Bevel’s request to hold the sword had several factors behind it.

The first, and most obvious, (at least to her,) was that if Oltras could use the smoke sword to talk to Equilibrium, then maybe Bevel could use it to talk to Inertia.

Which’d be fraying awesome!

The second, was that maybe she’d be able to use it the same way she had the strange gravity enchantment, to learn more about her Wind Within. It felt like it was right on the verge of a breakthrough, and Papa had told her that at her current tier, experimentation was supposed to give her the most growth.

This seemed like a great way to experiment!

And then there was her third reason. It was the least important, but that didn’t mean it was any less of a factor. Bevel wanted to be able to swing the smoke sword around, just like uncle Calbern or Xelinda. While Xelinda was even more stone-faced than her sister, who was made out of actual stone, the way she handled her sword was so cool.

Not as cool as her Papa when he got serious, with those narrowed eyes and slight frown. He didn’t do it often, but when he did, everyone knew not to get in his way.

Honestly, Bevel had the coolest Papa ever! Not that she’d tell him that.

But still… even if Xelinda wasn’t as cool as Papa, she was the coolest woman Bevel knew!

And the sword was a big part of that.

A lot had passed through her mind prior to her request, but she’d thought it well reasoned.

While she’d thought the question well reasoned, the way that Oltras took half a step back, suddenly clutching the sword closer, implied she’d missed something.

Some invisible factor that made the whole enchantment implode on itself. Or request, in this case.

She’d been getting better at the whole people thing since Papa had taken her on as an apprentice. Or at least, she’d thought she had. Yet there were always moments like this that made her feel like she was still the little girl running around on the nets, avoiding everyone.

‘Come on down, wood rat. We won’t hurt you. Much.’

The old thought ran through her mind unprompted, and Bevel felt a sudden urge to run. To get away and hide where they couldn’t find her. But before that urge could get a grip on her thoughts, another replaced it.

Words that’d been a lot stronger since her and Papa had gone through Tender’s trial together.

‘Tackle it together?’

The words were a catalyst, that reminded her that she wasn’t that little girl anymore. That she wasn’t alone. Didn’t have to face things alone.

It hadn’t even been the first time he’d said it. Papa always said they’d do things together when she was struggling. Usually, it was just a way for him to hide how much he was helping her.

She hadn’t realized that until the trial.

Bevel kept the sudden torrent of emotions off her face as best she could while Oltras, Equilibrium and Inertia all vibrated words at each other that she couldn’t understand.

The fact the intrusive thoughts were occurring less frequently almost made it harder when they did come, so she was glad they were distracted.

Finally, it seemed that whatever mistake Bevel had made had been smoothed over as Oltras turned back to her.

Its hand wavered as it held out the sword, which the being had been using to communicate with just seconds before. “Equilibrium believes that this will be a most intriguing experiment.”

The translator’s words were mostly smooth, only turning into a discordant mess when it said the word experiment.

“Cool,” Bevel said, accepting the sword without hesitation. Apparently she hadn’t messed up after all.

The moment it was in her hand, she felt a faint resonance with her Wind Within. The blade wasn’t the wind, but it wasn’t entirely apart from it either.

Bevel gave the blade a quick slash through the air, doing her best to mimic one of the swings she’d seen Xelinda make when practicing with the training guards.

It was embarrassing how much the blade wobbled. Perhaps if she hadn’t been using her Wind Within, she wouldn’t have noticed how awkward the motion had been.

Unfortunately, she had.

Grimacing, Bevel tried again, this time using her Wind to help steady the blade. By the time she made her fifth strike, she was nodding, the blade slicing smoothly through the air with only a faint whistle.

Which was when Inertia said, “Hit,” releasing a huge cloud of steam as she tapped her own chest.

Looking between the blade and her large friend, Bevel’s face lit up.

It was a very sturdy looking blade, so Bevel wasn’t too worried about breaking it. And of course, Bevel wasn’t worried about hurting Inertia. Even if she used all her Wind, winding it up into a drilling piercer bolt, Bevel wouldn’t be able to get past her friend’s armor.

So she stepped forward and swung without hesitation.

The blade didn’t just bounce off. It didn’t even make contact with Inertia.

As it drew close, the smoke resonated with Inertia’s mumbling, and for a second, Bevel thought she could almost understand her.

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Then the blade slid past, as if the murmuring had convinced it that it shouldn’t strike her.

So… fraying… awesome!

Holding the blade up again, Bevel swung again, this time slower, concentrating on the interaction between the smoke and Inertia’s murmuring. It almost felt like-

She was distracted from her moment of clarity by a rattling noise from Equilibrium. The large bear-machine’s spine was letting out a series of tiny puffs of steam. Yet Bevel could sense the underlying murmuring, and it was just like Inertia’s when she was amused.

The bear-machine was laughing at her!

Despite knowing it was a bad idea, Bevel couldn’t quite stop herself from swinging the blade at him, too.

This only caused him to laugh harder as the blade bounced off his knee. It hadn’t been the resonance, it’d just been completely ineffective against the thick armor.

After a second, Bevel started chuckling too. Then Inertia.

Only poor Oltras was left out.

When their mirth cleared, the bear-clanger let out a low growl, which seemed to startle Oltras, given the way it took two steps to the side.

Then the translator turned towards Bevel.

“Equilibrium…” Oltras said, its voice crackling so badly that the words became complete nonsense. It took a moment, hood bowing low for a few seconds before it straightened, placing its hands behind its back. “Equilibrium has decided that I am to teach you how to use the Peace blade properly.”

Bevel blinked, struggling to understand the warbling words, the sword lowering until it was nearly touching the ground.

Then once she deciphered its meaning, she pumped a hand in the air, leaving the floor behind by a few more feet than she’d meant to. “Yessss!”

The next hour was spent with Oltras demonstrating all the tricks to the Peace blade, continually reminding her that was its name, not a smoke sword. Despite her best efforts, it was getting increasingly frustrated the entire time, judging by how often it lost control of its voice.

Bevel wasn’t sure why. She was picking everything up pretty quickly she thought.

“This… this is one of the more advanced techniques,” Oltras said, its hood shifting towards where Equilibrium was still talking with Inertia. “It took me many star cycles to master. Doing so was the final skill required to earn my cloak and become a Translator.”

Bevel wasn’t exactly sure how long a star cycle was. She figured maybe it was a few minutes, since that was how long it took her to master most of the other tricks.

Her gaze followed Oltras’.

Inertia and Equilibrium were talking about the fundamental properties of different rocks when subjected to intense pressure, if there was a very high Star mana concentration in the area. They were disagreeing about the appropriate methods to isolate the Star mana, if they wanted to make something that was unattuned.

Bevel wasn’t sure how she felt about understanding them so clearly. On the one hand, it was fraying awesome!

On the other, it was super wicker cool!

At least, she was pretty sure that’s how Papa said it.

Every time Bevel had mastered one of Oltras’ tricks, it’d gotten easier for her to understand what the clangers were saying. Bevel wasn’t sure how that worked, but she’d already realized Oltras was kinda bad at its job. The translator could barely follow their real conversation, and only ever seemed to understand the clangers if they murmured really slowly.

But everyone was stupid sometimes.

Even Papa and Bevel.

Like when the translator had been trying to show her how to cycle the Smoke around the edge of the blade. Bevel had kept trying to avoid mixing her Wind Within with the smoke.

Then it’d explained that was exactly what she was supposed to be doing.

She’d been stupid for a whole fifteen minutes!

While she waited for Oltras to recover from his latest distraction, she ran her magic through the edge of the blade again, causing the smoke to fall into the jagged edged pattern that’d taken her so long to get right. It looked a bit like one of the saws the Tethered used on the trees, though the teeth were rotating a lot faster.

‘I wonder if we could make something like this for the foresters? Seems like it’d be useful. Could we use heartwood for it? That’d probably separate wood with less tearing. Didn’t Papa have drawings for something like that? A chainsaw, right?’ Bevel was so lost in her thoughts, she almost missed when Oltras started explaining the next step to her.

“Sorry, I’m supposed to do what?” Bevel asked, looking down at the blade. Surely the translator had just gotten the words wrong. It kept doing that with Equilibrium.

“You need to cut your arm with the blade, infusing it,” Oltras said, its voice surprisingly steady.

“Nope, next,” Bevel said, shaking her head. If her Papa was there, and he said it was okay, Bevel would’ve done it. Without him around, she wasn’t hurting herself.

That was one of his only rules.

“But… but…” Oltras’s voice grew into a discordant mess of noise so painful that even Equilibrium complained.

He did so with a growl, one that instantly caused Oltras to freeze, as if he’d been struck by Vaserra’s ice lance.

Then the bear-clanger looked towards Bevel, telling Oltras that it was time for her to give it the blade back, since the training was clearly affecting Oltras poorly.

Before Oltras could translate the first sylable, Bevel sheathed the blade and handed it back to him, looking down at the street. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

She hadn’t realized her keeping the blade was upsetting him! She thought it was because she was struggling so much. Why hadn’t it just told her?

Oltras didn’t take the blade immediately, simply staring at Bevel for several seconds as her cheeks got warmer and warmer.

Then it seemed to recover, snatching the blade out of her hand, its entire body relaxing.

Bevel was still staring at the floor of the forge pit when a heavy hand fell on her shoulder.

Inertia let out the word, “Build,” but even without the Peace blade, Bevel could still understand the murmur beneath.

And Inertia’s idea sounded amazing!

“Yes! I definitely want to make my own!”

The murmur had asked Bevel if she was interested in making her own Peace blade. When Inertia suggested the idea, Bevel had first thought her clanger friend meant after they got back to Tetherfall.

But Inertia nodded, laughing softly while whistle hissing, murmuring about needing a proper forge. She enlisted Equilibrium’s assistance and stepped into the busy street. Between two Forgeborn requesting a forge and materials, it didn’t take long before Bevel was building a Peace blade of her own.

With Inertia and Equilibrium both offering their murmurs of advice as she worked, of course.

Using the forge with actual Forgeborn and her magic to assist was a lot easier than doing it in the trial had been. Inertia even did the initial shaping for her, since Bevel wasn’t nearly strong enough to handle it without the Wind Within, which she was trying to let recover since she’d used a bunch learning how to use the Peace blade.

Still, once it came time for the important parts, the enchantments and the fine details, Bevel had her chance to really make it her own.

After all, if she’d learned one thing from Papa, it was that you could always redesign it to be better!

Okay, she’d learned a lot more than that from Papa, but the rest of it wasn’t important at the moment.

By the time she was done, it wasn’t a proper Peace blade. Technically, those were designed to work specifically with a Myrian’s unique magics. Which Bevel thought was strange, since she’d been able to use it well enough.

As evening approached, Bevel’s Peace blade neared completion. Inertia and Equilibrium had both murmured about how it was a little rushed, but neither had offered any criticism or suggested she slow down, so she’d continued.

It was only as she finished the final enchantment that she realized she had a problem. A very big one.

“It needs a name,” Bevel said, holding the blade up for the clangers’ inspection.

They clanged, rattled, hissed and murmured over her blade while she thought. It needed a good name. Something strong. Not like one of uncle Calbern’s names.

What would Papa name it?

Wait. That was it!

“I know,” Bevel said, holding her Peace blade into the sky, jagged teeth whirring. “Powerful Artifact of Peaceful Annihilation!”

The literal explosion from the forge across the street seemed like much harsher criticism than the name deserved.