Seconds were marked by the droplets of sweat. They continued with their steady beads falling from the strained muscles onto their brethren pooling beneath the unsteady feet digging into the sandy grounds. A strained sigh marked the end of the training for Alric. He barely managed to choke off, "Sis can you help me?"

Sis sighed before she grabbed the chest sized slab of slag iron with an ease that made Alric feel pathetic. Here his arms were wobbling like a loose bowstring and his sister just grabbed it with one hand before setting it down. That wasn't what hurt the worst. Pride and ego had never been his to indulge in. It's hard to be proud when your sister used to beat you up for biscuits. Instead, it was the accusation laid within her eyes. That frustration about him not being able to just understand what in the high court he's supposed to from lugging around a ball of waste from the smithy. Oh, how he'd rather be by that comforting red glow right now, but it wasn't the way.

Alric slapped his face as hard as he could. His gloved hands did little to sway the impact of his strength. Alric felt he really deserved it right now. It was just his own incompetence and hurt pride that was speaking that venom in his mind. He loved Sis more than anything and knew she just wanted to help him the way that it helped her. Just wasn't useful considering she was just as bullheaded as the iron she was putting back into the slag pile.

"...I think we should have a break for dinner. It is past sundown after all," mumbled Sis

It was the most downtrodden Alric had ever seen his sister. She was always so vibrant and yet now she was taking his inability to internalize iron personally, spending every waking moment trying to help her incompetent brother understand one of the simplest things in the world. She had even pushed back on her return trip to Clearstream, instead vowing to stay until Alric did the impossible. Good thing she had decent sway with the Imperial Legion, at least the local branch, otherwise they wouldn't have let her extend her stay so easily. This silence has definitely gone on for far too long. Should he say something? It didn't feel right, to be the one that is incompetent yet having to sheer up his prestigious sister. The things done for family.

"Sis, don't be upset, we still have two months before Nameday. I'm sure I'll get it accomplished, and worst-case scenario I can just take the potion and internalize then."

Alric felt he really was making progress at the start there. Sis' gaze stopped facing the floor and her shoulders were worn a little prouder. Then the smile became forced, and the pain in her eyes came back twofold. Must be something she's not telling about the potion. Well, Sis has never been one to keep secrets if she couldn't help it. She'll tell when she wants to.

The walk to dinner was as morose as every other had been lately. Sis was gloomy and Alric would be lying if he said he wasn't despondent about his lack of aptitude. A small part of him always hoped he'd be just like those out of the stories, heroes who leapt through the ranks of elevated and overcame the obstacles confronting them, all the while gaining prestige and power. He had that notion ever so thoroughly crushed out of him by now. He was presented with the full weight of how merciless the world can be.

With those dark thoughts in his mind, Alric and his sister arrived at dinner where he sat down and waited, not bothering with the usual politeness towards those that gave them him his food. He knew it wasn’t right, but he just could muster the effort to be disingenuous. He could barely muster the effort to eat the few bites he had, content to just pick at the food that undoubtedly took the chef’s an afternoon of work, just to bring a smile to the failure of son he was. It just made him feel like dirt. No, he couldn’t let the tears out here, not in front of Sis.

“I’m going to go finish my project in the smithy,” Alric declared suddenly. Throwing his napkin onto the plate of food before hustling out of the room.

The forge called for him. It was his desolate heart. Dark, clammy, and cold. He could barely contain back his tears as he collapsed on the stone floors and sobbed into the cold anvil. The tears came more often lately, and Alric was sure everyone on the manor knew about his poorly kept secret, but none dared confront him. This was his last remaining haven. The last place he felt able to do anything at all.

“Just why? Why does it have to be like this? My journey wasn’t supposed to end here before it began, maybe on a battlefield, maybe in a bed from some disease, but not here.”

The voice felt hoarse in its wailing to Alric’s ears. The whining of a petulant child. That thought made Alric cringe, he was nothing more than an arrogant child. Exactly like Bruno Riverfrost, someone who hadn’t had to struggle to earn anything they had, the exact opposite of Danny. It was the fact that his brother could always manage a smile despite his meager circumstances that inspired Alric the most. Danny never stopped daring to dream. No matter how ridiculous it sounded, Danny would never laugh at Alric’s dreams. His desires to become a man Pa could be proud of. His desire to share a seat at the high court with the Lords. To woo the princess of Cyruth herself. None of it was silly to his brother. If Alric had an idea, then Danny had a plan to lead both there. He refused to see any mountain as more than a setback, any enemy as more than a pest. If there was a path forward than Danny would take it. That was just how Danny was.

“If I could be so bold as to offer a bit of wisdom from these old bones young sir,” Spoke a wizened whisper, cutting through the soft sobs of Alric’s latest emotional episode.

Alric suitably alarmed straightened his rumpled clothes before facing the voice. Talbot hunched over in a corner of the room, waiting patiently as if Alric’s theatrics never even occurred. Sparing a glance, he saw that the door stood closed, meaning that Alric was so self-absorbed in his mental flagellation he didn’t notice the servant’s entrance. Great another thing to add to the list.

"What are you doing here Talbot?" Alric questioned.

Talbot unperturbed, continued, “Young madam sent me to make sure you did nothing drastic. As I’m sure your aware young sir, my path became blurred well into my youth, and I accepted readily that I would become mediocre, one of the many. It wasn’t until later, after I had been in the service of Sire did, I realize a truth. It doesn’t matter if you have a clear path forward, all that matters are whether you take the effort to take that first step forward.”

With those few words Talbot left Alric again alone with his thoughts. Alric didn't really understand what Talbot said beyond the simple. Keep working. It's always to keep working. The world is far more complicated than the stories. Alric decided to do what he always did when things got too complicated.

The glowing embers felt like what Alric always imagined a mother's embrace to be. The whole room was painted in its scarlet intensity, making waves over the previously dull equipment. Alric set to creating something out of a nearby bar of iron. Creating what he didn't know, but he knew he would once he made it. He'd always loved this feeling. Sure, with his forging he'd stretch every muscle taut until he collapsed just like with training, but it never felt that way. it just felt more real. More substantial in every way Alric could conceive. It was like he understood the world and the world understood him. It made him realize that he wasn't so far away from iron as he previously thought. He understood the working of iron intimately. Held that so dearly in his heart, of times spent watching Pa forge everything from great armor to elegant forks. He just didn't understand what it meant to want to be iron.

Alric missed a swing.

That was it! He just had to understand what it meant to be iron. This meant he had to truly live like iron to internalize it. It was time to go to the family mines.