[Will Witfoot]

Alrik sat on a boulder, puffing delicate rings of smoke and at times inhaling deeply from the long pipe held in his left hand. In the almost breathless sunrise they floated quite a disstance before dissipating into the tiniest whisps of grey. A fine day indeed to start the adventure.

The polished metal of his armour caught the red light of the newborn sun and reflected it in a dozzen prisms of fiery shine. It felt good to be garbed in his battle gear once more, instead of the leather appron he wore around his forge. Offcourse, smithing was a work which he loved, but he needed the babtism of blood and sweat to remind himself of his roots. And those younglins could do with a reminder, too.
He ran his fingers along the smooth metal of the breastplate, remembering the hours of work he had spent on it, spent on every single link and plate all those long years ago when he was still a beardling in his fifties.

He lifted his axe, studying the weapon that had been forged before he had been born. The smith had captured the moment of a huge eagle of the mountains taking flight: the blades were its wings, spread to take the avian to the skies and beyond, ready to call the wind that made the orcs cower in fear.

He remembered how he had gotten the weapon, how his father had fallen that fatefull day when dwarfes, men and elves fought to contain the plaque of orcs spawned in the belly of the misty mountains. He remembered taking the axe from his fathers corpse when his own pick broke in the press of bodies around him. Never had he been able to forge anything like it, allthough his smithing skills were held in great respect by his patrons and the rulers of Erebor.

Perhpas in Khâzad-Dum he would find the craft needed to forge such weapons, but his hand would allways be on the haft of his fathers axe. It was one with him.