![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Handmade
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Characters: Shinon, Rolf
Word count: ~1200
Warnings: Strong language, general Shinon-being-Shinon
Notes:![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
genprompt_bingo - "Artisan / Craftsman." This is maybe the longest it's ever taken me to write ~1200 words, because I got off to a false start that I had to scrap, and also I spent a lot of time reading about various Mediterranean styles of bow construction. Any factual errors are my own.
Early fall was rainy in Crimea, shitty humid weather that made delicate work impossible. But usually around the middle of the tenth moon you'd get one solitary week of sun, warm as summer but dry as winter. Shinon wrung everything he could out of that one week per year, and people knew it, and stayed out of his way. Eastern-style composite bows fetched a high price, and he wouldn't make them at any other time of year. Most bowyers this far west, in this soggy-ass climate, wouldn't make them at all. Probably never bothered learning.
Rolf wanted to learn, though. So Rolf could stay. Shinon had built a small fire out by the supply shed, heating up a pot of water to keep the glue soft. "You remember what comes next?" he asked Rolf, waiting for it to steam.
"Um... horn," Rolf said. "Horn on the front, and layers of sinew on the back."
"That's right."
But Rolf wasn't done - he squeezed his eyes shut, searching his memory, and then rattled off, "We use goat horn because it lasts longer than cow horn and we don't have to pay for it. Because Rhys helped that goatherd that one time. We do have to buy the sinew because deer are property of the queen and she doesn't give out that many hunting permits. And the company doesn't have one."
"Why would we? I've got better things to do with my time." Actually it was more of a principle thing. Like hell was Shinon going to ask anyone's permission. Elincia would give it, but that made it worse. Imagine going begging for favors from an aristo. Imagine getting that favor, and waving a piece of paper around saying "see, I'm allowed to provide for myself, some inbred piece of porcelain said so." Pathetic. It shouldn't be hers to decide.
Rolf said, "Better things to do, like making stuff."
"...Sure."
"You know a lot about it. I bet you could make anything."
"If it's wood, horn, or bone, then yeah, probably. How's the glue looking?"
Rolf leaned over the water bath to look, and grimaced. "It stinks."
"Didn't ask."
"Sorry." Rolf peered down at the glue pot a little longer, then backed away and retrieved a fallen stick. He poked it into the glue and waggled it around. "Yeah, it's soft enough now. It should be."
Shinon took the stick from him and gave the pot an experimental stir. "Yep. Good call." He wrapped an old towel around his hand and took the water bath off the fire. Rolf watched in silence while Shinon picked out one of the maple bow cores and a length of horn, setting them on the work table. Enough material for six bows this season - one for himself, five to sell, after they dried in the shed all winter. And Aimee would pay whatever he asked. Easy money.
At some point Rolf said, "If you can make other stuff, why don't you?"
Shinon was smoothing down a glue-soaked layer of horn over the second of the bow cores, making sure it lay flat with no gaps or wrinkles. He'd mostly stopped being aware he had company. "What?"
"You don't have to only make bows," Rolf said.
Shinon looked up from the table. "Bows're useful. And there's money in it. Since I'm making some anyway -"
"Useful," Rolf said. "Yeah." He was sitting on the grass a few yards away, and at this he pulled his knees up to his chest. "But you could make stuff that's useful for other things. I mean, besides killing."
Ah, shit, not this. If he was gonna cry about the realities of war or something, couldn't he do it to his brothers or Mist or somebody?
Well, no, he couldn't. They'd just wrap him up in soft blankets and tell him not to worry about it, he was too young and too nice, he shouldn't have to fight. What none of them seemed to get was that "should" didn't matter. He'd killed already. Who would it help to forbid him from doing it again?
Shinon gave the stave another once-over and set it aside. "Look," he said. "At the end of the day, everyone's gotta eat. We'll always need weapons to hunt with. And if you've got anything worth having, people will wanna take that from you. You'll need weapons to stop them. So I'm never gonna run out of work. If there's ever a day I can't fight anymore, I'm still set for life."
Rolf didn't look convinced.
Shinon sighed. Why should it matter whether he convinced one dumb brat or not? But he went on, "Plenty of people are good with their hands, and they can make... farming tools or pretty little sculptures or whatever. But if they're too squeamish to do what I do, when times get hard again, good fuckin' luck making a living."
Rolf said, slowly, "And ... they're fun to make. Bows are."
All right, so they were getting somewhere. "Pretty satisfying, yeah." It was nice to be left alone with your tools, and watch something slowly take shape - and it was damn nice to put the finished bow to the test, punch a few arrows into a dummy, and know that this didn't used to be anything. This used to be a stick, some animal bits, and some horsehair. No shit, it felt good being good at stuff.
Rolf said - speaking mostly to his knees - "I don't know what that does to a person."
Shinon only had Rolf learning to make straight bows right now - and you could kill somebody with a straight bow, sure, people had been doing it for centuries, but it was more cumbersome and not as powerful. And Shinon didn't wanna hear all the moaning and carrying on from some quarters if this kid went into a job with an only decent weapon, and only a decent shot at defending himself, and got his head stove in or someshit. So he'd been kitting him out with shorter recurves, mostly, and -
Oh. Huh. Rolf hadn't taken his own work into combat yet, had he?
Shinon said, "Hey, if you don't wanna learn this stuff, it's no skin off my nose. I don't need some kid underfoot." Rolf looked at him all big-eyed. "I'll make sure you're armed. If it bothers you, don't think about where it comes from. You think your average merc makes their own sword?"
Rolf looked down again. "It's not that..."
"Then what?"
Rolf shook his head. But he didn't say anything else.
"Can I get back to work, then?" said Shinon, waving sarcastically toward the four bow cores left to laminate.
"Yeah," said Rolf. "Sorry. I - I think I hear Oscar calling me, anyway." And he got up, and hurried away.
But he left something behind - a chunk of wood. No. Shinon left the table to go pick it up: a crudely whittled figure of a turtle. With a smiley face.
He weighed it in his hand and looked off, frowning, in the direction Rolf had run.
No time to puzzle this out now, though. The weather wouldn't hold forever. The glue was cooling off. He put it back over the fire to warm and went back to work, and nobody else interrupted.
Characters: Shinon, Rolf
Word count: ~1200
Warnings: Strong language, general Shinon-being-Shinon
Notes:
genprompt_bingo - "Artisan / Craftsman." This is maybe the longest it's ever taken me to write ~1200 words, because I got off to a false start that I had to scrap, and also I spent a lot of time reading about various Mediterranean styles of bow construction. Any factual errors are my own.Early fall was rainy in Crimea, shitty humid weather that made delicate work impossible. But usually around the middle of the tenth moon you'd get one solitary week of sun, warm as summer but dry as winter. Shinon wrung everything he could out of that one week per year, and people knew it, and stayed out of his way. Eastern-style composite bows fetched a high price, and he wouldn't make them at any other time of year. Most bowyers this far west, in this soggy-ass climate, wouldn't make them at all. Probably never bothered learning.
Rolf wanted to learn, though. So Rolf could stay. Shinon had built a small fire out by the supply shed, heating up a pot of water to keep the glue soft. "You remember what comes next?" he asked Rolf, waiting for it to steam.
"Um... horn," Rolf said. "Horn on the front, and layers of sinew on the back."
"That's right."
But Rolf wasn't done - he squeezed his eyes shut, searching his memory, and then rattled off, "We use goat horn because it lasts longer than cow horn and we don't have to pay for it. Because Rhys helped that goatherd that one time. We do have to buy the sinew because deer are property of the queen and she doesn't give out that many hunting permits. And the company doesn't have one."
"Why would we? I've got better things to do with my time." Actually it was more of a principle thing. Like hell was Shinon going to ask anyone's permission. Elincia would give it, but that made it worse. Imagine going begging for favors from an aristo. Imagine getting that favor, and waving a piece of paper around saying "see, I'm allowed to provide for myself, some inbred piece of porcelain said so." Pathetic. It shouldn't be hers to decide.
Rolf said, "Better things to do, like making stuff."
"...Sure."
"You know a lot about it. I bet you could make anything."
"If it's wood, horn, or bone, then yeah, probably. How's the glue looking?"
Rolf leaned over the water bath to look, and grimaced. "It stinks."
"Didn't ask."
"Sorry." Rolf peered down at the glue pot a little longer, then backed away and retrieved a fallen stick. He poked it into the glue and waggled it around. "Yeah, it's soft enough now. It should be."
Shinon took the stick from him and gave the pot an experimental stir. "Yep. Good call." He wrapped an old towel around his hand and took the water bath off the fire. Rolf watched in silence while Shinon picked out one of the maple bow cores and a length of horn, setting them on the work table. Enough material for six bows this season - one for himself, five to sell, after they dried in the shed all winter. And Aimee would pay whatever he asked. Easy money.
At some point Rolf said, "If you can make other stuff, why don't you?"
Shinon was smoothing down a glue-soaked layer of horn over the second of the bow cores, making sure it lay flat with no gaps or wrinkles. He'd mostly stopped being aware he had company. "What?"
"You don't have to only make bows," Rolf said.
Shinon looked up from the table. "Bows're useful. And there's money in it. Since I'm making some anyway -"
"Useful," Rolf said. "Yeah." He was sitting on the grass a few yards away, and at this he pulled his knees up to his chest. "But you could make stuff that's useful for other things. I mean, besides killing."
Ah, shit, not this. If he was gonna cry about the realities of war or something, couldn't he do it to his brothers or Mist or somebody?
Well, no, he couldn't. They'd just wrap him up in soft blankets and tell him not to worry about it, he was too young and too nice, he shouldn't have to fight. What none of them seemed to get was that "should" didn't matter. He'd killed already. Who would it help to forbid him from doing it again?
Shinon gave the stave another once-over and set it aside. "Look," he said. "At the end of the day, everyone's gotta eat. We'll always need weapons to hunt with. And if you've got anything worth having, people will wanna take that from you. You'll need weapons to stop them. So I'm never gonna run out of work. If there's ever a day I can't fight anymore, I'm still set for life."
Rolf didn't look convinced.
Shinon sighed. Why should it matter whether he convinced one dumb brat or not? But he went on, "Plenty of people are good with their hands, and they can make... farming tools or pretty little sculptures or whatever. But if they're too squeamish to do what I do, when times get hard again, good fuckin' luck making a living."
Rolf said, slowly, "And ... they're fun to make. Bows are."
All right, so they were getting somewhere. "Pretty satisfying, yeah." It was nice to be left alone with your tools, and watch something slowly take shape - and it was damn nice to put the finished bow to the test, punch a few arrows into a dummy, and know that this didn't used to be anything. This used to be a stick, some animal bits, and some horsehair. No shit, it felt good being good at stuff.
Rolf said - speaking mostly to his knees - "I don't know what that does to a person."
Shinon only had Rolf learning to make straight bows right now - and you could kill somebody with a straight bow, sure, people had been doing it for centuries, but it was more cumbersome and not as powerful. And Shinon didn't wanna hear all the moaning and carrying on from some quarters if this kid went into a job with an only decent weapon, and only a decent shot at defending himself, and got his head stove in or someshit. So he'd been kitting him out with shorter recurves, mostly, and -
Oh. Huh. Rolf hadn't taken his own work into combat yet, had he?
Shinon said, "Hey, if you don't wanna learn this stuff, it's no skin off my nose. I don't need some kid underfoot." Rolf looked at him all big-eyed. "I'll make sure you're armed. If it bothers you, don't think about where it comes from. You think your average merc makes their own sword?"
Rolf looked down again. "It's not that..."
"Then what?"
Rolf shook his head. But he didn't say anything else.
"Can I get back to work, then?" said Shinon, waving sarcastically toward the four bow cores left to laminate.
"Yeah," said Rolf. "Sorry. I - I think I hear Oscar calling me, anyway." And he got up, and hurried away.
But he left something behind - a chunk of wood. No. Shinon left the table to go pick it up: a crudely whittled figure of a turtle. With a smiley face.
He weighed it in his hand and looked off, frowning, in the direction Rolf had run.
No time to puzzle this out now, though. The weather wouldn't hold forever. The glue was cooling off. He put it back over the fire to warm and went back to work, and nobody else interrupted.
no subject
beautiful beautiful work <3
(headcanoning now that the silencer's one of these eastern bows ngl ~ just now working through radiant dawn's endgame for the zillionth time and it still shoots like a beast.)
OVER A MONTH LATER lmao sorry April was a whole thing
(FOR SURE this fic was partly in service of explaining why the Silencer is so friggin' beast and why Shinon is the only one who could've made it, ahaha)