An Affordance

The robed figure extended a clawed hand for him to shake. Rokas looked at it for a moment longer than would have been considered usual, but if Oona noticed she gave no indication. Eventually, his brain worked through whatever clog had prevented him from responding more promptly and he took her hand in greeting.

Her hand could nearly envelope his, which he considered a bit of a surprise as he was not a frail man by any estimation. She also looked down on him, and at this proximity seemed to loom. Yet she somehow gave off a friendly impression, though little could be seen of her face other than her eyes under that hood and in this light. Her hand had the expected five digits, but was covered in a coat of dark fur. The only exception of this was soft pads at the tips of her fingers and upon her palm. Each digit ended in a nearly inch-long claw, though she was careful to not gouge him with them in their brief contact.

Rokas had seen people who had Pacts before in Comfort. They were not terribly commonplace, even in the big cities of the east, but one or two in a decent-sized town could be expected. To the Temple they were considered physical proof of the compact that humanity had with the new gods of this world. They were revered by the religion practiced in the east, sometimes to their chagrin. There seemed to be no direct connection between obtaining, or being born with a Pact and being particularly worshipful.

There were many ways in which these blessings were meted out. Sometimes it was passed through family lines, a reward for some tribulation, the effect of some holy relic, there was no uniform mechanism, though specific Pacts usually were obtained or inflicted in similar way. Sometimes one just sprouted antlers seemingly unheralded by any apparent cause.

The priestess provided more context. "Oona, blessed one, this man is to be our new town smith. I believe that will make him your boss." She said with a wink to Rokas.

Rokas stood, mouth agape for a moment. "Ah, I was told that I was to have an assistant here. I had no idea who that was to be. Oona was it? I am Rokas."

She nodded and said, "It is good to meet you. I have waited some time for your arrival."

Her voice was quiet and she seemed to be speaking with a forced formality. Her eyes would occasionally shift to the priestess.

The priestess chimed in, "She arrived in the dead of winter, scared at least two families on her way in. A mob had almost been organized by the time she found town. I don't think anyone was expecting an arrival in the dead of a snowstorm, but those with a Pact with the Wolf are a hearty sort."

"I hadn't intended to cause a stir." The robbed figure responded, looking down.

"I believe some of the less informed thought her some sort of wild beast wandering into town from the frontier. Such a thing is not unheard of, but I feel I may have failed some in their education." The priestess said. "Could have ended up full of arrows."

"Wouldn't be the first time." Muttered Oona.

Rokas spared her a concerned glance before turning to the priestess. "I had no idea anyone was waiting here for me." And then to Oona, "I am sorry to have kept you waiting."

"It was no fault of yours, I can travel more freely in winter that most. Besides, I have had months laying about doing little in the meanwhile. It wasn't as though I was suffering."

Their introduction complete, Oona was able to, with careful words and an elbow to Rokas's rib, convince the priestess that it was about time she get to work helping the smith. In short order they were outside, and Oona closed the door behind her as one bars a gate from invasion. She leaned against it and sighed.

"I think that woman is well-meaning, but I am happy to have an excuse to be free of her."

"She seemed nice enough to me."

Though her hood was still up, Rokas got the impression he was being judged by the tall woman in front of him. "Yeah, I am sure she seemed very nice." She emphasized the word, "nice" in such a way as to imply. He wasn't quite sure what was being implied, but was opposed to implications.

"Well, boss, what are we up to today?" She asked.

"I really had not expected to have an assistant yet, so I haven't really got anything planned. Just got into town so I was taking today to get some basics together before I set to establishing a shop." He pulled out his notebook and looked over the list. There was a lot to do. One item in particular was underlined for today.

"Get anvil off cart."

He glanced up at the woman in front of him. "How are you at lifting heavy things?"

"Downright expert." She boasted.

"Fortunate."

They then made their way towards the office of the Courier Guild. Among the cities of the eastern continent the Currier Guild was found in most settlements, even if it was just in the form of some guy and a horse. For the most part, offices took the form of a stable coupled with a small office. In larger towns and cities these offices could even include dormitories for members who needed rest in the middle of a longer trip or extra horses they could swap to for express deliveries. They involved themselves in most sorts of transportation. While common folk rarely traveled far, they could secure passage overland when needed on a caravan operated by the Couriers.

In hearth the Guild office was a wooden stable with a small, single-roomed office. This office maintained a minor but consistent flow of ore and goods too and from the town. True to the driver's word, the anvil was still where Rokas had left it in the back of a wagon.

It wasn't that the anvil was immensely heavy, but it was more than a single person would usually want to carry any distance unless they were trying far too hard to impress someone else. Getting it down from the back of the wagon was more the issue. Two or three people would be needed to get it down, and maybe the use of a small cart or wheelbarrow to get it to the cabin.

Oona looked at the anvil and snorted. "That little thing?" She asked, turning to Rokas.

"It is the only anvil around here, isn't it?"

She lowered her hood, rolled up her sleeves, and climbed readily up the wagon without another word. Rokas knew what a person with a Pact looked like, broadly, but this was the closest he had ever been to such an individual. Her head was like that of a wolf, but from its top and back a bright outgrowth of red hair flared out like a wild mane. Her eyes were a bright amber and betrayed expressions more human than those of the wolves which she took a part of her likeness. All of the fur which he could see was a black, almost an ashen color, except for a small area of lighter tufts inside of each of her ears. They were long, pointed, and articulate. In a place approximating the lobe of of a human's ear she bore two earrings, small studs holding in their settings small green gems.

Oona lifted the anvil under one arm and bounded down from the wagon with seemingly little effort. Rokas was aghast.

"I'm stronger than I look." She explained.

He nodded and asked, "I need to stop by the store to pick some things up, are you okay to tote that thing all the way to the cabin?"

She gave him a thumbs up with her free hand.

"If you like you can go on ahead, do you know the way?" Rokas still wasn't sure what to make of his new assistant, but was happy that he didn't have to do this part himself.

"Sure, I know the way. See you there, smith."

He only nodded and proceeded back to the store in somewhat of a daze. Despite his lack of religious fervor, having a someone like her in his charge seemed a little out of order to him. About her were the blessings that a force, likely a deity, had bestowed upon her to show favor. He was just a man who heated particularly melty rocks and then hit them with a hammer until they looked like he wanted them to. This seemed like an odd arrangement to him.

She had entered into this situation of her own volition. In order to have ended up as his assistant she would have had to sign a contract similar to his own. He resolved to not behave any differently as he would with any other assistant.

He picked up his purchase at the store and made his way back to the cabin without incident. Oona was waiting for him, sitting atop the anvil her hood again up.

"I think the workshop is coming along great, boss." She said as he neared.

Rokas eyed the wreckage before him. "Everything has to start somewhere." He said as he sat the sack of goods down gently. "Along those lines, tell me about yourself."

Oona looked at him for a moment. "Kinda a broad topic, can you narrow it down a bit?"

"Where are you from, where did you grow up?"

"I grew up and served in Prosperity. Military family, so naturally I enlisted young. Had my career in that business and am now on to something else." She explained.

"Are your family still up there?"

"So far as I am aware, it has been some years since I went that far north. They don't write me."

"Have you always been-" He had not considered exactly how to phrase this on starting the sentence. "-like this?" He attempted.

Oona snorted. "I have no idea what you could be referring to. Can you please make it more clear?"

"The whole Pact thing, it is not something I have run into a lot. How long have you had a Pact with the Wolf?" He asked, trying to pick his words deliberately.

She grinned. In the sunlight out here he could still make out her features under the dark hood. He could see the sharp fangs glint in the forming of the expression, but somehow it seemed more like when a human made the expression than he might have expected. There was a subtle blending of features which defied his ability to pinpoint. At once her expressions were natural and readable, but also alien. "There was a chap I served with who had this Pact. The Wolf can be spread by bites, but it is picky with who it actually chooses. The garrison commander got the bright idea to just have this guy bite everyone and see what stuck. If I recall correctly at least five ended up with serious infections, but for four of us it took. I think that fellow got a medal."

"The biter or the Commander?"

"Could have been both." She shrugged. "The garrison held in any case. Word came down weeks later that nobody was to ever try that again. Apparently the temple leadership was aghast when they heard what had been done. They claimed to have received very persuasive omens that said if anyone tried to pull that trick again it would go very badly."

"I suppose it doesn't do to try and find loopholes where gods are concerned." Rokas said.

"I really hadn't considered that it would work for me, specifically. I was more just doing as I was told. Before I knew it, here I was." She gestured at herself.

"Maybe you should just claim to be chosen by divine fate rather than telling that story? Kinda makes it all sound rather silly doesn't it?" Rokas said.

Oona crossed her arms, but her tone remained light. "Aye, and then I'd have the temple would be even more up my ass than it already is. Dalma, the priestess here, is a nice enough person, but she has barely left me alone while I have been in town. Almost makes me want to walk into the woods and not come back for a few weeks."

"She did seem a bit intense, but in a pleasant sort of way." He said in reply, "But you were praying when I arrived, weren't you? I had you figured for being more devout than you are portraying yourself as now."

"She keeps asking me to do these 'intercessions' as she puts it. Where I have a sort of tie to one of the gods she thinks it might be helpful if I put in a good word for folk in need around here. It doesn't hurt to appease her. Hopefully some good comes of it." She didn't sound convinced.

"But what about the robes? Those look suspiciously like vestments to me."

Oona pulled at the brim of her hood. "Oh, this getup? Dalma gave it to me. She said I couldn't go cavorting about dressed as I was. By the time I got here most of what I had was just about rags. I was hanging out every which way, if you get my drift. This is far more modest."

"So you've never worked in a blacksmith's shop before?" He changed the subject.

"Nah, but as you've seen I'm rather good at moving heavy things around."

He could not deny that that was a pretty useful thing to have in this trade. In most trades, if he got to thinking about it. He nodded.

"What can you tell me of yourself, blacksmith?" She asked.

He told her a truncated version of his life story. Dad died in the war, mother paid for him to be accepted into an apprenticeship. She had died before he had completed it. He told her of how he had attained the rank of master. It really didn't take too long to cover most the important stuff, he noted with slight alarm.

"And have ya got anyone waiting for you back home? Or some lass who's yet to make the trip up here?" She asked him.

"No." He hoped for no further questions.

She seemed to sense his discomfort and tried to be optimistic. "On the bright side, you'll have the cabin to yourself." She noted.

He nodded and said, "Though I do have some concerns."

"What has you worried?"

He looked wearily towards the closed door of the cabin. "This morning the stove in there was still warm. I think someone might be staying in there since my predecessor met his untimely end."

Oona laughed, "This is going to be a very short mystery- I have been staying there."

"Oh." He said.

"I even tidied up in there a bit once I saw that you were in town. The bed isn't half bad."

"Do you have somewhere else you can stay? I could give you some money for the inn." He asked, almost in a hurry.

She stood from her anvil-seat, crossed her arms across her chest, and glanced down at him, grinning. "The inn? I just as soon as stay in the woods. Wouldn't be a problem at all."

"The woods? Don't be silly." He said, waving dismissively.

"The money would be better put to building a place of my own that spending any length of time there. I don't mind weather like this at all, I would be fine. Keep in mind I walked here in the middle of winter."

"That sounds almost impossible." He needed only remember his own trip here to imagine how much worse it could get. While he had never gotten all that close to danger from cold, the experience reminded him that the farther out from civilization he got the less leeway he had to make mistakes.

"For you, maybe." She said to him. "The folk here didn't know quite what to make of me when I first got into town. Getting here in the middle of a snow storm didn't help. Thought I was a wild beast come out of the frontier to eat them. Until I asked where I could buy a drink, anyway."

"First question coming out of the cold, good sense of priorities." He needed to stay on track. "I cannot have you sleeping in the woods. You are my assistant so I am responsible for your wellbeing." He nodded with finality.

"And I am not going to waste good money. How about this, until we can build me a place to stay I can just crash on your floor. I have a sleeping roll and everything." She spread her arms as though this solved everything.

"Sleeping on my floor? People would talk about us! This is highly unprofessional." He had many objections, but a part of him did consider how much money this would save.

"We are out in the middle of nowhere, there are three generations living in one household in town. Nobody cares. Out here people make do with what they have."

"I must focus on getting a workshop going as soon as possible. It would have to come first before we could even consider a second cabin." He noticed was pacing in an agitated fashion, his path making small loops upon itself as he spoke.

"First you don't want me to stay and now you are making excuses on why I'll need to stay longer. I am getting mixed messages here, smith." She seemed infuriatingly smug, already claiming victory. This could not stand.

"If you want to bed on the floor I suppose I am in no position to prevent it, but don't claim I didn't try to find another solution." He stopped pacing and it was his turn to cross his arms.

"I can agree to that. Suppose the sooner you get your workshop set up the sooner I can have my own place. Along those lines, what do we need to do next?"

Rokas had given consideration to what could be done today. He would need to see about buying lumber and finding a way to get it back to his land. He would need enough to construct the furnishings for the shop as well as stock for the hafts many of the tools he might make would require.

Many aspects of settlements like Hearth were planned by the city which chartered their founding. One could expect to find certain essentials in even the smallest of these places. The contract Rokas had taken on was a part of this agenda. They offered incentives for people who might not otherwise take a leap so great as to move to the to the frontier to provide needed services and maintain a certain level of civilization. Some of the only essentials that were not planned for were bars and brothels, as those seemingly sprang forth anywhere more than a dozen people came to dwell.

This had not always been the case. Prior to the conflicts with the Western Theocracy the cities of the east were content to allow for settlements to spread more organically. The plateau upon which Comfort was founded had been settled in this fashion. Once full-scale war between nations was a pressing concern the East had considered a strategy of establishing a long series of settlements as a buffer between itself and aggression from its neighbor.

This meant that Rokas knew he could expect that lumber would be available locally. Living in a massive forest certainly helped with this assumption. While cabins constructed from logs rather than planks were commonplace on the routes out of Hearth and in nearby homesteads, in town where wood was used it had mostly been processed beyond directly resembling a tree.

The harvesting of trees in the east was regulated. Specific acreage of wood would be felled in each year and allowed to regrow over subsequent decades until a rotation had been established. Dead or fallen trees were harvested for fire wood where possible, but the East made greater use of coal and oils for heating and light than elsewhere on The Partition. There was an appreciation for the fact that humanity had been provided the land they now lived on directly by the deities of this world. Many considered it wise to not be a bad guest.

Rokas was able to find the lumber camp with little difficulty, it was about a mile outside of Hearth. The camp was actually on the same road as his cabin, but on the opposite side of the small town. As he grew closer he saw to the side of the road where some time in the past few years a large section of the forest had been felled. Where the old growth had once stood there was now a cultivation of saplings in careful rows with deliberate spacing. Walking the path next to this area felt almost like emerging from a tunnel into bright sunlight after having long been in the dark. There was a relief in seeing the sun free of obstruction that he was not accustomed to feeling.

The camp had a mill for processing the lumber near a swift-running stream which it used for power. There was also a covered structure in which a selection of lumber was arrayed for purchase.

The smith was approached by a forester as he entered the camp and quick introductions were made. The man seemed pleased that a new smith had arrived and grumbled about having to order most of his saws and axes from outside of town for months now. He had decided to put off the replacement of some of the most worn equipment in the hopes that a smith would arrive in town soon. While saws and axes could be sharpened, there was a desire to expand the camp's operations which had been delayed by the absence of a local blacksmith.