Chapter 231: A day in the shop

“Um, Thera? Not that I don’t love the company, but are you sure this is how you want to spend all of your time?” Ben asked as he finished up forging a sword in the shop, his friend having made sure to spend all her free time outside of the clinic watching him work in the week they’d been back.“Someone needs to be keeping an eye on you. When you’re left unsupervised if you aren’t doing something to get yourself killed then someone’s trying to murder you,” She told him. It felt like ever since she learned that he had not only challenged the demigod to a duel over what he’d done to her, but almost been killed for it, she’d been feeling a lot more cautious about leaving him alone. Not that he would be by himself as he worked with Falk there with him.

“Don’t worry so much,” His teacher reassured her. “Anyone comes in here looking for trouble and I’ll be sure they find it, the boy’s plenty safe with me.”

“Uncle, I’m pretty sure he has the worst luck on the planet. Without a healer nearby somebody's going to fire an arrow across the street or something and leave him dying on the ground.”

“Well first off, that won’t happen, and second, if it did my jacket would protect me. It did a good job keeping me from getting stabbed after all.”

“Only because they didn’t aim for your head,” She countered.

“Thera, you don’t need to worry about me so much, I’ve got a god staring over my shoulders almost all the time.”

“Which wasn’t enough to keep someone from almost spearing you!”

He couldn’t deny his god's words. If he was constantly seeing her in danger then he might act the same way, that just left the question of how to reassure her.

He thought about it for a bit, deciding to start working on a different project while she was there and to talk things out as he did.

“Hey Falk, I’m going to grab some stuff for my own use, I’ll pay you back later.”

“Alright, just don’t grab anything too expensive, we have another week till we replace everything you used for your statue.”

He didn’t plan on making anything too crazy and grabbed Thera’s hand, bringing her into the storage room with him. He grabbed some thin wire they had already prepared before turning to her.

“Hey, do me a favour and pick a material you think is nice.”

“What, why?”

“Cause it doesn’t really matter which I use so I wanted to get your opinion.”

“Um, in that case, how about this one?” She asked, pointing out a sky-blue stone. It was decent enough at holding enchantments but was mostly used to add small decorative flourishes to other items, so it worked perfectly. With everything he needed he left it on his workbench, pulling Thera’s chair over so she’d sit beside him as he got to it.

For the wire he pulled out clippers and pliers, beginning the task of making small, delicate links by hand to shape into a chain. He fell in his work, knowing the exact size he wanted, and was thrilled to feel the metal bend to his will. Every bit was consistent, a testament to his high level, letting him make small talk with his friend as he did.

“Hey, tell me some things you like that I don’t already know.”

“What? Um, birds I guess. Looking at stained glass is pretty nice too. Why?”

“I mentioned before that I’d make you a necklace, remember? Figured I’d do it now since I have you here,” He told her as his various minds flipped through all of the birds he knew. He’d seen plenty of unique and interesting ones in the world, some that barely seemed to qualify as such too, but he couldn’t help but be drawn to those of his homeland again and again. Namely a bluejay, given the stone he’d be using for it. Ideally, he’d use multiple different stones to show its colours, but he could alter the look by adjusting the roughness in different areas.

“You know you’re not going to be able to buy me into leaving. Besides, didn’t you only make a necklace before to challenge Ather?”

“I mean, I wasn’t lying about being interested in trying to make some more though. Not even going to try to bribe you either, I’m doing it because I want to,” He said as he began sketching on the stone, figuring out where he wanted to make his cuts. “That does remind me though. Falk! You need to make a necklace for Sanya too!”

“What? Why?”

“It’s a contest. If Thera likes hers more I win, if Sonya likes hers more you win. Also, it will make her happy,” He didn’t bother looking to see if his teacher would, he knew Falk valued her and figured he’d go along with it so instead he focused back on Thera as he began cutting and shaping it to his desired size. “Anyway, I’m sorry I worried you so much. I really didn’t mean to Thera, I was fully planning on just getting a couple hits in on the guy and surrendering, I was as shocked as anyone when I won and that's when things went downhill.”

She looked at him silently for a moment before letting out a long sigh. “I just don’t know why you’d do something so dangerous like that to begin with. Did you ever consider he might be strong enough that he could keep you from being able to surrender? Or that maybe he and the priests would just ignore your surrender for having the nerve of challenging him? Or that he’d be able to kill you before you even got a hit in?”

“The only thing I was thinking at the time was how angry I was,” He admitted, while he stared down at the stone, seeing it take shape and moving on to work on the finer details like the eyes and feathers.

“Ben, he hadn’t even done anything to you.”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t accept what he’d done to you,” He told her, pulling his eyes from his project to look at hers, or at least where they would be under her hood. “I know it sounds dumb, but I hated the idea of him just getting away with treating you like that because he’s a demigod. Maybe if I’d known that the guild would be doing something I would have calmed down a bit, but I didn’t so I acted out. I get you’re sticking around right now because you’re worried about me, but I worry about you too you know. How could I just do nothing when somebody made you so miserable?”

She didn’t know what to say to that. When she’d heard exactly what Ben had done, she’d understood he’d done it for her, but she hadn’t gone so far as to consider why, instead immediately worrying that he’d almost gotten himself killed for something stupid, but even if she still didn’t think he needed to put himself on the line she couldn’t deny that he was at least partially right. Caring about a friend was a two-way street. For the last week she’d been dealing with worry for him, how could she deny his worry for her as well?

It was as she was trying to figure out what to say to that, that her uncle came over to them, slapping a necklace on the table. Delicate chainlinks holding a metal pendant in the shape of a flower she knew her aunt admired, the only clue it wasn’t alive being the look of the metal, but in all other ways it was perfect.

“Wait, how did you finish this first?” Ben complained as he looked at it. “Weren’t you in the middle of something else?”

“Yeah, and I finished it,” Falk told him with a laugh. “Even if I don’t have much experience with it, making a necklace isn’t much if I put my all into it.”

“Ugh, showoff,” Ben muttered as he put the finishing touches on his own. Given that he wasn’t mixing materials or painting it to add detail it wasn’t as realistic as he could have made it, but he was sure that any of his classmates would have been able to tell what it was easily enough if they looked at it. As a finishing touch, he applied an enchantment to it, weaving together his resistances to all affinities but life and light to make it an amulet. “Either way, I’m done too. What do you think?”

“It’s pretty,” She told him as she looked it over. “I haven’t seen a bird like this before.”

“Only twenty people on this world would have. It’s called a bluejay.”

“Well since it’s done can you put it on for me?”

“What?” He asked, not sure if he’d heard right, but she just slightly leaned her neck out as she faced him, waiting. As surprised as he was, he did as she asked, reaching into her hood and pushing her hair to the side as he linked the clasp behind her neck. As things were it couldn’t even be seen but he didn’t think that mattered too much as he pulled his hands away, only stopping as she gently held one of his.

“I get what you were saying, but just don’t go out of your way to put yourself in danger for no reason okay?” She told him. “I’d rather have you in one piece.”

“Alright, it’s not like I particularly like feeling like my life’s on the line anyway,”

“Good,” She said, sounding satisfied. “In that case, I’ll tell aunty to take a break from her work so she can help decide who won your little contest with uncle. Be back in a bit.”

With that she was off to grab Sonya, feeling a bit more relaxed as she went.