Year: 265 AC (Late Winter)
Location: Northern Hamlet near the Wolfswood
The cold never left. It clung to Arthur's bones like a second skin as he crouched behind Lysa's shack, examining his prize—a rusted iron shard pried from a broken plow. The metal was pitted with age, but beneath the corrosion, he saw possibility.
Steel remembers.
For weeks, he'd scavenged like a shadow. A bent nail from the miller's cart. A discarded pot shard. A rusted snare left to rot near the treeline. All hidden beneath loose floorboards, waiting for this moment.
The tanner's fire pit smoldered ahead, its embers barely glowing in the dawn light. Hobb would be at the alehouse by now, drowning another morning in drink. Arthur slipped between the hovels, his breath steady despite the iron's cold bite against his ribs.
The other children avoided him these days. After the rat—after he'd skinned it alive with a flint shard—they called him Scrap Boy in whispers. He preferred their fear to their mockery.
The fire pit was unattended, just as he'd planned. Arthur fed the embers with dry twigs, watching flames lick hungrily at the kindling. He laid the iron shard across the stones, turning it slowly as the heat worked its magic. His other hand gripped a smooth river rock—his makeshift hammer.
Clang.
The first strike sent sparks flying.
Clang.
The metal began to yield.
Clang.
A rhythm took hold, familiar yet foreign—muscle memory from a life long gone.
"Thieving little bastard!"
Hobb's voice shattered the moment. The tanner staggered into the yard, his face flushed with drink, fists clenched. Arthur didn't flinch. He'd planned for this.
As Hobb lunged, Arthur twisted away, yanking the glowing iron from the fire. The tanner's momentum carried him crashing into the pit. Embers exploded upward as Hobb howled, batting at his singed beard.
Arthur was already gone.
Lysa's Shack - Nightfall
Blood dripped from his blistered fingers as he hammered the cooled metal. Clang. Clang. Each strike shaped more than iron—it forged his resolve.
The door crashed open. Lysa stood framed in the doorway, her stick raised. "Hobb says you near burned him alive!"
Arthur didn't look up. "He fell."
She hesitated. That was the truth of it—she always hesitated when meeting those gray eyes, too old for a child's face.
"Demon," she muttered, but the stick lowered.
Alone again, Arthur studied his creation. The crude blade caught the firelight, its edge uneven but sharp enough to draw blood.
Not a sword. Not yet.
A beginning.
Wolfswood's Edge - Next Dawn
Arthur tested the blade's weight in his palm. Behind him, the hamlet stirred—Hobb's curses, Lysa's grumbling, the usual symphony of misery. Ahead, the Wolfswood waited, its ancient pines standing like sentinels.
He'd need more. More iron. More fire. More of that flickering ember in his chest—the ghost of qi, the echo of the Heavenly Demon.
The wind howled through the branches. Arthur smiled.
Watch me, he told the shadows of his past.
And stepped into the dark.
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