L O S T
The Forge
Aurum
It had been a while since she had stepped before an open flame, throwing heat out toward her and sucking in the very air she was breathing. Bellows hissed at regular intervals, providing the forge with an optimal amount of oxygen, while the coals held within burned fiercely. There was a constant glower about the place, even away from the fire itself the general room was aglow with heat. The air was laced with tiny carbon particles which had flecked away from struck durasteel, no doubt it would have caused most to cough but Kyra was used to polluted air. Such worlds typically had the most amount of junk for her to rummage through.Aurum was not like most places, just like Sarkany it was mostly untouched. A paradise for those who could appreciate it, and after all that had happened Kyra was most definitely among them. Her hiatus was over, the self banishment to the gorgeous moon had come to an end, and rather than return to the Silvers, or hunting down Connor, she had come right back here, to her sister and the people she oversaw.
It had been at Steph's side that Kyra first came into the Je'daii's fold, when they were first beginning to blossom, and compared to back then they had come so far. No more just a handful of individuals in an auditorium it would seem. Her absence had been noted, yet Jyn had welcomed her back with open arms and Kai was determined not to feth things up this time. She and Kyne even had a little home out here now, much to her pup's delight, and the Bucket had taken up residence within one of the Je'daii specific hangars.
Shaking her head, she looked back to the forge and then down at the round bars of durasteel on the workbench. At its side a rough sketch lay, depicting what seemed to be a small knife of sorts. It wasn't the most ornate of creations, fairly minimalist really, but she didn't care. Function and purpose over aesthetic had always been her thing. Had she thought about it more ahead of time she might have nipped back to Junkers' Landing in order to grab some scrap metal, but Sarkany was across the Galaxy and not somewhere she needed to be right now.
Pure rods would have to do.
Sitting down at her bench she made a few last minute scribbles and changes to her plans, before reaching out to one of the small transceivers across the workstation and switching through the various frequencies until she found a music station. It was rare that she actually found music that she enjoyed playing on the more well known stations, so she was happy to discover that she had hit the jackpot on her first try for once.
With the music playing, and the beat secured, Kyra rose from her seat and pulled on a pair of heatproof gloves before venturing across to the forge with a fist full of the rounds in her grasp. All but one were set into an empty bucket at her feet for later, while the lucky one which remained was clamped between the teeth of a large pair of blacksmithing tongues and swiftly thrust into the flames.
Pulling the tongues back slightly she encouraged an even heat across the bar of durasteel, watching as it started to glower and monitoring it for its sweet spot. Already she could feel the sweat begin to roll down the back of her neck, and was glad she had decided to wear a breathable shirt. Flame retardant, but breathable.
"Put the extra fan on, will ya?" she said aloud, owing her a small beep of a response from a little astromech who had been watching from the corner of the room. A few short clicks and a somewhat noisy whoosh brought about the cooler air and before she pulled the glowering bar from the forge Kyra rolled her shoulders back and heard them pop.
She really had to stop hunching over.
Toward the machines she ventured, power hammers of all shape and sizes lined one of the walls but it was toward one of the less powerful models that she actually took the bar, one which could be more easily controlled with her foot. She didn't want all of the work done for her, after all, but when it came to drawing out bars it was a lot more precise and even than traditional hammer and anvil would be.
Turning the machine on, and giving it a few quick - and noisy - tests, she proceeded to place the bar upon its surface, keeping a grip of the tongues of course, and began to pound it down into a much thinner length of metal. Whack whack whack whack, as she moved its position upon the power hammer, to keep the thickness of it even, she took note of its swiftly dimming glower as well as the flakes of over carbonized metal which fell from it as black as onyx, and when she knew that continuing on would cause extra stress in the metal and potentially lead to it shattering she lifted her foot away from the manual pedal and waited for the machine to completely slow before removing the drawn out piece of durasteel.
The type she had was a fair bit darker than most durasteel, and as she approached the forge to heat the metal again her eyes caught the bar of duravlex on the workstation and a grin formed over her lips. The dark grey of the bar in her hand would look so good run through with the almost stark white of the alloy. She just had to make sure she welded the two together properly when the time came, the last thing she needed was for them to split apart under the hammer.
She gave that particular bar one more cycle through the forge and the power hammer, until she had the rough length and thickness she needed, before allowing it to cool within the secondary forge, one which would bring its temperature down slowly rather than all at once. In the meantime she turned her attention toward the duravlex, a bar of which had been tossed into the bucket beside the main forge when she had first approached it.
This sucker was a lot more resistant of the heat. It took almost twice as long to reach an optimal temperature than its sister material had which in truth had her worrying internally over how well the two would meld in the end. She didn't want the durasteel to melt while the duravlex heated... Still, she wouldn't know unless she tried and honestly this was all one big experiment for her. If it turned to chit then she would have to decide on one or the other for the end product. No harm no foul.
It turned out though for all its abilities to withstand the heat, the duravlex succumbed to the power hammer much better than the durasteel had. Now it was glowering and malleable it did not take that long for it to be drawn out into a bar around the same length and width as the other, in fact she had it done before it needed to back into the forge for another heat. That left her surprised, she hadn't expected those results at all, and soon enough she added it into the cooler forge alongside the durasteel.
When the latter was cooled enough she took it from the forge and brought it over to the workbench, beginning to etch a series of specific lengths onto it. Each of the lengths were the same as one another, with a little bit of give on each end to facilitate a loss of material at the cold saw. Speaking of which it was over to that particular machine that Kyra next ventured, and with a keen eye she began to cut the smaller bars out of the larger until she had around half a dozen or so of them all lined up neatly on a table at its side.
The duravlex took a shorter amount of time to cool down, it seemed as though once it reached a certain temperature the heat almost dissipated from it. That likely wasn't the case, there was probably a much more scientific reason for it, but Kyra didn't know why nor did she really care. She was a junker, not a scientist... Even if she specialized at Anil Kesh.
Once again etchings were drawn onto the duravlex in the same intervals as had been witnessed in its sister material, and then it was back over to the cold saw to cut them down to size.
At this point Kyra was well and truly beat, the heat of the forge had taken it out of her and the process itself had taken the better part of her day. She had even forgotten to pause to go and secure lunch, and looking through the open doors of the workshop she could see stars floating in the sky overhead. As though catching up with her mind her stomach began to grumble noisily, and so she placed all twelve or so of the smaller bars into a small metal case together and added it to the "In Progress" shelves beside the exit.
Tomorrow would be another day at the Forge.