When Mark looked up from his sword, he realized that the entire smithy was steaming. It looked like the forge had gotten too hot or something as all of the wood was giving off the accumulated water it had stored since the last time this had happened.
Mark just shrugged as he turned to Anabel who was less frantic, seeing as how Mark was responsive now.
"Mark! Are you ok? It looks like the smithy is going to catch on fire! Are you hurt from the heat? Do I need to get the witch woman?"
While Anabel had calmed down, she still seemed a bit frantic as she shot off question after question as she was still yelling at Mark from a distance. Mark set down the sword on his black anvil and walked over towards Anabel while answering her.
"Anabel, everything is fine. The forge just gets too hot sometimes as causes the wood to steam like that. Don't worry, the wood is made from branches of the elder tree that fell in the past. The entire village could get consumed in a firestorm and the smithy would still be standing."
Anabel walked toward Mark seeing that the wood began to stop steaming since the head had died down.
"I am not worried about the smithy! What about you? How can you be in that intense heat and still be fine? And you still have eyebrows!"
Mark was visibly confused at this point as he replied.
"I work in the smithy every day next to the high heat? As I said earlier, this has happened before and the heat is not an issue for me since I have had to tolerate it for many years now."
After calming down and accepting the explanation Mark gave her about his condition, she remembered the amazing light show she got to see before it became too hot for her to continue sitting at her spot. She then began to press him about magic once again.
"You said that what you are doing here is not magical but how do you explain all the different colors of flames that came off of the sword this time?"
Mark thought about the way the sword looked currently and after thinking about what she was asking he managed to come up with a good idea of what had happened.
"If the flames were all different colors, maybe it has to do with the alloy the metal is made of. When it cools down I will show you what I mean, but the sword is made of many differently colored alloys and I bet the flame color depends on the alloy that is being struck."
Anabel shook her head in protest as she pressed on, "But sometimes the flames were many different colors at once!"
To which Mark replied, "Actually that makes sense, given the current state of the sword."
Anabel was not convinced, but Mark could tell that his explanation had done well to alleviate some of her concern about magic. While he could not remember well the visions he had while working on the blade, he could remember them as a distant dream and he did consider that something magical was happening but the results of his work always seemed normal to him.
Anabel walked over to the forge with him as the heat dissipated and when she laid her eyes upon the sword she gasped.
Mark picked up the bent and bowed sword with several chips and cracks running up and down the length and width of the blade as he turned to Anabel.
"I must have done something wrong when I was affixing the alloy this time because this is not how my blades look when I am done. But as you can see, the colors of the alloy all run together in a mess that should have become one solitary color but instead this time they fought me and the blade is basically ruined."
Anabel looked at the poor condition of the blade and noticed all the different colors of the metals that the blade was made of.
"You're right, those metal colors do look similar to the colors of the flames that came off of your hammer. I guess the metal does affect the color of the flames when you are working on it, but it does really look magical when it is happening. Especially considering the light the crystal of that hammer gives off, the whole thing is like a big magical firey show!"
Mark noticed that Anabel was getting excited the more she talked about the forging process, and he could relate. The forge always looked magical to him too, and he felt he had a good understanding of why Anabel had begun to watch him work. Of course, he was wrong in his assumptions but it would take him a long time to understand why a pretty girl would hang around a smelly hot forge all day.
Mark put his project sword to the side as he sighed and looked over to the sun that was approaching the tips of the mountain tops in the distance. He cleaned up the forge and smothered the flames before turning to Anabel who was back in her normal spot.
"I am going to end the day here early. It has been eventful but I bet you are hungry, so let's go get some more food from that old crazy lady?"
Anabel grew a large smile on her face at the suggestion and agreed with Mark that food at this time would be nice. They quickly made their way to town, with Anabel clinging to Mark's arm again which Mark had grown accustomed to at this point.
The village folk still turned their heads and gossiped at their passing, which Anabel seemed to enjoy and Mark was still oblivious to. Mark did feel them watching him pass, but he was already used to it since, even before Anabel started bringing him into the village more often, he showed up so rarely that his presence always garnered attention.
They quickly found the caravan with the crazy old lady and a few people were already being attended to so the couple had to order from a table with a waiter. The crazy old lady could be seen cooking behind the makeshift counter next to her wagon. Since she was busy, no one had to endure her rambling as they consumed their food.
Anabel suggested a different meal for them this time since Mark had rarely gotten to consume beef and he couldn't remember the last time he ate some from the caravans.
"I think some spiced beef and veggies would be a good meal for dinner, it comes with a bed of rice and different dipping sauces. What do you think Mark?"
Mark trusted Anabel to pick out the food since she did a great job the last time and replied affirmatively, "I think that sounds great, let's get it ordered."
The waiter nodded and wrote down their order before clipping it to a line that was over the cooking area where the old lady was working at. She had her back to the customers so she didn't know that Anabel had shown up with Mark again, so she just kept working hard to get the orders out.
More people soon gathered at the makeshift restaurant and the old lady was swamped with orders, so Mark and Anabel ate their food and left without incident. They said their goodbyes as they approached the road that split their journey and Mark made his way home for the night.
The sun had already gone down below the mountains and darkness had taken over the village so Mark just went straight to bed as he thought about how he would fix his sword.
'It should be salvageable as long as I continuously heat it and hammer it back into shape. I'll add more alloy as needed and try to mold it into a proper blade. If finesse didn't work the first time, then I will just have to utilize brute force over a long period of time. The heating and cooling should allow the whacked-out alloy to rearrange into a favorable formation. . .'
His last thoughts as he drifted into a dark dreamless sleep were about how he could improve his craft so he could create the perfect blade.