Role

Chapter 8

In my family you are either a blacksmith, a stonemason or a soldier. If
you are not one of these then you are nothing, cousin Jirhal found this
out when he decided to dedicate his life to that of painting. He is no
longer a member of our family, is not talked to, talked of, or invited to
anything we did. But this is my story, this is my record of what has been
my beginning but will not be my ending.

My father is a blacksmith, he would spend every hour of every day in
front of a forge forming weapons, tools, anything and everything from
seemingly useless blocks of metal. He began to teach me from a very young
age how to do almost all of his trade. He had me manning the fire, he had
me striking the molten metal to basic shapes and he had me carrying the
raw materials. It was a hard life to grow into but the fires of his forge
melted away any excuses I had to not live a hard life. Yet from the first
day I started he did not forget to inform me that this was not my path. I
was not to become a blacksmith, no, I was to become a soldier. My father
began taking me around to my uncles, and aunts, and I began my training
to fight. They would beat me, they would fight me, or they would brawl
with me to make me better. It was never proper lessons in the sense that
was no classroom but I learnt, oh did I learn how to fight. The lessons
were harsh, and they were thorough, and yet the next day my father would
expect me in the forge with him helping him and doing my work, no matter
how badly beaten I was. Once there was no more my family could teach me
my father began taking me to bars in the evenings. He would go and stir
up as much trouble as he could and direct it all on me, he would make me
fight strangers, groups of strangers, even friends just to see how I
could handle it. I handled it, I was always the last one standing,
everytime. But after awhile the bars started banning us for destroying
too much of their furniture during the brawls. It was an interesting
childhood, and I made many good friends in those days from the brawls.
They would buy me beers, of which my father would drink most of, after
they had picked themselves up and slapped me on the back for a good job.
Still I would be in the forge pounding out impurities in metals or
carring around baskets of ore. After some time my father let me in on my
path in life. He told me that from a very early age he realised I had the
fire blood. He went on to explain that while he had fire hands, which
allowed him to be one of the finer smiths, I had fire blood, which was
what made me such a great fighter. He said that as a baby once I got
angry it would not end, it would go on for days until I had what I
wanted, and he told me that the same thing happened when I was brawling
in the bar.