Part 4: A Boy Named Montana Marteau
MONTANA Marteau was a therianthrope boy. From a young age, he’d grown up wondering why he had fluffy ears and a bushy tail. After all, his parents didn’t have either of those things. He didn’t understand why he was the only one with those features, and vaguely thought that they would go away when he grew up.
His father was one of the most skilled blacksmiths in the Principality of Dothart, with a workshop situated near the border with Pleine. There, he processed high-quality iron from the mountains on the border. The workshop also housed an armory and a weapons shop, so warriors and nobles came from all over the country in search of full sets of top-tier equipment.
The Principality of Dothart had an adversarial relationship with the Empire of Gross to the south, which meant there was a constant need to expand the country’s military. In addition, each of Dothart’s successive princes was skilled in martial arts, with a tendency to favor warriors. They believed that good weapons made good warriors, which supported the development of the blacksmithing industry.
Montana’s father, one of Dothart’s recognized first-class craftsmen, had many apprentices. Like most dwarves, he loved to drink, and when he and his friends gathered together for drunken merrymaking, they told Montana all sorts of stories.
One day, they were drinking heavily with an adventurer visiting the workshop. The inebriated young man asked Montana how they could be of different races despite being father and son. One of the veteran apprentices (even as he was socking the man in the face) inadvertently blurted out the truth in front of young Montana.
Through this unexpected turn of events, the boy learned he’d been found and rescued as a child and was, in fact, a therianthrope. As it happened, another apprentice pointed out the first’s mistake and the veteran apprentice panicked, kicking the young adventurer out of the workshop for his mishap. The remaining dwarves looked at Montana in concern, but he seemed as calm as ever. He finally understood why he had a bushy tail and fluffy ears.
Nevertheless, that didn’t mean he wasn’t sad when he found out he wasn’t related to his parents by blood. Montana loved his father and mother. His father was stubborn, dignified, and always looked stern. Montana often tried to imitate him, but could never make himself look quite that intimidating. With practice, though, he was able to maintain a cool and unperturbed expression, even when caught by surprise.
He loved to listen to the stories adventurers and warriors who visited the workshop told. When Montana asked, they would happily regale him with their tales of adventure and heroism, while waiting for their weapons or armor to be completed. After all, everyone wanted to brag about their proudest moments. Montana’s eyes lit up as he listened.
Some of the visiting adventurers even taught him how to use a sword, how to train himself, and other useful techniques. He practiced them every night on his own, acquiring the necessary skills for an adventurer. It was around that time when he first had a vague idea that someday, he would look for his biological parents.
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INCIDENTALLY, it was well known that dwarves were skilled with their hands. Montana had grown up hearing the sounds of iron being hammered from an early age, and he used to think that he too might become a blacksmith when he grew up. His father taught him how to smith after his apprentices left for the day, during the brief stretch of time before a new day started.
His father was surprised when he started teaching Montana the art of blacksmithing. The boy already seemed to understand the secret techniques before he was taught. And he swung the hammer with the same, precise movements too.
His physical strength was still lacking, but the works Montana produced were already good enough to be sold. Thrilled with his son’s talent, his father showed him the techniques over and over again, correcting even the slightest differences or timing errors. Montana absorbed the knowledge instantly, like water sprinkled in a desert. His father realized that his son was a genius, so he devoted himself every day to helping develop that talent.
One day, one of the apprentices saw his master working at the forge with little Montana, having neglected his own work to focus on his child. The sight made the apprentice explode with pent-up anger and unleash the bile that had been festering inside him.
According to the apprentice, his master showed Montana too much favoritism just because he was his son. They had been working together since long before the boy’s arrival, but the master had never taught the apprentices so closely. And no matter how much you taught a beast-man, they would never be able to craft something as amazing as a dwarf could.
Troubled, the master scratched his head. He had to admit that he’d been focusing too much on his son lately, to the exclusion of his apprentices. He’d also bungled things by not putting Montana’s work up for sale yet. He’d felt it would be a waste to sell his son’s work, so he had lined it all up neatly in the warehouse instead. Because of this, some of the apprentices, who had never seen Montana’s work, assumed that even with all the instruction he’d received, he’d never be able to make anything worthwhile.
As the discussion got more and more heated, one of Montana’s father’s apprentices asked to challenge him. If he was better than Montana at forging swords of the same material and style, then his master should give up on training his son.
The whole thing depressed Montana, from seeing his father struggle with the suggestion to the disarray in the forge more generally. He didn’t want any of that. Montana was a prodigy, but he was more of a jack-of-all-trades type than an expert in one thing. He understood what the apprentices were saying, and he knew that he would probably win the challenge.
But he saw the inevitable result too—that the relationship between master and apprentice would be strained, and that the apprentice who lost the challenge would end up leaving. Above all, he was saddened by the knowledge that the people he’d looked up to like older brothers seemed to fear and hate him. He’d believed they were good people. They had cared for Montana since he was little, and never treated him badly.
He realized he’d gotten carried away with learning new things and messed up the order of things. But winning the challenge would lead to nothing good and losing purposely would only disappoint his father. Montana muttered to himself, not knowing what to do.
“I’m not very good at smithing, so I quit as of today. I’m sorry.” His voice was small, but clear. Then he bowed deeply and retreated into the house.
His father looked deeply unhappy, and even the apprentice who had challenged him rushed to stop him, but Montana never returned. After that day, he stopped going to the forge.
Whenever his father’s concerned apprentices approached him, Montana made sure to vanish before even making eye contact. He was afraid if he looked at them, he would see their negative emotions, so he tried to harden himself, to become less sensitive. He started looking down instead of at people’s faces.
Sometimes, when he was especially bored, he still snuck peeks into the forge—but of course, he was careful not to be seen.
One day, while trying to decide what to do with all his free time, he found some shiny objects in a pile of rocks. Once he noticed them, he could see that they were scattered here and there among the more ordinary stones. It occurred to him that if he carved them, he could make them into something beautiful.
On a whim, he decided to do just that, so he got permission from his father and started secretly collecting especially beautiful stones whenever nobody else was around. Then, every day, he would return to his room and get to work carving the stones by himself.
A year passed, then two, then three, and Montana became quite good at working with gemstones. When he finally made a pair of rings that satisfied his inner artisan, he was so happy that he gave them to his mother and father as presents.
His father snorted, put it on, and then turned away. If he really didn’t like something, though, he wouldn’t wear it, and he’d be vocal about his dislike too. So Montana knew that he was just trying to hide how touched he was.
In contrast, his mother was openly overjoyed and gave him a big hug. She’d been worried about Montana, because he’d completely withdrawn in recent years. The sight of him mastering new techniques moved her to tears.