"Lucky you." She doesn't look up. "Must be convenient, rewriting rules whenever they inconvenience you."
"It has its uses." I watch her hands—efficient, sure, no wasted movement. "You do that well."
"I know."
"No false modesty."
"False modesty is for people who can afford to undersell themselves." She flips the blade and starts on the other edge. "I can't."
I take in her words, the meaning far heavier than her tone implies. The fire breathes steadily beside her, the stone hisses under the blade, and outside a cart horse coughs in the lane.
"You grew up here?" I ask.
"Born here. Haven't left." She says it without self-pity, which is more interesting than if she'd said it with some.
"That surprises me."
She glances up briefly. "Why?"
"Because you're wasted on plow repairs."
Her hands stop for just a moment before they resume. "This forge belongs to my family."
"I'm aware it’s a family operation. I'm asking why someone with your skill is still in it."
"Maybe I like it here."
"Do you?"
She sets the first dagger down and picks up the second. Her shoulders are set, deliberate, a posture I'm beginning to recognize as her version of a door closing.
"It's my family's forge," she repeats. "My father built it. My brother works it. There's nothing to explain."
I don't push further. The answer is in what she didn't say—the father with the bad leg, the village running on fumes, the weight she carries in her posture even when her voice is sharp. She's not here because she chose it. She's here because leaving isn't a real option for someone keeping everyone else afloat.
She hands me both daggers without ceremony. "Done."
I turn them over. The edges are clean and precise, better than they were four days ago when my own man sharpened them. "What do I owe you?"
"Standard rate." She crosses her arms. "Whatever you're about to offer above that, keep it."
"Don’t be too proud to accept proper payment."
Her chin lifts slightly. "I don't need charity from you, or any dark elf."
"I wasn't offering charity. I was offering fair payment for exceptional work."
"You were offering more than the work costs because you think I need it." She meets my eyes directly. "I know the difference."
She's right. I pay her the standard rate and say nothing else about it.
I don't go straight back to camp.
Oxwood is small enough to cover on foot in twenty minutes, and I find myself doing exactly that—moving through the lanes slowly, reading the village the way I've learned to read every settlement in my territories. The buildings are older than they should be, not aged gracefully but worn past their useful years without the coin for repairs. Gardens are small and harvested close. The animals I see are functional—work horses, not riding stock, a few chickens kept for eggs rather than meat.
This is a village that has been squeezed.
Taxes that extract more than the land produces leave exactly this kind of mark. I've seen it enough times to know the shape of it.
