The air inside the blacksmith's shop had the texture of damp wool, stiff and odorous, wispy at the corners, humid with the pong of molten metal: it settled into your lower stomach instead of the lungs, stoppering the nose, churning the blood. From the furnace wafted wave after wave of heat, growing progressively more stifling, until Jack could almost perceive glowing coals in his mouth. It was a taste of hell on earth.

What's more, it came with a devil of its own. Two, in fact.

"I told you, I need a hunk of copper to upgrade your watering can," Saibara said. His snowy eyebrows were drawn together, the skin around his eyes dark and sagging. He looked old, even older than Barley, yet he was the one who taught Jack that appearances could be deceiving.

"But you're a blacksmith," Jack said. "Shouldn't you have, I don't know, a steady supply of ores or something?"

"Stop whining. You're not a child anymore."

"I'm not whining!" Jack whined. Clearing his throat, he added, "But that's beside the point. You really should have a decent stock of ores, you know."

"I don't. You have to mine the ores yourself."

"That's a stupid arrangement."

Saibara's eyes flashed. He straightened in his seat and lifted his chin, which didn't make much of a difference in aesthetics; he still appeared too short from behind the counter. He didn't know this, of course. "Who's the blacksmith here?" he said. The tone of his voice would have frightened even the mightiest of cowardly men, and Jack, who was never considered mighty even by cowardly standards, suddenly found himself in need of fresh undergarments.

"You are," Jack whimpered.

"Who?"

"You are."

"Speak up, boy! I can't hear you. Who?"

"You are! You are! Yes, you are! Yes, yes you are!" Jack's voice unintentionally took on a wheedling manner. "Of course you are! Who's the good blacksmith?"

The old man seemed pleased, but made a good show of looking gruff. "I am," he said.

"Who? Who's the good blacksmith?"

Now Saibara's mouth twitched into a self-satisfied smile. Perhaps he was thinking of all the tools he had forged, all the villagers he had helped, all the glasses of sake he had downed at the inn at Doug's expense. If he had a tail, he would have wagged it. "I am," he said again. "Yes, I am."

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, splashing around inside his well of memories, the farmer awkwardly standing on the other side of the counter all but forgotten. "I am…"

Jack glanced Gray, who was hammering away near the forge. Gray gave Jack a shrug which might have meant either "He does that a lot" or "I don't know and I don't care" or "Damn, my shoulders are getting stiff." The farmer, unsure what to do, twiddled his fingers behind his back and counted in his head. If, by the time he got to twenty, the blacksmith was still daydreaming, he would turn on his heel and walk out the door and try again tomorrow. Soon he reached forty, and Saibara was still unresponsive. He decided that he would count again, and if he reached twenty and Saibara was still out, he really was going to leave.

Saibara snapped out of his daydreams at seventy-eight and glared at Jack. "I won't upgrade your tools unless you bring me the ore I need."

Jack, taken by surprise, gave a very shrill yelp which made Gray look up and hit his fingers with his hammer. Gray yelled in pain, crying out, "My hand, my hand, damn it!" Neither Saibara nor Jack paid much attention.

Jack coughed into his fist and said, "If I give you the ore, you'd work on my tools for free?"

"What gave you that idea?" Saibara said. "I need to make a living, kid."

"So I have to supply the ores, and—"

"Damn it, damn you all—"

"—I have to pay for the service, too?"

"That's the way."

"I'll be back tomorrow," said Jack, tugging on his neckerchief. "And I'll—"

"Where's the first aid kit? The stupid farmer had to yell when I had the hammer. Why couldn't you have done it when I was fanning the coals?"

"—um, I'll be sure to bring the ore. But I have to stop by the mayor's house first."

"Close the door on your way out," Saibara called after him.

Farming for Dummies

Mine for the Craft

Harris was a practical man. His shoes were polished but not overly so, his hair was cropped close to his skull, and his bedcovers were government standard issue, white, with the words "Hamilton for Senator" printed at the hem. He also liked excitement in small doses, which the town lacked; crime rate in these parts was an all-time low, the most gruesome violation in the past ten years being a single golden lumber displayed out in a field. The culprit had been apprehended and punished severely: he had been forced to eat Karen's cooking for a week.

The man hadn't died of food poisoning, but he did attempt to drown himself in the sea fourteen times before realizing he could actually swim.

Presently someone knocked on the door and interrupted Harris's flashback. Before he could say "come in," as was the custom, the person let himself in: it was that new farmer, Jack.

"'Morning, chief," said Jack, doffing his hat in greeting.

"Good morning."

"I'm here to report something."

This gave Harris a pause, as the villagers rarely had anything to report, aside from the occasional sightings of little men in colorful pointed hats. These claims were often chalked up to too much consumption of wild grasses. "I'm listening," said Harris. He took his notepad out of his trouser pocket and uncapped a pen.

Jack grinned, one cheek higher than the other, and hooked his thumbs in his pockets. "I saw a monster in the lake." He leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles. "Ugly thing."

Harris began scribbling something, then hesitated. A lake monster? It sounded like a clichéd farming game plot, and it was too easy to doubt. "A monster, huh?" A trickle of skepticism leaked into his voice. "What did it look like?"

Jack put a hand on his chin and stroked it. "Hmm, lemme see… it was green, it lived in the lake, and it looked like a monster."

"What do monsters look like?"

The farmer shrugged. "Monster-y, I guess. Monstrous. Monsterrific."

"That's not even a word," said Harris, nibbling on one end of his pen. "In any case, did you do anything to summon it? This is the first time I've ever heard of anything of the sort residing in the lake."

"I was throwing my cucumbers into the lake, and it popped out, just like that, but the special effects were a bit dramatic. It didn't even say anything before diving back down. How rude, right? I mean, how difficult could it be to say Hello there, random person, nice to—"

"Wait a sec," said Harris, raising his pen. "Why were you throwing your cucumbers in the lake?"

"I ran out of tomatoes," Jack replied without missing a beat.

"O-kaaaaay. Why would you throw tomatoes in the lake?"

At this the farmer frowned, confused, like a dog chasing its tail only to realize that it was actually a cat all along. "Why not?" he said.

The cogs in Harris's brain were having difficulties in turning. He frowned, mirroring Jack's expression. "All right, let's leave it for now. I'll investigate this monster right away. Thanks for taking the time to tell me."

"No problem, chief." He turned away and made for the door.

"Jack."

Jack paused with the door halfway open and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"If you ever say monsterrific again, I'll put you on community service for a month. Understood?"

A lopsided grin met his threat. "Got it, chief."

a/n:

I... I don't know. *hides under the bed*