And then there was Fire [DragonSong]

[Goldie]

He stared at it for another moment before pulling out a silly looking headband with magnifying glasses attached to the front and slammed it over his eyes. Then a pair of tiny needle-like pliers were in his hand and he was quietly linking chains together with a speed only skill and practice could attain. Just the way he moved and interlocked the pieces of silver and gold proved that he was a master, no matter what Herald or the rest of the world believed.

Without realizing, he was humming a jaunty little tune as he worked. This kind of thing brought him true joy and it was obvious.

After a few minutes passed, the last links were complete and the clasp secure. He pulled the magnifiers off his head and held out his hand towards Ari so he could secure the bracelet onto her wrist.

"You're right. It belongs to someone else."

[DragonSong]

"Oh!"

Adrianna stared at him, looking so taken aback it was almost comical. "N-no," she protested softly, wincing internally at the stammer. "I mean, surely you shouldn't—I can't accept this."

She laughed nervously and shook her head. "This looks like it should be worth twice what I make in a year. I...I can't accept something so fine."

She smiled a little crookedly and gestured to herself, her plain clothes and the dirt on her knees from kneeling amongst flowers. "Besides, I'd rather look like a street mutt in a diamond collar, don't you think?" she joked wryly.

But she couldn't stop staring at the bracelet, quietly marveling. It truly was lovely—and as impressed with her own abilities as he'd been, she'd never seen someone use magic quite like he had either.

[Goldie]

"You don't have to wear it." He blushed, embarassed, "You've just...done more for me in the last ten minutes than half of these people have done in a lifetime. Herald isn't going to make me a partner, he's going to keep me shoeing horses until I die. I thought that...Marigold would change all of that...."

The shame and embarrassment of the ordeal were creeping back in slowly, but just being with Adri and talking to someone without feeling like he needed to hide himself was doing more good than he could have imagined.

"You can sell it." He added hastily, "If you want."

[DragonSong]

She stared down at the bracelet, and despite the protest she'd offered him--and how much money she knew she could get for it, how long that could keep her safe and warm and fed--she just couldn't imagine selling it.

She pulled her wrist into her chest, rubbing at the bracelet vaguely with her other hand.

"I..." She shook her head with a quiet, disbelieving laugh. "Thank you. Really. This is...well." She smiled at the ground. "No one's ever given me something like this."

Glancing back up at him, she suddenly frowned, then asked slowly, "Would you--I mean, if you're sure he's never going to make you a partner...couldn't you leave?" She shrugged. "You're clearly talented and skilled enough to have your own shop. Isn't the point of an apprenticeship to learn? What more could he really teach you here?"

[Goldie]

His breath caught at the compliment, "You....you think?" He stammered, "I know that shoehorses bring in more consistent money but it's just.....awful." he sighed,  "it's both boring and dangerous. There's maybe 30 seconds where the nails are just sticking out of their hoof and if they get spooked it's more than a broken skull that could kill you."

He sighed heavily and thumped his head onto the table, "It doesn't work that way, unfortunately, just getting up and leaving. I have to get my master seal and only a master can give it. I could open a shop, but I wouldn't be protected by the guild and people....think you're less."

"It looks good on you." He commented, glancing over at her from his slumped position on the table, "truly."

[DragonSong]

"Oh course I think!" Adri exclaimed, admiring the bracelet for a moment longer before she looked up to see him slumped over the worktable.

Her lips twitched, and she had to work not to chuckle; it wasn't that she was laughing at him, it was just...well, she had real emotions for the first time in a while, and he did look rather silly.

Her expression sobered and she cocked her head as she approached to lean her hip against the edge of the table next to him. "Does your master seal have to come from this master?" she asked slowly. "I mean...if you went to another smith, showed them what you can do--could they give you a seal?"

[Goldie]

He grunted and shook his head awkwardly without lifting it from the table.

"They sponsor you. Herald has paid for everything. If I leave, I have to pay it all back. If I find another smith, they'll charge for the master's test and even then are more likely to fail anyone not affiliated. I'm stuck, Adri, stuck right and good."

[DragonSong]

She frowned down at the bracelet on her wrist. He certainly did seem to be stuck. On top of the whole messy affair of the public rejection.

Hmmm. Stuck. Public.

"What if--" She paused, turning the idea over before she tried voicing it. "What if you could...show people what you can do? Enough people that Herald would have to recognize you officially, or they would all see that he's just using you? Surely that would be bad for his business, right?"

[Goldie]

He chewed on his lip and picked his head up slightly to survey Adri closer. She didn't seem to be joking. And she certainly had already proven herself more trustworthy than the company he had previously kept.

"What do you mean? How could I prove anything like that?"

[DragonSong]

Adri spun the bracelet on her wrist, eyes tracking the slight blur that became of the lit crystals.

How could he prove it...

She gasped and suddenly straightened up, brown eyes suddenly so bright they seemed to have a few glints of gold in them. "Flowers," she said excitedly, turning to face him properly. "If you can do work like this, something this delicate, surely you could make something from metal and jewels that looks like a flower, right?"

She gestured vaguely back over her shoulder, out of the forge. "And I could sell them with my flowers. I mean, I'd give you the coin for them, obviously, but I'd take them out in my basket. At first glance, most folk won't be able to tell them from the real thing, until...can you delay this?" She held up her wrist to jingle the bracelet lightly. "The light thing? Make it so it doesn't happen for a few hours, or days even?"

Ohhhh, this might--might--actually be a very good idea.

[Goldie]

He frowned, but fully lifted his head up from the table at this thought Flowers? It wasn't something he'd ever actually attempted before, but it didn't sound like it would be completely out of the realm of possibility. For the flower portion at least but...how would he get the material? They would need to be made from simple, inexpensive metals like steel or maybe aluminum?

"I don't know if I can delay it..." he said slowly, "At least, it's not something I've ever actually done before."

He chewed on his lip again as he did when he was thinking. He reached his hand forward towards the bracelet and instead of breathing out, he breathed in and the light from one stone dimmed and then went out. Then he breathed in through his nose and.....tried. But tried what even?

At first nothing happened. Then he let a little more air out and...the stone lit up just as quickly as before. He emptied his lungs with an audible sigh.

"I don't even know what I'm doing, Adri," He admitted, "How to you delay something like this?"

[DragonSong]

She waved a hand, a part of her still marveling silently at the quiet beauty of those flickering crystals. "No no, that's not the important bit. Let's say you make these metal flowers, and I sell them from my basket, and then folks are curious, right? Oh, where'd the simple flower girl find these pieces, these should be adorning crowns! And then I tell them, well, you see, a friend of mine is deeply talented, but his master won't make him partner, so he's stuck on an apprentice's pay, y'see. So I offered to help him out making a bit of extra coin with these pieces he makes in his spare time and yes aren't they lovely? He made me this bracelet too, see?"

She grinned, holding up her hand and turning her wrist back and forth. "And then look at that! You've got all these happy customers so confused as to why someone with your talent and skill is stuck an apprentice, and surely his master must be giving him a seal soon, and there you are! If he doesn't make you a master, his whole customer base knows he's a cheap, shady jerk. And--" She held up a finger. "The best bit: if Herald starts blaming you about it, you tell him you had no idea! My friend just asked for a few little pieces to decorate her basket, I didn't know what she was planning, blah blah blah."

She planted her hand on her hip and looked at him expectantly. "So? Thoughts?"

[Goldie]

He considered her idea, thinking through all of the possible ways this could bite him. If Herald wanted to, he could have him jailed for theft of goods, but would he? That would put him out a shoer and the person who actually did the work that kept the shop afloat. Of course, he could always just deny the seal and ignore the whispers that might follow. Idris had no power in this arrangement, but if he did nothing then nothing would change, right? Was it worth possibly being dismissed and forced to give all future wages to Herald to repay the last ten years?

He wouldn't do that though, surely?

"I mean, I guess....? We could certainly try....but...I need to figure out how to get Marigold out of the picture. She's seen bits of the bracelet and even though she hasn't actually paid for anything yet, she could still make my life hell if I don't give her something...."

[DragonSong]

Ah, right. Marigold.

Adrianna pursed her lips. "And once again, thwarted by Little Lady Asshat," she sighed, then shrugged. "Ah, well. Just an idea, I suppose—you can certainly think on it."

She glanced down at the bracelet, then back up at him. "Do you...think she'll cause a fuss, about not getting this?" It really was a beautiful piece—if she'd been Marigold, she'd be devastated to have lost it.

Of course, if she was Marigold, quite a few things would be different. Probably best not to dwell on that idea too much.

[Goldie]

He rolled his eyes at her question and looked at her sideways, "What do you think. After today I'm pretty sure she'll do whatever the hell she wants because she thinks she's won."

Then a sinister look washed over his features. He could....but that would be awful but...

"Hang on." he jumped from the work station and moved to pull on gloves that reached up to his elbows before disappearing behind a partition and returning with a chunk of raw metal held with some clamps and extended away from his body. He placed the piece onto the table and took a step back to consider what he was planning to do.

"That's iron." he told her, "So...probably don't touch it. It doesn't bother Herald so he does all that work when it comes in but it's awful stuff..." he reached down and opened a drawer to pull out a very simple bracelet - one of his first attempts at jewelry so it was clunky and unrefined especially compared to the piece of art he had just given Adri.

"So...uh...I could doctor this up and add some prongs made out of that."

[DragonSong]

Adri blinked, a little taken aback but how vindictive that was—though she probably shouldn't have been, she really didn't know him that well, after all.

"I mean...couldn't she charge you for assault for that?" she asked delicately, eyeing the iron with no small amount of wariness. "Even if it's just a small allergy for her, she could say it was a clear attempt on your part to harm her—and people like her always have the guard in their back pocket."

[Goldie]

Idris groaned again and ran a gloved hand through his hair, "Ugh you're right. It's stupid and too much..."

He grabbed the clamps and quickly returned the iron back to it's safe space in the back of the forge before coming back like a puppy who had just been caught stealing food off the counter.

"I don't know what to do, Adri..." he picked up the dud of a bracelet and ran his fingers back and forth against it, "If I don't give her anything I won't have any reputation to use to make those flowers....It's a real good idea, too."

[DragonSong]

She watched him for a moment, wishing she knew what to say to make the situation better. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

She looked down at the gently glowing bracelet on her wrist, then back up at him with a small, rueful smile. "You should give her this." She held her hand out toward him. "I know she doesn't deserve it, but if it gets her off your back..." She shrugged. "I mean, if she's already paid you for the commission anyway..."

She cocked her head. "She...has paid you, right?"

[Goldie]

He opened his mouth to answer, but instead of words there was silence and he dropped his gaze in shame. He really had been an idiot hadn't he? Would she have ever paid him, he wondered? Or would she have taken it and found something wrong and then forced his hand to give it for free?

That seemed like something she would have done, now that she had shown her true colors.

"It's yours." he croaked. His mouth was deathly dry.

[DragonSong]

"Hey."

Adri hesitated, then reached over to lay her hand on his arm gently. It was over his sleeve, so she couldn't have drank from him if she wanted to—which she didn't, and she hoped he didn't think that was her only reason for hanging around.

...Even if the idea of a consistent source was appealing, a part of her couldn't deny that.

"It's not you," she told him quietly. "It's not your fault you wanted to believe the best of someone." She smiled a bit, ducking her head slightly to try to catch his eye. "But hey, that's...well, it's very shitty of her, of course, but considering the circumstances at least now you don't have to give her anything, right? No bill of sale, nothing for her to use against you."