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Teja is in the forge, making surgical instruments from finely folded steel. Research, and design, have yielded results that he is now confident to actually put into practice, and make. For that young healer whom he respects deeply, only the best is good enough; and his work would, most likely, have to last her for a lifetime.

While he works, the door is open, and the cats are coming and going; now watching him, now going out to hunt. But they never disturb his work, no matter how curious they get -- one sharp 'NO!', and even curious Ferdinand retreats from the sharp blades.

Watchers, others that would work in the forge, friends, onlookers, potential customers or curious strangers are all welcome.-

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Zhaan's never been to the forge before: this is the first time she's had a reason to even come near the place.

In one hand she holds the handle of a very blackened, dented, and generally worn cast-iron pot. It's a smallish pot, only big enough to hold about a gallon of liquid. It has a lid which doesn't quite fit properly.

"Teja?" Zhaan calls, raising her voice to be heard over the sound of hammering.

Teja looks up from the small anvil on his workbench, on which he had been making a scalpel, using a very small hammer.

"Greetings, Zhaan!" he says.

A tabby cat comes walking up to greet her, sniffs Zhaan's ankle, and gives her a strange look.

Zhaan smiles at the cat, although she doesn't reach down to pet it. Earth animals sometimes react oddly to her because of how she smells.

"I wanted to ask if you liked those peppermint sachets I gave you," she says.

"I did," Teja says. "They are very helpful in relaxing the muscles on my back of an evening."

Pause.

"And that is your pot, one would assume?"

The pot -- the one favourite pot a wise-woman would use for her brews, measuring her recipes by the notches and dents in the metal.

Edited 2008-06-17 18:05 (UTC)

"Yes. It came with my room in the House of Arch." The room exists somewhere in the late 1960s, and is part of a building that was originally constructed in the Victorian era. Zhaan has no idea where the pot came from. "I had the misfortune of getting it when it was already approaching the end of its usefulness."

"What is the House of Arch?" Teja asks.

Pause.

"Then you would wish for a new one of exactly the same size and shape?"

"The House of Arch has a constant connection to Milliways - I think it is the only place that does - but one must be invited to go there. It's..." Zhaan frowns thoughtfully. It's not easy to explain the House. "It is made up of different rooms that have existed at different times within a certain area on Earth. I'm not sure how it works, except that it is connected by magic. I live there and teach the children who reside there.

"As for this," Zhaan says, holding up the pot, "I would like something similar, but with thinner sides, small feet or legs on the bottom, and a better-fitting lid." The pot seems to be rugged, but its design leaves something to be desired.

Teja gets up, and takes the pot. He turns it in his hands. "I can do that, easily."

"Thank you," Zhaan says. "I will have more peppermint sachets for you tomorrow. Considering that you work in a forge, might you be able to use some burn remedies as well? I can give you a jar of bunchberry poultice." A summer's worth of peppermint for a custom-made cast-iron pot doesn't seem to her like a fair trade: Teja should get something more out of it for his trouble.

"That would be helpful," Teja says. "And there are more men working in the forge than me. Such a thing would always be handy, for all of us."

"All right. Then I will have bunchberry poultice to give you tomorrow as well - although I still advise coming to the infirmary if the burns are serious."

"I have not had a serious burn wound," Teja says, "since I came here; and not a truly serious one in my world, either. But we would, of course."

"Just making sure."

"Thank you," Teja says. "One would not risk injury, in any case."

"I know. But sometimes things happen in spite of caution." And Zhaan should know: everyone on Moya, she included, had things happen to them all the time.

"I will let you finish your work here. I will be outside the infirmary tomorrow with the sachets and poultice."

"And once I have done these instruments," Teja says, "I would make your pot, next."

Zhaan smiles. "All right. Please leave me a note when you have it ready, and I will come here to get it."

"I will," Teja says. "That is what I would usually do when a commission is finished."

"All right. Come by tomorrow afternoon." Zhaan gives Teja a small, polite bow of farewell.

"I will," Teja says, nodding in return.

There's a boy who happens to walk past the forge while there is hammering going on, and since the door is open, what's the harm in stepping inside and looking around just a little bit, right?

So he does.

"Greetings," Teja says, looking up from polishing a scalpel to incomparable sharpness.

"What're you doing?"

Obviously he's making blades of some sort, the one in his hand is sharp, he can tell. Weapons.

Curious child -- but then, children are allowed curiosity. They need to learn much.

"I am making surgical instruments," Teja says, "for a young woman that is studying to be a healer."

"You don't have droids for that?"

Han comes a bit closer -- not too close, as it is a sharp blade and wariness is part of his nature -- to observe.

"I have one droid," Teja says, "to fight against. But I would not make him help in the forge; Atton Rand has taken out much of his abilities to reason."

Ahhh - talking of droids so naturally, the boy would be from Atton's world, also.

"You a Jedi?"

He certainly doesn't look like one, then again, not many of them look like anything in particular.

"No," Teja says. "Those are the men that use magical powers to fight with glowing swords -- lighsabres, they are called, are they not? I cannot do that. I spar with my droid using my usual swords, and my axe."

"Yeah, the Force, religion an' stuff," Han doesn't believe much in that, other than stories and tales, but they tend to be pretty determined and set in their ways. "What system are you from?"

"System?" Teja says. "I am not from a system -- I am from a world, and a time, and a land, and a people."

"So what world are you from?"

He looks human.

"Earth," Teja says. "Italy. The year 552 of Christian reckoning. Ostrogoth. Dead."

No way.

"Then how're you makin' stuff if you're dead?"

Forgive the complete lack of tact.

"Like any other dead man in this place," Teja says. "This would be our afterlife -- we come alive again, and have bodies, if we do not try and leave for other worlds, for a longer time."

"Huh. Didn't know that."

A glance again at the weapons. "You sell this stuff or just make it for friends?"

"Both," Teja says. "I have learned many new things in this place. The next step I will try will be the virbroblade technology from your world. Atton Rand promised me a vibrating device."

Han's getting ideas.

"Do you make knives?" He sees swords and axes and fine things, and these scalpels, but he's interested in just a good, concealable, knife.

"Of course I do," Teja says. "Any man needs one, after all."

He reaches into his pocket (he has many things in his pockets, after all) and pulls out a crude, sharpened bit of steel. The blade is about four inches long, no handle -- the dull end is wrapped in some sort of tape to make up for the fact that it's broken off long ago.

"You can see why I ask," he admits.

Teja smiles at that. "It is a knife of sorts," he says. "But you would have one like of that size and dimension, but well-made, and likely to last?"

Pause.

"Do you wish for an ordinary knife, or a vibroblade? A knife, you can have right away; for the vibrating mechanism, I would have to get one from Atton, first."

"Just an ordinary one."

Shrike is less likely to ask questions about an ordinary knife than a vibroblade, if he sees him with a new one -- and less likely to take it from him.

He looks down at the blade, and thinks a moment. "I don't have that many credits though...but I could...work it off?"

Guy like him has got to need help, right?

Teja gets up, and brings a box of knives from the back of the forge. There are about two dozen of those, several sizes and styles, but all well made.

"You may choose one of those," he says. "And what sort of work can you do?"

"Anything," he offers quickly. "Ain't afraid to get my hands dirty either, I can carry stuff..."

As he's looking through the knives, carefully, he'd hate to damage one, he glances around the forge to find things that might need doing.

"Worked awhile in a mining facility a couple'a years ago," he adds. "Made carbonite, heated up the metals and did some pouring, that sort of thing."

A few of the blades catch his eye and he tests them gently in his hand, for weight, the feel in his grip.

Those knives would not be easily damaged; or they would not be worth their place in the box of those that Teja has thought good enough.-

"So you have some experience," Teja says. "Yes, that would come truly useful. I have to make a cast-iron pot, and would of course make several once I set up what I need, so one that is experienced in that sort of metalwork, and will not flinch when red-hot liquid metal is poured, will be very welcome."

"Then if you'll allow me to work to pay off the cost, I would be willing to do so," he says. Adding on at the end, quickly, "Sir."

As one doesn't disrespect the ones they work for, unless they wish to be punished for it

"I am still busy on these instruments, for awhile," Teja says. "You might come back on Thursday and work a day's worth on casting iron with me, and then I shall consider the knife paid for."

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