Flameborn and Welded

**When I left home, they were calling me “Carver”. I’d never liked the name. It reminded me of the alley killers my mother spoke of, when I was child. I don’t remember much- not anymore. I remember voices, sounds, but never faces. I left those faces behind, when I left. Maybe they’re in a big pile, with mine on top.**

**I smile at the mirror. My new name glints in the dim light. I angle my face, letting shadows play across the surface. I made sure the glyphs are deep enough that they will never wear away. Maybe I’ll paint them later. Add some color to the grey slate of my forehead.**

**I see a figure in the mirror. He’s coming towards me. He’s got something in his left hand. A bottle. I suppress a snicker. I wonder what he thinks he’ll accomplish. It shatters into a curtain of shards over my head. I turn around, slowly. The man seems shaken. I laugh. They always think that their makeshift attacks are attempts on my life. It’s rare that they aren’t more scared than I am.**

**“Get out of here,” I say. I can’t quite wipe the grin off my face. I can’t imagine what emotional response my expression is eliciting. There’s sweat on his face. There’s fear in his eyes.**

**“You ain’t natural, tin man. You- you’re a freak.”**

**“Is that what your mommy said to you in the cradle?” He’s taken aback. I sigh. “Listen, whatever you’re trying to achieve- give up. I was just leaving anyway.”**

**I shove past him and walk out of the parlor’s back room. The small door opens into a darkened alley. A wind rushes over my frame, but I can barely feel it. I am no longer Carver. I am noçokaŋa, Flameborn. I smile into the night, and my palms ignite.**

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*I volunteered for the program when the recruiter came. I’d already been in the army, of course, and I’d done well- but the opportunity for a special, exclusive program caught my attention. So, I volunteered, and I was accepted. I don’t regret it, exactly, it’s just… different, now. I can feel it in my bones, and not just because that was where they put the runes. It was even deeper than that, the power of it. I got onto the elevator and asked the operator to take me down to the Undercity. I’d always felt a kinship with the operators, seeing tiny glimpses of so many people in their daily lives. But now… I look at the runes in the metal of the car and the shaft and they are my comrades.*

*I nod to them as I disembark, entering the dimly lit maze of the Undercity. There is metal all around me, in girders and beams and scraps on the street, and I can feel all of it. Somehow, it was- nice, to be surrounded by it. I feel… a little less alone, even as the people around me shy away or size me up. It’s not  common, to be walking alone through the Undercity, and anyone who does is either powerful or desperate. Before, I’d been desperate. Now, I am powerful.*

*I walk along the street, not entirely sure where I’m headed and in little hurry to get there. I can feel the city around me- not the people, they went past as they always did, seeing my dark jacket that wasn’t quite a uniform but was still standard issue and letting their eyes slide away. No, I can feel the structure of it, the tall girders and I-beams and supports of it all. The thrumming in my bones almost distracts me enough to walk into someone holding out a knife and a hand.*

 *I look up at them, and they stare down at me. They start talking, demanding money or they’d stab me. I barely listen to his words- the knife is far more interesting. Runed along the blade to heat when a command word was spoken- it must have cost whoever originally had it a pretty penny. It's a pity it’s in the hands of this brute, but that’s no matter. It will be free soon enough. I raise an arm as the man reaches out to shove me- he finally noticed I wasn’t paying attention to him. I call on the strength of the girders around me and his shove is ineffective- I don’t even rock back.  As the bones in my forearm call out to the metal in his knife and they begin to communicate, now existing in tandem, I smile up at the man-  I know my eyes are vacant, but I can still see the fear start to bloom in his eyes as I turn my arm and his knife twists out of his grip.*

*“You- you’re- one of those things, one of the- Welded-” He’s stammering and backing away now as the knife that used to be his turns its point toward him as I maneuver my arm. I nod, silent, and he flees. My smile doesn’t fade as I grab the knife and release it from my bones, turning it to look as most people would. I hadn’t known why I was down here, exactly, but it had been worth it. I met a friend. Now, we continue down the street together.*

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**I stride between buildings, across walkways, past blurry silhouettes of passersby. I know not where I aim to go. I walk to feel alive, to feel the organic strength of my inorganic limbs. My vision fades as I lose myself to my thoughts. Then my thoughts are interrupted. A flare of heat behind my eyes- I glance up.**

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*I walk until something catches my attention. My bones call to someone else’s- someone else with metal built into their being. I turn and go toward the feeling, curious, wanting to meet this comrade of mine. I see them soon enough, unmistakable from the runes engraved in wire on their forehead. Flameborn. I watch them as I go closer, until he notices me. I can tell when he does, their eyes meeting mine. There’s nothing really visible, but we can both feel it, a flash of heat like a blast furnace, a welding torch- a connection made between us. I stop my approach and nod, watching their reaction.*

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**A strange sight graces my eyes. A figure, well-built, clad in a dark jacket. Not large, not threatening, but clearly wearing the confidence and steel of those whose veins flow full of power. I feel a pull towards her, the pull that fire has on air, the pull that feeds the flames. I step forward. My mind is calm but my heart races.**

*They step toward me, their face impassive in its metal solidity, but I know they feel it. This close, it’s easier to see that their body has been carved into metal, in some ways, and runes of all sorts are carved into the metal in turn. It’s an impressive sight, I admit to myself, and I smile slightly. This is a meeting of equals, equally ready to become a fight as a dance as an alliance. It’s thrilling, knowing that this is another who understands the power of having magic and metal in your bones and flesh, to be made something more than human.*

*“Hello, comrade,” I say. Comrades- a suggestion of a relation. I watch to see what they think of it.*

**I execute a short bow. Part of me did not expect them to speak at all.**

**“Greetings, comrade.” I pause for thought and breath. “What brings you here, so low?”**

*I nod in return, my own gesture of respect.*

*“The steel calls me here as a friend. I came to answer it.” It was unclear to me before, why it was I came, but as I have met the metal I understand. “The girders call to me as the sea to a sailor, or a field to its farmer. What of you?”*

**“I am here because I have become the steel of this place. My every breath is the wind between the pylons of this place. My blood sings to the steel like chicks call to passing clouds. I do not think that I could leave.” I pause again, to collect my racing thoughts. I stare into the bright eyes of the stranger. “And yet I do not know why I stay…”**

*“I understand. We are poised between mortal and metal, not wholly one or the other, are we not? The constructions of humans call to me, but by virtue of their core nature, not that which has been bestowed upon it.”  I look up, tracing arches I can feel with my eyes, following them up until they disappear into shadow. “It is to be something more, and something less, and something different.”*

**“Different… Yes, different. But I suppose though we may both be different, we are not so different from each other. We feel the same currents, experience the same emotions… I never learned your name.” We are closer, now, than we were before. Maybe we have been stepping towards each other.**

*I look up into their eyes, as if into a steel mirror, a distorted reflection but a reflection nonetheless. “They call me Welded, Flameborn.” Their forehead tells me a name for them. It fits them, I think, fits the bone-deep blast-furnace heat I can feel from where I stand. I think I could feel it from anywhere, now, if I tried.*

**I feel a warmth when I hear her read the runes. It proves her kinship to my heart as well as my mind. “Welded, ʝoradsɹi. Your name fits elegantly. I am… happy to have met you.” I feel a wide smile form on the surface of my face, and the tension in my arms dissipates.**

*I smile in return, genuine enough to almost surprise myself. “I am glad to have met you. Perhaps that is why the city called me here… Whatever the reason, I am glad it has.” I reach out a hand to clasp theirs- a mark of friendship, comradeship, understanding, perhaps even more than that. I do not know what will happen now, but I want to feel it, bone-deep, when it does.*

**I grip her hand, and in that contact I feel molten strength and liquid understanding flow between us. The sinews of my arm hum like the cables of a bridge, and my smile does not fade. “Where to, Comrade?”**

*They are smiling and I can feel it, singing through my bones and the metal all around us. It’s exhilarating and grounding all at once, like a lightning rod in a storm. We are here, we have met each other, and in this moment I know the world has changed for it. My smile widens, across my face and into my bones.*

*“Anywhere and everywhere, Comrade. The metal is calling.”*