Iron

Author: Seth


"Keep it near your heart, always, for your heart is the one thing you must never let them steal."

Aurora sighed in relaxation as she sat down, resting her back against the gnarly trunk of a solid pine. Sometimes, after a long day of traveling, simply resting was as satisfying a pleasure as one would find anywhere else.

Looking about her in mild curiosity the young roujin took in their camping spot for the night. Not much to satisfy her wandering curiosity there; it was a small forest clearing, identical to all the others they had spent nights in many times before. Quickly growing bored with the bland scenery she instead turned her gaze to her companions. Blitz was already asleep – He'd been falling asleep the moment they set up camp ever since their encounter back in Genesis; it was starting to get very worrying – but Inferno…

"Hmmm? I've never seen that dagger before. Is it a new one?" Aurora asked as she watched him meticulously polish the plain, iron blade.

Inferno shook his head. "It isn't new." He eyed the oddly unexceptional knife critically before running his cloth around its hilt. "I've had it for… a long time."

"So why haven't I seen it before now?" Aurora tilted her head.

"I don't use it." Inferno answered simply.

Aurora blinked. That was odd. It wasn't like Inferno to carry a weapon (And painstakingly maintain, if the care he was showing it right now was any indicator) and yet never use it. The tsumejin was practical if nothing else.

"… And why don't use it?" The blue haired girl asked the obvious question.

"I've never had cause to use it." Inferno shrugged, giving the dagger a final once over before stowing away his cleaning cloth.

Aurora's eyebrows knit together in confusion. Never had cause to use it? There'd been plenty of times when her younger friend had been forced to fight with the pair of steel daggers that lay against his waist even now, so why did he never use this blade? She said as much.

"This dagger isn't for killing humans, or animals." Inferno said, returning the knife to a shoulder strap holster he kept under his shirt, one Aurora hadn't known he'd had. "Well, possibly that creature we encountered back in Genesis, but that was a special case."

'Not for killing humans, and not for killing animals…' Aurora thought, adding the tidbit about the 'Special case' to the mental mix. 'Well that cat… dragon… gerbil… whatever it was certainly wasn't an ordinary creature, so… things that are out of the ordinary?' The blue haired girl's gaze transferred over to Inferno's primary daggers. 'It's made of iron, but his other ones are made of steel… Iron… Iron for strange creatures, for unnatural creatures…' A recent memory floated to the fore of the girl's thoughts, an image of a horseshoe hung above a door. 'For… supernatural creatures…?'

Aurora looked back up at Inferno's face, a bemused expression on her own.

"I didn't know you believed in those stories." Aurora said.

"I grew up with them." Inferno said by way of explanation.

Aurora nodded in understanding. She herself retained certain eccentricities from her childhood. To this day she wouldn't go within ten feet of a banatopus if she could help it.

Closing her eyes Aurora sought out the peaceful land of dreams, idly thinking about how much she continued to learn about her two closest friends each and every day.