A Question, Struck

The news of Rue’s success with the vine traveled quickly, a murmur of wonder that reached even the smoky confines of Doran’s forge.

He stood before the anvil, the heat of the cooling iron a familiar weight in the air, but the story of the gardener and the whisper of the plant felt like a world away.

Listening to metal? The idea was absurd. Metal didn’t whisper; it screamed and yielded under the force of the hammer, a language of violence and will, not of quiet communion.

Yet, the story lingered. If a simple vine could have a voice, what secrets lay locked in the heart of the iron he shaped every day?

He picked up his hammer, the familiar weight a comfort, and struck the iron. Not with the usual force of a craftsman imposing his will, but with a question.

And in the ringing silence that followed the blow, he thought he felt it: a hesitant pulse, a subtle shift in the iron’s grain, a silent answer to a question he hadn’t known he’d asked.