[attr="class","aurelie"]

[attr="class","aurelie_body"]Aurelie could have gritted her teeth in petty-minded frustration and grudging appreciation when Cillian responded to her explanation of the current saddle's faults graciously and patiently, even encouragingly. It made it so hard to fear and dislike him when he was being nice. Weren't underbosses supposed to spit fire and slit your throat if you so much as breathed wrong in their vicinity?

She managed to say none of this aloud and even smiled appreciatively when he said he could continue to help. "That's very kind of you, sir. Thank you for staying around...and for being so understanding about my errors."

Sucking in a long breath between her teeth, the red-haired smith thought deeply about how best to utilize the unexpected help. "Let me see... Here, let me give you instructions on how to reload the furnace with fresh aluminum and heat it to the right temperature."

Speaking rapidly but as clearly as she could manage, Aurelie began rattling off the series of steps for operating the foundry furnace to melt the aluminum. She guided Cillian through each dial to turn, each button to push, and each screen to monitor, cautioning him repeatedly to keep his distance once the metal started to heat up.

"There," she concluded, slightly out of breath after speaking so much in one go. "That way, you can help with setting up, while I work on improving the sand-casting mold."

With that, the red-haired smith promptly stepped back toward the sand-casting molds, the inverses of the pieces that Cillian had so painstakingly puzzled together. Only when she knelt beside them, taking them apart and bonding them together with resin fixative, did Aurelie wonder if she should've assigned the underboss this task. He was the expert with saddles, after all, not her.

Yet, she was the expert with metal-casting and using sand molds, so perhaps this was still the best way. Stealing glances at Cillian's completed saddle, Aurelie began rearranging and reshaping the mold to make a thinner, lighter, more supple saddle that would be cast all in one piece.

She gasped and then rolled her eye when, at the corner of her vision, she caught sight of the luminous white form of Calyrex hovering precisely between her and Cillian. The King Pokemon looked back and forth between them, before nodding its head deeply. Aurelie let out an exasperated sigh.

"Please tell me that means you approve of this," she grumbled at Calyrex, her voice rising just enough to be audible above the drone of the furnace and the clatter of the molds.

As before, as she expected now, it gave no answer.

"I wish I understood you," she declared with only mild rancor. Glancing up at Cillian, she asked curiously, "Do you know if there was anyone who did know a lot about Calyrex? In Galar, the real Galar, I mean? Anyone who did understand it?"

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT