Title: Broken Blade
Date: April 5th, 2026
Author: Z. E. Wayland
License: CC0; To the extent possible under law, Z. E. Wayland has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.
The warrior sails through tide and turns so she could take her blade, broken in two, back to the base of the volcano. Her boat settles against the soft island sands along a familiar pathway. Here, the island grows endlessly from the constant flow of lava drifting across the floor. The path back is a little longer than she remembered. The warrior carries the two pieces in a wrapped cloth cradled across her arms. She rests them gently where the lava forks a circular path around stone. With reverence, she steps back into the constant rising hear of the elevated plateau and holds her hands up towards the volcano's top.
"This, child, is broken beyond repair. Cast it into my flames and let it sink into the earth," the volcano says. Its voice a rumble of the earth, a popping of a flame, a slow certainty of the world. The voice echoes all around her like the gentle touch of wind.
The warrior clenches her hands together and shuts her eyes. That is the answer she was expecting, but also the one that she did not want to hear. There lies the broken blade in front of her. The names of all the warriors before it had are etched along its edges. Her name is snapped in half, the point of shattering. "You have always been so quick to replace the broken. Your power has replaced my ship, my armor, the very position of being your warrior. But, not this. I plead to you to give me some trial or hardship and repair this blade."
"I cannot. It is beyond repair. Allow the blade to rest." The volcano says gently. It knows that what it says may sound callous and unfeeling. It also knows that its own rage would erupt into destructive plums of fire and ash. This detachment from the little world beneath it is to keep others safe. Even so, the distance is painful. As though it cannot truly connect to the people that look up to it, only able to watch the turmoil, only able to see a face and know that those pressed features means they are in distress.
The warrior couldn't accept such an answer. It would mean that she would have to be the one responsible, the one who broke the generational legacy, the one who has to bear the shame. She shrunk before the slope of the volcano, feeling cold even in its burning warmth. "Then, what am I to pass on? This broken thing? This incomplete part of a whole? It was my mother's blade and her mother's before that and now it can be nobody's."
After a silence, the volcano rumbles once more as gently as it could. The ground shaking only softly that even the sand on the beach was barely disturbed. "I can offer a copy, a replica. I would rather you choose to discard it. Not all burdens passed by your lineage must be yours to be carried."
"You have always been so quick to relinquish the past. This is something that I want to carry, that I want to bear the burden of. Yet, I question my own strength, my own knowledge, my own responsibility as I will be the last one to carry it onward," the warrior says. She remembers her mother letting her hold the blade by its handle. She remembers how excited she was when realizing that one day it would be hers, that we would be worthy enough to wield it. She remembered dreaming about what words she would give onto her daughter and reciting them as she counted the days it would be hers.
"The blade... has never been what was passed down."
"Speak truly."
"I am. The blade is only an object. You," the fire billows from the top of the volcano in emphasis, "are what carried on a legacy. Without you there would have been none to give." It has seen this happen, where the little people adhere to so strict a view on the impermanent object that it so defines them, as though they are nothing without it. As though the volcano would have only been a mere volcano had it not been for this great power it has been granted. These are gifts. Gifts are nothing if there are none to accept it.
The warrior bends down to hold the two pieces in each hand. In front of her, the lava burns hot but she can only tighten her grip. She understands what the volcano says, but the blade still means something to her. It is the gift from her mother, a gift representative of a bright and hopeful future. For her, it is an object of sentiment, her weight that she has been glad to bear. When she tries to imagine a world without it, it does not exist.
"I will keep the pieces," she tells the volcano. "I must keep them because they are broken, they are a part of my history that I want others to know, to show what histories have lead towards it. It is more than a mere object, it is a tapestry of my family's past. Perhaps one day, I shall tell my daughter of what happened to it and hope she will not make the same mistake..."
The volcano is disappointed. A dark gloom of ash billows from its top. Then, its core erupts as the warrior reaches into the lava. Her hand coats in the burning liquid as it drips from her skin as easily as water, hands upon a handle still glowing red and orange from the freshness of the heat. She holds the blade above her head towards the afternoon sun. It glows with power as the sizzling lava drops to the floor, hardens into stone. "And not allow my own shackles stop her from wielding a family blade."