Prompt 3: Temper (Amelot)
( Edited to add the Cast of Characters )
Coerthas Western Highlands, 1468
It had been months since the siege lifted. Long months, when it seemed all she did was eat and sleep. Cruel months, when sleeping would bring only fear and faces before her. She woke screaming sometimes, like some wilting lady instead of Ser Amelot, the knight she was. The knight she’d once been.
The knight she’d be again.
She recovered the weight first, ponze by ponze until she no longer saw her ribs beneath pale skin. The strength came harder, and at first it was all she could do simply to lift her sword. Then her shield. A few times, a few minutes. An hour. Then two.
From carrying the sword, she moved to wielding it. Her first blows were paltry things—strikes she would have laughed off even as a half-grown squire. But soon her hits strike true, leaving nicks and divots in the wooden pell.
She moved the pell to the south field, where the blacksmith’s prentice worked. His apprentice was his own daughter, for he’d never had a son. But one would never guess it to hear the clanging as she worked, for the girl could swing a hammer like the rest of them. The sound of clashing metal gave Amelot pause at first, ringing out like war. But the sounds of war are better than the silence of siege, and soon she’s used to it again.
They work side by side that spring: recovering knight and budding blacksmith, two women in roles of men. The prentice hammers the sword and heats it to temper the blade. The knight hammers the pell to temper herself.
