I was Baptized twice. Once in water, once in flame. I survived because the fire within me burn brighter than the fire around me. -- Joshua Graham
There's a reason why certain peoples are fire resistant. Their ancestry is in flames, their genome comes from an active cauldera. There are pyres in their souls. Those who claim to have souls, anyway. Some have given up on laying claim to souls.
It's the way of worlds with magic in their bones. Be dragon-kin and people respect you. Be demon-kin and people reject you. Barava was neither of those. She was Human, and not even a trace of another intelligent species had found its way into her bloodline. Nevertheless, fire didn't touch her.
She had no magic, but she forged steel, which was close enough. She did not make blood swords, or swords with the souls of the vengeful dead intertwined with the metal. She didn't make swords with magic powers. She did, however, make blades so sharp that they could cut through bone in one blow.
If there was one power that Barava had from the day she was born, and that was a love of justice. She would not forge a sword to spell the name of an affair in gemstones. She would not make a blade for the show of it, for the vainglory, or for the prestige.
She would make it for the downtrodden victim seeking to right what had been put wrong. She would forge a blade for a young and untried rightful heir to win back the crown from a clearly evil despot. She would create blades so the revolutionaries would win against the forces of evil.
You never go to Barava with gold. You come with your story, and you tell the truth. That is part of the deal. The fire in her keeps her safe from the sparks of her forge. Her work clothes were spotted all over with burns from the forge. Her flesh is not. Her skin was as flawless as a milkmaid's.
Barava's blades have always struck for justice. Go to her with a lie on your lips, and the blade will end you rather than the one you intend to kill.
For all the blades she has forged, there is only one that she had used herself. Once used, it has lain at rest above her forge ever since. The blade decapitated only one person - the warlord who burned down her village when she was a child.
She survived that fire, she said, because she had the fires of vengeance burning inside her. It later tempered into justice as she grew. After her effort to stop him succeeded, she realised that there were many others who did not have her fire, but had her need.
Many come to her. Few succeed in what they say they want. Nevertheless, the blade always strikes true. The blade always headed for the most evil heart.
She warned them. She always warned them. Those who chose to ignore her for their own gain soon found that out to their detriment. Far too late, and too permanently.
Barava never came to reclaim her mis-used blades. She left them to find their destiny. Inevitably, when an evil heart was struck down, no matter who wielded it, the blade was always picked up again by a kinder soul. One who would use it for justice.
Weapons have only one purpose. Most of them made to kill for the wielder. Only Barava blades, with their peculiarly shifting water-rippled steel, ever strike at evil and evil alone.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / HDesert]
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