Experimentation
Thaldra ties the silvery wood together with chords of Troll Sinew, seated, kneeling, on a blanket in the apartment she's borrowing from some of her kin in Kraka Drak, still by and large bereft of her personality: an acceptable bed there, a state of Thungni in the corner, the usual for rented space in her clan.
A mere journeywoman she might be, but she does have some pride and so the chunks of silvery Azrilwut she's managed to acquire for her newest commission, such that it is, come together so seamlessly that if it weren't for the sinew (dried out and then soaked in salt water to harden it and yet leave it supple enough) you would scarcely notice there were gaps at all. The slats themselves are long and thin and painted with images of noble Grimnir heading north to His Doom. His mohawk is painted particularly vibrant, thickened with crushed stone earned from her last job, and the edge of His ax marked in negative space with yellow paint the shade of the sun on the silver wood, the backdrop of the hell of the Great Catastrophe indicated by black paint that implied the shape of any number of His foes as reported by Morgrim. Stylized, but still blatantly, obviously, His March.
And right that it should be so.
With the main chest piece done, she puts it aside and starts to tie together the rest of the armor next, starting with the arm slats, tied together at the elbow and vertically. The decoration is simpler, but the quality is by no means lacking, intricate Aldrhun running up and down the slats in reddest of red paint, exhorting mighty Grimnir for victory. The padding underneath, made of sixteen layers of troll skin, is dyed dark red and bright white, trimmed where it will poke out from underneath the slats proper with yet more Aldrhun, this time emanating from under Grimnir's snarling face.
She considers what Mahal had requested in the commission itself, trying not to "sigh like some half-baked maiden out of the kind of trash you youths have the audacity to call sagas" as her master would say:
"I want to fight, and I want to win. And I want to move fast while I do it." He hands the chest over, his unadorned set of armor jingling at it does. He might be embarassed that his beard still hasn't gone white at all, but she much prefers it the golden shade of blond it is now even if it does make him look young. "And there's no one I trust more to do it right."
(And I want to see what you come up with when you experiment had been unsaid but not altogether unimplied, particularly when even as a clanless foundling with all the bounties he'd brought in on on Gori he could still have commissioned a more established Runesmith, even if it did have to be a journeyman.)
With all that done she sets to work, places the carving knife against Grimnir's ax on the chest piece, and begins to work, carving and chanting.
When the world was young, we glimmered old.
The Rune of Grimnir, the Rune of battle, the rune of valiance. She's hardly some new Snerra, some new Fjolla, some new Dolgi, but she puts every ounce of care into it, intricately, carefully marking the symbol of her--friend's patron onto the wood, thick and deep and proper like, exactly as her master had taught her. As it starts to spark and steam from the magic she takes the bottle of Grimnirzan and begins to pour it in, sizzling and fizzling and popping. Grimnirzan, inside the Rune of Grimnir, is so blatantly, deeply, obvious that even that wazzock Snerra (Not that one!) could near-certainly put it together. She keeps pouring until about half the bottle is left, again exactly how Master Modi had taught her.
Now the world is bleak, and the fires all cold.
Next to it, on the Ancestor's bare chest, she places the Rune of Courage, letting the gromril of her knife slide through the wood. It starts to hum too, bright lights and bright power, and as it does she starts to pour the bowl full of Griffon Brain into the Rune, the slimy material disappearing with a burst of amber fire as it touches the marks and she continues to chant. All the unyielding pride and skill and sheer resolute nature of the beasts should make him quite a force to be reckoned with, even if making acquaintance with the Brana has made handling their internal organs considerably more awkward than it used to be.
But still we glimmer, yet more bold.
Finally, Valaya's Rune at the bottom, at the center, emanating light and guiding Grimnir. The most expensive reagent, and yet she doesn't so much as wince as she pours in the broken, ground up Hearthstone to the marks her knife makes. It's not quite as obvious as Grimnirzan, but as a heat, a warmth, a fire starts to flicker and burn along the Rune she feels correct in spending so much of what were limited funds on it: it will protect him, as he marches against the fimir, their Balefiends, and their Mearghs, the magic struggling against the Runes.
There is a sound like a cool breeze and the Runes finish even as she finishes chanting. She examines the armor, the breastplate in particular, and feels quiet satisfaction and growing ambition alike in her chest.
It's far from her apex. That, hopefully, lies many years hence, when she is old and gray as the Gift-Giver, made more usually, from hard Adamant with such Runes of destruction and potency that the enemy simply explodes when they see her coming. But for the perennial middle child, scarcely noticed compared to kinfolk, daughter or no daughter and Gift or no Gift; and for a clanless, up-jumped warrior, it's not a bad start, not a bad start at all.
She can already imagine master Modi rolling his eyes, but she sighs anyway.
