Lionheart

Its first flicker of awareness was of a hot, musty dim place, though at the time it didn’t know what hot, musty, or dim were. It only knew sensation, proximity, and presence.

There were others there – like it, but different. And then others still, not like it at all, and one of them lifted one of its shining kindred from the wall, twirling it, dancing light through the air...

A whistle, a clash, a terrible ringing snap, and one of its kin extinguished.

For the first time, it knew fear.

“No good. Another.”

Another was taken, tested, and duly shattered.

“I thought your work better than this.”

“No – here! My greatest yet. Please, test this one, and know I have no better.”

A hand settled upon it, and it tasted sensations beyond its own newborn fear: boredom, distaste, a vague acknowledgement of its fine form and shining steel. It was turned and spun, examined and shaken, and then suddenly whirled high, twisted, and swung shrieking towards the anvil.

Its core flared and contracted, diamond-hard, and the anvil parted before its edge.

Pleasure, sharp and satisfying.

“This will do. Recompense will be sent within the day; our lord will appreciate your craftsmanship.”

And from the man’s soul, it knew what its fate would be.

~

Five years, it rested at the side or shrieked in the palm of a man, great by other men’s estimation. Five years it learned from him, and the lessons were of grim thoughts, unstoppable fury, and cold consideration. Sobriety, courage, and law, the humans called them, and all of these colored in grey steel and red blood. These things were all he knew, and so they were all it knew, that which he called Heartstriker and his truest companion, for it would never break.

For five long years, it screamed and bit and tore as it was commanded, and it knew nothing else, save perhaps for an indistinct yearning which it could not yet name.

~

When the lord fell, it was not due to Heartstriker’s failing. As always, it served its current master as a sword should: somewhat indifferently, but respected and true. It did not break or bend in battle. Instead, it was the lord’s own guard that fell, and he followed soon after.

As Heartstriker lay in the churned mud, it felt its former wielder’s mortality drain away, and it wondered what would come next.

The answer came in the form of a girl. Young, but strong, a blacksmith’s daughter seized it from the earth and brandished it like one who knew how to hold a blade, but not how to wield one.

For the first time in five years, it felt something other than cold steel and hot blood, and the difference brought understanding.

Once, it had rested in the hand of a man who killed and was killed because those against him stood in his way.

Now it trembled in the hands of a woman who could kill or be killed because she would place herself in the way of those against her.

This time, it didn’t shriek and contract into something dense and unbreakable. This time, it roared and expanded, and the strength it had never truly known flowed through the woman’s hands, linking them as one and growing greater still with every moment that passed. She stood straight and tall, her hands guided into the greatest positions for her stature and strength, and planted herself like a wall before her beloveds, the bloodstained blade of her enemy shining before her.

Together, they let none pass.

And at the battle’s end, they sank together to the ground, relief and sorrow and the knowledge of a newly opened world comprised of these things coursing through them. They knew, they wept, they laughed, and they named each other Lionheart.