{"id":3453,"date":"2017-12-27T00:00:59","date_gmt":"2017-12-27T05:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3453"},"modified":"2017-12-26T18:47:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-26T23:47:09","slug":"twenty-nine-03-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3453","title":{"rendered":"Twenty-nine – 03"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

The hammer rose and fell, rose and fell. Matt paused to work the bellows for a moment, then returned to his hammering, shaping a new blade\u2014though this one was for cutting grain, not men. There was something oddly comforting about the work despite the uncomfortable roiling in his stomach.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just too quiet.<\/em><\/p>\n

He was still trying to convince himself that\u2019s all it was\u2014that it was simply too quiet, that the lull was what had set his teeth on edge. It was certainly a sign of the past year\u2019s events that any sort of span of quiet started to feel wrong<\/em>.<\/p>\n

More than just the quiet was bothering him, though. Being alone up at the forge was jarring as well, but with Thom down with his injuries and Thordin spending most of his time at Sif\u2019s bedside, Matt supposed he should have gotten used to being alone.<\/p>\n

He exhaled a quiet sigh and thrust the metal back into the mouth of the forge again for a few seconds, letting it heat. He watched it warm, growing a dull orange as it absorbed the heat from the embers and coal.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still good to be home.<\/em> And it was. As unsettled as he felt, there was something comforting about being home, with family and friends. Even Hecate seemed to be starting to view this as home and she\u2019d told him a few times that yes, she wanted to stay, she wanted to make this work and it wasn\u2019t just because the people here were important to him. It was starting to be important to her, too.<\/p>\n

The forge door creaked open and Matt turned, smiling faintly as he caught sight of her peeking in, backlit by the midday sunshine. \u201cHey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHey,\u201d Hecate echoed, smiling back. \u201cCame up to see if you wanted to come to help with lunch. We\u2019re going to start cooking soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s we?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMarin and I and Rory,\u201d she said. \u201cHe took a deer this morning and he and Tala have a roast butchered. We\u2019re going to start that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matt straightened, glancing back at the metal in the forge. \u201cYeah,\u201d he said. \u201cLet me wrap up here. I\u2019ll be down after.\u201d<\/p>\n

She smiled and brightly, nodding. \u201cAll right. We\u2019ll see you in a few.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d He watched her as she ducked back out into the summer sunshine, heart swelling up into his throat.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s so happy. Gods and monsters, I hope I can make sure she stays that way. I hope I can make that happen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Matt’s point of view.] The hammer rose and fell, rose and fell. Matt paused to work the bellows for a moment, then returned to his hammering, shaping a new blade\u2014though this one was for cutting grain, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,279,14],"tags":[150,171,170,194,181,149,148,168,147,165,146],"class_list":["post-3453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-29-book-6","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-hecate","tag-matthew-astoris","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-web-fiction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-TH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3454,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions\/3454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}