Tag Archives: stargate

[Tertius] Forging

Sweat beaded on his face, the clang of steel against steel ringing in his ears.

The hammer came down again and again, folding the hocho-tetsu to free it from impurities. The nabe-gane is heated, and quenched, broken and purified. Then the metals are combined: tamahagane, hocho-tetsu, and nabe-gane layered and folded together to form the blade. Folded together again and again, in more and more complex layers, extended and shaped until the lumps of metal resemble the blade they will become.

The yakiba-tsuchi has already been prepared, and the clay mixture is applied to the blade before it is heated and then quenched. The hot metal bends as it cools, taking on the signature shape as the yakiba-tsuchi leaves its pattern in the steel.

The blade is set aside while the second is forged, and the process begins anew.

With the blades forged, there is still much work to be done. Polishing and sharpening and polishing once more, taking several weeks before it is ready. The crafting of tsuba and koshirae take time as well, the complete process being more akin to art than Telmark smithing.

But finally, they are ready, new blades to suit the Empire he finds himself trapped in.

Photo by Jeff Kubina (CC By-SA 2.0)

[Tertius] New Clothes

These garments are alien to him. He has seen others wear them but he is not comfortable in them yet. They are easy to get wrong, easy to make social mistakes by wearing them wrong.

They are strange, but it is a strangeness he must overcome. It is not the first time he has had to wear the clothes off a culture alien to him, and he will overcome his discomfort.

His home world is a galaxy away, as is the world he was growing to know, and all he knows is so far away.

But he can overcome this. He will overcome this. He has tasks that must be done, there are changes that must be made, and they begin by him getting used to these clothes.

But they are still alien to him.

Character Introductions

As there often is on Facebook, there has recently been a scourge of memes going around, one of which was along the lines of “Tell me a character name and I will write their introduction as if I were writing a novel”. I didn’t want to do that for everyone, but I did want to do some. And so, I present a select few of the ones I have written. Characters are not named, but should be obvious from context if you know them.
Continue reading Character Introductions