voidtreckerexpress | Egret, Day 26 | Kitchen

Trowa huffed in amusement. "Which one? I have about seven needing sheaths." Duo had done well for him when they were on the mission.

"All right," Glorfindel nodded. "Then I will need to know what type of blade they are: for eating, throwing, carving, or fighting; how long they are; how wide they are just under the crossbar or hilt; and how you intend to carry them. You are also going to need some way of fastening them to your belt."

"There's a variety of them, I think. My society isn't as dependent on knives as yours may have been, so I'd be happy to have some expertise on them. I know some are roughly the size of the throwing daggers my sister uses as part of our act in the circus we're part of. She's the knife thrower and I'm her target."

Glorfindel gave him a quick scan up and down. "I take it she's very good and you haven't managed to anger her unnecessarily." Brothers and sisters could scrap like no one else, in his opinion.

"I would be happy to look them over. Do any of them need sharpening?" he asked with a significant look at his sharpening stone that he was holding at that moment.

"She only hit me the very first time, and only because she realized I wasn't afraid to die." Of course, she also hadn't realized he was really her long lost little brother at that point.

"It wouldn't hurt to make sure they're at their best. I've got them under the mattress in my cabin at the moment, but I could go get them. Unless you'd rather finish what you're doing now." He'd offer to help, but knew he'd be more in the way.

"Ah, it threw her," Glorfindel gave him a sly grin at the pun. "Glad to see it had no lasting effect."

"Please do," he said, waving Trowa to go and get them. "The mattresses are very thin, that cannot be comfortable. Are you on the upper or lower bunk?"

Smirking, Trowa tapped his right temple. "Not even a scar." He knocked back the rest of his coffee and set the mug in a sink. "I'm on the lower bunk. But I'll go and get them." Turning, he headed for the 4th cabin car.

Several minutes later, Trowa returned with a canvas sack full of clinking and clanging metal. "Here they are."

This young human was interesting, for sure. He wait for Trowa to return. "If you are on the lower bunk, you might hang them on the wall between the upper bunk and yours. It would undoubtedly help your sleep. Especially as with scabbards, they will be even bulkier."

Glorfindel accepted the bag. "Thank you. Let's see what you got." There were two eating daggers, two knives good for carving wood, that would be handy, and three throwing daggers. Looked perfect for the brother of someone who threw professionally. "Hm, for these two," he indicated the eating daggers, "we can do a light scabbard, so you can keep one up your sleeve for eating, if you want, though they seem to not require them that much on the train, I've noticed."

"These two will get proper sheaths, and we'll want to use them to carve the wood to make them. Very apropos, don't you think?" He grinned at the other. "These are throwing knives. Not a set, unfortunately, at least this one doesn't belong with these two," he separated them, "so I'd suggest two separate sheaths. Perhaps one for your sleeve and the other for down the back of your shirt?" He wasn't certain a wooden sheath was the best for throwing daggers, but it would work until they got something better.

With a smirk, Trowa pushed his sleeves up to show the leather straps he'd made from the belt that had been part of his outfit on the last world. They held a thin throwing knife to the inside of each forearm. Additionally, he had used some of the polo shirts he hadn't given away to tie a hunting knife to his right leg, though he didn't expose that. "You think I can fit more knives on my arms?"

Glorfindel looked at the makeshift straps and sighed. He knew the other had at least one, if not two other knives down his leg. "If you want to look like a porcupine, absolutely."

"Lions are more my speed." Trowa chuckled but noticed the looks Glorfindel was giving the straps around his arms. "I take it you've seen this done significantly better than I managed? I was worried I'd lose the leather if I didn't work quickly, so they were made in a rush."

Glorfindel shook his head. "Don't mind me. I'm just...very elven, as a young man of my acquaintance told me when he was still a young lad." He laughed at the memory. "If you are comfortable and it behaves as you wish it to, who am I to tell you different?"

"Lions, eh? Those are the large cats of the desert, aren't they?"

"They're mostly in the Savannah, but yes. They're also very common in circuses. The two in the circus I work for like me better than their trainer." Trowa smiled fondly as he remembered Boscoe and his mate. "The leather is soft, and I was able to make it sit flat on my skin, so it works quite well. Perhaps on another mission I will have time to locate more purpose built straps."

Starting on sharpening the whittling knives first, Glorfindel gave a nod of understanding. "That speaks well of your character...or poor of his. Or both," he admitted. "What is a circus?"

Oh god, how to explain a circus to an elf? Trowa poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and hopped up to sit on a clear spot of the counter. "It's a troupe of travelling entertainers. There are different acts, or attractions that people can pay to see, set up in different tents. Some are 'oddities' like people with deformities or who have modified themselves with tattoos or piercings. The main tent, or the big top, is where most of the performances happen. There are people who will walk across a thin rope high above the ground, others who will launch themselves from swings and catch each other midair just as high or higher. Acts of juggling or balance are common, I do those sometimes. But I usually just perform as the target for the knife throwing."

"Ah, a travelling troupe of players," Glorfindel said with a nod. "We do have those on my World, yes." He frowned a little at the fact Trowa was sitting on the clean counter, but as long as the other wiped it off when he was done, he supposed it would be fine.

"Why would someone with a deformity be an attraction?" he asked. He laughed at the description of Trowa's contribution to the entertainment.

"Well, I don't know if your world has humans or how alike they are to my world, but those with deformities historically got objectified as laughable or grotesque. And over time, some of them decided to own it and charge people money to point and stare at them. And when the traveling troupes started to look for new acts to help draw people in, the Sideshow started. That's where the people with deformities would sit to be looked at, because while they were there to draw a crowd and make money, they weren't the main performance."

"How...odd." Glorfindel's face said he was not a fan. "We do have Men. As well as Dwarves, Hobbits, Ents, and others. To laugh or exclaim in horror at someone's appearance...that sounds like something a goblin would do."

Hopping off the counter, Trowa washed his cup and set it to dry. "Yeah, there are some pretty terrible people in the world. But usually there are more good ones to balance things out." Once the cup was in the drying rack, he turned back to the elf. "Also, thank you for sharpening those knives. I do appreciate it."

"I'm fast, I'm not magic," Glorfindel said. He handed the two carving blades back. "I did these first so you can start whittling the wood down to the right size and shape. Once we get wood. I've been reading about bamboo. Have you ever worked with it?"

Trowa got a rag wet with hot water and wiped off the spot where he'd been sitting. "Not personally, but I know it is extremely versatile. And some kinds can grow very quickly. I'll have to work on my carving skills, so hopefully we can have a lot to practice with. Have you requested some from the shop?"

Glorfindel shook his head. "There were some in the crates of things to plant. I will plant some and we will practice with it. If it grows quickly normally, then we should end up with a fair amount to practice with."

Trowa smiled a bit at that. "Then we'll have a margin for error. That's not a bad thing to have, though it is a new concept for me."

"You normally do not work with a margin of error, or you normally do not practice?" Glorfindel asked.

"Soldiers don't get a margin of error. Especially when they are essentially terrorists working alone to drive change."

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