Hammer and Harmony

by omniblitz

Forging part 2

Twelve days is a very long time in the small town of Ponyville. Many interesting things occurred as Spike waited for the day he could return to Kajiya’s house. In the grand scheme of things, nothing happened that was noteworthy. All the small miracles of friendship and ‘worst thing possible’s happened without Kajiya ever knowing about them. The only thing he knew was his forge, and the folding of metal for twelve full days. Spike, once again, came calling early on the last day of folding.

“Ah, young dragon you return. Today is the last day of folding the orichalum,” Kajiya pointed a hoof at the forge, already glowing, but the metal inside had changed from green to midnight black. “I need you to crush the gemstones using the pestle and mortar in the corner,” Kajiya continued as he pointed his hoof at the far corner of the house which contained the gemstones, along with a small grey mortar and pestle and the decor from the rest of the house.

“Excuse me, mister,” Spike tentatively spoke up.

“Call me Kajiya.”

“Umm. Okay. Kajiya, why is the metal black? It was green last time I was here.”

“When orichalum is folded enough, it becomes black as luna’s darkest night. Now I must attend to the last foldings,” Kajiya finished as he got up from his grass and oats and took out the first bar from the furnace.

Crushing gemstones is hard business, even for a dragon. However, using the tools at hand, Spike quickly fell into a rhythm. An outsider would notice that each time the hammer fell on metal, a piece of gem fell under the abuse of the pestle. Six pounds’ worth of gems was a lot to crush, but with a rhythm established, the pony and dragon worked in a methodical harmony without knowledge of time. In the end, however, Spike succumbed to hunger around noon with half of the gems crushed.

“I can hear your stomach growling over the hammer falls, dragon. Take time and go in search of food, the gems will be there when you return,” Kajiya called out as he pulled the poker from the furnace labeling the fiftieth time he had folded that day.

Spike naturally went back to the library for a quick lunch, containing leftover hayfires and a small sapphire leftover from the last time he helped Rarity look for gems. Leaving the library once more, Spike found himself wandering around Ponyville taking a much longer path than the short walk would normally entail.

He pondered at why Twilight and all her friends didn’t like Kajiya. Sure, he knew ponies weren’t supposed to act the way he did, it wasn’t proper after all. But Spike also felt like there was something more to what was happening.

It was as if Kajiya stood for everything that was not friendship. As if this small, brown stallion stood for everything the girls disliked. It was surprising to Spike. He thought the girls could get along with anypony that wasn’t pure evil. But Kajiya proved that wrong.

Spike found himself back at Kajiya’s place when his train of thought ended. Opening the door, he found the stallion right where he’d been an hour ago.

Once again the pair of kindred souls fell back into a rhythm of crushing and forging. Five hours passed with no conversation, except the cracking of gems and hammering of metal.

“Young dragon,” spoke the pony, “our work is finished for today. Tomorrow, we shape the metal.”

“Aww. Can’t we do a bit more? I still have an hour before I should be back at the library”

“I suppose we could make the mithril for the weapons if you wish.”

“Yeah!”

“Then start adding coal to the fire. I will select the mithril to use,” Kajiya told Spike as he walked over to the crate of ore.

Spike walked near the forge, feeling the pleasant heat coming off the coals. Quickly, Spike started to shovel coal into the forge from a stash next to the brick as instructed. Kajiya came back with a load of mithril that weighed around 15 pounds, placing the metal into a medium sized crucible and using tongs to place it within the furnace at the hottest part.

“We have a few minutes. We must prepare the molds.”

“What molds do we need?” Spike asked

“Four bar molds, one for the longsword, the rapier and wing blades, the disk and shoes, and bugle. Also one thread mold for the Hydra.”

“What’s a thread mold?” Spike questioned. His question was quickly answered as Kajiya pulled a strange bucket. The bucket had a hole drilled in the bottom where a circular piece of metal was placed with water surrounding it. The piece of metal had a tiny needle like hole drilled all the way through it.

“This is a thread mold, it is used to make metal string which is needed for the hydra.”

After several more minutes of heating, the mithril was white hot and ready to pour. Kajiya took the tongs and used them to extract the crucible, and poured metal into the awaiting four bar molds before placing the crucible, which still contained some mithril, back into the furnace.

“Don’t we need to pour the rest into the thread mold?” Spike asked as he watched the stallion work.

“Yes, but crucible must partway in forge, because pouring thread takes a long time,” Kajiya took the thread mold full of water and tilted slightly on one side exposing the bottom hole of the mold. “As the thread comes out slowly pull it so it does not tangle.”

Spike replied with a single nod, placing himself ready to catch the incoming thread. Seeing Spike was ready, Kajiya started pouring the mithril from the crucible, keeping the bottom inside the forge. After a time, a small blue strand came out of the bottom of the mold, and Spike slowly pulled on the string. He felt heavy resistance, but kept pulling as Kajiya kept pouring. The strand was getting quite long now and Spike was running out of room to back up.

“Kajiya what do I do now?”

“Mithril bends when it is this thin, wrap the cool portions around one arm in even circles.”

Spike nodded, heeding Kajiya’s words he slowly wrapped the metal thread around an arm finding to his amazement that it behaved exactly like the thread in Rarity’s shop. After almost a half an hour, the pouring was finally done and Spike was left with hundreds of yards of mithril thread wrapped around his arm.

“Now, we must split this into 64 pieces, 12 feet each. But I will do that. Retire now, young dragon, and come tomorrow if you wish.”

Finally noticing his exhaustion, Spike sighed heavily, “I’ll see you tomorrow Kajiya.”

---

That night, Spike ate an early dinner and. To the disdain of Twilight, he went to bed early without doing any of the chores she had planned for him. But Twilight knew this was only temporary, and after all, he was a baby dragon and he needed his rest, especially after working as hard as he did that day.

Spike was very excited the next morning, because he knew that he was going to be watching or maybe even take part in the forging of a set of armor. He took a quill, ink, and notepad to appease Twilight. Spike once again found himself in front of a now familiar door at 7 A.M.

“You return. I have a long day of molding today, I could use your help.”

“I would love to help!” Spike exclaimed, looking around the room he saw a new addition; a mare mannequin near the furnace, with white lines covering the surface. “What’s that?” Spike inquired.

“That is what he shall mold the armor over, the lines indicate the sizes of the mares whom the armor will fit,” Kajiya said as he handed Spike a small hammer, “As I hammer the large portions you will smooth the armor.”

“Are you sure you trust me enough for that?”

“I trust everyone until they fail. You have not failed. I will flatten the bar to a quarter of an inch thick, your hammer will smooth imperfections. After that, we will hammer it using the mannequin as an anvil.”

“Okay,” Spike responded as the two began their work.

The red hot black metal bar was withdrawn from the furnace and placed on the anvil. The bar was flattened until it no longer yielded to the large hammer blows. The plate was now placed back into the heat until it glowed red once more.

This process continued six times. All the while, Spike used his small hammer on the small dents created by the large hammer blows. Neither the pony nor the dragon noticed the red sparks which occasionally landed on one of them. After six times, the plate was uniform, flat, and a quarter of an inch thick. The rhythm broke as Kajiya placed the plate into the furnace again.

“Now, we mold it as one piece onto the mannequin. The first sets will have pegasus wingholes, so we need to cut three holes in the hot metal,” Kajiya explained as he changed from using a normal hammer to a hammer that had a chisel for a head.

Kajiya withdrew the metal from the furnace, once more placing it on the anvil. Spike watching as he quickly hammered the chisel head into the middle of one side of the plate. From the end of the chisel mark on the inside of the plate he quickly cut a circle out of the metal. Kajiya then used a hammer to widen the separation the chisel had made in the middle creating a circle with a gap on one side of the metal. Working faster now near the center of the metal, Kajiya made two oval holes meant for wings. Throwing the cut-out pieces neatly into the awaiting water barrel, Kajiya placed the remainder of the plate back into the furnace.

“Now, we see if I made the head hole wide enough,” Kajiya told Spike as he withdrew the plate and used several heavy hammer strokes to bend the plate around the mannequin.

The mannequin was now covered in red hot metal, and the edges of the metal lined up exactly where the lines for Rainbow Dash were, even down to the size of the head and wingholes. Nodding his satisfaction, he continued to bend the metal around the mannequin to complete the final shape of the armor.

Kajiya once more placed the armor into the furnace, but after a very short time, withdrew the piece and placed it into the water barrel, emitting a large hissing sound and filling the house with steam.

“That, my young dragon, is how you shape armor for ponies,” Kajiya said, obviously satisfied with the progress he made.

“Wow, that was amazing. What happens now?” Spike asked excitedly.

“Now, we do the others.”

The pony and dragon quickly fell into another rhythm of hammer falls and chisel strikes. Time passed, but neither of the two seemed to notice; all they saw was the forge and the metal. After a long time, the sixth set was finished, and only then did Spike notice that he was awfully hungry and that the sun had already set.

“Oh No! Twilight’s gonna kill me, its already 9 P.M. I should be in bed by now, and I haven’t eaten dinner! I’ll see you tomorrow Kajiya, I have to get home now.”

“Why worry young dragon? I have food and rest here. Stay the night. If Twilight looks for you, she can find you here. You may have the bed, it is not to my liking anyways.”

“Are you sure?” Spike asked.

“Of course. Six sets would normally take two days, but your help made it only one long day. For that you deserve some kind of reward.”

“Alright, if you’re sure.”

The two sat in silence and ate a hearty eat of oats along with grass for Kajiya, and a single sapphire for Spike. Wordlessly, Spike took the bed, and Kajiya laid among his craft content to sleep with cool metal embracing him.

Comments

[Ziper Ace]

Awe….
That was nice, Spike is 20 Percent more cooler know