My interest was suddenly piqued by her explanation. “Smithing wares? You’re a blacksmith?” I asked, quickly weaving my way through the group to stand beside Layne.
“Yup!” he answered brightly. “I don’t claim to be the best, but I’ve had steady work out of my own forge for a few years now.”
“What sort of work do you do?” I asked, completely abandoning my initial reservations about joining their group.
“Mostly industrial supply: nails, hinges, supports, that sort of stuff,” he said, grinning at my obvious enthusiasm. “Are you a blacksmith, too?”
“I was! Well, technically, I was an apprentice, but by the end of my tenure I was practically running half the shop,” I babbled. “We were mainly weaponsmiths, but we took on any work that came in if we had time.”
“Oh, to be a weaponsmith,” he sighed longingly. “That’s the dream of every kid who sees a man swing the hammer, isn’t it? Unfortunately for me, there isn’t much demand for weapons at the moment in Lybesa, so I’ve made do with what’s needed.” He chuckled after a short pause. “That’s probably a good thing, come to think of it.”
“That’s true,” I agreed, “though I have to admit, it really was the dream job. Forging weapons all day, then training with them in my downtime…” I trailed off, smiling as I thought back to my days at Ashedown’s forge.
“I’ve never had much reason to hold a sword, let alone train with one,” Layne admitted. “My dreams of becoming a knight died when a threat to the country decided it didn’t want to go to war with anyone. A damn shame.”
As we both laughed, I remembered for the first time since our conversation started that we weren’t walking alone, and I turned to find Lyn and Lia watching us with wide grins. “Please, don’t stop on our account,” Lyn giggled, holding up her hands. “I’m glad to see you’ve found a common interest.”
“I guess it’s been a while since I’ve found someone to talk to about smithing work,” I chuckled as my cheeks grew warm. I turned to Miles and gave him a small nod. “How about you, Miles? What do you do for work?”
“Me?” he asked timidly. “I’m an artist. A painter, specifically.”
“Oh, a painter!” Lia said delightedly. “What do you like to paint?”
“Portraits,” he answered quickly. “People commission me to paint their portrait, and I travel to wherever they are and, erm, paint them.”
“Is that why you’re heading to the capital? Are you going to paint some important nobles?”
“No. Well, yes, and no,” he said, shrugging. “I do have plans to do some portraits while I’m there, but it isn’t the reason for our trip. Gran has been in a great deal of pain lately due to her hip, and I’ve heard there’s a healer in the capital that specializes in—”
“Don’t talk to them about my problems!” shouted his grandmother, swatting at him with a frail hand. “You don’t even know these people! Stop telling them so much about us.” Each halting word she spoke carried an unusual amount of emphasis, as if it were physically difficult for her to speak them.
“Gran, you know it’s safer to travel in groups,” Miles responded quietly, leaning in close to her ear. “Besides, you can see how they’re dressed; if we get ambushed by bandits, don’t you want them with us?”
“They could be the bandits!” she shot back. “Do you make friends with every armored thug you meet?”
“Stop it, Gran!” he hissed. He straightened up from his hunched position and pushed the hair out of his eyes as he laughed nervously, no doubt concocting his next false translation. “Gran is wondering how long you’ll be traveling with us. We certainly appreciate the company, but the wagon waiting for us in Lienna only has room for the four of us, plus one guard.”
“We would never think to impose ourselves on you like that,” I said, waving away the notion. “Besides, we have some business in the Midlands that needs looking into before we make our way to the capital.”
“But we’ll walk with you to Lienna!” Lia added. “If you’ll have us, of course.”
“We’d love to have you walk with us. Not that we could stop you otherwise,” Lyn laughed, flashing a quick grin in Josephine's direction. “There are still plenty of miles of walking between us and that wagon.”
With her blessing, Lia and I continued to travel with their group for the remainder of the day, passing the time by sharing stories of our respective places of origin. Lyn, Miles, and Layne had all grown up together in a small town just outside of Ellawynn and had been an inseparable, adventurous trio of friends. The tall tales of their youth seemed a bit exaggerated to my ear, but they were enjoyable to listen to nonetheless; whether they were sneaking into the royal gardens or stowing away in an Elta’sahn Company caravan, they always seemed to escape from their endeavors without a scratch.
Layne had found a blacksmith willing to take him on as an apprentice in the small town of Olum on Kaldan’s southern coast, and he had moved away soon after his fifteenth birthday. Their stories grew less exciting from that point, with Layne focusing on his apprenticeship, Miles on his art, and Lyn on running her family’s inn. After six years apart, Layne returned to Lybesa, and he and Lyn were married within the month. Miles moved to the northern coast a few years later to help care for his grandmother, and the group had been broken up ever since, apart from their continued correspondence through letters.
Once their stories were finished,
