The door was heavy.
Not physically—its surface shimmered with smoke and steel, folding in on itself like breath drawn through a chimney—but Loosie felt the weight of it in her chest. Like lifting a hammer too early in the day. Like waking from a dream you forgot to fear.
Mary had gone to the Garden Between Songs. Sera had returned from the Sky That Remembered. And now the Codex opened this door.
Hers.
Forged of heat and memory.
Of mistakes that glowed like fresh iron.
Of truths too hard to hold barehanded.
She looked once over her shoulder. The windmill stood calm, watching. The Codex in the Archivist's hands pulsed, steady.
Loosie exhaled, rolled her shoulders.
And stepped through.
The first thing she noticed was the ash.
It fell like snow, thick and soft, drifting across a sky bruised with old fires. The ground was cracked black stone, veined with glowing fault lines, as though the whole world pulsed with a forge's heartbeat.
She stood on a precipice overlooking a massive valley—a broken city lay below, its towers bent like half-melted blades, its streets littered with rust and soot. At its center stood a forge so vast it dwarfed mountains, its chimneys belching lightless smoke into the sky.
But the strangest thing?
It was all silent.
No hammering. No bellows. No flame crackling.
Just ash.
And the faint echo of her name, carried in the wind like coal-dust:
"Loosie…"
She tightened her grip on the hammer at her side.
The one she never remembered picking up.
As she made her way down the blackened hills, Loosie began to see figures—statues?—shaped from slag and memory. Some had her face. Others bore marks from her past: students she had taught, blades she had made, people she had armed.
One figure held a sword glowing faintly red.
Another had no weapon—only a hand outstretched, palm burned.
As she passed them, the air thickened. She could feel the questions pressing in.
"Was this one forged too sharp?"
"Did this blade fall into the wrong hands?"
"What happens when the hammer loves the shape more than the wielder does?"
She closed her eyes and muttered, "I made what was needed."
But the silence answered with doubt.
Not condemnation.
Just… weight.
At the center of the city, the massive forge loomed.
Its doors swung open as she approached—not with menace, but with familiarity. Like a hearth greeting someone long gone.
Inside, flames whispered in strange languages. Sparks floated like fireflies. And on the anvil stood a single sword: unfinished. Still glowing at the core.
It was hers.
She knew it instantly.
The blade she had never dared complete. The one she dreamed of, sometimes, when she thought about what it meant to make something final.
And beside it stood an old woman.
Muscular. Scarred. Dressed in soot and leather.
Loosie saw her and stopped short.
"…Mama?"
The woman turned slowly.
But her face was not her mother's.
It was hers.
Older. Hardened. Not cruel—but forged by time in ways Loosie hadn't yet lived.
"Not your mother," the woman said.
"But the part of you that remembers her fire."
Loosie stepped closer. "What is this place?"
The older self tapped the sword. "This is the Forge of the Unintended."
"We all have one," she added. "It's where the consequences of what we make are tempered."
The sword on the anvil pulsed.
It hummed in Loosie's chest like a half-formed truth.
"You never finished it," the older self said. "You were afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"That the blade would become something you couldn't take back."
Loosie looked around.
All her works. All the echoes of her choices.
The cities that had risen with her weapons.
And the ones that had fallen.
"I didn't make them to hurt anyone."
"No," her older self agreed. "But once forged, a blade is no longer yours. Its truth is shared."
Loosie swallowed.
"So what do I do?"
"You finish it. This time, knowing everything you know now."
Loosie approached the forge.
She picked up the tongs.
Set the blade in the flame.
And listened.
Not for metal cooling, or for the sizzle of flux—but for the voices.
The children who carried her daggers to guard their homes.
The tyrants who bought her swords at auction.
The rebels who etched her initials into shields they held high.
They didn't accuse.
They witnessed.
And the flame shifted.
Instead of red-orange heat, it turned gold.
Memory-fire.
It licked at the blade, whispering:
"Make me whole."
She struck with the hammer.
Once.
Twice.
Each blow rang out across the realm.
And with each, the weight in her chest lifted—not because the burden was gone.
But because she was finally sharing it.
When the forging was done, the blade lay on the anvil, gleaming silver-gold, its hilt wrapped in crimson thread.
It bore no runes.
No marks.
Only a single name etched on its fuller:
"Balance."
Loosie cradled it.
And for the first time in years, she wept.
Not because she had made something perfect.
But because she had made something true.
The path back to the door wound through the broken city.
But now, the statues had changed.
Not gone.
Just… different.
Some now held open books.
Others carried tools instead of weapons.
All bore the same quiet expression:
Recognition.
As she stepped back through the doorway, the ash no longer clung to her clothes.
Only the scent of steel.
And of something softer beneath it.
Possibility.
The windmill glowed faintly in the dusk.
Sera stood nearby, her hands stained with ink and starlight.
Mary sat by the roots of the great tree, playing a melody the wind seemed to harmonize with.
The Friend leaned against the stone gate, eyes closed, listening.
Loosie emerged.
Sword in hand.
Not raised.
Not hidden.
Just held.
Sera smiled. "Looks like you brought something back."
Loosie shrugged, eyes misty. "I didn't bring it. I made it right."
The others stepped forward.
They touched the blade.
And each felt it.
Not sharpness.
Not threat.
But balance.
The kind only earned.
The kind only carried by those who had walked through ash and memory and come back whole.
(Author here; Please leave comets and power stones)