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Kickfeather sat on the grass and watched in awe as the old Bull in front of her hammered away at the glowing hot metal. Amazingly, she’d been watching him for hours, something very rare for the easily exciteable warrior. But there was just something about old Mishkwaki’s blacksmithing that just seemed to enthrall her today. For one thing, the simple art of it. The shaping of simple rock into something much more refined and useful.

But there was just the old Bull himself. She’d known this Bull for many years, since her childhood. And as a child, Kickfeather had grown up knowing Mishkwaki as an old and cheerful fellow, soft with age and full of quirky words and stories that kept her rushing mind occupied. A big and patient lump of a Bull who would chuckle and watch her as she rambunctiously showed him how could duel imaginary centaurs. An old Bull who wandered around the village obediently doing tasks for the family that his old bones were capable of. She always giggled when he told her his old bones couldn’t sing like they used to. And yet, every once in awhile, he would get up, find a good long and sturdy stick and show the little Kickfeather, no taller than his waist, how to swing a weapon. Show him some of the tricks he had learned when he was younger and a great warrior. Kickfeather was certain he had been a great warrior long ago. His hide was covered in so many scars as proof of it. He was her protector and favorite mentor in her formative years.

And she remembered how worried she felt on the day he had decided to leave the village to, as he had said, “seek his own way.” Kickfeather, still a child but not so little anymore and full of fire, had gotten angry that day. She stomped around her father’s tent. She broke things so that Mishkwaki would have to fix them. She demanded he not leave. Demanded that he must listen to her. He couldn’t say no because he was Oathbound to the family and what she said was what he must do. She didn’t want her old caretaker to leave her.

But her father had demanded her to be still. And worse yet, had told Mishkwaki he was free to leave. And what father said meant what Kickfeather demanded had no meaning. And so the old and feeble Bull left her and she was sure she would never see him again. He was weak and he would die all alone. She was an angry child who hated her father that day.

He had not died, however. Not like she had thought. And when she had found him years after he had left, an old, soft Bull sitting in a cave talking of what the voices of trees and birds could teach her, she knew she would have the smile of her old and loyal companion with her again.

And now he stood before her, hammering away. And he was now such a different Bull then the one she had known as a child. Even different than the one she had found in the cave a few years ago. He was still old, of course, but he was no longer soft. Beads of sweat flung off his body as he stood by the roaring forge and beat down quickly and methodically on the slowly cooling piece of metal. His paunch still hung over the belt of his apron, but his shoulders and arms had become toughened and muscled. The old scars showed more brightly against them. His brow furrowed in concentration as sparks flew and the metal rang. In his eyes was a new sort of determination as the movements of his swing slowly changed the shape of his forming blade.

The water sizzled and hissed as he dunked his finished work into it. With a deft swing of his arm, his hammer landed with a thump on the ground next to the anvil and found rest against it. Mishkwaki walked over to Kickfeather and presented the blade to her to look at.

“We’ll make a long hilt and give her a nice polish and I think she’ll be a good one, eh?”

Kickfeather nodded, as she examined the length of it, not really knowing how to judge it. She could tell a good weapon when it was finished and she could swing it. For her it was simple. It was good if it felt like an extention of herself. Yet she knew little of the crafting of one. But she accepted its worth because it was made by this patient and sturdy old Bull.

Mishkwaki grunted as he bent down slowly and took a seat next to her. He smiled as she handed him back his newly born sword.

“Yes, she will be a good one. But we will wait until tomorrow to begin her finish,” he said as he laid it down upon the grass and then reached over to rub his shoulder. “These old bones, they don’t sing like the used to.”

Kickfeather punched his arm lightly and giggled.