"this is incredible," i breathed. an artisan was indeed fashioning a blade inside the dim smithy. tools hung on walls, ready for use. the forge was in the center of the room and the sword maker had just taken the heated metal out to hammer. the blade was still in the rough stages of manufacture, and i understood that the steel would be folded and beaten, folded and beaten, many times before the craftsman would be satisfied. then, the steel would be wrapped around a core of iron, forming the heart of the blade.

sword making on falchan was a highly respected art and the blades were quite expensive, taking months to create. i'd seen what drake and drew had, although theirs had been created by grey house. just as complicated a process was employed there, only at the end, one of grey house's master wizards placed spells on the blades. the least expensive of those kept the blade sharp and prevented rust. drake and drew's held protection spells. those spells protected the owners from harm in some way. i could never hope to afford even a knife from grey house. it still angered me that teeg kept the one that great-aunt glinda had given me. i wanted it with me now.

"does this fascinate you?" an assistant carried in a basket of charcoal for the fires.

"yes," i stared at the traditional fold in his dark eyes, his black hair braided down his back and the leather apron he wore over loosely-woven black pants. he wore no shirt, revealing the tattoos of a wildcat of some sort, running up and down his arms. he had no chest or back tattoos-he hadn't earned them. on falchan, every tattoo had to be earned. one did not go out to find an artist on a whim. fathers usually approved their son's or daughter's first-after their child had passed their weapons classes or distinguished themselves in some way. after that, military commanders gave permission for tattoos as they were warranted. a chest or back tattoo, in old falchani lore, denoted exemplary service in battle.

once, as a special demonstration, drake and drew's father and uncle had sparred in full leathers for visiting dignitaries on le-ath veronis. i'd stared, spellbound, as the two warriors went after each other, as if it were a dance. drake and drew, sitting next to me, had explained that any one of those blows would be deadly if the opponent weren't ready to block it. dragon, his sons and his brother fought with two blades each. not every warrior had that talent or ability.

"you're welcome to watch as long as you don't get in the way. visiting?" the assistant eyed my bag.

"yes. i've looked forward to this for a very long time."

"there's an inn just down the street," he jerked his head in the direction i'd come. i'd ignored what i walked past, once i heard the ringing of steel.

"i'll look into it." he'd known to speak common alliance; i was an obvious outsider. i knew a few words in the falchani language, but not enough to do anything other than embarrass myself.

i watched for nearly a click, but the folding and hammering was repetitive. i went looking for the inn. "one gold piece, one eight-day," i was told. i handed over a gold piece for a falchani week. meals served there cost extra and i could have paid for those in advance, but i wanted to taste what the streets had to offer instead of limiting myself. that's what took me out again, searching for food after hefting my bag onto the small bed inside the tiny but immaculate room.

sliding onto a stool outside an open-air restaurant, i watched the proprietor make rice noodles. he flattened and steamed the rice mixture before brushing oil over it and placing another layer on top of the first. after steaming all of them, he set about cutting the noodles in thin, even strands. i'd done something similar with traditional pastas. at least they were traditional where i came from. the noodles went into a broth he'd prepared as it was ordered, cooked together for a short time and then served with a small spoon and a flourish.

"do you have any chives, green onions or leeks?" i asked, gesturing over my bowl of noodles.

"some here," he set a small bowl down next to me. i sprinkled the finely chopped green onions into my bowl and tasted the best rice noodles i'd ever eaten.

"this is exceptional," i said. the cook merely nodded, as if he got that compliment all the time. "how much to teach me how to make?" i asked.

"you want to learn?" he quirked a black eyebrow at me. the tattoos on his arms were falcons, their beaks open in silent screams as they prepared to strike an unseen enemy.

"yes." i nodded enthusiastically at the cook's question.

"finish dinner. then learn."

"all right." i smiled for the first time in several days.

"soak rice first. during night." i nodded as he drained rice with a bamboo colander. "now, grind down fine." he showed me by grinding the rice against a stone slab, using another stone fashioned to fit both hands. he handed the stone to me; i set to grinding. he grunted in satisfaction-i'd done something similar before.

"texture like this," he pinched some in his fingers, so i'd know what to look for. i nodded. we coated a flat pan with oil before spreading the first layer. he was surprised and pleased that i'd been watching him before. i did it exactly as he'd done. we ended up with usable noodles afterward. then we turned to the broth. he made a quick version, but i asked him about making a reduction.

"you make, i taste," he smiled.

"all right." i went looking to see what spices he had while bits of beef cooked into a broth. taking out the beef, i chopped it finely, appreciating the knives the cook had to work with. adding the beef bits back to the broth, i threw in several spices and let it simmer. while we waited, we made two more batches of noodles. he introduced himself, too-his name was flyer. no surprise-he did have bird tattoos.

"reah?" he rolled the sound of my name on his tongue.

"yes. or re, if you prefer." i sliced more noodles under his watchful gaze, and even put a bowl together for a customer who walked up. flyer collected the money while i offered green onions. we served a crowd after that, and i put my broth to the test.

"you try, no charge," flyer apparently knew this customer. he smiled and nodded as i placed the bowl in front of him, using my broth and the noodles we'd made.

"mmm. mmmmm. yes. flyer, this your best ever," the customer was eating quickly. flyer was now studying me carefully.

"where you learn to cook?" he asked.

"my family owned restaurants," i told him the truth. "i've just never made rice noodles before."

"you like job?" he asked. "last helper go off to army."

"maybe," i smiled at flyer.

that's how i ended up working a food stall with flyer. he was older-nearing one hundred eighty turns. gray was finding its way into his hair, and while he was normally busy, we were even more so when i showed him how to take good chunks of beef, braise it and slice it thin as a whisper before dripping sauce over it. we served that with a bowl of noodles for an additional charge. people would line up during mealtimes just to get that.

since flyer's business was a permanent building, he lived in an apartment above the restaurant. normally he kept the inside portion closed during spring and summer months, but we opened it up when business threatened to block the narrow street outside. my only complaint was that we had to deal solely with river-caught fish-there was no ocean nearby and falchan still relied mostly on ground transportation. i would see the occasional horse and rider go past the restaurant. still, the river fish was good-i designed a special sauce for it with the available ingredients, along with a light, fish stew.

"i not like fish much before," flyer said.

"it has to be cooked right away," i said. they also didn't have much in the way of refrigeration. flour was also difficult to come by-it was grown on plains far from cedar's falls. flyer said that we might get some at a good price when the harvest started. i nodded my understanding-flour was a precious commodity on falchan.

two months went by and i found i was happy. it was a pleasure to wake inside my tiny bedroom that flyer had cleared out for me over his restaurant. the room was included as part of my pay, he said. he was also fascinated by the fact that i never needed a bathroom. "some races are like this," i explained. he nodded. flyer was a wise man, i decided. had seen much of life and it gave him a patient perspective.

the late summer afternoon was winding down and flyer and i were preparing pans of noodles when we heard screams outside and then a shadow darkened the street.

"what the fuck," i muttered, setting my pan of noodles on the counter and rushing out the door. what i saw infuriated me.

"no," flyer whispered right beside me. a huge pirate ship floated overhead. right then, i was thankful it was only one.

"flyer, if i don't come back, i loved working with you." i kissed him hastily on the cheek and skipped away right in front of his eyes.

this was a first-skipping inside a moving vehicle. it turned out to be a simple thing. pirates, if they are unprepared, are easily taken down. there had to be around a hundred or so and they were concentrating on powering up the ranos cannon, readying their ship to take falchan away from its people. i could only change to my smaller thifilatha-the ship's ceilings were too low to do anything else. they thought to attack me by hand.

that, of course, was a mistake. if they touched me, they burned. burned as if acid had been poured on their skin. i watched their flesh melt with satisfaction. greed and subjugation were their only goals; i was showing them how to die instead. when they ran before me, after i'd smashed the console controlling the ranos cannon, i chased or skipped after them. in half a click or less, all were dead. now, i faced the problem of a floating, directionless ship that hovered over falchan.

in all the vids i'd seen, the ship always had some sort of self-destruct that the hero employed to get rid of the nuisance. this had no such thing. now what? i had none of lissa's ability to turn the thing to mist and destroy it in that way. what could i do? the people below were likely still screaming and frightened. therefore, i did the only thing i could think of.