Phi

Tweet from Fairy Tale Fragments (@fairytaletext): Once upon a time, there was a blacksmith who had a glass slipper.

Reply from Olivia Waite (@O_Waite):

I already love him. Hands so used to metal and sandpaper, and here is this fragile, delicate thing. He balances it between the calluses of his fingertips, turning it back and forth, watching it turn firelight into rainbows. But it's only one of a pair.

Thread (All from Olivia Waite):

He goes to everyone in the village, asking: is this yours? Some laugh, some sneer. A few try it on, but it's always too big or too small.

Finally, someone tells him a name, and points to a house a little ways into the wood.

Someone strange lives here, they've always said. A witch, copper of skin, who prays to foreign g\gods. But the blacksmith respects copper. He knocks on the door.

The witch answers. Firelight limns her. Her arms are bare, as muscular as his.

Silently, he holds up the slipper.

"Ah," says the witch. Is that a flash of sadness in her dark eyes? He hopes not. He can't keep his eyes off the line of her mouth, the proud tilt of her nose. He wishes he'd changed out of his work clothes.

"Come with me," she says.

She takes him through the door and into a workshop, bigger than his own and full of different smells. She hands him a metal pole and says, "Turn this until I say stop." On the end is a glowing blob, liquid and searing hot.

His skin prickles.

But he's a blacksmith. He's not afraid of the hear. He spins the metal rod at her command, back and forth, while she works the hot glass with spades and paddles and surfaces he doesn't recognize.

Slowly, a shape forms.

Much later, they clip the glass from the rod into the witch's waiting hands. "It needs to cool until morning," she says, as she places it into the cupboard.

The blacksmith pulls out the other one, and sets it on the shelf beside its mate.

The witch's long mouth twitches. "If you're looking for who could wear that, I can't help you," she says.

The blacksmith snorts. "Wear this? It's a bauble. I was looking for who could make it. Something familiar, yet beautiful. Magical, yet ordinary."

The witch looks him up and down. "I could teach you how."

"You could-- but what I want is not knowledge. It's just..." He shifts. He's not good with words. "I want to find someone who thinks of beauty like this. Who is strong, but careful. Who knows about fire, and fragile things."

The witch looked at him a long, longtime. "I want the same," she said.

The blacksmith smiled. "Then I'd love to ask your name."

@annabethisterrified you’re