I’ve always found the forgin’ of metal to be such an interestin’ process. The blacksmith takes the iron as it comes, heats it up nice and hot in the forge, and then applies force by the way of a hammer, shapin’ the iron to it’s final form.
It’s not that easy. Blacksmiths are a rare and dyin’ breed for a reason.
The iron itself has to be quality, the fire has to be the right temperature, the pressure has to be applied in the right places, and only when all of that is done will the final form be correct. Just one of those parts of the process goin’ awry will mean the wrong outcome.
The same is true of people. People are forged from war just like iron is forged from heat.
The iron is the person, the heat is the war, the force is their part in that war, and the final form is what they become after the war.
But imagine the person isn’t the right kind of person, or they can’t handle the warzone. Imagine their part in that war traumatises them, so that the person they become after the war is not the person they wish to be.
When I said iron has to be the right quality, I was talkin’ about cast iron – a kind of iron which has too much carbon in it. When cast iron is forged in the heat, it breaks because the carbon makes it brittle.
A human has a big proportion of carbon in them too. Sometimes there is too much humanity in someone, so they breach that carbon limit, and enter the forge as cast iron does, brittle and already breakin’. People not cut out for the forge.
Sometimes people just cannot stomach war, it makes them sweat just like the heat from the forge. Those people don’t get close enough to the war to even threaten to break – they are weak and often use others to achieve their aims for them.
If a person manages to get to battle, sometimes what they are forced to do makes them withdraw into themselves, ashamed of what they did.
And sometimes it is much worse, it makes them a darker, more twisted person, strippin’ away what make them who they were. Cade I’m lookin’ at you.
All of those end badly, with the wrong end product. The right end product is someone who approaches war without humanity or sentimentality. Someone who is not afraid of the fire and rage that war entails. Someone who can withstand the pressure of the hammer blows that will rain on them. And someone who will remain just as they always have.
I am the constant. I have travelled these levels endlessly, with a keen mind, a strong resolve and a resilience to each and every hammer blow I’ve taken.
Yet I’m still here, the fabled Pilgrim.
Forged in the wars of Arcadia, and battle ready.
Now come at me, you cast iron, brittle bitches.