Since March, the Luminary had thrown himself into his forge and the works he made within it, catching up on orders and trying to force himself back into some creative outlet. The return of Corrupttimelines had bothered him somehow, like agitating a raw wound that needed to be cleansed. He'd thought he'd ripped that bandage off a year ago, when he had accepted that Cory wouldn't return. Was he beating a dead horse in hoping that the mysterious dragon would stay and continue to return each time he left camp?

Breath misting around his face as the Luminary took slow steps from his home, headed for the well trodden path from his stairs to the forge he had set up on the edges of the settlement. Whiskers trembling as the gray tom cat strolled along, his one eyed gaze reaching for the skies where rhe sun just began to enlighten the darkness of night. Had he had an alarm clock or some time piece, he surmised that it would have been some time close to four or five in the morning. Inhaling, the tom was met by the dank and earthy scent of leaf rot and new greenery. Nose twitching as he strode through camp much like the ghosts that haunted the territory, the tom could only exhale wearily, wondering how much time it would take him to pull his head from the clouds.

Cracked pads would sift over decaying leaf matter and a rocky path, making a mental note to himself to drag in some sand for this path, leading up to the old building he had repurposed for his forge. The old brick and mortar building more or less remained standing, which was more than enough for him. Leaning against the doorframe as he mounted the stairs indoors, joints creaking in protest and back all but screaming. It seemed that as age weighed on him, old injuries began to feel like they had never healed. He was still getting used to the loss of his eye for the gods' sake. Absently rubbing his cheek on the door frame of his forge, leaving his scent on the jagged brick as he shuffled his way into the dark depths. Tail waving as the Luminary wiped a paw over his bare and scarred face, lingering on the fresh ridges of scars cutting down the left side of his face, where his eye had been and over his lips, broken whiskers having grown back over the time since the big fight.

Gray gaze drifted into the depths of his dark forge, to the hearth and its empty yawning mouth, to the bellows below where he could press his paws. Inhaling the crude scent of metals and ores, the tom shook his whole body and stepped forward, letting heat form and build in his paws, watching sparks appear in his fur, lifting himself to his hind legs and reaching, letting his now burning paws brush against the fuel for his fire, charcoal and fresh dry wood. Inhaling the acid stench of the baby fire, of smoldering bark and wood, ears listening to the snapping and popping of wood, eye sliding to half-mast in content as he drew his paw back. There was a sense of familiarity here, of belonging. He could imagine that he was around different faces, different hearts and homes, different times. How much he had changed since those long ago days when he made bread on the hearth stones of his long overgrown forge. When he'd held counsel in friends and family.

Standing there, he was unaware of the tears that welled in his eyes or rolled over, the agony of being separated from those he had called his found family striking at him as he stared into the fire. He could make out their shapes in the flames, his breath catching several times before he shook his head, his earrings jingling softly in the relative quiet. Walking to his unorganized collection of materials Aesior would pick out a rather unassuming amount of iron and carry it over to the growing and steady fire, feeling the delicious heat radiating off of it. A small and thin shield of flame would appear over his fur as he selected a pair of tongs and held up the Iron piece, backpaw working the bellows to keep the fire hot.

It came as an after thought as the smith lowered his material into the fierce flames raging from the charcoal rhat he should have announced that he could hold a blacksmith lesson for anyone interested. Shrugging a shoulder, the Luminary decided that he would teach whoever might show up to the building that was slowly beginning to put off its usual smell and smoke, as rhe sun began to climb into the sky. His goal today was to make at least one blade or knife, perhaps some armor later on. There was much he would be happy to teach.

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[align=center]"speech" | thoughts / writing