The fires on his face were hot enough to make him uncomfortable, still he would stoke them hotter. The goggles he put over his eyes were something new, though the song wasn't. It pushed into the rhythm of the bellows ad encouraged more heat from the flames. A large silver rod was thrust into the coals even as the smith continued to raise his flames. The skin of his arms burned now, but he continued. The emptiness within him was latched onto that void that seemed to suck away the good of every day.

Within this void he could still hear the echoes of her presence. Strange how they were more obvious now than they had been when she was present. Stranger still how those echoes brought a burning to his eyes and heaviness into his chest. When he needed to create now, he went here and filled his soul with the longing. It was through that longing that the designs came. Here he could focus, though it gave him a fair amount of agony within him to do so. That was the problem as much as the solution.

The touch was missing, that enveloping all encompassing caress that would send him into a heightened state of consciousness. The void had this once and now it was simply a place to suck away his life. But that was his business wasn't it to create that which takes life" It was perhaps fair for him to sacrifice himself now, to put pieces of himself into the souls of the weapons.

Did they realize, those who were in his world now" Did they see how he gave those parts away. He could feel the exhaustion more heavily every time he did something new. How much would this one cost' A day, maybe a week of his essence" He couldn't find himself caring anymore. It was time to move on, to meet her where ever she was. The project had been ordered by no one, he hadn't had a custom order in some time but still those custom pieces kept coming from him. His knees shook with the efforts now. Perhaps he needed a moment to sit and think" Perhaps a little time to make the world go away would do him good"

The fingernails of Kruger's hand moved across his forehead, he needed to feel the sharp edges, to know that he could still feel anything. He needed to lose this feeling of being alone. He slumped down onto the couch, his chest to his knees while his fingers clasped behind his head.

"How long" I push and push but the end eludes me. I could give up everything if only I knew it would bring you. You hide though, from me, from you. Is this how you want me to be? Alone and hurting?" There was no answer, no warming feeling, not one indication that anyone could hear him. There was the forge, and the void.