Cenric's earliest memories have always been of comfort.
The warmth of the fire.
The soft amber light.
And the steady glow of the forge in his fathers workshop.
He often sat on the dusty stone floor of the forge in a posture no one had taught him, his legs folded neatly beneath him, back straight, hands resting on his thighs, watching the flames rise with every press of the bellows, the flames were mesmerising to him like watching people dance inside of a stage made of coal with walls of stone. The room was always filled with the smell of smoke and hot iron, when the breeze of the outside air passed through the windows the hanging tools clattered against one another, resonating and singing a song to accompany the flames.
"Cenric, you're too close to the fire again," his mother called as she walked over. She lifted him from the floor brushing the soot and dust from his clothes and hands with her apron. "You'll end up dirtying the house in soot before it's time for supper."
All he could do was to glance back at his father still working on a commission for the farmer up the path, A slight grin on his face knowing his son crawled away from his mother to watch him. Most children his age feared the heat of fire, but Cenric felt calm beside it. Warmth settled in his chest every time he watched the coals, almost like the forge itself was calling for him.
He didn't know why the forge felt so familiar, even though he was only three summers old. But whenever he looked into the flames, a quiet thought stirred inside him like a whisper he couldn't quite hear.
Now in the kitchen with his mother the smell of baking bread, flour and the scent of freshly cut apples filled the air, "what ever will I do with you Cenric, I take my eyes off of you for a moment and your in your fathers workshop again," His mother said to him whilst washing his hands with a damp rag, "I swear you must have more interest in that dirty workshop than eating sometimes."
The Ironson Forge
Bran Ironson's forge dominated the northern side of Harrofen village, a modest sized building of wood and stone with a prominent chimney seemingly always billowing smoke curling into the wind. Built by his late grandfather the forge has been the heart of the village, used by farmers and aristocrats alike. Day or night Cenric enjoyed the way the walls vibrated when his father hammered metal, a rhythmic pulse like the beating of a heart.
Today Brand was shaping horseshoes for the farmers across the way, sweat coating his arms Cenric sat quietly nearby, legs crossed watching every swing his father made watching the hammer turn a straight iron bar into a curved horseshoe.
Brand chuckled as he noticed his son's intense gaze, mimicking the action of swinging a hammer.
"Careful eyes you've got there lad," Brand chuckled, raising the hammer once more,
"You look like you're memorising the strikes,"
Cenric blinked.
Memorizing.
Yes… I suppose that's what it feels like.
Except he wasn't sure how he remembered half of the things he did. Sometimes when Brand lifted the hammer too early Cenric felt his tiny fingers twitch, as though his hand wanted to guide the strike. When his father pulled the red hot iron from the coals, he found himself instinctively knowing… Just knowing…. If the heat was wrong, if the colour of the iron was too dim to manipulate.
Brand often joked saying things like:
"Got a little smith trapped inside you, haven't you,"
Or "If were not careful the dwarves might just steal you from us,"
Ellyn said he smiled like a young lord trained for etiquette,
But Cenric didn't feel noble,
He felt… returned.
A Mind Too Sharp
When Cenric was still learning to talk, he once pointed at the forge bellows and mumbled.
"Air . . . . wrong"
His father could do nothing but stare at his son, baffled.
"Wrong? What do you mean 'wrong'?"
Cenric couldn't reply or explain to his father back then. He was still too young.
But months later, during a passing conversation Brand was having with one of the Village carpenters, he was discussing how the design of a new house wasn't taking airflow into account. So on a whim Brand adjusted the nozzle angle from the bellows inside the forge and suddenly the flames rose higher, hotter, Brand looked at his son, shaken and bewildered.
"How did the boy know that…?"
Ellyn Cenric's mother dismissed it as childish noticing, but more than once, the Villagers under muffled voices had mentioned that the Ironson's child "knew things" that no child should know at such a young age.
Children didn't instinctively know how a beam carried weight.
Children didn't glance at a tool and mutter "that handle will break soon"
Children didn't look at a loose nail in a marketplace stall and flinch as though remembering the consequence of a collapse they had never seen.
But Cenric did.
Even he didn't understand why.
Strange Little Habits
Cenric's oddities piled up quietly as he grew.
He always removed his boots before entering the house, lining them perfectly at the door.
Ellyn thought it was adorable at first.
Until she realised he did it regardless of the temperature, even if his feet were freezing.
He bowed slightly, respectfully whenever apologising, greeting someone older, or even thanking someone.
The villagers laughed,
Then whispered.
When he ate, he sat upright, back impossibly straight.
He held bread between two fingers like he was holding something delicate, something that would break if dropped.
He chewed quietly, politely whilst his father scoffed.
Before each meal, he murmured a soft phrase to himself, too quietly for anyone to hear or understand.
Ellyn once asked:
"What did you say dear?"
Cenric hesitated.
"I'm just . . just thanking the food"
Brand raised an eyebrow.
No one did that in Harrofen.
No one anywhere nearby did.
The Dream That Wasn't a Dream
Sometimes at night after his mother Ellyn would put him to bed, Cenric dreamt of shapes he couldn't name.
Tall frames made of metal.
Cold beams stretching through fog.
Masks over faces.
Fire brighter than his fathers forge ever witnessed.
And always
A voice calling his name.
Not Cenric.
Another name not in a language he has ever heard before.
A name he felt belonged to him… once.
He woke from these dreams with a jolt, like the panic one feels from nearly falling off of a tilted chair. His heart racing, the smell of smoke not quite matching his fathers forge but familiar nonetheless.
Ellyn would brush his hair gently and whisper to him,
"Bad dreams fade away with the morning light."
But this one didn't.
It lingered.
It followed him into daylight.
The Mark of Six
Cenric had been born with a strange faint shimmer across his skin, six pale lines like thin scars on his upper arm. Harmless, the midwife said to his mother, A birthmark.
Brand insisted it was of no concern, that they are hardly visible.
Ellyn prayed softly over them anyway just in case.
But when Cenric stood too close to the forge, the marks glowed faintly beneath the skin, just a flicker like warm embers.
No one noticed.
But cenric did.
Whenever they glowed, he felt a whisper of something ancient.
Not words, but feelings:
-Purpose
-Learning
-Memory
-Craft
-Oath
-Rebirth
He didn't understand these feelings.
He was only a child.
Yet part of him, some quite internal lingering part felt as though he had lived all of this once before.
An Unusual Child
Most young boys of the village would run wild through the fields, scraping their knees, and swinging sticks pretending to be knights.
Cenric sat quietly, observing how a roof's beams carried weight,
How walls leaned.
How nails rusted over time.
How metal cooled.
He would stack firewood in perfect sizes without thinking.
He would organise tools with ritualistic precision.
He thanked the hammer once under his breath after using it, quietly, sincerely.
Brand stared at him once, unsettled.
"Boy did you just thank the hammer ?"
Cenric blushed and looked away.
". . . is that wrong?"
Band didn't answer,
He didn't know how to.
And So It Begins
On the morning of his fifth birthday, the forge roared against the winter cold.
Brand stepped outside to fetch more charcoal.
Cenric didn't follow his father but stayed in the forge, walking towards the anvil, his small hand resting on the cold metal surface.
Not touching it out of curiosity.
Touching it with recognition.
A spark leapt from the forge bright and fierce.
Cenric's breath hitched.
"...Again…?"
The word slipped out before he understood it.
Again?
As if he had stood here once before.
As if he had lived a life of iron and fire already.
He swallowed, heart pounding.
He was Cenric Ironson.
Son of Bran Ironson.
Child of the Forge.
Yet something deeper stirred beneath his skin,
In memories not yet unlocked
In the glow of the six hidden marks
In the strange calm that followed him always
In the habits he never learned but always knew.
Something was waiting.
Something old.
Something returned.
Something awakening.