"Ye understand the difference now, lad?" Andre asked.
Kael stood near the anvil with sweat cooling along his spine, fingers still faintly buzzing from the last few hours of real hammer-work. The forge had finally stopped feeling like a stranger's tomb and started feeling like a place that could actually be used, coal stacked, ash cleared, tools laid out with some semblance of order. His lungs still carried the taste of smoke, and his wrists ached in a way Brokk's hammer had never given him. This ache was honest.
"Yes, I was going about it the wrong way," Kael said.
The dwarf nodded, Aye… that's enough. Off with ye." he said.
Kael blinked, waiting for the but. The "next step." The lecture about tempering, quenching, grain alignment, any of the thousand details Andre clearly had locked behind those grumpy eyes. But Andre didn't offer anything else. He just stood there like a door shutting.
"Wait, that's it?" Kael asked.
