Surrounded by white nothingness, a tan, well-muscled young man wearing nothing more than a pair of loose, baggy pants began to move. He drifted through a series of strange poses and stances at a glacial pace. He flowed from one form to the next effortlessly, contorting his body in ways that didn’t seem possible, ever so slightly picking up speed as he went. He continued endlessly, getting faster and faster until he was leaping and spinning, punching and kicking in seemingly every direction at once, quick lunges forward, followed by flipping or rolling backwards, flying elbows and knees lashed out at his invisible foes. It seemed to last forever, and pass in an instant, as the man spun about in a wild blur of seemingly barely contained motion, when the man suddenly planted his feet thrust forwards with a vicious right hook and froze. He opened his extended fist slowly, sweat pouring from his skin, and instantly returned to his original, impossibly slow speed, as he swung his arm around in a graceful arc. Simultaneously bringing his feet together and his left arm up in front of his chest, where it met his right hand as it finished its arc. He pressed his palms together and bowed.

Damien woke with a start, leaping to his feet and looking around wildly for the strange dancing man, and his unnerving white nothing. It took a moment for his heart to stop racing as he took in the familiar sight of his room. Was that a dream? Who was that? How can I dream about a person I’ve never seen before? As quickly as the thought crossed his mind it vanished like smoke as he remembered what day it was. Wait, who cares bout that?! It’s my birthday! He exploded out of his room, running as fast as he could to the kitchen. As he skidded to a stop, he spotted his parents. His mom was making pancakes!

He started to scramble up into a chair when papa’s voice rumbled through the room, “Whoa there son, I think you forgot something.” Damien looked around, then down at himself, then at his pa in confusion. His dad started laughing merrily, “Pants son! Go and put on some pants! You may want this too for later.” He tossed him something heavy, and Damien’s face lit up with excitement as he realized that it was a thick leather apron like his dad wore in the forge.

Damien tore back down the hall, nearly tripping over the apron he refused to let go of. When he got back to the kitchen he had on pants, and was wearing the apron. Well, sort of anyways, since in his rush the pants were on backwards, and he didn’t know how to put the apron on so it was more draped around his neck than anything else, and it had spun around behind him as he ran back, this time not hesitating and clambering up into one of the chairs at the table.

He was just in time too, because his mom put a plate with a big fluffy pancake smeared with honey and some scrambled eggs. He dug in with gusto, barely taking the time to chew anything. Once he finished most of it, he wiped what was left from his face with his sleeve and looked expectantly at his parents. “Well? Are you going to teach me how to make things now?!” He said eagerly, then was distracted as he tried to fend off the towel his mom started using to try and clean some of the bits of pancake and honey that had survived their clash with his sleeve.

His dad was grinning at him, his friends all told him his dad was scary, but he just didn’t see it. Damien felt safest when his dad was around. “Not just yet son, first we have to give you your birthday gift before I work you until your arms fall off.” He grabbed a flat box that Damien hadn’t noticed in his excitement and slid it across the table to him. “Careful now, Damien. That isn’t a toy in there.”

Damien nodded and put on as serious a face as he could manage. When his dad actually used his name and spoke seriously like that, he knew it was important that he listen. He carefully opened the box and was promptly enthralled by the magnificent dagger resting in it, he gently ran his fingers along the faint ribbons of light and dark that rippled along its blade. His dad hadn’t even made him a dagger that was his size, he made him one that was sized for someone full grown. To Damien he hadn’t been given a dagger, no, his dad gave him a sword! A real sword! Just as he was about to pull it out of the box and definitely not play with it his mom reached past him and pulled the box from his grasp, snapping it shut.

As he started to protest, she shushed him, “You are not, I repeat not going to play around with a razor-sharp steel blade, not before I teach you how to handle it safely and properly anyways.” She smiled warmly at him, and although he was a bit miffed that his mom took away his new dagger before he even held it, he latched onto that last bit about teaching him how to use it. This is the best birthday ever! I get to learn how to fight like mom, and I get to be an apprentice blacksmith, and dad gave me a sword!

He had watched his mom practice with her sword before, now that he thought about it, it was actually a bit like the dancing man from his dream. Was that what he was doing? Practicing fighting? That was a pretty weird way to fight though. It didn’t matter, what was important was that the only thing he wanted more than to spend the entire day with his dad was to learn how to fight with a real sword.

“Now come with me, we can have your first lesson before you go with your father.” His mom herded him outside and to the open area she usually practiced in. He was confused when she handed him a stick about the same length as his dagger, but figured it out when she started to patiently talk him through how to hold it, how to swing it without losing control over his, well, everything. He was a little embarrassed at having swung so hard that when he missed the straw stuffed dummy his mom had him swing at that he spun in a complete circle, tangling his legs together and promptly falling over.

After a while of explaining things, having him try them, and then correcting the things he got wrong, she taught him a few exercises and told him that they would be doing them every day from here on out, then she shooed him off in his father’s direction, as the giant man had come out of the house and was leaning against a wall, watching them train. He put a hand across Damien’s shoulders and guided him towards the smithy.

Once they got inside his dad knelt down and fixed Damien’s apron, showing him how to put it on properly in the process, then he stood and walked into the back room with Damien hot on his heels. As far as he was concerned, this room was where his dad performed miracles and smashed metal until it obeyed him and turned into what he wanted it to be. He looked around in awe at the myriad tools hanging from brackets on the walls, the massive anvil covered in dings and scratches, and the forge itself was the most impressive thing he had ever seen. It was huge! He was certain his dad had caught a dragon and stuffed it in there, he could feel the air get warmer and warmer as they got close to it!

“Alright son, are you ready for your first lesson?” When Damien nodded eagerly he continued, “The most important thing to know is that you need to heat the metal in order to get it soft enough to shape it. We do that by sticking it in some fire.” He demonstrated by taking an iron rod and placing it into the mouth of the forge, “To get the fire hot enough though we have to feed it coal and air.” He shoveled a load of coal into the forge to demonstrate, “Which brings us to lesson two of course, and your main job until you learn how to swing a hammer properly and either get tall enough to reach the top of the anvil or I find a little one, the bellows.” He pointed at a weird lever thing sticking out of the side of the forge to the side of where its opening was. “To make the fire hotter you have to pump that thing up and down to feed it air, go ahead and give it a try!”

Damien walked over to the bellows a little dubiously, but he was a big boy now, and he wanted his dad to keep teaching him, and the best way to do that was to follow directions as best he could in order to prove he could do it. He grabbed hold of the handle on the bellows and tugged it, it wasn’t hard to do exactly, but it took more of his strength than he had expected.

“Good job son, keep doing that for now, up and down, slow steady rhythm to keep the heat even.” He began turning the rod sticking out of the forge to make sure it was heating evenly. Damien was soon breathing heavier than the bellows were, the first few pumps had been easy as his excitement at getting to watch his dad make something pushed away any signs of tiredness at first. After a bit, his dad told him to take a break and tugged the rod free of the forge, laid it across his anvil and began to hammer at it. In what seemed like no time at all, he had bent the end of it around into a U shape and flattened it. He clipped it off of the rod and tossed it into a tub of liquid nearby, then stuck the rod back into the forge, “Alright Damien, just three more horseshoes to go, then we can call it a day and go have lunch, maybe you can convince your mom to let you train more, or at least hold your dagger for a bit.” He winked at Damien with a big grin on his face, “Now back to work son, gotta build up those muscles if you want to be a real smith!”

By the time they finally finished Damien’s arms felt like noodles, he decided that he would try to talk his mom into letting him hold his sword, he had scowled at his dad a bit for calling it a dagger again, and he trudged alongside his father on their way back to the house. Lunch was another of his favorites, bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches, and he realized how hungry he was the moment he saw them. Once he devoured the sandwich, he looked at his mom imploringly, and she caved. She brought out the box his sword was in and with more than a couple of admonishments to be careful, and a flat-out refusal to let him get out of arms reach while he had it, she let him actually take it out of the box, and even stab at one of the dummies in her little practice yard.

When the day was finally over Damien was utterly exhausted and utterly convinced that today had been the best birthday anyone had ever had. He flopped onto his bed, and was asleep before he hit the pillow, not even waking to his father’s booming laughter at discovering Damien laying halfway on his bed, still wearing the leather apron he had refused to take off.