Digging A Hole Ch 01

Maedwynn sat alone in front of the fire, a thick braid of hair falling over her right shoulder. Elbows on her knees, the knuckles of one fist mashed tight into the open palm of the other. The door creaked open behind her, though Maedwynn did not turn. Heat from the flames washed over her, but did little to warm the long, empty room behind her.

"Apologies. There was unavoidable business."

"S'fine," she replied, eyes still transfixed into the flames.

The newcomer shut the door, and Maedwynn tracked his heavy boots as he made his way across the stone floor. She waited until he dragged one of the chairs away from the table before she got to her feet as well. The dwarf set a heavy case onto the table, and went about unlatching the front lid. The part she could see, the part that unfolded toward him to lay flat against the stone table, had papers tucked under a band, and the chill that ran through her had nothing to do with the awful draft in the room.

Next from the case came two travel tankards. "Some," the dwarf said, "find this helps with the grieving process." The voice of the newcomer was dour, as if she'd already disappointed him somehow.

"No," Maedwynn replied. "No than's." Her voice was tight. "Ah'd rather jus' ge' to i'."

"Suit yourself," he said, tiredly, "but we can't start until everyone arrives."

Maedwynn's brow furrowed. "Everywhonow?"

The door banged open again, and this time none of the associated chill mattered.

"Vanny!" Maedwynn cried, leaping to her feet so fast that the chair tipped over backwards and crashed to the floor.

Vanwynn's returning grin was broad, if a bit puzzled. "Mad!"

The two moved toward each other with arms spread, though Maedwynn was certainly moving faster, meeting right at the corner of the long stone table that ran along the center of the room.

Vanwynn's grin broadened as she looked over her sister's shoulder. "Alright! I'll take a pint!"

Maedwynn just gawked as her sister broke the hug and moved toward the table. The other dwarf, a much older maern, started pouring from the small wooden cask he'd also had tucked into that little carrying case of his.

"Of course Great Uncle Van got the good stuff," her sister said, raising the mug to her lips.

Maedwynn slapped her forehead and let out a great, long sigh. "

Grea' Uncle Van.

"

This, finally, seemed to slow Vanwynn down. "Did you think it was me?"

"Yes!" Maedwynn cried. "Gods, I was sick with i', the though'. The scrip jus' said Vanwynn, an' I though'..."

"You didn't read it any further?"

"I threw it in the fire," she said, with a huff, shoulders slumping.

Vanwynn put the mug down and came back to her. She took Maedwynn's hands and squeezed. "I didn't even notice you'd used Ma's braid."

Maedwynn flustered immediately, and reached up to fuss with it. "I hadn' done i' in years. Decades."

It was as thick as rope. Vanwynn took it in her hands for a moment, and then laid it reverently along Maedwynn's collarbone. "It looks nice."

"The Grultir triangle braid is," the maern said, still sounding incredibly bored, "is an Ironfist tradition dating back many dozens of centuries."

"Wai'," Maedwynn said, her brow furrowing again. "Uncle Vanwynn died?"

"Indeed," the maern said, as he gestured toward the seats across from him. "If you would, please."

"Alright," Vanwynn said, "alright. You can't expect too much from us. We hadn't seen each other in, what?"

"I don' r'member," Maedwynn said.

"A couple years, at least. Still got that accent, huh?"

Maedwynn made a low grunt and waved her hand dismissively. "I lived on Torrun for fifteen years. Wha' d'ye want from me?"

"Yeah, sure,

forty years ago!"

"

Auch,

the maern wan's us t'pay attention, alrigh'?"

Vanwynn's grin widened. "I can barely understand what you're saying."

"Oh fuck off!"

The elder dwarf cleared his throat, and pulled out a sheaf of paper that unfolded and unfolded until it was nearly as long as he was tall. When he opened his mouth, Van said, "Skip it."

"Excuse me?" he replied.

"Get to the good stuff. Why're we here?"

"Ah can' even r'member the las' time Ah saw Grea' Uncle Van," she said, her focus deep in her memories.

"He always liked you."

"You are

fulla

shi' todae," Maedwynn said. "Woke up onna wrong sida the toile', eh?"

Her sister, so like her in every aspect of appearance--long black hair (though Van's was full on both sides rather than just one), slate gray eyes, a slightly-oversized nose--just grinned, planting an elbow on the table and her head against her fist. "It's fascinating watching you be so defensive after I caught you being all sentimental."

"Fuck off wi' tha' shit."

"

Yooou love me,

" Vanwynn sang. "

Yooou loooove me.

"

"I'll kill ye m'self if ye keep singin' like 'at."

"We've gotta do something about that accent," Van said, half-turning to the maern across the table.

"I know what might help," he said. Both Vanwynn and Maedwynn paused to look at him, heads tilting like sparrows. "

Let me read the fucking thing.

"

"Skip to the good part," Vanwynn said, one hand paddling cyclically in the air.

"It's a will," the old dwarf snarled. "There are no good parts."

"What'd the old bastard leave us," Vanwynn said.

The maern drew himself up to his full height, bristled, and said, "If Old Vanwynn Ironfist could see you right now, he'd--"

"He'd be laughing his ass off," said Young Vanwynn Ironfist. "Get to it."

The old dwarf grumped, tossing the sheaf down onto the case. "It's the Long Belt. He's left you two

the Long Belt.

"

Van sat back in her chair, kicked her feet up and crossed them at the ankle. "There it is."

Maedwynn's jaw fell slack. "The..."

"The Long Belt," Van said, as she took another sip from her tankard.

She looked back and forth between her sister and the grumpy dwarf opposite them. "Us?"

"You and me."

"Why? How?"

"It's a bad time for the house," the maern said. "We've got some unpleasantness with Scalar Automata. Your uncles, Helm and Thurbold, they're fighting in and out of court in the Plantan sector, trying to keep our holdings out of human hands. There's a lot of us out there. Most of us, really. Even the ones too long in the tooth to hold a hammer are doing what they can."

"Bu'

the Long Belt?

" Maedwynn said, incredulously. "Ah mean, when was the las' time tha' fucking bligh' was profi'able? How long has i' been? Two centuries? Three? We've been minin' that haunt for thousands of years!"

"And it just keeps giving," Vanwynn said. There was a shift in her tone that made Maedwynn do a double take. She looked... hungry. "It's not exhausted, not by a long shot, but it needs a pair of steady hands at the forge."

"An' ev'ryone's alrigh' wi' that? Ol' Holbruk himself had his sea' there,

head o' the family

, and now it'll be us? You and me? We're shi'."

"Nobody wants it," Vanwynn said. There was such a twinkle in her eye. "Nobody thinks it's worth the time, but I've been there. Recently. Me and Old Van."

"I'll be' that was quite the comedy," Maedwynn snarked. "

Oy Van! Wha'? Wha'?

"

"Not as hard as you'd think," Van said, easily. "He called me Cunt the whole time. I called him Foreskin."

The old dwarf across the table went positively apoplectic. "

You called Vanwynn Ironfist, patriarch of House Iro--

"

"Well it was

Wrinkled Old Foreskin

at first, but that's too much so I shortened it." Then she sat forward, elbows on her knees, and leaned toward Maedwynn. "I need this. I need you. I can't do this without you."

"The fuck?"

"Alone, that place will eat me alive, but with you? You and me, together again?" She made a fist and shook it, theatrically. "We'll have the dremite flowing in no time. We get

that

ironed out, get a little more black in the family ledger, and we start solving problems for

everyone

in Plantan."

Maedwynn leaned forward too, but her eyes kept drifting. Never resting. "But.. the Long Belt?"

"Do it for me."

This caught Maedwynn in the chest like a thousand kilos. When she looked up, all the mirth was gone from her sister's features.

"Please."

Maedwynn was too shocked, too surprised, to say anything. Behind her, the fire roared, and the old dwarf gave them a bitter glare as he packed his case and headed for the door.

***

Sweat was pouring off Maedwynn's face. "Again."

The screen on her bot switched from a query to pixelated grimace, and the padded actuators came back up in front of it. One shot forward toward her on a piston, and she rolled to her right to avoid it. Her tape-wrapped fist came up as she did, in a tight uppercut that drove the bot a foot higher into the air before the jets could stabilize it. She got her guard up, high and tight, in time to deflect the return shot. Pivoting hard from the hip.

She cracked the side of it with a close hook, and when it spun to recover she slid a jab right through its guard. The grimace on the screen glitched, replaced a moment later by an angry smile with a few missing teeth.

The returning shots came faster, but with less precision. Maedwynn weathered the storm, absorbing blows with her arms and shoulders, and ended the sparring session with a vicious 1-2, a jab and an overhand left, that sent the bot corkscrewing backwards.

"I saw your last fight."

Maedwynn turned, arms heavy at her sides, and looked back over her shoulder. Her sister was standing in the open hatchway with her arms crossed. Maedwynn's chest rose and fell with her heavy breathing. "

Nobody

saw mah las' figh'."

"Not in person," Van said, nudging the wall with enough force to propel her into uprightness. "Not live. I caught a feed."

Maedwynn just grunted as she went over to her bot and scooped it up into her hands.

"You're really good."

"'ow would

you

know?" She set the cubical bot on the edge of her workbench, grabbed a cable from her dataterm, and plugged it in.

"Alright," Van said, "alright, you got me. I don't know shit about boxing. All I know is, I watched it, I thought you kicked that dude's ass, and then at the end he was the one getting his hand raised." She came over and leaned on the desk next to the bot. "For a minute, I thought you must have taken a dive somehow because it didn't look close, but I rewatched it and... " She moved her hands around in the space before her, grasping for something, and came up empty handed.

"Ah never go' in bed wi' the books."

Van chortled, and said, "You got that right."

"Oh shut i'."

Van gave her a reassuring clap on the shoulder. "Did that cost you?"

Maedwynn paused, and the exhale that came after was long and slow. "Ah dunno. Maybe."

"The advice you were getting from your corner certainly wasn't helping."

Maedwynn was on her feet fast, nose to nose, with her index finger quivering in the air. "

Don' star'.

" Vanwynn held up her hands meekly, but Vanwynn had never been meek in her whole life. Maedwynn didn't trust an inch of it. "Ah'm serious. Don' star'."

"I promise," Van said, holding her gaze, "I didn't come in here to start shit. I mean, yeah, I wanted to talk to you, but I didn't want to pick a fight."

Maedwynn thumped back down onto her backless stool, and gave her sister her best stink eye. "Tha' topic's off tha table."

"Well yeah, but--"

"Ye wanna play questions, tape up." For emphasis, she tapped the tape wrapping on her forearm. "Ah kin only bea' this little contraption so many times b'fore Ah break it fer good."

"Is that really the only way I can talk to you about him?"

Maedwynn grabbed the upper drawer of the bench, yanked it out, slapped her hand on a cream white roll of tape, and jammed it into her sister's chest. "We're doon."

To her surprise, Van shoved the roll into a back pocket.

"What I came to tell you was," Van said, taking a lower, more respectful tone, "that we'll be coming out of warp in about three hours."

"Okaye."

"And I'd love it if you were on the bridge with me when it happens."

Maedwynn scoffed. "What for?"

"When I was here with Foreskin--"

Maedwynn burst out laughing so loudly she surprised herself. "Ah though' ye were just rilin' up that dried out pork roast."

Van smirked, but it was muted. "When I was here with

Old Van,

he was still in charge. I was just... I mean, everyone saw me with him, but it was his show." Then, after a moment, she added, "Honest truth. I don't wanna do this alone. I wanna do this

with you.

"

"Y'know," Maedwynn said, "Nobody who's ever tol' the truth had ta preface it by announcing i' was the truth."

The silence stretched out. Maedwynn turned slowly, head tilting, but Vanwynn refused to meet her increasingly irate gaze.

Eventually, Van nodded and stood. "You'll be there? On the bridge?"

"Ah'll be there," Maedwynn said, as she turned back to the dataterm.

***

Maedwynn was feeling her full, surly self as the axial tram brought her toward the front end of the ship. She almost hoped she'd be late, because Van's earlier visit had put her in such a shit mood, but her desire to get one over on her sister was ultimately topped by her desire for a fresh start. She

did

want this to work, no matter how reluctant she might be to admit as much out loud.

The tram creaked to a stop, amid a haze of pneumatic relief valves filling the hallway with vapor clouds, and she followed the runes on the bulkhead toward Navigation. The great machinery of the ship thrummed all around her, and even though it had been years since she'd worked a hammer and forge she still knew enough to hear the age of it. The wear and tear of centuries. Creaking where there ought to be better tolerancing to prevent flex. The House's fleet of space-faring vessels might have been majestic once, but time was coming for them as it came for all things.

The one thing she could say, the one thing that made it all worthwhile, was that it was so, so,

so

nice to travel on something built for dwarves. For all the jank and the age, there was nothing so comforting as doors she didn't feel like a child passing through, or stools she didn't need to break out her climbing gear to mount. Tables she could see over. All of it.

Helgeth's Mercy

was a ship practically devoid of actual creature comforts, all function and no form, but it was the only way to travel as far as she was concerned.

Her older sister flashed a broad grin when Maedwynn stepped onto the bridge, the kind that said

all is forgiven

, which was definitely not the way she herself felt after their earlier talk; she was sure that sooner or later Van was gonna put that tape to use and they'd have it out, the way they always did. She should have known not to give Van that avenue, because her older sister had never shied away from a scrap in her life.

"Ah'm here," Maedwynn said, reluctantly, as she stepped up next to her sister.

Vanwynn gave her a gentle nudge and, in a more tender tone than Maedwynn was expecting, replied, "I'm glad."

One of the dwarves in front of them, on the lower area of the bridge, shouted, "

Exiting warp in t-minus-two

."

Another, this time one of the wae, added, "Communications stands ready for your broadcast."

Maedwynn furrowed her brow, and said, "'re we mean' ta give a speech?"

"I just need you by my side," Van said, though she was sweating.

"Wai'," Maedwynn said, moving closer, her voice low. "You? Yer gonna spea'? Ta who?"

"To, yanno..." Van waved her hand. "Them."

"

'ow many members 're still 'ere?

"

"

I didn't take a census!

"

"

Ye can' tal' to crowds!

"

"It's not a crowd, it's a feed. It's not like I've gotta see all their faces."

"An' tha' makes a dif'rence?"

"Could we not talk about this right now?"

Maedwynn grit her teeth and looked back over her shoulder, mind casting about for a change of subject. "Wai'," she said, as her mind finally turned over the implications of where they were and where they were going. "'re ye still with whatserface?"

Van's features froze. "That's what you're going with? That's the change of subject you think would help me right now?"

"Whaddya wan' from me? I' jus' realized!"

"This is going great," Van said, lips curling into the least amused smile Maedwynn had ever seen. "No notes."

"'re ye bringin' her t'the Long Belt? Did ye break up?"

"

T-minus-one,

" the nav officer shouted.

"Ah'm sorry. Ah didn' know."

Vanwynn's smile widened, but was no more enthusiastic. "Can. We.

Talk about this later?

"

Maedwynn bit her lip, clapped a hand hard on her older sister's shoulder, and moved to stand right next to her. A half step behind. She kept her hand there, willing herself into a steadying influence on sheer grit, and watched the feedvids to the left and right of the main viewport ahead.

"M'lady," the comms Dwarf said, flagging her with a 'go' hand gesture.

Maedwynn felt it coming in the way Vanwynn's chest filled.

"

Graybeards,

" she roared. "

Copperhills, Wintershields, Blackash.

" Her nostrils flared as she drew another mighty breath. "

Oakenhelm and Snowmountain.

" She planted both hands on the railing, and gripped it so hard the ceremite groaned under the strain. One by one, different members of the bridge raised a single fist each into the air. "

Coldhavens, Windforge, Ashenguard."

Raised fists all around.

"The Ironfist have returned to the Long Belt.

"

When Vanwynn raised a fist, Maedwynn matched her, and as one they all brought their fists hard against their chest. Hard against the heart. Cheers rose up from elsewhere in the ship, carrying through the ductwork.

"Any post that can spare the bodies, send one to Deepwatch station. We'll be gettin' the lay of it all. The time has come to make good on our oaths." She nodded at the comms dwarf, who gave her a hearty thumbs up, and then the silence lifted.

Maedwynn hadn't even realized how quiet it had gotten until all the normal chatter between posts resumed. She kept her grip on her sister's shoulder, and moved around to her other side to make the whole thing more of a hug. This time, the smile Vanwynn gave her was more genuine. "Thanks."

"Ah didn't--"

"'Course you did."

Maedwynn gave her a nudge, and the two of them started heading toward the back, away from the rest of the bridge crew. "Ye did good. Ye kept it short, kept it punchy."

"Thanks," Vanwynn said, her smile in danger of breaking into true gratitude.

"Now ken we tal' abou' Keileigh?"

The smile kept on widening. "Never change," Vanwynn said.

"Ah wasn'--" Her ramp up was somewhat blunted by her sister pulling down on her and kissing her forehead. "Tha' wasn'a joke."

Vanwynn spun around as she started walking away down the hall, gave Maedwynn a double dose of finger guns, and said, "I'll talk about Keileigh as soon as you're ready to talk about Adam."

Maedwynn instinctively flinched, shoulders rising up near her ears. Her hands balled into fists, and her sister seemed positively gleeful at having so easily put her back up. She said nothing as she watched Van disappear down the hall, and sighed once her very annoying older sister was out of sight.

Just in time to jump right out of her skin when a hand settled on her shoulder from behind.

"Oh!" the comms dwarf said, blinking in surprise. "I didn't mean to startle you!"

When the wae just continued to stare at her, Maedwynn eventually grumbled, "Yes?"

"Oh! Right! Um, I just wanted to let you know that we'll be docking with Deepwatch in seven hours."

She blinked, and a thought started to bloom in her head. She said, "Very well," and this seemed to please the wae. Maedwynn had never really had to deal with the realities of

being an Ironfist;

in fact, it would be fair to say she'd been running from that responsibility for most of her adult life. Being here, being in the Long Belt, alongside Vanwynn, meant that was over. People were going to be doing this and more for the foreseeable future, and there was nothing for it but for her to get used to it. She should have done that centuries ago.