A Court of Gold and Shadows

Something good and right and real: Chapter 3

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Chapter 3: the only thing on my mind

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"What exactly are you doing?" Oriana finally asked after she had spent a good five minutes watching Azriel fuss at his armour.

She had first started watching because seeing the way the scars wrapped around his hand fascinated her. And then she continued to watch because, for the life of her, she couldn't understand what he was trying to achieve.

He was keeping her company in the forge for the evening, mostly because he would be going away for a few days somewhere. She didn't ask, he didn't volunteer...she just hoped it wouldn't end with him bruised and dazed sitting at her kitchen table again.

"I burned out one of my siphons. So I need to fix that," Azriel answered, still fussing with it, until finally he managed to pop out the siphon...out of a side seam?

Now, she was interested. She watched more carefully, having realised that he had opened one of the side seams as the siphon was held in place between the two layers of leather.

It was the stupidest construction method she had ever seen.

"Why do you take apart the whole armour for that?" she asked him carefully. What was she missing?

"It's not armour. It's fighting leathers," he corrected her with some amusement.

She just raised an eyebrow and he held them out for her perusal.

She took them, and one quick look made her realise that there wasn't one bit of metal in there at all. It was all just...leather. Not even particularly thick in places. How was that supposed to stop anybody from stabbing him?

"Is there a specific reason why you don't wear armour?" she asked him. Wouldn't that...be much safer?

"I need to move to be able to fly," Azriel gave back like it was crystal clear why he couldn't possibly wear anything but this.

Still, Oriana couldn't believe that there wasn't a way to somehow make the metal work so that it wouldn't be too heavy for him to carry around and also not impede his movement.

That was just impossible.

She stared at the hole that held the Siphon in place, thinking back to the leather straps with a similar construction method that she had seen wrapped around his hands.

"And why do you take it apart to put a new siphon in?" she asked.

Why like that? Why not some kind of setting, where the siphon was held in place and there was a mechanism to remove it easily? A setting that didn't mean that he spent a good 20 minutes easing it out of the place it was.

"It's the only way to do it. It's held in place between the layers of leather," Azriel explained, grasping hold of the chest piece and showing her the hole.

"Is there a reason why it's done like that?" she finally asked. "Do the siphons get hot with use so they would melt metal or..." she trailed off and he shook his head.

"No?" he responded questioningly. "This is just...how it always was," he admitted.

Right. And because this was how it always was nobody ever thought about the idea that maybe...maybe there was another way? A better way?

Oriana's mind was already reeling with all her ideas to improve it. This was what she used to do. She found something that already existed and then she perfected it.