A Blacksmith Bedtime Story

Seeing as the theme is the common folk this week, I'd like to give my first shot at writing for this sub with a Nord bedtime story!

“Papa, can you tell me a story?”

“Of course, my little one. What kind of story would you like?”

“One about your work, Papa.”

“Alright, my boy. I think that tonight I’ll tell you the story that your grandpapa told me when I was but a wee lad. It’s about a blacksmith, just like me, who decided to go on an adventure. Blacksmiths don’t usually adventure, you know. But good old Skaldir Thunderarm wasn’t your usual smith.”

“What made him different, papa?”

“Skaldir Thunderarm had a very big dream.”

The first day of Frostfall started very normal for Skaldir Thunderarm. He woke up at the crow of the rooster, like every smith. This Morndas, though, Skaldir had a queer feeling in his belly, one that even his morning mead couldn’t shake off.

Skaldir decided to get to work, so he could force the feeling in his belly to go away. Skaldir, like a lot of smiths, had a personal project on the go; the thinnest dagger any smith had ever made. (You’re a good Nord, though, boy, so you shouldn’t mess about with little daggers. I’ll make something fit for a Nord for you!)

Skaldir’s dagger wasn’t quite a success. It would always snap, no matter how well he made it. So Skaldir was always on the lookout for new ores to make his daggers out of. Iron was no good, and steel no better. He had tried moonstones and quicksilver; both daggers had shattered, but Skaldir got quite good at making glass things along the way.

Adventurers would often stop by with tales of new places, and amazing treasures. As Skaldir mended blades and armor, he would often ask about new ores, and peculiar veins of ore. But, for a long time, years in fact, no adventurer brought any new tales.

One day, a beaten, bloody, and bruised Dunmer staggered into Skaldir’s shop. Alarmed, Skaldir almost yelled out, "What's a dirty dark elf doing here?!" (Maybe I'm just adding that part.) Instead, Skaldir ran up to the Dunmer to stop him from falling. (Probably to keep elf blood off his nice wood floor.) The Dunmer was going to die, any man worth his salt could have seen that. But before the elf breathed his last, he said to Skaldir, "It's so cold," which wasn't really important, because it was winter. Any man worth his salt knows that Skyrim is cold in the dead of winter.

What was important is that as the elf fell dead, a shard of ice fell from his hand. Skaldir sighed to himself, and tossed the elf's body into the woods. But when he came back, he saw that the shard of ice hadn't melted, and was just quietly minding it's own business on the floor. So Skaldir picked it up, and noticed that it wasn't ice at all, even though it was cold. It was metal. And that made Skaldir's heart race faster than a saber cat with a skeever in its rear.

That same Morndas that Skaldir had a queer feeling, he walked out of his shop with his hammer in his hand and a leg of goat on his back, ready to find more of that ice-metal.

It took him a long time. Skaldir walked up and down Skyrim, from Morthal to Falkreath, Winterhold to Whiterun. He explored our ancestor's tombs, Dwarven ruins, and even climbed right up to the top of the Throat of the World to talk to the Greybeards. They took one look at his shard of ice-metal and pointed him toward the elf-island, Solstheim. So Skaldir hopped on a boat(not right from High Hrothgar, mind you), and made his way the island.

Skaldir had a hard time on Solstheim. The elves didn't like him, because elves don't like nobody, and Skaldir didn't like them setting up shop around all the barrows. So Skaldir decided to set off north, up the mountain, to see of he could find some ice-metal.

"Did he ever find any, papa?"

"Yes, he did, now let me finish!"

So, Skaldir found himself a good bunch of ice-metal, carved it up, and brought it with him all the way back home. When he stepped foot in his shop to clear out the squatters, it had been exactly twelve years since he left. It's important to remember that because it was exactly twelve years, it was winter when he finally got to forge some ice-metal.

Skaldir used up quite a bit of ice-metal while learning how to treat it, but at the end of a week he had just enough for his dream-dagger. And the lollygaggin' smith actually made it! He made the thinnest knife to ever exist. It was beautiful. Color of ice, whole way through, and it had lines on it like...well, never you mind what the lines on it were like.

Skaldir decided to go parade around town with his ice-dagger, to show all his blacksmith friends, and that was his second mistake. As he walked through town, and crossed the bridge, he managed to fall right over, and his ice-dagger fell right out of his hand into the freezing cold river! So he jumped right in after it. But it was gone. Skaldir froze through and died, too, but the point is, the dagger he worked hard on was gone. And there you have it.

"Oh...wait, papa, you said that going out was his second mistake. What was his first?"

"His first mistake was right in the beginning. Everyone knows that when you leave on a quest, you bring two legs of goat."

"I get it now, papa! Goodnight!"

"Goodnight, my boy."