Serendipity spent a moment waggling her fingers, blinking at them. Fire spells only hurt a little bit and only if she kept channelling them for too long. Was it because she'd only hatched a few sleeps prior, and only knew that spell? She shifted, looking up again.

She listened to Glory in silence, but with the furrowed brow and crinkled frown of a child that didn't entirely understand what he was saying. She didn't know what an ore was-- except that there was metal in it, but useless --and he didn't really explain where the S in Smelting came from, but she quickly assumed she'd have to bite the cold bullet of reality and understand that not everyone had answers.

She followed the eagle to the forge, looking it over. For a moment-- and no, she could not tell you why --she remembered Laurel, and now she sniffed new things when presented to her. Curiously, Siren leaned in to sniff the obsidian forge. It smelled like fire. No, Siren did not know what else she was expecting.

"What about this?" She asked, turning a dimly-lit gaze towards the anvil. "What's this used for?"

She watched Glory explain lava with a wrinkle still between her pink brows-- though the sound of fire gurgling up the eagle's throat was familiar to her. Dread had done it when she met him-- it was a spell, apparently, used in creating dyes. "Oh!" The child squawked, pulling a tiny orange gemstone out of her tunic and extending it out. "Dread said you could make dyes, too, but that I'd need a yellow."

No, Siren did not know what A Yellow was, except for that it could be feathers.

@Glory

Glory followed Siren as she approached the forge and made the smallest of protest noises when she leaned forward, fearing that she'd touch her nose against the hot stone. But she seemed to be okay, and only moved away, turning her interest to the anvil. "That is called an anvil. It's the surface that you use when you're shaping things. When you heat metal, you need to hit it with a hammer," he pointed towards the variety of hammers he had leaning against the anvil, "to shape it properly. The anvil is like a second, stationary hammer beneath. If you used the ground instead, you would probably just dent the ground or damage your metal. The anvil is good to stop that from happening." Perhaps he didn't need to explain so much, maybe she was too young to fully understand what he was saying, but nobody was going to stop him now that he was on such a roll.

At the mention of dyes, however, he deflated just a little bit. "Ah, dyes? Yes, sometimes I make dyes to change the color of my work, but not often." He leaned forward and observed the gemstone and understanding hit him like a rock. "Oh! Yes, yes! I have made the dye before. It is, I believe, what Dread used for his markings. I don't have any yellow stones around here, but if you find one I can make the dye for you, no problem!"

@Siren

Much like most children, Serendipity wasn't without the need to Touch. She was, however, smarter than most children. She wanted to Touch things that were Touchable, and a hammer seemed like just the sort of Touchable that she could appropriately Touch.

As Glory gestured towards them, she went to hold the smallest-- at least, the one that looked like she'd have the least difficulty trying to wield. Even then, it was damn weightier than she expected. She hauled it up with a grunt and set it on the anvil with a muffled clink.

There were a good few seconds of silence, wherein a handful of brain cells worked overtime.

"How do you use them?" She asked eventually, gesturing. "With your feet? Uh-- you don't have hands," This addition was, likely, to explain why she was asking, rather than just pointing it out to be cruel.

She offered a few knowing nods. She knew Dread's markings-- they were the first (or maybe the second thing, if you included his size) thing she noticed about him. "They look like the, uh, lava," she said very proudly, acknowledging the fact that she had been listening.

"I could find one," she went on a little more quietly, having to ruffle her hair to make her head cool down a little. "I, uh, need to find the Thing with Yellow Horns, though. Later."

@Glory

Glory didn't protest to Siren picking up one of the hammers, just watched with faint amusement as even the smallest of them proved to be too heavy for her to properly handle. When he was her age (or, well, a little older), his first hammer had been simple corundum - far lighter then the ones he was using now. An idea occurred to him and he leaped away, climbing one of the junk piles until he was at the very back. He dug through it for a few moments before he unearthed the very same hammer. It was dented and worn out, but still in working condition and definitely light and small enough for her to use.

He opened his wings and soared back down to her, landing on top of his anvil and holding out the hammer for Siren to take. "Here, you can have this one. If you'd like to pursue the craft, that is. This was the first hammer I made and it served me well when I was leaning." Once he'd set it down, he reached and grasped the handle of one of the larger hammers, not very perturbed by Siren's comment. "Not feet, talons. Mine are more dexterous then your feet." He lifted it and brought it down on the anvil, a single ringing note echoing through the cave as metal hit metal. He set it back down to where it was and considered for a moment.

"Yellow horns?" He did not know anyone with yellow...oh wait, he did! "I know one person with yellow horns. Or, rather, orange and yellow horns, but I'm not sure why you would need to find him."

@Siren

Serendipity was starting to try to struggle to take the hammer back off the anvil again when Glory moved away into his Pile of Refined Garbage. She turned, staring curiously after him. She didn't ask-- or speak at all --but merely waited for the eagle to return. Which, he did.

She blinked, letting go of the heavier hammer in favour of the lighter one. It was a little heavier than her knife, but certainly far easier to wield. "Thank you!" She said, cheerfully.

For a moment the little one looked down at her own feet, dusty and already calloused from walking the cave floors barefoot. She lifted one, tried to move her toes like Glory moved his-- with little success --but was quickly distracted by the sharp clang of metal on metal. She paused, lifted the hammer, and struck the anvil as well.

"Well, yeah," she said. "I wanna, uh, pursue it. I wouldn't have paid Dread shinies and I wouldn't still be here if I didn't want to." She was vaguely confused-- if for a moment --how this much wasn't entirely clear to the eagle. It was vaguely unpleasant to be standing here in clothes and poofy hair, too.

She lifted her gaze to the cave ceiling for a moment. "Dread said that there's a Thing with Yellow Horns that can put dyes onto people's skin," she said. "I wanna have cool markings like Dread does, but I gotta find some dyes and the Thing with Yellow Horns, first. But I dunno where they are, or who they are."

@Glory

Glory's expression lit up again as Siren banged the hammer against the anvil, well enough away from his talons that he wasn't concerned she'd hit them. "You're welcome! I'm sure, once you are skilled enough, that you will be able to craft your own tools! If you'd wish to learn from me, you are welcome to any of the tools in this cave, as long as you put them back where you found them." Oh, this was exciting! Gea had not been anything like the inquisitive student that Serendipity was and when he tried to teach Dread aspects of his work, the dragon never really seemed to fully understand, or even showed much interest in the process, only the results.

"Just wanted to be sure," he replied with a soft chuckle. "I don't believe we are thinking of the same gembound, however. The one I know I don't believe knows how to do anything like that. Unfortunately, I won't be of much help with that." It wasn't a great loss to him - he was glorious already as it was. Why would he want to paint himself up with dyes?

He hopped down from the anvil, again eyeing the dagger in Serendipity's belt. "I think...the first thing I could do would be to show you how to repair small weapons like your dagger there, unless you'd like to learn how to make one from scratch! Or you can find your yellow gemstone and the Thing with Yellow Horns first. It's whatever you wish to do."

@Siren

Serendipity definitely had to sleep more; but she was fairly excited. She spun the light hammer in her hand, tail flicking back and forth contentedly. "I wanna learn, and make stuff," she said, fairly determinedly. She had an absolute drive to figure out how to repair the things in tunnel J, or how to make new things.

"Oh," she said, a little more disappointedly. Dread looked great with his markings, and although Siren was quite fond of the golden flecks covering her mauve skin, she wanted markings like he had-- that shifted and glimmered like fire. "I can find them later."

There was a few beats of silence, as she thought to herself. "I mean," she began. "I had to pay Dread a shiny to get him to tell me where you were, and I don't have a lot of shinies, so I'd probably have to pay the Thing with Yellow Horns a shiny as well, to get some markings. And I don't have a lot of shinies." Repeating, for good measure, of course. "But if I can make shinies then I don't have to worry about it."

She looked down at the carving knife on her belt for a moment. "I wanna learn how to fix stuff, first," she said. "It's important."

@Glory

This was fantastic! An enthusiastic student that had come to him! And not only that, but if she learned right, if she grew stronger, he wondered if she would become an even finer smith then him, with her front limbs that were far more versatile then his talons.

"Oh," He waved one of his wings dismissively, "don't mind Dread. You can't get him to do anything without offering something shiny in return. Most people aren't like that! I'm sure the yellow horned thing will happily fix up your dyes for you!" He was fond of the dragon, yes, but sometimes Glory wished that he could be even just the tiniest bit more selfless. He, after all, constantly created things for free! Only recently, when his work was piling up, did he require payment from prospective buyers.

He hopped over to one of the smaller junk piles, one that at least was a little more spread out, perhaps because they were used more often? and pulled out a few rocks that looked like they were cut in half. He handed the smallest one to Serendipity. "This is called a grinding stone." He raised a talon and pointed at the flat side, which, upon closer inspection or upon touch, revealed that it was actually covered with very fine rocks that were fixed to the surface. "I use these to get rust off of old weapons and to clean up projects that I'm creating. You start with a bigger one," he lifted one of the larger rocks, "To get off the worst of it, and you go down to the smallest, so that you can make the surface smooth. For your knife, though, since it is already quite small, you should be okay using the finer ones."

He turned behind him and grabbed at the closest of the weapons in one of the piles - a sword covered and deformed by layers of rust. He raised the rock and glanced at Siren. "Prepare your ears, it's quite loud." A moment later, he was scraping the stone against the rust, creating a horrible, high pitched grating sound as the rust began to rub off.

@Siren

Serendipity blinked a few times-- her mind was too young to make this conclusion now, but getting Dread to do anything for the small price of 'something shiny' would likely be a great asset sometime down the line, if she needed it. For now, however, she just found this particular piece of information odd, and likely untrue.

It probably didn't hurt to give someone a gift if you needed something off them, after all.

The child turned to follow Glory to the pile of cleaved rocks, inspecting them. "How do you tell if something is a grindstone?" She asked. "Do they all look like they've been halved?" She did, however, listen-- and she drawed her knife, taking a medium-sized whetstone. She looked between the blade and the stone, and then to Glory.

Her ears were likely fine-- Dread had been bellowing into them some hours ago and she was still trying to recover from the ordeal. Not that the screeching the noises the blade and Glory's whetstone made were great, but she could at least bear it.

Serendipity sat herself down, legs folded over. She balanced the blade half-on her knee and half against the cave floor as she began sweeping the textured stone against the crusted, rusty metal, sticking her tongue out and furrowing her brows in concentration as she started rubbing the poop-coloured rust off it.

@Glory

As they sat together and scraped the grindstones against the rust, Glory explained. "They are not natural - I make them myself by cutting them and using a thin layer of lava as a sort of adhesive and attaching the grindings of different minerals." The rust was coming off in big chunks and flakes, beating it down to the actual metal of the sword. He glanced at Siren and her dagger, appreciating the progress she was making on it.

"This is sometimes the longest part of the forging process," he continued. "Once you have your weapon made, it will be rough and ugly. If you learn to have patience, you can spend many many hours just grinding down your work until it shines like the smoothest gold. I don't think that will be fully necessary to spend many hours on your dagger, rust is easier to remove."

@Siren