Chapter 1
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            Footsteps echo across the wooden floor of the hallway and the sounds of breakfast from downstairs rouse me from the tail end of another weirdly depressing dream. A knock on my boring white door follows the footsteps, "Wake up already Samuel." comes the overbearing voice of my father, "The time has already well past for you to be out of bed."

            Before I can even mumble a response, his footsteps move away from the door and down the stairs at the end of the hallway, leaving me alone to prepare myself for what will most likely be, another boring day.

            Raising myself from the comfortable confines of my bed, I slowly gather my dark grey school pants from their place in my dresser, underwear and a long sleeve white uniform shirt with a stylized image of a book on the breast pocket, and make my way blearily down the hallway to the last door on the left. Which is closed and locked. ugh. Danni beat me again. She takes her time in the bathroom, for sure. Feeling annoyed with this new day already, I turn away from the door, ready to return to my room to perhaps re-read some more of my English essay, when the door opens.

            Danni steps through the doorway accompanied by a billow of steam, looking like some annoying suit-less female version of Darth Vader. She stops when she sees me waiting and curtsies mockingly to me with a sneer, as if she is some highborn princess, which if you asked mum and dad, they would say she was. Without saying anything she steps around me and moves down the stairs, dressed in her school dress and already looking perfect. Honestly, how? It makes no sense. It's barely 6 in the morning, school doesn’t start till 8:30, and she is already prepared for her day.

            Stepping into the steam filled bathroom I flick the lights and the fan back on and strip out of the clothes I wore to bed, a green shirt with a random logo and some sport shorts I rarely use for any sporty activities, and step into the shower. The water is instantly warm, thanks to my hot-water-loving sister, and I simultaneously feel more awake and more relaxed than I did a few seconds ago. I go through my shower routine, scrubbing my body with a face washer and shampooing my long ginger hair, which takes the majority of my time in the shower, despite how easy it is to clean.

            Turning the shower off I wring some of the water out of my hair before stepping over the edge of the tub and grabbing a towel to dry off. As per usual, my hair requires the use of a hair drier to get it to a state of not-soaking. With a dry body and semi-dry hair, I step into my pants and button up my shirt, ready to step out of the bathroom and face the world, before a glance at the mirror above the sink reminds me to brush my hair. One thing I never understood was when people complain about long hair, I mean, sure it gets in the way sometimes, but from my experience it's never been super problematic. Hair brushed and looking fresh I step out of the bathroom, not accompanied by a cloud of steam I might add, and return to my room, grabbing my school tie and belt from the wardrobe, putting them on, and pulling my hair up into my signature low pony tail.

            The full-length mirror on the back of the wardrobe door tells me my tie is done up correctly, my shirt is tucked into my pants and I look just as tired and depressed as you can expect from a teenager that works far more than needed and has little he truly enjoys in life. I sigh, the reflection sighs, the world sighs, I break a bit inside.

            Grabbing the rest of my uniform, socks, school bag and work bag I slowly walk back down the hallway, past Danni's room, some cupboards, the spare room and the bathroom, to the stairs down. I drop my bags near the front entryway and grab my school shoes from the shoe rack, walking through an archway and into the kitchen. Breakfast is a hastily eaten meal of eight weetbix without a word said to me or by me. It just makes me a little bit sadder; you know? Dad doesn't say anything, mum ignores me and Danni just talks with mum about who knows what.

            Without a word said I place my dishes in the dishwasher and leave the kitchen with hardly a glance from my family in my direction. What's their problem anyway? Granted I don't make an effort to engage, but they're my parents for goodness sake. No interaction with my parents means that they are driving Danni to her school and leaving me to walk to mine, which is about three times further than hers. Sometimes life sucks I guess. Not being driven to school means I have a long walk ahead of me, and in the sake of timeliness, teeth-brushing is not done.

            Slinging my work bag, a satchel, over my left shoulder, and pulling my school backpack onto my back, I open and walk through the front door without a single goodbye. The sidewalk is empty as I leave my family's house behind and pull my hand-me-down phone, that my younger sister owned first, with my headphones out of my satchel. Today feels like a melancholy day, so a melancholy playlist I play, before placing the earbuds in and stepping out to begin the 13 kilometre trek to school.

 

﴾⸸﴿

 

            Music is great. It allows you to travel to whole new worlds no matter what your life is like. It can move the most sullen and transport the least imaginative, but the best bit is being able to block out thoughts and momentarily clear your mind. At least, I think it can do that, turns out a melancholy love song can somehow be even more depressing when your phone runs out of battery less than halfway through a 13 kilometre hike to school. sucks. sucks. sucks. ugh.

            It's rather fortuitous I left the house when I did, cause major road works and a detour mean a run to school in scratchy socks and second-hand school shoes a couple sizes too big is hardly needed. I just had to jog the last 5 kilometres.

            The bell rings just as I slide along the polished concrete corridor, coming to a stop just in front of my locker, hardly panting. Despite sliding along on the concrete in front of my locker almost every day, I still get some strange looks. You know, it's almost as if it's uncommon for a year 11 to slide their way around with their hair flying. Not having good hair ties suuucks. I mean, how terrible does a hair tie have to be to come out of your hair when you run. At least I have some extras stored in my... oh, never mind. ugh, and it has to be up as part of the uniform.

            I hurriedly sort my school stuff into my empty locker, grab the binders for the first couple periods and rush off to homeroom.

            Not sure why I bother though, three minutes since the bell's gone, most of the students are still having 'important' conversations in the common room and Mrs Brown hasn't arrived yet. This is good. Let the search for a hair tie begin!

            A quick perusal of the rooms current inhabitants makes the prospects of actually locating one seem bleak. There are only 2 girls in here and neither of them have hair long enough to require hair ties. Couldn't hurt to ask though. "Hey, do either of you happen to have a hair tie I could borrow?"

            They look at me, look at each other and look back at me before the blond one on the left says, "Sorry, we don't."

            And that's it. I'm already dismissed. Oh well. Maybe I can find a runaway hair tie on the floor before the teacher arrives. An initial glance turns up empty and before I can really start looking Mrs Brown walks in, closely followed by a large proportion of the missing students. Everyone sits down.

            "Alright, is everyone here?" she asks the room, likely already knowing the answer.

            Despite everyone present knowing the answer, it takes a good ten seconds before the other girl that was in here before speaks up, "No." Right, she responds first to the entirely redundant question every time, and she always answers the same.

            Mrs Brown scans the class room before sitting down on top of her desk (the hypocrite!) and grabbing her school-issue tablet out of her purse, bag, thing. Whatever that mess of material is. "Roll call it is then." she says before calling out everyone's names. It goes swimmingly until she reaches my name, which is when, surprise surprise, she chooses to look up from frowning down at her lap.

            "Why is your hair down again Mr Johnson?" she asks me while trying to do something with her eyebrows, maybe raise one? I don't know.

            "Well, it was up, but the hair tie fell out on the way to school, and I don't have any spares." She just stares at me, not enough to be truly unnerving, but close.

            A smile breaks out on her face when she comes to some conclusion, and judging by the fact that it is more a grimace than anything else, it doesn't bode well for me. "Luckily for you," it's not, guarantee it's not, "I have a spare scrunchie you can use." It could be worse I guess; I've had to wear a red ribbon all day before.

            She reaches into the depths of her pile of cloth and pulls out a hot pink scrunchie. ugh. I think she plans these things somehow. The reveal of the scrunchie causes a round of snickers, which doubles when she tries to throw it to me. To be fair, it was a better throw than when she threw the ribbon towards me last week. Bending out of my chair, I pick it up off the ground and try to brush the glitter off, only to find that it is hot pink with some very sparkly glitter attached to it.

            Well, that's just grouse.

            On the plus side Mrs Brown is now addressing the room, and she doesn't like it when people don't pay attention, so no one is really watching little old me in the back corner of the classroom trying to put my hair up with the scrunchie.

            Homeroom is over in a blink, and the classes before lunch go by in a blur, with nothing outstanding happening, except for the slightly-more-intense-than-normal staring that happens. Perks of being a lean 17 year old guy with mid-back-length ginger hair held up by a sparkly pink scrunchie I guess. Lunch is just as boring as normal, with no-one speaking to me and an entire picnic table to myself. Not talking to people lets me get my homework done at least, although forgetting to pack lunch is thoroughly vexing. I can't get food from the canteen because they only take cash, and if I have cash my parents take it when I'm not looking, stating different variations of It's yours, so it's ours. I swear they must be communists.

            On the plus side it's a Thursday, which means Ms Lesnia, the coolest blacksmith in existence and the closest to a real mum I've got, will be rocking up any minute to take me to work. Gotta love having spares in the afternoon.

 

﴾⸸﴿

 

            Before lunch runs its full, disappointingly hungry course, someone approaches the domain of my picnic table. Ah! Human interaction, my favourite pastime. It is a girl from a younger year level, by the looks of things, although it is hard for me to tell, seeing as I usually can't find it within me to try and learn people’s names. Some of her friends are approaching in a group, slightly slower, likely waiting for something to happen.

            "Hello, your name is Samuel, isn't it?" she asks. How the heck she knows my name I don't know. I nod and she looks at me for a bit as if waiting for me to say something. I like unsettling people, it is fun. She shakes her head a bit, causing her boring brown hair to fall a bit out of the quick bun she had it in, before glancing back at her friends and shrugging at them. Taking a deep breath, she turns back and look me in the eye again. "Is it okay if me and my friends sit over here? We won't move any of your stuff and we'll try to be as quiet as possible and we got kicked off of our last table by some year 12s so we don't have a table to sit at anymore and we would reeeaaally appreciate it if you let us sit here." She pauses to take a breath.

            I interrupt before she can ramble anymore, "Sure."

            My response seems to startle her a bit, I think she was expecting to have to beg or something, she probably also thought that no-one else sits here because I don't let them. Not letting people sit here implies that others actually want to sit with me, which no-none seems to when they have a choice. It's probably a by-product of changing schools half way through year 10, when everybody already has their cliques and groups.

            "Oh" is her eloquent reaction, "Thanks!" She waves her encroaching friends all the way to that table. Some of them have a relieved expression, which is a frankly bit bizarre. They all come over and sit on the other side of the table, except for the girl who asked, and even she sits almost as far as she can get from me.

            "Why do you have your bags with you? Are you going to go home?" she asks, come to think of it I have no clue what her name is. Maybe she's a Sarah. She looks like a Sarah, whatever that looks like.

            "No, I have work after lunch." I reply, hoping that was all she wanted to ask.

            "Oh cool, so you have spares? I can't wait for spares next year. What's your job?" Does she always talk? Never mind, I already know the answer to that question.

            "I work at Ms Lesnia's blacksmith."

            "You work at Aunt Lesnia's? That's so cool! How long have you worked there?"

            "Almost two years now. She's your aunt? You're so lucky." Does everyone have better family than me? Probably.

            "I know right, she's the best. Wait, if you work at Aunt Lesnia's, are you her apprentice?" More questions, jeez, this is already more interaction than the rest of the week combined, and we've only been talking for a few minutes. At least her friends are quiet ... never mind, I just blocked them out.

            "Yep, that's me." Blacksmiths apprentice and proud.

            "Oh my gosh, she showed me some of the things you've made and they're really pretty." She gushes a lot I think.

            "That's great, it's always good for a craftsman to know that at least one person appreciates their work." Looking at you mum and dad. Time to initiate some good old-fashioned revenge, time for some random subject change, "All this talking is great, but I don't actually know your name."

            "Really? I just thought you knew." She really did. "Whatever, my name is Sarah, pleased to meet you." What a guess. Sarah offers her hand for me to shake.

            "Likewise." I respond, while gently shaking her hand, cause apparently no-one does firm handshakes anymore. "Do you happen to have the time?"

            "Yes of course." she pulls her phone out of her pocket, despite the rules 'preventing' students from having their phones on them, and checks the time, "It's 12:58." Ah, time to go to the office and sign out. I gather my homework up and pack it away, then stand up and pull my bags on.

            "Are you going?" What a redundant question. No, I just packed up, stood up, and now I'm just going to stand here.

            "Yep, I have to sign out before getting picked up." I look over at the rest of the table and wave at them. "See you guys."

            "Bye." is the response, it seems that most of them were listening to our conversation.

            "Bye Samuel, say hi to my aunt for me and tell her that I might come over to the shop later."

            "Sure. Will do." And with that I walk off, leaving the slightly intrusive group of year 10s behind and going in the direction of the admin building.

            The walk is short, and not terrible, although I think a blister is forming after running to school and walking to classes. The admin building itself is the newest building on the campus, with half mud-brick walls and a low slopping roof with orange tiles. It kinda looks like a house, but that is not reflected on the inside, as it looks like an office building in here. The sign out procedure is easy enough, just walk up to one of the tablets on stands and sign out. Luckily for me, it seems no-one has noticed me, which makes leaving easier. Because I have an apprenticeship I have special permission to leave the school early, but when people see me signing out and leaving they always feel the need to check, which takes ages.

            Finishing up the sign out procedure, I walk out the front of the building towards one of the car parks, where Ms Lesnia normally picks me up. It's really great that she picks me up, as it means much less walking and a 'relaxing' lunch. Today's timing seems to be good; she pulls up to the curb in her blue Subaru WRX at the same time I reach it. I open the back door and place my bags inside, while she reaches across the passenger seat and opens the front door for me, welcoming me into the comfortable warmth of her sports car.

 

﴾⸸﴿

 

            The drive to the smithy starts out in comfortable silence, as it usually does. Ms Lesnia understands my need for a bit of space after school. Kinda wish my parents did too. When we've been driving for a few minutes she breaks the silence, "Anything interesting happen today Sam?" These sorts of questions are why I like her so much, she never asks how my day has been because she knows that they are hardly any good.

            "Not really. My hair tie came out again when I had to run to school."

            "They didn't drive you again? I wonder what their reason was this time."

            "I wouldn't know, the only time any of them spoke to me today was when dad knocked on my door to get me out of bed." I never have any problems with talking to her, she's the only person I really feel comfortable talking to, which I guess says something about my life. Feeling way more comfortable around your boss than your parents cannot be a common thing. "Oh yeah, I met your niece Sarah today."

            "That's good, she does talk a lot though." She glances over at me and I nod. The conversation takes a pause, as we slow down and pull off the main street into the single car garage attached to the shop. Ms Lesnia is the first out, walking around the front of the car and through the door into the shop. I follow close behind, after grabbing my bags out of the back. No matter how many times I walk into the building, and despite the fact that I work here several hours a day, I always love entering the workshop, for that is what it is. Calling it a blacksmith or anything other than a workshop is like calling the pope a priest. While they are in essence the same thing, in practice they are vastly different.

            The main room is the one that most people see, with all the stuff for blacksmithing and several other occupations besides. Taking up most of the space in the two-story-tall room is the forge, with the anvils and the large tool racks it takes up the better part of a third of the room. The other filled third is taken up by several power saws for wood and metal, as well a well-used lathe in the back corner of the room. Just this main room alone is like heaven, but add the other rooms on and it gets even better. On the upper floor in the back of the building is a room for all the delicate work and the lounge. Underneath is the grinding room and a room used specifically for planning things, with walls covered in different kinds of weapons and designs, as well as a computer used specifically for gathering information about different techniques and weapon types. All in all, it's awesome.

            Conversation picks up again as I move up the stairs to the lounge. Ms Lesnia finally notices the scrunchie in my hair and teases me a bit, but I don't really mind, and besides scrunchies are actually pretty great. We talk of other small things, and Ms Lesnia once again insists I call her Jen, while I put my bags away and change into the clothes I work in; some comfy cargo pants, a shirt with the shop’s logo on it and a sturdy flannel shirt, with some good steel toe boots on my feet. No, we were not in the same room when I changed. Yes, I spend far more money on my work clothes than school clothes, I mean, if it's something you enjoy and do often having good gear is important.

            Walking down the stairs into the main room, I already feel far better than I have the rest of the day, and that is only bolstered by the fact that me and Ms Les ... Jen, both finished the projects that we were working on yesterday. I join her in the planning room, where she has laid both of our projects on the table in the centre. We are both very excited to do some testing, and it shows, as both of us have crazy big grins.

            On the table is a pair of fairly plane short swords 70cm long in their sheaths and a powerful looking one-piece recurve bow with a quiver of arrows, they are designed to go together. The short swords are my first attempt fully on my own at making matching weapons, and while they don't have much in the way of ornamentation, I am very happy with how they turned out. The steel is unblemished and subtly makes the metal look like it is flowing towards the tip, the cross guards are simple, the grips are comfortable and the pommels are shaped like basic dragons. Coupled with the hard leather sheaths with metal accents, they make a very utilitarian set of swords. The bow and quiver full of arrows are equally plain, with the exception of some fine vine carvings on the limbs of the bow. Jen is very happy with her bow, as it is her first serious foray into the realm of carving designs into wood.

            I think Jen's grin is bigger than mine though, and it is probably because she is hiding something behind her back. Noticing me looking in her direction, she reaches out towards the table and places a red sticky-bow on the quiver. Instead of moving her hand back to her side though, she reaches towards me and pulls me in for a hug. After wrapping me up in her amazonian embrace she whispers down in my ear, "Happy 18th Sam. The bow and arrows are for you." That. What? She remembered? Even I forgot it was my birthday. This is simultaneously awesome and slightly depressing.

            I love the gift, the bow is amazing and the quiver full of arrows alone are better than anything my parents have ever given me, but her remembering it was my birthday and not just giving me a present and some vaguely-meaningful phrase is more important. Physical gifts are all well and good, but the best sort of gift is when someone shows you that they care beyond just an appearance, that they love you. That's why I love Jen more than my own mother, with just a hug and a few words she has the power to make everything better and life actually worth living.

 

﴾⸸﴿

 

            The back of the shop is quite nice at the moment, nice and green. There is a dirt area that begins directly behind the shop that encompassing several hundred metres of area, surrounded by freshly cut grass (courtesy of myself and a ride on mower) and blooming fruit trees. The property stretches out several acres around the building, providing plenty of room for different buildings and places to do things.

            Several hundred metres down one of the dirt paths that branches off of the sorta ‘staging area’ is a small archery range set into the side of a hill, adjacent to Jen’s small cabin. To the range is where we are going, with Jen leading the way and me trailing a short distance behind, still kinda blown away by her awesomeness.

            The path is not large, nor is it particularly well defined, it kinda just meanders around the trees and through the underbrush in the general direction of our final destination, much like the original deer track that lead through here. Most of the paths are like this, just slightly more developed than animal trails and only just wide enough for a small atv or ride on mower to putt along.

            After a couple minutes of silent walking, a super comfortable silence that I have not encountered with anyone else in my life as of yet, we break out of the bush into a small clearing. Jen’s cabin is tucked into the side opposite us and some archery targets are on the right up against the hill, with some padded wooden posts to the left. This is where we spend our time when we are not working in the shop.

            Jen’s intention on which item to test first is clear pretty much straight away, as she turns to the right and wanders over toward the targets, stopping about 100 metres away from the spray-painted hay bales. I glance at her as I walk up alongside, to find her already watching me. “You reckon?” I ask.

            “Sure, I’m mostly certain that the bow can shoot that distance, I know you can, and I have no qualms about the arrows.” is her response as she passes me the quiver, and I the swords to her.

            The jostling around to get the quiver on my back makes it abundantly clear that Jen has done something so that the arrows do not move around or fall out, which is a relief, as having arrows fall all over the place when you bend down is quite annoying. Quiver finally settled comfortably, which is to say, far more snuggly than her earlier quivers, Jen hands the beautiful bow to me, already strung.

            Settling the bow into my grip, I turn to face the target and begin launching arrow after arrow toward the different targets. The setup here is far better than the one actual range I ever went to, instead of targets in their own lanes, much like a bowling alley, these targets have a few metres between each other at completely different distances and heights up the small slope of the hill. This allows for much more varied target options if one so desires, allowing oneself to learn better range adaption, which is what I choose to do, sending one arrow at a target and then at a different target called out by Jen.

            This continues until I exhaust the quiver, and we both move toward the targets with silly grins on our faces. The bow is the nicest I have ever shot, with an ease to the drawing motion that I have not felt in any other despite the fact that it has a clearly heavier draw weight than any I have used before, likely closing in on the hundred-pound mark.

            “So it was good?” Jen asks me with a cheeky look on her face.

            “Not good Jen, absobloodylutely brilliant!” I exclaim, with far more emotion than anyone at school has ever seen me express, and my enthusiasm only grows as we near the targets. My shooting is the best it has probably ever been, with the dozen and a half arrows spread between the five targets fairly evenly, all of them within the central black bit.

            Jen points to one arrow in the target furthest back, at least 120 metres from where I shot, as we pull the arrows out of the targets, “Look at that one, you almost missed.”

            I raise my eyebrow at her in response, as the arrow in question is just barely poking out of the edge of the circle into the next ring. She just looks at me and smirks, knowing full well that it is my best round of shooting yet. Her next words are spoken a tad more seriously, expecting a serious answer in return, “I know what you’ve said about it in the past, but I thought I would ask again, do you want to move in to my house? You’re 18 now and your parents can’t force you to stay any longer, you can legally move out of home, besides the only thing they actually provide you with is a room and the occasional meal.”

            The concept of me living with Jen is not new to either of us, we have talked about it before, and I have even stayed for a couple nights over the years, but it has never been seriously considered, until now I guess. Me forgetting that I was turning eighteen today likely played a factor in that.

            I ponder the question briefly as we remove the arrows from the targets, and as we reach the last target, the one with the frustrating arrow, I have my response ready. “I’ll think about it.”

            The silly response doesn’t even surprise Jen, we both know what my answer will be and we both know that the only reason that was my response is because the possibility hasn’t fully sunk into my mind yet. I continue to think about it as we walk toward the other end of the clearing, and I’m still letting the possibility that I could live with Jen when we reach the area set aside for melee practice.

            This part of the yard has several padded posts for practicing repetitive sword work within a larger dirt area just for the purpose of practice. For most people this sort of set up would be straight out of a fantasy or medieval movie, but for me this is normal. From what Jen tells me she had something like this at her house when she was growing up, although for her it was her fathers. Come to think of it, it’s quite possible that she considers me her apprentice in more ways than just blacksmithing, seeing as she has taught me how to make pretty much anything with my hands and how to use most hand-held weapons, excluding guns.

            The swords are brought out of their sheathes for a test against a post, duelling is strictly kept to the weekend. They behave admirably for something that I’ve made, almost as good as Jen’s I would wager, although it’s best I keep that to myself.

            When we both feel satisfied with the testing of the weapons, for the moment, we head toward the cabin, with Jen entering first. As I step through the screen door, Socks, the most cliché named black cat in existence, greets me with a happy meow and some rather loud purring when I pet her. Socks loud purring attracts the attention of Boris and Krasinski the two bumbling kittens, both of which are far cuter than their names imply.

            “I assume that you would rather pick up the ingredients for lasagne than come with me to pick up your stuff from the house.”

            “You assume correctly.” It comes as no real surprise to me that she knows me this well, I have basically lived at her place the past two years, “Just tell mother what you are doing and she’ll leave you be.”

            So decided we both head back out of the cabin and down the path to the workshop, leaving behind the cutest cats in existence. The walk once again occurs in silence, but we walk next to each other this time, as if some invisible barrier is no longer here. It is nice. Together we walk through the back of the workshop into the garage and climb into the beautiful WRX. Jen backs out onto the road and drives towards the house, briefly pulling over to let me out in front of the grocery store only a few kms away. As I open the door she hands me her bank card, and as I step out onto the curb I see a familiar brown haired girl waving and walking across the road.

            I wave back, my spirits actually raising even higher at seeing her again, for some reason, before I see a blur out of the corner of my eye. My head turns and I see the worst possible thing. A truck. I can tell that neither Sarah or the truck driver have noticed each other, and without really thinking I dash around the car and sprint out into the road, shoving a shocked Sarah with all my might. Just in time too, as I feel the collision reverberate through my whole body, and I can tell in that brief moment of impact, as I am flung away from the truck and passed a grounded Sarah, that I will not live much more than a minute, if I am lucky.

            My head rings as my vision fades. I see a blur I recognise as Jen dash into my vision, followed quickly by a crying Sarah. I hear my name screamed over and over and over, as the darkness and silence swallow me whole. Just before my vision fully fades my sight is encompassed in the most brilliant forest green.

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