The Darkened King

The Full Awakening

A/N: This is a VERY long chapter that have implications of smut at the end. You have been warned.

Sorcha did not know when she started to love the stranger, but she did remember her younger sister telling her about the boy Sorcha liked...and how she had found him with a woman.

Sorcha had denied liking the young man and indeed she did not LIKE him. She loved him. As fore mentioned, she had no remembrance of when her loved started but she could not stop herself from falling.

Sorcha also remembered how every time she turned a corner he would be there with a different woman, every time. Later she learned that he had been attempting to cause jealousy, he had wanted to see what her reaction would be.

But Sorcha was not going to allow him to see how deeply her feelings for him ran. And besides, two could play at that game. Instead of pubically displaying her courting, Sorcha was much more subtle. She allowed the village to build rumors and would allow her suitors to be seen with her but never anything more than the boy escorting her someplace. The young man barely lasted a week before he paid her a visit. Sarah would not be ignored.

He had come to her father's shop, her father was a blacksmith, where she worked keeping the bellows hot. She remembered how he had strolled into the shop while her father was out buying supplies. The young stranger had acted as if he was the master of the shop and not a customer.

Sorcha had been shaping a piece of discarded metal into a flower for her sister's birthday, she once teased her sister for her...unique collections. It was a polite way to say that her sister collected little more than cast away things. Yet she delighted in them and so Sorcha continued to find and make her things that others would not look twice upon.

She waited for the metal to be just right and then cooled it in the nearby tub of water. The young man watched as she set the metal flower onto a rack and then turned to him.

"My father is out, but if you would care to return later he will see to you." As a woman, Sorcha was not permitted to take orders or work on them, at least not in public. At night, when the shop was closed, her father allowed her to help him in the forge. Until then, she was an errand runner and someone to keep the fires hot.

"Then I am fortunate, for I have not come to speak to your father." The man declared with the beginnings of a smile she had seen him use on the other village girls.

"Then you have wasted a journey." Sorcha bluntly stated as she stood and moved to heat the bellows. Her father had been sent to the next village over to take a order from the village head. He wanted a sword forged for his son, but did not want his own smithy to make it else it would ruin the surprise. Her father had been sent for to see to the details of the weapon and it would need to be started upon his return.

Her father would make several casts and molds of the swords. Then he would make several different ones, none alike, for the customer to chose from. The other two would be sold since they would not be exact replicas of the one the customer bought. That way the customer was satisfied and her father made a little extra money.

The winter would be a harsh one and they would need all the money they could get.

Sorcha busied herself with readying her father's tools. He had left early in the morning and would be back within the hour. He would work well into the night to forge the blades and, if she was lucky, he would allow her to forge one of the blades.

"Why would my journey be wasted?" The stranger questioned in true confusion as he watched the dark haired vixen work.

"Because I do not socialize while watching the bellows." Came Sorcha's curt response as she took her place, once more, before the fire and added fuel.