Kaen entered the library, the Calico tucked into his jacket as he carried it with his left arm. It had been annoyed when Kaen disrupted its sleep under his cozy blankets to carry it into the open air, but after a simple moment of adjustment, it settled in and began to purr under his arm for the entire walk to the library. A few near escapes, but it had been mostly cooperative. As he entered, he got a slight glare from the librarian, but he motioned to the cat and shrugged. This was sufficient for him to receive only a scoff and an eye roll. That was good enough for him and as he entered with a nervous laugh and a soft smile, it wasn’t long before he heard the boy’s voice, “Leelee!” The Librarian scowled at the child as the father and mother hushed the boy.
Kaen knelt down and offered the cat out to the boy. The cat didn’t seem overly keen on being held by the boy, but as the young man’s father scooped it to safety from the boy’s eager hands, it settled back down. Kaen laughed softly, “I told you. She spent the night near my furnace to stay out of the cold but when I told her she was on her way home today, she couldn’t wait to see you.” As the boy walked over to the cat and began petting its purring and relaxed form, he looked between the parents who nodded appreciatively, warmth in their eyes but not a sound from their mouths.
He nodded in recognition of the situation and began walking for the exit as he said, “Behave yourself and get better at holding your cat.” A departing glower from the Librarian for his loud farewell was all Kaen needed as he made his way to the local hardware store, the boisterous and robust man at the counter laughing playfully, “Sorry about the ruckus, boy! I’m sure the kid didn’t mean any trouble!” Good Old Dave, as his mother called him, leaned forward with a glimmer in his eye, “You here for the scraps? I got some truly rusty old bits back here.”
Kaen laughed softly, “Well hopefully I can still find some usable metal under it, but yeah.”
Old Dave laughed as he went to the back room, “How you are able to hoist this with neither warg nor man, I don’t rightly know, but that shows the training that that old huntsman has put you through. I just wish ya would leave your gear back at ya house. The extra few hundred pounds can’t be good for your back, lad.” It wasn’t long before Old Dave came out with a wooden crate full to the brim with broken pitchforks, hoes, and axe heads as well as various other old or damaged bits of metal from around town. As he pushed the crate into the middle of the floor he lifted up the straps that were looped around it. As Kaen put his arms through the loops and lifted the massive crate like a backpack, his eyes began to shine orange as he felt his muscles aching and snapping tendon by tendon as he lifted it. Old Dave shook his head as he watched in playful disbelief, “Blows my mind every time.”
Kaen laughed softly, “Thanks for letting me have these, Dave.”
“Its no trouble. Saves me the trouble of looking for a new smith from out of town. Keeping it local is how we keep trouble away from our little corner of the world.” Old Dave seemed to open his mouth a few times as his gaze became grave. Kaen waited, knowing all too well what he was about to hear and already understanding completely. “Lad, there ain’t a single member of town that doesn’t view you like one of our own. I still remember ya playing with the other kids in the town square before-”
“It’s fine, Dave. It isn’t fun but its fine. Besides, if it keeps the monsters out of town, I don’t mind a bit of solitude. Let’s me work in peace. Probably why mom set up shop out there.” He gave a gentle and warm smile to the old man, “I’ll be back tonight with the reforged axe heads and that batch of nails I promised you the other day. Would have brought them last night but I got distracted while preparing the bricks for Jack.” Before Old Dave could insist on appeasing his own guilt, Kaen’s hair gained the faintest glimmer of orange as he ran out the door in a steady jog.
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Kaen had been testing it since his abilities awoke, but he was thankful for it. Usually, muscles grew stronger after repairing from strenuous exercise. As long as he was careful, this ability to accelerate his body’s natural healing could be used to help him get stronger. It wasn’t more than a couple days ago he could hardly lift his heaviest blade above his shoulder. But last night he was able to hurl it with some measure of precision and he didn’t even feel his shoulders strain to bear its weight. He just had to get stronger. Stronger than he had any right to be. Strong so that… and he ran past his house. Even he was surprised at how far he had over shot it, jogging in place with the heavy metal tools as she saw it twenty feet behind him. He chuckled to himself and carefully jogged towards the back and lowered the box to the ground before removing the straps. Walking into the house, he grabbed the gallon jug of water from the ice box and placed it on the table next to his bed before he laid down and turned his powers off.
As the second edge to his new sword settled over him, the fatigue took all the power from his bones. To every up, there was a down. In his case, while he was able to heal just about any damage he had taken, it could only last as long as his own stamina. He had passed out while testing this and had nearly drowned in a nearby lake. Still, it would be worth it. It had to be.
When he came to awareness once more, he heard the familiar sound of the claws of Jack’s wargs as they kicked grass against his house after finishing marking it as theirs. It was no guarantee but Jack insisted it would keep the wild ones away from the place. He heard Jack shout, “Meat’s in th’e chest! Th’ank ya! Red! Sev! Back to th’e sled! We need th’e bricks back before the morn!” Kaen laughed softly at the idea of the two beasts, each the size of a wagon, giving him that confused but cooperative look before stepping into their harnesses once more. As he heard them leave, he lifted his weary bones from his oh-so-comfy bed and stretched with what energy he could muster. As his body lurched with every step, he made his way to the front and opened the chest buried in the gilly net and lifted out the three monstrous haunches of warg meat, each one almost as big as he was. Taking the first two into the storage room he had repurposed as a training room, he placed them down before returning for the third. Anchoring it to the training post, he drew his long sword, starting simple with the core blade progression his mentor had taught him, putting only as much force into the blows as he needed to carve the meat from the bone. Some cuts he would take more. Others he would cut it thinner. Each time he would strive to be more and more precise with just how deep he made his cuts.
When he had reached a point where he could do no better without blunting his blade against bone, he would examine them to see how much meat remained and asking himself if he could do even better on the next one. He would then remove the anchors and grab the next one and repeat the exercise. When each had been carved to their core, he would collect the meat and store it. Most would go in the ice box but the thinner ones would be placed atop the furnace and would crisp up over night, ready for when he first would wake in the morning. Returning to the training room, he struck each bone with the smithing hammer from the workshop, making sure to break it at regular intervals, hollowing them out and jarring the marrow before he would set the bones aside for later use, either boiling them or working them into decoration for something he forged. As his final act of the night, he collected the smelted metal from the night before and poured it into his mother’s old casts. Ingots for the mayor for trade, nails and the various heads for the farming equipment that Old Dave would sell, and finally he would pour it into the molds that he had made for various useful spare parts. Whether it was to service his existing equipment or to have on hand if he had some sudden inspiration. As he settled into his bed for the night, he could only hope that his nightmares were tame tonight. He would rather he only wake up once tonight.