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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/BlueFishcake on 2024-09-15 13:20:50+00:00.

Piper was an alchemist. A fairly talented one at that. She was the one who invented Bear-Blood after all.

Prior to her enrolment in the alchemist’s guild, the venerable guild had been churning out a variant of Earth-Blood that did little more than burn hotter and longer. In short, a slight improvement on the base asset of the substance at a ruinous cost in reagents.

Ever-Burn, they’d called it.

The Navy named it Demon-Piss.

Personally, Piper thought the latter name more apt. After all, what else could one name a substance that had an unfortunate tendency to spontaneously ignite when unduly jostled? Just transporting the damnable substance from a ship’s reinforced storage locker carried risk – let alone loading it into a drop-pot, mounting it onto a shard’s underside before then carrying it into battle.

Sure, it was powerful – and woe be to any bucket-brigade or hose-handler set to put out the blazes it created – but the cost in friendly ships and shards destroyed due accidental mishandling or enemy action wasn’t worth it.

At least in the eyes of the Royal procurement committee and many ducal martials.

‘A weapon better suited to the barbarism of the old continent,’ was a line she vividly recalled from her days as a young journeywoman.

Personally, she was of the belief that the damnable substance’s infamous reputation was a large part of the reason for why the invention of carrier-airships was delayed. No captain wanted to helm a vessel expected to carry so much Demon-Piss in its hold.

So, she’d been the one to invent an alternative. One that went against both tradition and methodology. Rather than try to reinforce the nature of a thing, she sought to contradict it by layering two concepts over one another by finding a substance that embodied the contrasts she’d needed.

And she succeeded.

Eventually.

Bear-Blood was an improvement in all regards.

A nuanced mixture of Earth-Blood, bear fangs and gold flakes, the alchemical solution rendered Earth-Blood’s inherent fiery nature inert and safe to transport – until the thick oily substance’s fury needed to be awakened into a fiery cataclysm. Not unlike a hungry bear awakening from winter.

Hibernation was the concept.

Naturally, the Royal Navy had been incredibly interested in a weapon that wasn’t just stable, but actively inert until salmon eggs were added to the mixture. Indeed, it didn’t take long for Bear-Blood to become a staple of Lindholmian navies. And while that alone had not been enough to elevate her to the position of Guildmaster, it certainly paved the way.

Which was all a very long-winded way of saying that Piper was a very good alchemist – and thus why it was so annoying that these days she seldom got to perform any actual alchemy.

Or even oversee it.

Because her boss seemed to think her some kind of jack-of-all-trades who was quite happy to oversee any and every project taking place in the many workshops that populated his domain.

That she was actually qualified to do so didn’t make it any less annoying.

“Steady,” she commanded. “You’re spreading your focus too thin. I can see deformation in the left wing. We’re just expanding the cockpit, don’t let your mind wander.”

And that was fortunate, because Piper had seen the designs for the new wings, and complicated didn’t even begin to describe them.

Forget the insanity that was taking out all but the front ballast – which they were filling with water for some deep-forsaken reason - what kind of madman decided to design wings that fold?

The one she was working for apparently.

“Yes ma’am,” the half-elven mage-smith she was speaking to nodded, though she kept her eyes closed.

All the better to help visualize the changes she was trying to make to the frame of the shard on her right, her hand pressed against the wing on her left, her magic requiring a physical connection to the metal she was trying to shape.

Something Piper knew because she’d spent many a month doing the exact same kind of work – or otherwise tutoring her people on the subject.

Which was why the elven mage-smith’s other hand was pressed against the wing of a different shard on her right. The same Unicorn that was scheduled to be returned to the capital within the next fortnight. For now though, it was serving as a reference for the mage as the half-elf sought to replicate the shape of its cockpit and some parts of the body on the Drake on her left.

Even as Piper watched, the large block of aluminium that had been crudely welded to the body of the Drake shrunk, flowing into the frame of the Drake as the cockpit of the machine lengthened in time with the body.

Not perfectly though, she thought as she regarded a small divot that formed in the cockpit ring.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a huge issue and wasn’t worth reminding the girl of like she’d done with the wing. Imperfections like that were only to be expected where mage-smithing was concerned and was part of the reason why most mage-smiths had a small army of plebian blacksmiths and panel-beaters whose job it was to smooth away any such imperfections with more mundane tools.

Most, she thought again, her mind twisting towards a certain freak of nature who standing next to her watching the changes being made to the shard.

To her knowledge, William Redwater’s work, on those occasions he stepped into one of the many workshops in his domain, was to quote one of the mage-smiths she’d spoken to on the matter, ‘flawless’.

Not good. Not great. Flawless.

That was not a word any mage-smith she knew would use lightly. Not in a vocation for whom flaws were an unavoidable reality. Admittedly, the young woman she’d spoken to was exactly that, young, but the fact remained that William’s talent was rather… unnatural.

So much so that she almost wanted to ask why he had one of his subordinates working on such a critical piece of his burgeoning military rather than doing it himself. Because it was obvious it was important to him, otherwise he wouldn’t be present to watch.

She said nothing though.

Instead, the two stood in relative silence as over the next few minutes the frame of the Drake twisted until it was a warped mirror of the Unicorn next to it.

Even ignoring the myriad small imperfections in the former-Drake’s frame, the Unicorn it was at least partially based on had a back-mounted propeller, while the new one had an opening at the front for said propeller instead. Indeed, that was but one of the many small changes her lord had insisted on, resulting in a frame that was both similar to the Unicorn and yet strikingly different.

“Excellent work,” Piper congratulated as the mage-smith finally took her hands off the machines, opening her slightly bloodshot eyes to smile at her ‘superior’.

“M-my thanks, ma’am,” the girl smiled at her, before bowing to the count. “To you and the lord both, for giving me this opportunity.”

Piper simply nodded back. “You earned it.”

And that was the truth. The half-elf was the most talented mage-smith of the crop the Queen had sent their way. Which was a fairly high bar to reach in truth. None of them had much in the way of experience – hence why Piper had found herself in charge of… pretty much everyone despite being theoretically the head of the Alchemist’s alone – but they were all the definition of hungry young talents.

Hunger that had been stoked to new heights by their lord’s development of the long-desired interrupter gear. Which had no doubt been part of his plan.

Indeed, she turned to her lord expecting him to say some words of his own, only to find the boy had barely even heard the words of the young mage.

No, his focus was entirely on the frame of the newly formed frame in front of him, a hint of something akin to… nostalgia in his eyes.

Then the moment passed and he snapped out of it.

“Yes, excellent work,” he said quickly, before turning his gaze to the other occupants of the room, pitching his voice to be better heard. “In fact, let me speak to all of you when I say that though the task set before you was difficult, each and every one of you has surpassed my wildest expectations in a very short timeframe. And though the work on this new design has scarcely begun, it forms an incredible foundation for what is yet to come. I have not a doubt in my mind that, before the month is through, this new design will be soaring through the skies, carrying the next generation of shard-pilots with it.”

The small speech got an equally small smattering of applause. Something the boy clearly noticed as his smile became a little stiff, but to his credit he managed not to let it show before he turned to her, even as the mage-smith from before limped away with some help from her assistant.

“So, did I say something wrong just then or is there a morale issue I’m ignorant of?” he asked quietly.

Ignoring the momentary flush that threatened to slip across her features at the sensation of an attractive young man whispering in her ear, she made a so-so gesture.

“Mostly the former and a little of the latter,” she said, making him raise an eyebrow before she explained. “The news of who exactly will be piloting the new craft has begun to make the rounds.”

And given that just about every mage-smith in existence wanted to be a mage-knight at some point in their lives, the rumour that a bunch of mundanes might be being elevated to the rank before them was definitely a sore spot.

Piper knew she’d felt a prick of an old emotional wound s...

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