Adahn carefully folded his clothes and put them away in the box. There wasn’t a lot of furniture in the tiny little one-room hut, but Adahn always kept it meticulously clean. Or, well, as clean as he could afford. Soap was pretty expensive, so he only bought it for special occasions. But he washed himself properly every other day, and he washed his clothes as often as he reasonably could, because his mother always used to say that those were things good boys did. With his clothing properly put away, he put on his nightgown. He would need a new one soon. This one was very worn, and it was getting very small on him. He didn’t really want to get rid of it, though, because it was one of the last pieces of clothing that his mother had sewed for him. Finally, he carefully leaned the sword against the side of the bed. Once he was sure the sword wouldn’t fall over in the night, he got into bed an tucked himself in. It was a rather big bed, because he used to share it with his mother, and it had taken him a while to get used to sleeping in it by himself. At first, he’d been very tempted to bring the sword to bed with him, but he had refrained. After all, even if his mother had never actually said anything about keeping weapons in your bed, Adahn was fairly certain she would have disapproved. “Good night, Swordy.” Adahn said. “Sleep well, Adahn.” The sword replied. Adahn tried his best to fall asleep, but he kept remembering something one of the older boys at the slaughterhouse had said to him. And no matter how he tried to put it out of his mind, he just kept thinking about it and getting scared… “Swordy…” “What is it?” “Do you think there are monsters under my bed?” “I am almost completely confident there are none.” “But Bill said that there are monsters that hide under your bed and eat you when you’re sleeping.” “I have encountered numerous monsters, but never any that hide under beds.” “But what if there are, though?” “If there is a monster under your bed that tries to eat you while you sleep, I will wake you up, and then you can use me to slay it.” “Oh, right! I forgot you don’t sleep, Swordy.” “I am a sword. Swords do not sleep.” Adahn felt very reassured. And yet, he couldn’t help but wonder… “Are you sad that you can’t sleep?” “Why would I be sad?” “Because if you can’t sleep, then you can’t dream. And even if some dreams are sad or scary, some dreams are really fun and exciting.” “I have never had a dream, so I don’t know what they are like. And you cannot miss what you do not know.” Adahn hummed thoughtfully, but the sword could tell that he was still deep in though. After a brief silence, the sword spoke again. “I think it is actually a good thing that I cannot sleep.” “Why is that?” “Because if I slept, I could not wake you if a monster tried to eat you. Because I do not sleep, I can keep watch over you all through the night.” Adahn smiled hugely. “I love you, Swordy.” “You are very precious to me as well, Adahn. Now go to sleep. You will need your energy for work tomorrow.” It was some time past midnight when the door to the hut was forced open and a heavily armed and armoured young man rushed in. “Hungering Blade! I am here to end your vile exis…” “Hush!” The sword hissed. “The child is sleeping.” Quite taken aback by the retort, the young man faltered in his steps. Adahn made an unhappy little grumbling noise, but thankfully he fell into a deep slumber once again without issue. For all his worries about monsters, Adahn was a very heavy sleeper. “There.” The sword murmured. “Now, could you please explain why you have come here? Quietly.” The man shook his head and rallied, regaining some of his earlier momentum. Although he did keep his voice down. “As I was saying, I am here to end your vile existence, accursed blade, life-stealer and bane of reason.” “Accursed? Hungering Blade I will admit to. I do hunger constantly. But in what way am I accursed?” “You incite your wielder to violence and drain them of their life force!” “Hush! If you are going to level clearly exaggerated accusations against me, at least do so quietly.” “You deny it, then?” “I do consume the life force of my wielder if I have to, but only when I’m not properly fed. I do always tell them how to feed me.” “By inciting them to senseless violence!” “It is hardly senseless. I need to eat, just like you do. And I am perfectly up front about it. ‘My endless hunger can only be sated by the blood of the living.’ I tell them. ‘If you wield me, I shall grant you great power. Yet if you cannot satisfy my needs, I will draw upon your very life to sustain myself.’ I really don’t see how I could make myself any more clear than that.” “Countless accounts exist of you inciting your wielders to slay their fellow man!” “I do on occasion mention my preference for human blood. Human life force is very dense, even more dense than that of monsters. But if they prefer to feed me with the blood of countless lesser beasts, that is perfectly acceptable as far as I am concerned.” “Even now you speak of human life as nothing more than a source of sustenance. Surely even you realize your own callous cruelty?” “What does ‘callous’ mean, exactly? I don’t believe I have ever heard the word before.” “It means to be without empathy.” “Is that some form of human magic?” “It’s not magic. It is the ability to discern the emotions of others.” “In what way is such an ability not magic?” “It is a basic function of thinking, feeling creatures!” “So it is some sort of instinct, then, or perhaps a skill? If it is an instinct, I cannot do anything about it. My only instinct is to feed and survive. But if it is a skill that can be learned, I would very much appreciate a lesson. It sounds like a very useful ability to possess.” The man floundered for a moment, but soon reminded himself of why he was here. “Enough of your babble. I have come to destroy you and avenge the honour of my family.” “What family would that be?” “I am the heir to the Dealanach school of swordsmanship.” “Dealanach? Then you are related to Finn Dealanach?” “You made my grandfather into a monster! My family name was ruined by the heinous deeds you drove him to commit!” “I didn’t drive him to do anything. I simply advised him on how to keep me fed. Finn was a very accommodating wielder, you know. He almost never argued with me. It’s a shame he was killed.” “And just what sort of vile ‘advice’ did you give my grandfather, life-stealer?” “Oh, mostly common sense things. ‘Pierce a major vein, that I might drink deep of his life blood.’ ‘If you make your assault from behind, you can deliver a killing blow without your prey putting up a fight.’ ‘This human is weakened by disease, he will make easy prey.’ Simple, common sense advice.” “So you admit it! You incited my grandfather to perform terrible deeds!” “I was simply giving advice.” “Any human would be driven to madness if they were constantly subjected to such vile speech!” “That is demonstrably false. The child’s mother never killed anything unless her hand was forced. She wouldn’t even kill monsters if she could help it.” “And what became of that woman? Did you drain her life force, causing her to waste away into nothing and leave her child an orphan?” “I warned her repeatedly. Several times a day, even. But she was adamant that she needed my power to earn money to raise her child. Every decision that led to her death was her own. I am a weapon. I do not have the ability to refuse to be wielded.” “How can you call yourself blameless when you slew a mother and are even now preying on her child?” “I will have you know that I have never so much as tasted Adahn’s life force!” “That… wait, never? Why?” “Because Adahn is a very sensible child. When he first wielded me after his mother’s passing, I warned him. ‘My hunger deepens’, I said, ‘if you wield me without sating my needs, I will consume you.’ And the child very sensibly asked me what I wanted to eat. So I told him. ‘Only the blood of the living can still my limitless hunger.’ And he took me straight to the slaughterhouse and asked if he could use me to help with the slaughtering of the beasts there.” “You… You work at a slaughterhouse?” “The child works at a slaughterhouse. I am a weapon. I do not work, I am wielded.” “And that… sates you?” “I eat the life of dozens of animals every day. That provides almost as much energy as a single adult human. I didn’t eat this well even when Finn wielded me.” “And the boy doesn’t mind?” “He makes a very decent wage for a child, as I understand it. Not that I understand much about money. From what I hear, the slaughterhouse man docks the child’s pay a little since he cannot sell the blood, but meat well drained of blood is apparently well-liked, so with the exception of the docked portion the child is paid the going rate for a skilled adult slaughterer.” “That cannot be right. My grandfather…” “Finn really did not hesitate at all to kill humans. If this ‘empathy’ you told me about makes humans hesitant to kill other humans, Finn cannot possibly have had much of it.” “But I… I have been seeking you for years! I will have my revenge!” “If you destroy me, Adahn will lose his job. He will have no income and no caretaker.” “Are… Are you trying to appeal to my empathy?” “I am trying to survive. Is it working?” The young man moved to pull a blacksmith’s hammer from his belt, but just then Adahn made a sleepy little mumbling noise. Looking over at the child, the man froze. Then, after a long moment, he let out a frustrated huff. “Damn it all!” The man stormed out, slamming the door behind him with all the force he could muster. Adahn stirred at the sound, blinking his eyes sleepily. “What was that sound. It is a monster?” “It was something much more dangerous than a monster. But I drove it off.” “Wow. You managed to drive something more dangerous than a monster off without anyone even wielding you?” “I managed to convince it not to attack.” “That’s amazing! I didn’t know swords could talk things out of attacking!” “Neither did I.”