by Melody Rose
“The woodcarving was difficult because I didn’t realize how much I rely on my innate connection with the metal to make weapons,” I confessed, a feeling of shame snaking up my back. I hunched over the scythe to closer inspect the straightness of the blade, ensuring it wasn’t warped. “And the weaving, Holy Hermes, the materials were all so flammable. I swear, some days, I felt like if I looked at the wool the wrong way, it would burst into flames.”
“So it was the unfamiliar materials,” Agres pondered. He sat back in his throne, crossing one leg over the other in a stoic pose. “Not the techniques themselves?”
“Not really,” I said, thinking through my answer. “I mean, if I could use metal somehow in the projects, I bet I could figure it out.”
My mentor and I sat in silence for a moment as the scythe went into the fire one more time before I would put the finishing touches on it. Then the blade would dunk in the oil, which hardened the blade, making it ready to use. Of course, there were the added steps of sharpening and grinding out the uneven spots, but taking the plunge into the oil was definitely the defining step for a weapon.
I watched the flames dance in the middle of the rectangular contraption that heated thousands of degrees. I could manipulate the pressure and the heat with the knobs coming out of the top of the cinderblock like encasement. The metal sizzled as it turned from a burnt red to a summertime yellow and finally to a white the color of angel wings.
I always loved the reliability of metal. It was sturdy and could withstand so much wear and tear. A correctly made blade could last a long time. It would hold its purpose for years. Unfortunately, elements like wool and wood were fragile and frail. Time and decay could weather them. They were also easily consumed by something like fire, so quickly destroyed.
As I considered this, something echoed far away in my mind. It was as though lightning struck in the distance, and I was only now hearing the thunder. The Moriai had always used the same types of materials when it came to their tools. They had asked me for an upgrade. So who was to say that I couldn’t also upgrade the materials themselves?
“I wonder…” I said as I turned to Arges, ignoring the scythe in the forge for a minute. The thoughts were trickling in like water from a broken faucet, and I wanted to make sure I collected all of them. “Do you know how to make pipes?”
“Pipes?” The cyclops asked with a tilt of his head. “Why would you need to know how to make pipes, bladesmith?”
“It doesn’t have to be a pipe per se,” I started as I ran my fingers through my hair, pulling at the ends as if that would help me think faster. “But something in that cylindrical shape. That’s really what I’m going for.”
Arges uncrossed his legs and tapped the tips of his fingers against the arm of his chair. “Where are you going with this, Cheyenne?”
“The Fates asked for me to remake their tools so that they would last,” I said as my legs subconsciously took me over to the wall of various metals. My fingers twitched as I searched for something, though what exactly I was looking for, I wasn’t sure yet. I only was half aware of the words coming out of my mouth. “But I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Just because they asked me to remake their tools doesn’t mean they asked me to make them the same way they’ve always been for the last several centuries.”
“Cheyenne,” Arges said, a warning tone in his voice. I ignored it as I pulled some blocks of iron out of the respective cubbies.
I gathered them up in my arms and brought them to the workbench, dumping them out with a clang. I spread them out with my fingers until none were touching the others so that I could examine them all at once. My mentor came up behind me, casting a large shadow over my materials.
“Do you think it’s wise to upset the Fates?” the cyclops wondered innocently, though I could sense the hesitation in his tone. A being of his age and knowledge would have lived as long as the goddesses. It would be natural for him to fear the sisters.
“I’m not going to upset them,” I said, trying to convince myself almost as much as I was trying to convince my mentor. “I’m going to delight them with this change.”
“I don’t know, Shy,” Arges said, watching me as I bounced back over to the wall of metals. “This seems like quite an unnecessary risk.”
I spun on my heel and gathered my resolve. “Look, they asked me to make these tools. Cheyenne Paulos. Daughter of Hephaestus. I’m not a woodcarver. I’m not a weaver. I’m a blacksmith. So I’m going to do what I do best and forge them the best tools they’ve seen in the last two thousand years.”
I put my hands on my hips, my hands forming fists around the smaller blocks of iron. “Now, are you going to help me or not?”
The cyclops glared at me with his solitary eye before he crossed to the forge I was working at a minute ago. Once again, he put on his glove and yanked out the scythe I abandoned. Again.
“I’ll get back to that one, I promise,” I assured him.
“I know you will,” Arges said with a surprising amount of confidence. Gingerly, he moved the still fragile piece to a forge that wasn’t turned on so the blade could cool. Then he pulled out his own hammer that was hanging off the horn of a nearby anvil. “Where do we start?” he asked with a smile that played at the corner of his lips.
“Okay,” I said as I quickly darted to the workbench and pulled out some sketch paper. With the short, nubby pencil, I scratched out my plan. “Instead of using wood, I’m going to make Lachesis’s rod out of metal.”
“Hence the pipe question,” Arges translated.
“Exactly,” I said, pointing the pencil in his direction. I went on to sketch out the scissors. “Atropos’ tool will be just like I had been planning originally, only sharper because they’ll need to be able to cut through the steel wool.”
“Steel wool?” Arges said with surprise. “Getting clever, I see.”
“Yeah, well,” I said with a shrug. “I think I’ll be able to manipulate it better.”
“Do you even know how to make steel wool?” the cyclops asked. I didn’t miss the doubt underlying in his voice. But I ignored it and answered confidently.
“Nope. But I’m going to learn.”
16
I spent the next several weeks learning how to make various sized pipes and steel wool. While there was still a significant learning curve, it was ridiculously easier than working with the wool or the wood.
With the steel wool and the metal, I always had a sense of what I was making. I could feel the fibers beneath and manipulate them in ways that I always had with my weapons. Sure, the shapes and structures were going to be different, but the base was the same. The techniques were the same.
Well, not exactly.
Making a pipe, or in this case, a rod was a delicate process. The metal had to be strong but thin around the edge. It also had to be even all the way around. It surprised me that I didn’t seem to know how to make anything into a perfect circle. Arges walked me through the steps, time and time again. But it took me a long time to mold the metal into the ideal shape.
I made several types of rods once I got the hang of it. While the Moriai’s directions hadn’t been all that specific, save for the length of the rod itself, I wanted to present my best work. I did as Arges instructed and listened to my instincts. That’s where the metal spoke to me.
I would trap myself into the zone, working for hours at a time, long into the night. It was like working on the commissions with Ruby during my first year. Even though I knew there were other responsibilities looming over my head, there wasn’t anything more important than finishing these tools.
At the end of the day, I realized I would still be an Olympic Official when this was over. That wasn’t a title that was so easily taken away from me. As for my classes, I just had to pass. I didn’t have to get perfect grades or be the best. For now, all I had to do was the bare minimum so I could put myself back into the forge and finish these tools.
I never went back to the drama class. Ol
iver never came up and said anything, which was fine by me. But Horace eventually found me outside of the forge one day, despite all of my efforts to avoid him.
“Hey Shy,” Horace said, trying to be charming as he tipped an invisible cowboy hat in my direction. “Haven’t seen you in class for a while. I’m missing my partner.”
“Take a hint, Horace,” I said slowly, making sure he heard every word. “I’m not coming back.”
“Is it something I said?” Horace wondered as he cocked his head to the side.
“More like something you did,” I confessed. “You forced yourself on me.”
“It’s just a kiss, Cheyenne, and it was for a scene,” Horace said with confusion in his voice.
“I tried to push you away, and I was clearly protesting to Oliver,” I said, anger suddenly rising up in me. “You should have read the room. Or was my constant pushing at your chest not enough of a hint.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Shy, but you should have said something,” Horace said as he reached out and touched my arm. “Why don’t you just give the class another try?”
I jerked out of his touch and then shoved my finger in his face. “If you ever touch me again, I will cut off your balls instead of just kicking them, you hear me?”
Then I shoved my way past him and into the forge. Horace appeared to value his family jewels because he never approached me again.
Finally, I could fully focus on making the tools without worrying about memorizing lines or being vulnerable enough. At the very least, I could associate myself with people I could trust, who I knew wouldn’t hurt me.
As I worked, I found that the scissors were by far the easiest of the three tools to make. Though I had known they would be. They were just like weapons with handles. I crafted two of the same bladed sides and burned a hole in the middle so we could screw them together. I even kept the handles oval-shaped and long to accommodate Atropos’s pianist like fingers.
For the finishing touches, I burnt the metal slightly, giving it a worn look. It didn’t affect the structure of the scissors in any way. It simply made them appear vintage. Something told me that the youngest Moriai wouldn’t appreciate a bright and shiny brand-new pair of scissors.
The rod, on the other hand, I spruced up till it shined like an Olympic gold medal. From what I gathered from the sisters, Lachesis was very different from Atropos, and I wanted to keep their tools the same way. I figured if I could please them, that might lessen their fighting and needless killing of mortals when they were angry. But I kept that goal to myself. I could only tackle one problem at a time and knew I shouldn’t hope for any more than pleasing the goddesses.
The biggest problem was the steel wool. I never knew what a complicated process creating steel wool was. It was an education for sure.
I recruited my friends’ help for this last tool. Normally, steel wool was made in factories with huge machines. We didn’t have that luxury, so we had to do it by hand.
Before we could do any of the shaving or weaving, we had to thin out the metal. We pulled the longest rods of iron that we could, using wires rather than stick straight pieces. The set up looked like a game of tug of war, with Benji and Darren on one side and Violet and Esme on the other. They were supposed to filter the iron wire through a small hole in the center of the room. Benji and Darren would pull the thinned side through. My job was to manipulate the metal into coming out thinner through the hole.
It took a ridiculous amount of coordination and concentration. If one side went faster or slower than the other, the whole process could be thrown off. If I was distracted for a moment, then we would end up with a section thicker than the other, and we would have to back it up and start over.
After we had a significant amount of thinned coil, we wrapped it up. The wire was now slimmer and consequently stronger than it was in its previous form. It would provide us with enough steel fibers to make a ball of steel wool for Clotho.
Then we had to slice it.
It was like pushing stubborn cheese through a cheese grater. The strands had to be finer than a strand of hair so that we could weave it together eventually. We each took different parts of the coil, shaving it down until the most delicate pieces. The pieces would then be joined together to form thinner strands. However, we soon discovered that it was just faster if I shaved the metal alone because I could manipulate the metal to go faster. In fact, I didn’t even have to touch the dangerous strands, which were as fine as glass. It prevented a couple of pricked fingers and sliced hands, which Darren kindly healed up for us, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.
My friends wore gloves and ended up being collectors. They gathered the strands and rolled them onto huge bobbins that Arges crafted specifically for this purpose. It wasn’t the most exciting work, but I knew I couldn’t have done it without their help.
The weaving eventually was left to me as well because I was the only one who knew how to use a spinning wheel. I crafted a metal one in my abundant free time. Mainly I spent two sleepless nights fixing the tool that I would use to weave together the steel wool into one continuous strand. It wouldn’t be as fine as the yarn that Clotho was used to, but I made it as close to string as I could. Most importantly, it was still easy to cut. I even tested Atropos’s scissors on the final product to be certain I wasn’t presenting the Moriai with faulty equipment.
“What do you think they’re going to say?” Benji asked me when we stood in my living room.
I had a metal box, the size of a pizza box, in hand. My four friends stood around me, all standing in a row like toy soldiers. We faced the fireplace in my house, which blazed with the bright blue of the Eternal Flame. I finished the tools just as the beginnings of spring showed on their faces. The snow had long since melted, and blooms were just beginning to bud on the trees. Violet and Benji were already planning some sort of vegetable garden in my backyard, readying the soil for planting.
But today, we were all inside while a thunderstorm boomed. Rain splattered against the window while lightning tore through the sky. It was an appropriate symbol for the mood I was in: dreary with a side of frustration.
Khryseos and Argyreos loved the rain and played with the raindrops as they raced down the glass sliding door. I closed the dog door on purpose because I hated cleaning up their muddy mess about as much as they loved playing in it.
I swallowed audibly and thought of an answer to my friend’s question. All I could manage was a shake of my head. I didn’t know what I was going to say. I knew I would have to defend the changes I had made. I used untraditional materials, ones that they certainly weren’t used to. But they never said anything specific about the materials. That’s the fact I had to hold onto, more than anything.
“You’re going to be great,” Violet complimented in a squeaky voice, which gave away her nervousness. Nevertheless, she wrapped herself around my middle and squeezed tightly.
“Give her a break, Vi,” Benji said, pulling our petite friend away from my body. “Look at her face. She’s already green. We don’t need to give her more of a reason to throw up.”
“Thanks, Benji,” Darren said blandly. “I’m sure that’s the thing she wants to be thinking about right now: puking.”
“I’m just trying to help,” Benji reasoned as he spread his hands wide and gave an innocent shrug.
“You should get going before these fools convince you to wait another day,” Esme said gently. She leaned in close so that my other three friends wouldn’t hear the underlying insult.
“Right,” I grumbled back to her. I cleared my throat and then stood up straight. “I’ll let you all know how it goes,” I spoke aloud to the group before I reached out and connected with the Eternal Flame.
I issued the same command as before, wishing to speak with the Moriai. This time, the goddesses didn’t answer. The Flame turned the same sickly green, which didn’t help my sloshing stomach, before it reached out and took my hand as if we were greeting each other for the first time.
Suddenly, it yanked me into the fireplace. I tumbled forward, and the magical fire engulfed me in green. Within seconds, it transported me to the dull Cave of Eileithyia. Except that this time, the ballroom was brighter. There were more candles placed around the freshly washed walls, and the light illuminated the paintings on the walls. All the plywood on the walls and windows were gone. No light streamed in through the windows, as a thunderstorm raged outside. That sight alone was off-putting, as it seemed to be the very thunderstorm wreaking havoc on the Academy.
The furniture was different too. Instead of the crates and ripped piano bench, there were expensive looking lounge chairs. Even a peach-colored chaise sat up against one of the walls. There was a grand piano in the corner, polished and shiny, with the restored piano bench resting in its proper place. The wooden floor was slick and ready to for a waltz.
My mouth flopped open, and I nearly dropped the box in my shock. Atropos approached me, giggling like a schoolgirl at my reaction.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” the younger goddess asked as she approached me. She clapped her hands together and put the tips up against her lips. “You weren’t the only one to give us an upgrade.”
“Is there a god of interior design that I don’t know about?” I joked.
The goddess snorted her approval at my joke. “You’re so witty, Cheyenne, but no. We did this ourselves.”
Lachesis stretched out on the chaise, with a martini glass in her hand. She sipped it before speaking. “We figured since our tools were getting an upgrade that our home should too.”
“Well, it looks great,” I complimented, meaning every word.
“Thank you,” Atropos said as she put her bobbed hair behind one ear, almost sheepishly, like my praise embarrassed her. “A lot of it was my design.”
“It was not!” the middle sister protested as she shot up from her lounging position. Some of her alcohol sloshed over the edge of the glass, but she didn’t seem to care. “I was the one who thought of the ballroom theme.”
