flower say."

Satisfied with those words, he quickly moved to the next task.

He had all the bits of excess gold he removed from the earlier steps melt in the furnace and after wiping the sweat on his forehead for the nth time, he poured the liquid on the leaf and carefully wiped the excess so that only fine lines of it would remain. He did the same for the runes on the inside and the words on the outside, carefully holding them so that the precious liquid would not drip out of place. Because of the curve in the object, this step took him a long time too since he had to do it tiny bits by tiny bits.

Now, all that remained was to give it one final scrub to make it shine and pour actual magic into it. He prepared the sacrifices necessary for the spell, some bird blood and a flute and followed the instructions in the book to cast the spell. He failed twice before the spell managed to take hold but luckily, nothing too bad happened aside from a loud screech emitted from the first wrongly cast magic.

He very carefully held the spell up and transferred it into the object as he had been shown and taught to do. His gift didn't seem any different now than it was earlier but if he had done it right, magu and power now ran along the carved runes.

He brought the gift close to his mouth for a test and whispered into the tip of the root, or what looked like the tip of a flute.

"Is it working?" He asked as softly as he possibly could.

His words traveled through the cuff and were expelled from the trunk like an echo. The voice wasn't distorted in the least and the volume was decent. Emp was very pleased.

He placed it on the table, smiled at the abnormally loud thump it made, got up and spoke again to see if the voices of everyone around her would be affected too. If they were, the whole thing would be a failure. He didn't want to deafen her with the voices of everyone else, he only wanted to buff hers.

"Blablabla." He tried.

Nothing happened, Emp was getting more and more excited. As a last test, he yelled at it from his standing position.

"Please don't be too loud!"

There was some sort of buzz from the bracelet but nothing too loud. It seemed that the opening was too narrow to catch the sounds that came from too far of it. That meant he did it! He had finished his confirmation gift and he was very very proud of it. He couldn't wait to show it to Marcy and finally go give it to Calla.

He picked up the result of his hard work and rushed to the door, opening it widely to discover that it was already dark outside. He did the same sort of thing every day since he started working on this. He would get in the workshop after waking up and left once it was dark or sometimes, not at all.

He locked the door behind him as he left and walked to the house. There were a bunch of soldiers blocking the door and when he came closer, they expressed confusion.

"How can you be here? Weren't you inside just now?" One of them asked.

"Idiot, he can't be both inside and in front of us, either he's the twin of the young Muracier or he's an impostor." Another said.

The others became wary of him but he was truly both inside and here. Instead of going through the whole thing of showing them his card and having them be even more confused, he chose to just call those inside.

"Hey, it's me, tell the guys out here to let me in!"

Shortly after, the door to his house opened and he saw himself walk out to meet him. It had been a while since he last saw himself like that.

"Oh, it's finished! Let me look at it."

Emp carefully took it from himself and ran his eyes over the finished gift. He must truly be the only person in the world able to experience that same wonder twice.

Since it was clear for the soldiers that the two Emp knew each other, they relaxed a lot. The two Emps walked back inside together and with a touch, he recalled himself, letting him know how the end of the trip went.

*-*-*-*

After Emp left the school riding alongside the carriage and the duke, they left the streets of cobblestone of the city in no time at all. The clapping sounds of the hooves on stone was replaced by the thump they made on the compacted earth of the road towards Red-water.

As they were all leaving, many travelers asked where they were going, hoping to follow them for protection but once they knew they were only riding down to Dark-glint, no one followed the group. It wasn't worth it if they got stranded halfway between the two cities.

The journey itself was very uneventful. The soldiers had packed everything the group would need in two wagons preceding and following the carriage, they were used to travels and were able to build small camps very quickly and easily. Everything was well coordinated and executed making their trip a smooth sailing one.

There were only two things in this trip he found tiring.

First, there was the riding itself as Emp wasn't used to it. He felt like they were moving at a slug's pace and his butt felt sore after a while of being sat on the animal. He, by far, preferred to just walk. He was impressed by the tenacity of the people like Kenneth and Jin who could ride all the time with no problems.

The other thing was the duke Jazay. It seemed that he really liked to talk and rarely ever stopped. With no servants of his to translate all his nonsense, Emp had to pay careful attention to each words of his stories if he didn't want to get lost immediately.

The old man had a large amount of tales about Chijou and Chinui to tell, or about one war and another, enough to fill the whole week with them and still keep more in reserve for later. Most of them were interesting, even if a bit hard to understand. It was fun to hear about the two brothers but also very straining since he had to focus so much.

Travelling with others was very different than travelling alone he found out. When he was by himself, he moved at the pace he wanted and stopped whenever he felt like it but as a group, he had to be slower and couldn't just stop at any point to gaze at the scenery. It was still better though since he didn't feel lonely. The journey would have felt a lot longer than it was if not for the distraction the duke offered.

The other good thing was that creatures mostly kept their distances with the group of heavily armed knights. Only the most idiotic creatures like the twin-headed beetles dared challenge the group and those died instantly when they got close.

The girls in the carriage had an enjoyable trip too, Emp believed. They could look at the scenery from the open windows while they sat comfortably in the safety of vehicle. They had almost no work to do through the journey aside from the very few chores after the camps were set in the evening. They had their whole days to relax and chat.

After many days of riding, they finally reached the palisades of Dark-glint. The sight he knew so well filled him with joy. The familiar place always felt good to see.

The usual guards at the gate stood at attention as the group passed them to enter the village, they seemed much more serious than usual in front of noble caravan. Emp wondered if they spotted him at the front or if they were too busy being nervous about the duke. He was hard to miss with his memorable ways and his flag flapping from every cart and carriage in the procession.

Bor having been notified of their arrival by a watchman hurried to meet them at the gate.

After the incident with Sophus, Emp had told him most of what he could about himself. He said he was the son of the great general and that he was on his way to the noble school in Bêtéclair when he met Marcy here in the village. He was just hiding his name because he didn't want to cause a commotion, he had no special reason of keeping it secret. As for what he did to Sophus, well, the mage had been particularly offensive and attempted to burn him to death. Maybe if he had given up earlier he would have lived but once the first flame hit him, there was no saving the mage.

Later, he had also told him that the duke would show up for the marriage so Bor wasn't taken off guard by the sudden appearance of the high noble at his gate. He placed a knee on the ground in front of the horses and welcomed the duke.

"My lord duke, it is an honor to greet you in our village."

"Har har har!" the duke laughed heartily. "Ye be a funny one."

From his point of you, Bor had been housing someone with a standing equal to royalty for two years so it was absurd to be honored to greet him. With all the curious onlookers though, he couldn't say it aloud. He knew Emp kept the secret until now and he didn't want to waste all his efforts.

"May ye let us make camp here village lord? We be stayin here until the lad's marriage."

The crowd was curious about what was being said but they didn't talk loudly enough for them to hear. They could only whisper their speculations to each other. (1)

"Of course my lord can set camp here."

"Ye heard the man! Ye bunch of slow buggers, get ta work!"

He always gave his knights a bunch of ridiculous nicknames and gave them various orders in high spirit. He had told Emp that he really liked the feel of moving around again with the soldiers, he missed his days leading the troops to war.

After he gave the order and the knights started unpacking the carts he turned back toward Bor.

"Ye can rise now. I be not yer lord. Yer lord be that idiotic old man Greathorn.

Bor got up with a nod but refrained from making any comments on the duke's words. They were the sort to bring trouble if you paid any attention to them.

"Would my lord wish to share my table this evening?"

"Nah, this not be necessary. From what I be seein, yer place is no better than the rest of this here place. I be telling the Great-horn-in-da-brain that he be better takin care of the great road instead of riddling the hills with holes but the old mummy doesn't care. This be an important place on the main road yet the lord here doesn't even have a keep to protect it. I hear ye be in need of a mage too, tha story made me laugh, I be willin to help search for one."

"My lord the duke of the eastern grove is generous." Bor smiled happily. "What can this small lord do for you then if my table doesn't please you?"

"I just be visitin the smith lass today. I haven't seen her in a long time, how many years'it be? More than ten for sure. She be dyin to split me old skull I be bettin, let's not make her wait. Please lad, lead tha way there." He asked Emp.

"We should leave the horses here though." Emp answered as he got back down.

"Ye be right. And ye lot be comin along."

The duke got down from his horse and gestured a small group of knight to follow them towards Marcy's house. Emp took the time to open the carriage door and fetched Harriett and Celtine before leading the duke there.

It was the first time he came here with the girls and it felt a bit strange to carry Celtine on his shoulders here, he was used to walk these small streets alone. It also felt strange to feel all the gazes of those people he knew on him and those he led. None of them understood what was happening, all they knew was that the smith's apprentice was leading a duke in the village and carried a pretty girl with fiery hair on his shoulders.

Emp couldn't help but point some people he knew to the girls, telling them about the guys and the places they passed. He was having a great time sharing the other half of his life with them, he wanted them to know all about it. He understood a bit better now how the old duke felt when sharing all these old stories.

He led everyone to the door to their house, knocked once and stepped inside as he called Marcy.

"Mom, I'm home, I'm bringing important visitors and Bor with me."

Celtine had to bend herself and stick close to his head to pass the door and the others followed inside. Only the knights stayed out and stood on either side of the door to keep watch.

Marcy showed up in the main room to welcome them and the two girls hurriedly bowed respectfully towards her. Celtine had a harder time of it since she was on his shoulders and only managed to bend her neck where Harriett almost touched the floor with her head even though she was still standing upright.

That encounter turned out to be a strange mix of emotions. The girls were happy to meet his mother while Marcy was partially interested to meet them and partially angry to see the duke in her house. Bor didn't know what to expect and stood silently to the side while Jorman jazay attempted to apologize to Marcy.

"I get that ye be angry about this whole thing cause I'd be angry too but the emperor lass. He looked me in the eye and had me sworn to keep me mouth shut."

After that, the duke got yelled at for a good hour. Essentially, she was really angry that no one even dared tell her what happened to her fiance and even though the old man could do nothing about it and had nothing to offer to make up for it, she still vented a lot of her frustration on him.

Only once her anger cooled down were they all able to sit at her table for Emp to make the presentations.

"Mom, you already know the duke, those two are Celtine and Harriett, I told you about them before. You two, this is my mom Marcy."

"I am more than honored to meet master's mother at last." Harriett said with sincerity, not at all affected by the long scolding she just administered a duke.

<I am glad to meet you as well.> Celtine wrote simply.

"So ya are the two my boy keeps talking about. Ya are welcome in my house. I heard my boy relies on ya a lot. As for ya, ya aren't."

"Aw, bloody hill lass. Ye be barkin at the wrong tree, I be havin no controls on the whims of the emperor. I put up with all yer shoutin already, give me a break. I only be here for the lad's marriage."

"I won't throw you out but ya're not staying the night. Find yar own place."

"Fine, anyway yer place is so small. Ye be part of the Muraciers, ye should be livin in a palace, what took ye to hide in this small here place?"

"I didn't want to be disturbed and with how I was being treated, it didn't feel like I was a Muracier at all as ya put it."

"I be sorry already lass! For the ancestors care!"

They continued to talk and argue like that until dark. He was happy to see that Marcy and the two girls understood each other just fine and got along well. They seemed to have a good first impression of each other aside from the way Celtine tried her best to stay away from her. She had the same sort of reaction with Brenia, she really didn't like strong women being close to her even though she had a good impression of her.

When the other him came back with the gift, he went outside to greet him and was amazed to see the final result of his hard work. He walked back inside with the other him, they merged into one again and Emp showed it proudly to Marcy.

His mother looked at it from every angle and nodded many times with a smile as proud as his own. She ran her fingers on the edges to make sure he had thoughts of smoothing them out, wiggled the bracelet in her hands to see if all the pieces were properly bond with the others and finally praised him for all his hard work.

"Good job my boy. This thing is sure to please her and the rest of the Champom. I can see ya gave it your all and it is very well done, quite original too. I'm very proud of ya and now I know for sure that ya can create stuff on yar own rather than just copying my own work. I am very pleased with ya."

She ruffled his hair and gave him a hug. Emp felt great to be praised by her. The group celebrated the completion of his work and Marcy said that she should go tell Ogden and Fiona that he would be ready to go meet them tomorrow. It would be awkward if he came and had to wait for someone to find Ogden in the huge orchard after all.

"I be goin to my tent too then and I be leavin ye to it."

The duke left at the same time as Marcy and Bor returned to his own home too.

The only ones left in the house were the two girls and Emp.

"Master's mother really loves him. She seems very friendly too."

"She is, well, usually."

The other two laughed thinking about how the old man had been treated. They chatted some more and then again with Marcy when she came back and everybody went to bed. The two girls slept in Marcy's room so Emp ended his day like he always did and almost wrote a note saying he was ready to be recalled by the force of habit.

Tomorrow would be nothing like usual though. Tomorrow, he would gift the bracelet to Calla and do the confirmation properly.

*-*-*-*

(1) One would think that such a discussion was taking place in the noble tongue but as you may remember, only Marcy speaks it decently here. Bor wouldn't understand a thing.