steadyasthewind:

 

_{This sword was made from foreign materials known only by the English, who used the shiny substance widely thought Jamestown in their daily lives. It was cold to the touch, and heavy in her palms, but still, when she gripped the handle tightly, she was could hold the object up to reflect the rays of sun filtering through the canopy above. Prisms of light scattered along the trunks of trees, and as she turned it over in her hands, the speckles of light shivers and danced. Her attention was retracted from starting a fire to the overwhelming curiosity over this shiny new object within her hands. Ping needn’t worry about her harming the sword, she was too fascinated by looking over the blade to let anything damage the family weapon, and handled it as gently as one would handle an egg.}

_{“It is like a knife, right?” she was careful not to touch the edge as she continued to observe Ping’s sword. There was a definite knife-like quality about the object, but at the same time it was far too large to be convenient for anything her people would use a knife for.  "Why is it so big? Do you use it to cut food?“} 

Shards of pale yellow light danced across Ping’s jacket and face as he watched Pocahontas examine the sword.  He looked, and was, puzzled that the other woman had never seen or maybe even heard of a sword before, but he smiled a little as the honed metal scattered the sunlight even onto the forest floor.  For all that Ping had ever learned, offhand, about swords from his baba, he’d never known that they could splinter the light that way, and he didn’t think he was going to forget it.  (Maybe redirecting the sunlight was even a way to start a fire, if you held the sword just right.)  

"Um, yes.”  Ping made as though to step closer, not because he was about to take his sword back but because it was not very often that the young recruit could claim the advantage in swordsmanship, not here.  "But both sides are sharpened, instead of just one…it’s used for - it’s a weapon.  To cut…people.“  Remembering his manly charade with a jolt, Ping even managed a grim chuckle: swords were definitely not for preparing food, though Ping had definitely wielded large sharp knives in his mama’s kitchen.  

He immediately felt awful and added in a higher voice, "I’ve never done that before, though.  In training we use the flat of the blade - ” Ping pressed a finger against the cold broad side of the metal “ - and we learn to defend ourselves with swords.  I don’t know how to attack somebody with one yet.”  Not, Ping thought privately, that it could be very difficult.  Even the clumsiest, most naive soldier (that is, Ping) could figure out that the sharp, pointed blade would do damage no matter where it was stabbed.  He assumed that it was getting past the opponent’s blows and blocks to stab them was the problem.