Cruelness is attractive. When women in black are cruel to me I feel weak.

"Huh?" The audible grunt of confusion comes from a giant orc staring at a growing fire. She shakes her head and notices the hammer held tightly in her scarred right hand, familiarity adds softness to her face, as she looks at it and feels the worn grooves with her fingers.

Did I sleepwalk? She thought confused. She closed the window, set the down hammer on the anvil, she walked to her small room at the back of the shop.

Gwr'ythn, or Gwyn to those who couldn't speak her mother tongue, didnt often wear clothes to bed, more accurately she didnt wear clothes as much as possible. Laundry being a chore she hated the most since she was little. She prefered to sleep without any bindings. She felt the sudden urge to open her sleepware drawer and make rags

The loud Ripping noises brought satisfaction. She didn't understand why it had taken until now to get rid of them all. She never wore them. Her hands easily shredded the nightware without any effort. 

Gwyn paused as her hands touched rough sewn fabric different very different from all the soft feminine silky things she had destroyed before. The rough cloth was brought up to her face, and she inhaled deeply, the faintest smell of home, her true home. The home that was lost. She held in her hands the last thing that remained of home. A sleeveless nightdress, several sizes too small. She had been wearing that, and only that the night she ran. The night her mother died.

She tossed the newly made rags into the corner, unsure where to put and use them. The hamper by the door for laundry day unexpectedly had a few pairs of sleepware in it, she never wore clothes to bed, so she tore up those too. Reluctantly gwyn put on clothes to work in the forge in case anyone came this early. The town of Vale required wearing them, such puritanical views. She pulled on the cotton breeches she had worn yesterday, donned the heavy soot-stained brown leather blacksmithing apron over bare breasts, her [heat resistance] skill was high enough to forgo gloves at least. One less thing to wear and washing. She shuddered.

Re-entering the shop section the smallfolk wares were all still displayed in a pleasing manner: iron swords, iron axes, a copper banded wooden mallet, and a half dozen shields. The more exotic wares were displayed on the back wall behind the small counter. There glimmered by firelight four black mirror obsidian daggers and one steel longsword.

Gwr'ythn mumbled a prayer to the deities and turned off her muted system notifications. Perhaps there was a log or new sleepwalking affliction.

[You exude an moderate aura of warmth and comfort. Those in your presence find you warm and comfortable. Moderate temperature control effect to the ambient physical temperature if below the threshold.]

Gwyn stared at her notification screen and muttered: "I could have sworn that was at level 8 yesterday, now its capped?" What is going on here? Hellfire and sootstains Trying to remember what she did yesterday felt like pulling teeth. With no answers forthcoming and her [metal sense] passive skill letting her know that her forge temp was aproaching perfect for steel range, Gwyn grabbed the tongs off the handmade rack and pulled out the cherry red steel ingot, her skill giving her an ache feeling finding it riddled with impurities.

Her right arm pull back definition highlighting each major muscle in stark contrast. Bulging biceps, tremendous triceps and boulder shoulders used to holding the anvil hammer of the trade.

The hammer fell for Gwyn in a beautiful staccato, the heavy blacksmith hammer is easily hefted by the mountain of muscle up, and gravity does most of the work down.

With every blow it is slowly flattened and straightened for the folding process before starting over again.

Gwyns mind wandered and she continues beating the impurities out of the steel. In the firelight she sees a flash of: A malicious smile of a women reflected in a steel dagger

Murmured sounds that feel as real as the hammer she's holding

Stern eyes. Angry eyes. Weak

Painted red lips in an predatory grin.

*****

With finality the custom steel head combining the properties of a stonelayers bush hammer with a traditional warhammer spike head was finished using up the rest of her steel supply. A pet project she had been designing and mulling over for the last year.

Grabbing the biggest tongs Gwyn picked up the head the size of a smallfolk with nary a grunt moved it to a ceramic basin and quenched it in shale elemental oil.

[You've learned the skill diplomatic haggling (Merchant Skill)

Skill set at 1

[When making a trade of services/goods with someone, they will be in a imperceptibly better mood after the deal is finalized.]

"Odd skill" she rumbled.

Gwyn wiped the sweat off her brow, went to the back room and peeled off her sweat drenched clothes work clothes. The lightness of her coin pouch on the mantle is the reason she used the last of her steel today forging herself a new hammerhead. She locked up, it was too ambitious to think there would be a break of dawn customer.

If I get lucky today maybe I'll sell enough to afford some buloke wood from the druids to the south for the haft.

****

Lye soap and Towel in hand, Gwyn stepped out into the midmorning light naked to the sun out of the back entrance.

Gwyn offers a mumbled prayer to the sun god: "That in the light of sunlight may she sell some wares today."

Standing two to three times the height of a small folk, walking through Vale was always an exercise in watching where she stepped, and climbing down the steep rock path behind her smithy to the river was no exeption.

But once she was at the riverbank she could look out and marvel at the sights and sounds. The sun was in full view casting everything in brilliant oranges, dragonflies flit around and frogs croaked and tried to catch them. Running water and the gentle creaking of her small water wheel delighted the ear. Her smithy and store were the pride and joy of her life. Hand-built, took her a year and numerous promises of sales to understandably weary smallfolk for traded services.

****

She soaped up. Starting with her chest, despite the muscle, Gwyn still had a bit of fat on her, heritage from her mother. The soft things on her chest were much happier being unbound like this. Chest wraps must have been invented in the demon plains, to make the women feel the embrace of death. She snorted to herself humourously.

The floral scented lye ash soap was harsh on the nose, but made living in a smallfolk town much easier. Smallfolk didn't like Orcish pheromones. She learned that the hard way when she had to ask why people held their nose around her after she first arrived.

Her mother would beat her green skin brown if she knew what she was doing. If she were still alive.

Smallfolk needed to smell and look like flowers, such silly customs.

The soap ran rivulets down the trails of her muscle definition, over sensitive nipples, turbulent over her washboard abs, creased over her obliques, over her hairless sex and down the definition from her thighs till finally meeting the water at her knees.

An unbidden thought told her to touch herself. So she did. Her gray eyes looked around between the hour of the morning and her isolation at the edge of town she could give herself some extra needed attention. 

Hee mind wandered at her ministrations, with fingers slick with soap. She thought of a harsh mistress and her lash as she posed naked like a statue for her. Her size and muscles greater than all the statued adonises in their cities. One of the last large folk Orcs.

I've never been prideful. she shamefully thought, but I've always been like this. Shameful, being weak to harsh women and their demands.

Shaking her head, tightly wound beaded dreads tinkled.

Returning to the smithy, Gray eyes lingered on her imperfections as she stood in front of the mirror polished steel shield she had made for a mirror, the thin scars on her face from being ambushed dungeon delving, the burns on her arms from her early failures in becomming a [Blacksmith], and the scars on her body from war. Forcing herself to smile instead, for a good day; one she had prayed for. Gwyn dressed herself begrudgingly in chest wraps, and her cleanest sunflower floral dress. Stepping over the pile of rags and wishing her clothing was leathers and forged plate armor, to better arm herself against the world, the only clothes she had ever felt comfortable in.

She opened the awning to let the sun in before customers arrived, hopefully she would have some today, her mind on scavenging and dungeon diving

"Ho! There Gwyn" old Peat crested the hill as she was looking out. Her bittersweet forced smile turned genuine, Old Peat was one of the smallfolk who had helped her the most when she was getting settled. He was one of the biggest advocates for her. Her closest friend. Not many smallfolk trusted a [Barbarian] Orc who showed up on their doorstep dressed in rags, and Scrap steel with Mistwell Mountain dungeon soot in her hair and dried blood under her nails. He helped her prove herself to the townsfolk when she finally gathered and pronounced slowly and shyly the words to tell them she could smith. He had loaned her an old anvil and hammer. She had used it to built the forge. Nothing but good memories.

"How can I help you today Peat?" She carefully pronounced the words slowly taking time to not trip over tongue or tusks.

Peat looked up at her and grinned: "I seem to remember you have a wooden mallet for sale."

"I do, copper banded, and in your size." Gwyn replied slowly, come in, come in. I was just about to break my fast and have som ras... rasth...berry leaf tea."

"That sounds lovely Gwyn, I'd love to."

Gwyn pulled down the mallet, set it on the counter, busied tidying up for breakfast and company. Set two chairs (one small and one big) walked into the bedroom and started gathering cured meat, a cut wheel of cheese on a platter. "Vat do vous neeth it for!" She called out from her room using one of the coarse absorbant rags on the floor as a kettle cozy.

"Well" he called back "I'm building a fence around the farm to keep out Samwell's damn flower eating goats, I keep catching them eating my petunias!"

****

She had just finished putting away the tiny chair smiling to herself. Old Peat really was a lovely neighbour and friend. She turned around to wash the food board.

And was startled when she saw someone at the counter. A medium folk, so either a human (more common) or an immortal elf (she'd never seen one before). Oh soot, it's a woman. Damnit, I'm going to be all shy and tongue twisted.

With a blush that made her jade skin look like tree leaves, she approached the counter so she stood across from this elf, she was an elf. "Umm.. hello". Gwyn stammered the sound like rocks breaking and she met her eyes.

The elf, She, stood there and time froze, all Gwyn could do was watch her, breathe her in, for no explicable reason, this woman felt incredibly familiar, half her size and maybe a quarter of her weight, but in that frozen moment Gwyn felt insignificant and that terrified her.

The black richly embroidered corsetted dress that she saw flashes of in memory, her snow pale skin visible only at the jaw and head. The square jawed angular face looked sharp enough to cut, her age impossible to gauge since she looked like a teen in the way all elves look, or so Gwyn thought. That malicious smirk and red painted lips.