I bet you are. ;) Chastity couldn't help that tease. See you there.

Steve chuckled. See you tomorrow. Shaking his head, he tucked his phone back in his pocket.

Chastity smiled and went back to dying threads for weaving.

A few hours later, Rea was frustrated. She wasn't in the right headspace to work today. As proven by the clump of uncooperative clay she'd just thrown at the wall.

So she pulled out her phone.

I just threw clay at the wall. I'm taking that as a sign to take a break.

Good idea. Bucky grinned. He hadn't been sure if she would really text him, and he was pleased that she had.

If it would just cooperate with me I could keep working. Rea scowled at the lump slowly sliding down the wall and went to go scrape it off.

I know how that feels. Metal is harder to bully into cooperating. Bucky had a small blank in front of him, a few lines etched into it. The etchings would guide his carving later.

I bet. Maybe I'll have better luck with leather. I'd try glass but that workshop isn't until next week. And she wasn't dumb enough to try working with glass before the workshop.

Glass doesn't like me much. I tried once. And he still had the burn on his palm to prove it, although it was mostly faded by that point.

You've already got metal, no need to go for multiple stubborn materials. But Rea was grinning, already relaxing.

Hey, had to give it a shot. Bucky set his work down for a bit and stretched, then settled down. What were you working on?

A vase. Someone ordered a clay vase with a set of runes imbedded to make the flowers last longer. The clay wasn't working with me to make the base shape for the vase to start with. Should be the easiest part, but it's just not happening today. Rea made a face at her clay.

One of those days, then. I know how that is. And he had the scars on his hands to prove it. Friend of Steve's asked about some amulets, apparently, so I'm trying to see what works and what doesn't. Different metals can be tricky sometimes.

Amulets, huh? Honestly, haven't thought much about those. You'll have to explain to me how that works, because that was not covered in my basic metalworking workshop.

Amulets are interesting. Combination of runes and symbology combining with specific metals to get the results you want. Bucky still had a few of his first attempts at amulets, although they didn't work as well as he'd wanted them to. He hadn't gotten the symbology quite right with the metals he'd used.

Huh. Neat. Sounds more complicated than just adding runes to things. At least with runes you didn't have to worry quite so much about the material you were adding them to. The runes were the same whether you were adding them to cloth or clay.

A little more. Some runes, some symbolic things, the metal used, and a little bit of power. Not that Bucky was going to tell anyone that he kept a book of runes and a book of symbology around just for things like this. He wasn't even sure if Steve knew or not.

This is where rune books come in handy. Because Rea didn't have a problem admitting she kept a rune book in her work area. Sometimes people requested things she didn't know off the top of her head.

No kidding. Well, if she was going to admit to one, so was he. Runes, symbology, metallurgy. Even if Bucky didn't always melt down and blend his metals himself, he did keep a reference on metallurgy handy.

I've got some on colors and flower meanings too. I need to pick up a few more, though, for reference. I'm going to start working with glass soon, so I'll have more possibilities. Rea grinned. She was looking forward to glass work, and she didn't mind admitting that she didn't know everything.

Flowers? Flowers could be interesting, Bucky had to admit. They were touched on in the symbology book, but nowhere near in-depth.

Oh yeah. There's a whole flower language. If you want to, you can send people all kinds of messages with flowers. It's kind of fun, I played with it a bit in high school and a few clients have wanted flowers worked in to certain pieces. Which had been a good fun challenge.

Interesting. Because he'd seen metal flowers made before, and it had piqued his interest at the time. I might look into that.

You can borrow my book if you want, to get an idea, Rea offered after a brief moment of hesitation. She wasn't using it, and she didn't mind him using it.

You sure? Bucky knew how protective people could be of their things, especially gifted people.