The Wyrms of &alon

Several days passed after that. Everyone tended diligently to their training. As I'd promised, I'd talked to Lark about my conversation with Nina, and expressed my hope that Nina would come around to talk to her sooner rather than later.

Had I tapped into my wyrm powers right then and there, I would have known for myself the full extent of Lark's sobering lack of confidence that Nina would be willing to turn the page.

On the plus side, though, it turned out that Lark had found a new hobby—two, in fact.

Lark had a lengthy list of things she considered sexy, and, as far as she'd known, blacksmithing had never even been in the running. She'd never thought of it as the kind of occupation so thrilling that a person would get all excited about it when they woke up in the morning.

But life could surprise you.

Lark had fallen in love with the way the D'zd had made singing into literal magic. Chant was a lot like songwriting; in both cases, the intent you put into your creations mattered as much as the songs themselves, and in both cases, the slick, flashy finished product belied all the work that went into making it.

"Hold the cold," Rz'srrkt (Urz'serkut)—the smith—said as ze pulled the sparklingly hot plastic blade out of the forge.

Lark sat on the floor with her four legs tucked in and the bottom of her abdomen pressed flush against the smooth stone. She leaned forward, all four arms spread around the rim of the cooling circle she'd Chanted into being. Though Rz'srrkt already had a table whose top was Chanted to produce an area of cold when the right sounds were sung, the smith had insisted Lark learn how to make one from scratch.

It had been a surprisingly fun experience. It was like writing down chord progressions on a lead sheet. Once you came up with the chords and sang them into being on whatever person, place, or thing you wanted to Chant, everything was in place for you to call that power forth whenever you needed it. For the Voovzhees, it was just another way they communed with the Worldsong and its lifelight.

Lark's melodious light reverberated through the smithy as she sang the Chant. Waves of cold flowed out from the space above the ring of light on the ground indicating the Chant she'd imbued into the stone.

"Alright," she said, "go."

Leaning forward, Rz'srrkt thrusted the piping hot sword into the region of cold. Ammonia vapor rose up from the surrounding air as the weapon cooled.

Rz'srrkt set the sword down onto the table once it had stopped glowing.

Of course, the real fun was still yet to come. Once they had finished making this batch, Lark would get to play around with imbuing Chant into the freshly smithed weapons. She'd quickly gotten the hang of how to imbue a single effect, and was eagerly looking forward to experimenting with adding more. Instead of having one side of the scissorblades Sparkcharge and the other drain, she thought, why not try having both effects at once?

The Sparkcharge Chant let the weapon's wielder bolster their own electrical "lifelight" by drawing from the static electricity created as they dragged the weapon across the ground. Meanwhile, the Drain Chant made the weapon function like an extension of its wielder's limbs and stinger, letting them sap the vitality from their opponent while maintaining their distance. It worked marvelously for spears.

"It's a simple trick," Rz'srrkt had explained, "but a devastating one. And when you put it on projectiles…?" The smith dragged a foreleg along the ground—the D'zd equivalent of a whistle.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. There were so many other Chants to use.

As weird as it was, Lark was enjoying herself. Though there were plenty of things she could have said about her current situation, feeling useless definitely wasn't one of them.

Rz'srrkt reached to put the next lump of raw plastic resin into the furnace, but zyr body shuddered. The long, broad lifting spatula fell from zyr hands and clattered onto the floor.

Lark immediately bent down and picked it up.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

Rz'srrkt waved zyr arms dismissively. "It's okay, it's okay." But when ze reached to grab the spatula from Lark's grasp, zyr limbs quaked as ze held it.

Lark grabbed the spatula's haft to steady it.

"I… uh…" She turned to face the closed furnace. "…maybe I should do it, this time."

Rz'srrkt nodded.

"I'll open the furnace on the count of three," ze said. "Move quickly—but accurately. You don't want to keep the furnace open for too long!"

"Three… two… one… go!"

Rz'srrkt opened the furnace.

Lark staggered forward, slid the plastic into the crucible inside the furnace and skittered back, moving in such a hurry that she dropped the spatula as she pulled away and Rz'srrkt slammed the furnace door shut.

She cursed. "Fuck!"

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The heat… the fucking heat…

It was like spiders had been crawling over her exoskeleton, and biting her as they crawled. Even now, waves of tingling numbness swept across her limbs, making her shiver in discomfort. She stared at her aching arms, rubbing them as she flexed them. Fortunately, the pain soon dissipated.

It didn't take much for Lark to put two and two together. She turned to stare at the plastic smith. "It's because of the heat, isn't it?" she asked. "Is that… is that why your arms are—"

"—It's the price we pay to use the forge's power," Rz'srrkt replied, solemnly watching the heat radiate off the furnace. "That's why weapons bite. The heat is damn fierce, and we take its ferocity and hitch it to the molten sap. Pretty much everything here except the castings themselves has got Chant running through it to keep the heat under wraps. But, even then, it only works up to a point. Over a lifetime, the heat damages those who would wield zyr power." Ze glanced at one of zyr arms as another tremor rattled through the limb. "I'll be good for several more years yet, but my time's definitely nearing its end."

"You would make for a wonderful earthsinger, you know," Rz'srrkt said. "You have the talent."

"At Chanting, at least," Lark said, with a shake of her head. "I don't know about smithing, though. I feel like that's a bit above my pay grade."

"Not all earthsingers end up being smiths," Rz'srrkt replied. "If anything, I'm something of a rarity, in that I do both jobs. As for you, though… you could make a career out of Chanting firemakers out of rocks, or refining tree blood into raw resin. You could team up with a non-earthsinger; have them make the weapons, while you imbue them with their Chant. If you wanted, you could even become a terrifyingly effective spy."

Wow… Lark thought. She stood in silence, basking in a feeling she'd never thought she'd feel.

"Is… something wrong?" Rz'srrkt asked. The smith must have noticed Lark's sudden unexpected silence.

"Actually, it's the other way around," the singer replied. "I…" Lark glanced down at her forefeet. "I've spent my life running away from who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do. It…" She ruffled her petals. "…it's a pretty nice feeling, isn't it, belonging where you want to belong?"

The smith bobbed zyr abdomen in agreement. "I know exactly what you mean. You see, I wasn't supposed to be a smith."

"What?" Lark asked.

"Singer skill does not breed true," Rz'ssrkt explained. "Most Chanters display their aptitude when they're still young nymphs. You get claimed by the Chanter's phyle. They give you a master to guide you in the art, though what you do with your skills are up to you, unless, of course, you are needed for the good of the clan."

"Why did you become a smith, then?"

Rz'ssrkt crossed zyr lower pair of arms. "My family have long been smiths. We made the Cloudswimmer phyle famous for it. I came to my powers at the cusp of adulthood. I'd already been training as a smith under my progenitor. It's what I wanted to be. Then, all of a sudden, I was plucked out of the Cloudswimmers and put into the Chanter's phyle. By the time I finished training, my progenitor had died of old age. I was to become a spy in long-term Passage, but I refused. Thankfully our Chief back then—Krr'kt'zz's progenitor—was understanding. We came to an agreement that I would become an earthsinger smith, to contribute to our war effort in my own way. Not only is it the only job I've ever wanted, but it's how I can honor my progenitor and the phyle of my hatching." Rz'srrkt looked up at zyr forge. "It… it's how I connect. Through my Chant and my craft, I connect not just to my people, but to the earth itself. To work with nature to make something useful and beautiful… that's not just where I belong, it's where I want to be."

"I get it," Lark said. "Totally."

She truly did. For all the pain and misery that life had thrown at her, those moments where she was at one with her art… they were what made it all worthwhile.

"It's wonderful to meet someone else who understands," Rz'srrkt said.

"Yes, it is."

Then a voice sounded from the back of the room, by the entrance.

"Lark…?"

It was Nina.

Lark turned away from the earthsinger and zyr forge. "Yeah?" She walked up to Little Miss Broliguez.

Nina twitched her limbs, lowered her flower and turned away. "No way," she muttered. "I can't do this."

When it came to gossip, Lark refused to be anything other than head bitch, so she skittered after Nina and grabbed her by the stinger.

Nina yelped. "Hey!" She turned around to face her assailant.

"What's going on?" Lark asked. "Did little miss hissy come to apologize?"

Nina narrowed her flower. "Oh fuck off!"

Lark laughed. "Yeah, Dr. Howle told me you'd do something like that."

"You spoke to Dr. Howle?" Nina asked.

"No, he spoke to me. The way he desperately tries to avoid being condescending is just adorable, don'tcha think?"

There was a pause.

"What did he tell you?" Nina asked, meekly.

"That your Dad put a lot of pressure on you, and that it's made you fearful about not knowing where you stand, or where you want to be."

"Great…" Nina crumpled where she stood. "Now even you think I'm a fucking basket case."

Lark crossed her arms. "I tried to kill myself, okay? You don't get to be the basket case while I'm around." She gestured with an arm. "Hell, these days, I barely get to be the basket case." She shook her head. "Dr. Howle outclasses both of us when it comes to problems."

"He certainly does," Nina said, nodding slightly. She paused. "I'm sorry for snapping at you."

Nina apparently wasn't brave enough to say that to Lark's face, not that Lark judged her for it.

You didn't get to judge other people for struggling to face the music when you'd built your entire life around avoiding that very thing yourself.

Nina raised her head a little. "I meant what I said, back then. I really, really don't want to deal with this bullshit right now—not yours, and, especially, not mine. Lopé is still out there, and he has the rest of my family's spirits with him."

"That's your brother, right?" Lark asked. "The religious one?" she added after a moment—taking care to put the matter more delicately than she ordinarily would.

"Yeah…" Nina said. "I'm scared for him."

"I know the feeling," Lark said. "I… I still blame myself for my brother's death. That's not something anyone should have on their conscience."

"I'm… oh god," Nina said, "I'm so sorry."

There was a long silence.

"Can we just… not fight?" Lark asked.

Nina nodded silently.

Another pause.

"Thanks," Lark said.

"Are you two done yet, doin' whatever it is you're doin'?" Rz'srrkt asked.

Lark turned around and hollered. "Just about."

"Who's that?" Nina asked.

"See for yourself," Lark said, as she turned around and skittered back.

And Nina did. She followed behind Lark, though the distance between them grew as Nina's steps slowed and her gaze fixed onto the forge, her flower widening in awe.

"Holy shit…" she said. "What… what is all this?" .

Lark pressed her bident fingers against her chest. "It turns out that I really am talented." She bobbed her head and tail excitedly. "Wanna see?"

"Sure," Nina said. She looked over the weapons and armor and all the tools of the smith's trade. "It looks fucking awesome."

And together, the two girls found something they could enjoy and share—where they could just be—without worrying about who they were or who they wanted to be, and it left smiles in both of their hearts.