Time turns all to dust and worm food. No flesh, no bone, is permanent. Bodies are, but a vessel, holding a soul before it is set free to embark on their journey — beyond. Metal, on the other hand, is far hardier, and enduring. Yet, here it rests, a statue among graves. 

 

The glade is quiet and peaceful. Off a way, a brook sings. Walking on, a row of moss covered mounds comes into view. This demands investigation. The path that used to lead to the clearing has been taken over by nature. Leaves and branches crunch under foot as squirrels and birds flee. The air turns cooler and the sound of the brook fails. There’s an aura of reverence that makes speaking wrong somehow. 

 

Bending over, cleaning each in turn, it is clear this is the family plot for the Silverblades. The oldest and most ornate one belongs to one Dagna Silverblade. According to the dates, she is a beloved wife and mother, centuries long dead. Most are paired — husband to wife, wife to wife, husband to husband, life mates in life and in death, only Dagna stood alone. No grave stands next to hers. Instead, only a moss covered form leans against it. 

 

Are the stories true? 

 

Carefully and slowly, the form reveals its truth. Grunting and panting, fingers work into the dirt and vines clinging to the form. They yield under effort, revealing rusted metal and a face. A gasp rings out — yours. 

 

It’s true, it’s all true.

 

This is no metal statue, a mere artist rendering of a human form — it is a warforged. A machine made to fight, made to live and die fighting someone else’s war. They had been alive yet not at the same time. But this one… it — she — loved. 

 

Stories has been told. Tales woven. Every little bit and crumble has brought many close, but none has found them — the lovers. 

 

You have. 

 

----

 

RU0 or better known as Reconnaissance Unit, designation zero, was one of the earliest models made during the war. Silver metal, bent and forged to create a rough humanoid shape. One moment, she was merely a facsimile of a person, the next, she was blinking confusion from her mind. Before she could get her bearings, a rifle was thrusted into her hands. Though her feet were sure, her mind was still gathering itself. Following instructions, she found herself meeting her assigned partner for the first time. 

 

“Dagna Silverblade,” the dwarf introduced herself as she stretched an arm out at RU0. 

 

RU0 took it, but wasn’t sure what to do. She was made for war. Handshakes were something completely out of her purview. An infant and an adult forced into the same body, she was at once young and old at the same time. 

 

The dwarf took her hand and fitted their palms together. She closed her fingers around RU0’s metal ones. With a tight grip, she pumped their joined hands up and down once before letting go. RU0 relaxed in the face of Dagna’s smile. If she could return it, she would have. But she was a warforged. Born — made — she was here for only one thing. War. 

 

At least, she wouldn’t be expected to decide everything herself. Now, she had a partner to guide her aim. 

 

“What is our mission, Corporal Silverblade?” RU0 asked. 

 

“Follow me, and you’ll find out,” Dagna replied with a grin. 

 

And so, RU0 did. 

 

----

 

The war raged on. She did as she was made for — killing. Warforged were made and quickly paired up. If they were damaged in combat, they were repaired. Unless the battle would render them completely irreparable. Most pairs lost one partner or both within their first few months. Others were luckier, and their partnership survived years. 

 

RU0 and Dagna were one of the luckiest ones. They were each other’s first partners, and they survived it all. That’s how their legend started — an invincible pair. But they weren’t indestructible. 

 

Dwarves were made of flesh and bone. 

 

“Your leg!” RU0 despite not being able to speak with more feeling than a flat monotone, her emotions were betrayed by how her eyes colour changed. Right now, faced with Dagna’s mangled leg, her eyes went from their usual yellow to an agitated red. 

 

RU0 was a warforged. She had no magic, despite being made of magic. So, she did the next best thing — pressure on the wound. With the battle raging around her, she ignored it. Her focus was honed down to a pinprick — get Dagna to the healers now. One arm against the wound, another wrapped around Dagna to take her weight, RU0 stared at the mop of red hair against her chest. All she could think of was how uncomfortable and painful it must be for Dagna as she ran. 

 

The battlefield was already pockmarked with bodies, both organic and inorganic. Blood soaked into the soil, churned into mud, while metal parts littered the ground. Cries of pain rang out, drowning the moans of the dying and the pleas of the damned. RU0 wasn’t the only running figure on the field, but she was the only with an unerring purpose. It laid beyond all this chaos, back where she had marched from this morning, all those miles away. The healers would know what to do, they would save Dagna. 

 

Glancing down, looking past the tight grimace on Dagna’s face as her body went lax in RU0’s arms, all she saw was the red running down her side. Blood. Renewing her grip on Dagna’s wound, she ran faster. 

 

Spells whizzed by, burning her legs, searing her back, making her stumble. Thankfully, RU0 never lost her footing and kept running. She locked her jaw and ignored the pain. However, desperation squeezed her throat in a way she didn’t understand. Her body was made of metal, there was nothing around her neck. Was she affected by a spell that crushed metal? Her gaze fell upon her partner again. Fear was a solid weight inside her chest. 

 

There was no time to stop. 

 

RU0 didn’t know how she made it, but the healers’ tent was right in front of her. Blood coated hands dragged Dagna from her arms. Try as she might to command her fingers and hands to let go, they had to pry her partner free. There, she stood, outside the tent Dagna had disappeared inside of. The stench of iron filled the air. A pile of limbs lay heaped right outside. She stared. Big and small, five fingered or less, all of them were still bleeding and steaming with heat of a body that they were no longer connected. She swallowed against that uncomfortable feeling again. 

 

No. The healers would fix Dagna. She was sure. Her feet moved, almost involuntarily, forward, but a pair of hands dragged her away — an officer. “Soldier, where’s your partner?” 

 

“Inside,” RU0 replied. 

 

He paused and tugged harder, trying to get her to move. “Your duty isn’t complete. Go, get yourself a new partner assigned. You still have work to do.” 

 

RU0 frowned. The orders weren’t uncommon ones, but she didn’t want to obey. Getting a new partner felt wrong. There was only one partner for her, and that was Dagna Silverblade. All that raced through her mind in a matter of seconds. She lifted her chin and looked at the officer. “No. I will wait for my partner.” With that, she walked away. 

 

RU0 couldn’t say why the officer didn’t demand her to obey or punish her for insubordination. She didn’t care. Night fell, and day dawned again. She hadn’t moved from her spot. When she spotted officers heading her way to question why she was standing guard over a healer’s tent, she switched positions. One warforged looked much like another to most, anyway. 

 

“What do you mean you don’t know? Did you reassign her? Was she reassigned?” a voice demanded from inside the tent. “Is she hurt? Is she even—“ 

 

Placating voices cut her off. But the first voice was not having any of it. “No! No, I will not calm down until you tell me what happened to her! She’s my partner, and I’ve made a commitment to her!” 

 

There was a lull in the conversation, but RU0 didn’t need to hear more. She knew the voice — Dagna. Striding into the tent, she was met with a stern looking human. “Who are you? You’re in the wrong tent.” 

 

“My partner is here,” RU0 explained. 

 

“If your partner is here, you have to be reassigned. Nobody here is fit to go back to battle.” 

 

That was the last thing RU0 wanted to do. She twisted around the nurse and headed inside anyway. Dagna’s protests were growing louder. It wasn’t hard to triangulate where her partner was. The nurse, on the other hand, shouted, “Warforged, there are protocols! Your partner—“ 

 

RU0 ignored the nurse. She yanked the screens partitioning the different sections. They parted and there Dagna was, struggling against two pairs of hands holding her down on the bed. That spurred RU0 into action instantly. “Unhand her!” 

 

Metal clad, steel born, RU0 moved faster than anyone expected. Her hands closed around those holding Dagna down. With a simple pull, she broke their grip. Turning to Dagna, she asked, “Are you okay?” 

 

Dagna grinned and hugged her. She was a dwarf, so that meant her arms wrapped around RU0’s waist instead of her chest. “I knew you are all right!” 

 

RU0 felt her neck relaxed, and she could breathe again, despite not needing it. She couldn’t understand the feeling that swept over her. It was an emotion she didn’t have a name for and couldn’t understand what it meant. So, she rubbed Dagna’s head, contented and happy again. “I’m glad you’re okay. How’s the leg? I ran to the healers as quickly as I could.” 

 

“You didn’t wait until it was sundown?” Dagna asked. 

 

RU0 braced herself for a reprimand. There were rules to combat. The only thing that mattered was the mission, and the need to complete it. Nothing else was more important. What RU0 just did was admitting to disobeying a directive. She braced herself to be scolded. Instead of receiving any such thing, Dagna pulled away and slapped her on her hip. “Thank you. If you didn’t, I don’t think they would be able to save my leg.” 

 

RU0 looked down at Dagna’s knee. The wound was mostly healed, but the scarring was severe. The flesh looked mangled, and the muscles twisted. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

 

Dagna shrugged. She swung her legs off the side of her cot to show RU0. “Look, between losing my leg entirely and having two legs. I think I prefer my leg attached to my body. Thank you very much.” Looking up at RU0, she tugged on RU0’s finger. “Can you couch down or something? I don’t need a kink in my neck to go with everything else.” 

 

RU0 obliged and squared down. That put them nose to nose.

 

Dagna leaned in again. This time, her hug was the right height. Her arms wrapped around RU0’s chest. “Thank you. You saved my life.” 

 

RU0 smiled and wrapped her arms around Dagna, in a mirror of her action. “You’re welcome, partner.” 

 

Dagna let go, and they both straightened. “Friend.” 

 

RU0 repeated it. “Friend.” She really liked the sound of that. 

 

----

 

The war was over. Warforged were free to make of this freedom what they would. RU0 looked at her friend. “What happens now?” She was as lost as the rest of the surviving warforged. War was what she was made for, it was all she knew. The rigid command structure gave her direction. The orders and missions shaped her days, it told her how to spend her time. All that was now gone. 

 

“Now, we go where we will,” Dagna replied with all the ease of a person who had a life before the war. “Do what we want.”

 

“But what do we want to do?” RU0 pressed. An unnamed anxiety built inside her metal chest. Hers didn’t constrict around her heart, squeezing it tightly, making it difficult to breathe. But there was a tightness there anyway. “How will we know what we want? How will we know if it’s right?” 

 

“Well…” Dagna cocked her head, confused at RU0’s buzzing worry. “I’m no longer your commander, you’re no longer my subordinate. We are just partners, equals. So, we will discuss it and decide together.”

 

“Oh… But what about coin? I am not paid, and I will require oil and—“ 

 

Dagna chuckled and shifted her weight from her bad leg to her good one. RU0 knew because she noticed these things. “Don’t worry. I have coin. I get paid. And since we’re travelling together, I’ll cover your cost for oil and whatever else.” Patting RU0’s arm — it was warm against her much cooler one — Dagna smiled in that way that eased all her worries. “We are in this together, I’m not leaving you behind. What we do from now onwards, we do it side by side.” 

 

And so they did. 

 

If someone had bothered to count, to put all of their footsteps toe to heel, back to back, it would have spanned the known world many times over. They went up mountains, down valleys, into caves and under the water sometimes — when their boat sank. But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. There were disagreements. They weathered the searing sun in the desert. RU0 could endure the heat, but her enemy was the sand. It went everywhere. Most importantly, into her joints. Every step was grinding and painful. When they trekked through the bone chilling cold, Dagna’s knee hurt all the time. No matter how much RU0 tried to massage or build a fire, it didn’t help. For all the ups and downs they had, RU0 would change any of it for the world. 

 

Eventually, Dagna’s bad leg needed to be replaced. “See, I’m just like you now,” she announced proudly after the surgery. It was now a metal leg.  

 

RU0, infinitely less impressed and worried out of her mind, shook her head and asked, “Are you replacing your head next?” 

 

But through it all, they did it, as Dagna had promised, together. 

 

----

 

War had given them one key skill that served them well in their travels — setting up camp. But peace allowed them to be people and not soldiers. Cooking and washing were taken care of without exchanging a word. RU0 would lay down in the bedrolls with Dagna until she slept before slipping out silently to keep watch. Dagna would place a cup of warmed up oil for her without comment. The tiny gestures and thoughtful touches made their travels easier. A million words could be passed between them without either opening their mouths. 

 

And with it, came fondness. 

 

RU0 didn’t know it at that time. She was a warforged, the first and oldest of her people who had survived the war. Everything she did was new, everything she felt was unique. There was nobody else to ask advice from, besides Dagna. And Dagna was a proponent of independence. 

 

So, the feeling she had gone unnamed and unexamined. 

 

After all, they were partners, and that’s just what partners did — take care of each other. Dagna cleaned the sand out from RU0’s joints, taking pains to sought identical parts to replace anything that’s been damaged. RU0 carried Dagna on her back through rain, snow, and everything else in between. Dagna made sure RU0 had the best of oils to drink, while RU0 made sure every fire at every camp site was strong enough to drive the chill in the air away. Putting metal fingers against dwarven flesh to ease tense muscles around the prothesis. 

 

But time caught up to them all. Where metal parts could be replaced, flesh and bone didn’t work quite so easily — prothesis or no. One day, Dagna suggested, “I think I need this old girl to be looked over. What’s going on with it is beyond my skills.” 

 

RU0 had Dagna’s prothesis off to one side as she rubbed medicinal oils into her skin. “Where would we find someone who can help?” 

 

Dagna sighed as she stretched out on the bedroll. “We’re near my ancestral home. I think it’s time for me to head back. There’s just the person I have in mind there.

 

A hundred years of warfare, and then a hundred years of travels, all that time, RU0 had never thought Dagna had a home to return to. “Of course. We shall set off tomorrow.”

 

The next day, as they descended the gorge towards Iron Forge, RU0 had new thoughts and feelings. Walking down the grand road, past the tall gates and into Iron Forge, the experience tightened her chest in an odd way. Dagna greeted person after person, everyone knew her and her family. RU0 just watched, listened and followed. 

 

Some remarked about her, asking Dagna if she was a warforged servant. That’s popular in the cities among the royal and rich. Dagna gently corrected them all. Even then, the strange feeling around her chest just grew tighter. 

 

Home was a word she never understood. And now, she knew why. She never had one before. 

 

“Ho! Rakam!” Dagna called out. 

 

The workshop had parts and boxes piled one on top of another. Each stack taller than the next until it touched the ceiling. Everything looked precariously unstable. How did a dwarf get things up that high? 

 

Dagna limped in after refusing RU0’s offer to carry her. So, RU0 had insisted on carrying all the packs instead. 

 

A grunt later, a pile of parts toppled over as a head popped up. That was followed by a heavy sigh and footsteps up a series of wooden steps. The head came plastered with a pair of widened eyes. “Dagna Silverblade! I thought you’ve died somewhere in a bar fight decades ago. You look like something a direwolf had dragged in. What brings you here?” 

 

Dagna heaved herself onto the nearest chair and pointed at her bad leg. “The prothesis is giving me trouble, can you take a look?” 

 

Without even looking at RU0, Rakam gestured with a pair of thick glasses in his hand. “You. Get her on the table. The chair’s no good for this.” 

 

RU0 wordlessly dropped their packs and scooped Dagna up in her arms. Gently, she placed Dagna onto the indicated piece of furniture. Rakam returned with several tools. “Roll up the pants. Or better still, get out of it.” He laughed like it’s a joke. 

 

Dagna laughed too. RU0 wondered if she should join in, but she didn’t understand it. In lieu of chuckling with the others, she turned to Dagna and asked, “Shall I help you undress?” 

 

Dagna shrugged. It was easy to work the thick travel beeches down to Dagna’s ankles. After so many years together, bare skin didn’t bother either of them. After all, they had seen each other with guts hanging out of their bodies. 

 

Rakam approached. He prodded and poked. Dagna hissed and swatted at his hands. RU0 stiffened and couldn’t help but put herself between Rakam and Dagna. 

 

“What’s your servant doing, Silverblade?” Rakam growled. He wasn’t bothered in the slightest, contented to work around RU0. 

 

Dagna sighed. “Not servant. Friend. Partner.” 

 

That caught Rakam’s attention. His glasses slid to the edge of his nose, somehow still balanced precariously. “Friend?” 

 

“Yes.” Dagna levelled a steadfast gaze at the other dwarf. “Friend.” 

 

Rakam shrugged. “It takes all sorts, I guess.” And he went right back to work. 

 

Dagna placed a hand on RU0’s arm. “It’s okay. He’s just a cranky old man. We’re safe.” 

 

RU0’s heightened vigilance eased off, but the entire conversation had made the tightness in her chest worse. Was it that odd Dagna had a warforged friend? Was it not allowed? These thoughts swirled in her mind to no avail. Resolved to ask Dagna later, she kept her anxieties to herself. 

 

“No walking for a week. Rest the stump. I’m keeping the prothesis to make some upgrades,” Rakam declared. “You’re home. Make the most of it. You—“ He looked at RU0. “—make sure this one—“ His finger was levelled at Dagna. “—didn’t walk around and worsen it.” 

 

RU0 nodded. “Can we leave?” 

 

Rakam had turned away from them and was muttering to himself as he pulled the prothesis apart. Dagna touched her arm. “Let’s go. Let me show you my family home.” 

 

With a promise to return in a week, RU0 walked with Dagna in her arms. Dagna pointed out various stores and described the various goodies they sold. After a few twists and turns down winding streets, and ducking under more than a handful of bridges and archways, Dagna announced, “Here it is, my family home.” 

 

Before them stood a squat little house, with a door shorter than what RU0 was used to. “Will I fit?” 

 

Dagna chuckled. “It’s larger on the inside. Don’t worry. It’s just the front door that’s small. Go around the back. There’s a bigger one there.” 

 

RU0 did as Dagna bidden. Before she could knock on the door, Dagna called out. “Mom! Dad! I’m home!” 

 

Voices came from the inside. The door busted opened a moment later. A pair of dwarves with skin wrinkled and eyes half closed in happy crescents emerged. “Dagna Silverblade! What took you so long to return home?” the man demanded while the woman slapped his arm. 

 

“Your daughter’s home for the first time in a hundred years, and the first thing you do is to scold her? Are you trying to get her to leave again?” 

 

Dagna laughed. “That’s my parents. A hundred years, and their bickering never change. Come on, let’s go in. I’m sure your arms are tired from carrying me.” 

 

RU0 shook her head. “I’m not tired. It takes a lot more to make me tired.” 

 

Regardless, Dagna urged her to enter. After some introductions, with multiple repetition of “friend” to Dagna’s parents, she was shown to Dagna’s room. It was a whirlwind of activity and a lot of speaking before RU0 finally had the space and time to sit and think. By then, Dagna was snoring softly in her bed. RU0 had one just like it on the opposite wall. 

 

This night, there was nothing to stand guard against, nothing to watch for. It didn’t mean she slept. She gazed out of the window, looking upon a town filled with people just Dagna, people who knew Dagna for years. She couldn’t help but wonder why Dagna came here. 

 

Was it truly just to fix her leg, and it was near? Or did Dagna want to stay for good? What should she do?

 

These questions chased themselves around inside her head, without reaching any kind of resolution, all night. By the time dawn came, even RU0 could feel a fuzziness to her thoughts. 

 

Despite resolved to ask Dagna about it, there was no time to do so. Between Dagna’s parents asking her about how Dagna had been for the past hundred years, Dagna trying to fill them in, and friends and relatives dropping by to visit, it had completely slipped her mind. RU0 withdrew. A warforged wasn’t truly made for comedy or storytelling. Before she realised it, it was a week later. Dagna’s prothesis was ready for collection. 

 

Iron Forge was busy as always. Children looked at her in wonder, adults weaved their way around her, but many greeted Dagna and went about their business. RU0’s chest tightened again. Today felt like a deadline of some kind. Swallowing hard against an invisible lump in her throat, she eased Dagna down on the table. 

 

“Took you long enough,” Rakam complained. 

 

“You told us one week,” Dagna protested. “Today’s one week.”

 

Rakam rolled his eyes. Moments later, with Dagna gripping RU0’s tightly, the prothesis got reattached. “All done. Now get the fuck out of my workshop.” 

 

Dagna pulled coins from her belt and handed it over. Rakam shook his head. “None required. It’s a debt I owe you for winning the war. Now we’re even, huh?” 

 

Shrugging, she pocketed the coins again. “If you say so.” 

 

For the first time since arriving in Iron Forge, the partners had time and privacy to themselves. After getting some food for Dagna, oil for RU0, they found a quiet spot in a nearby park. A park inside a mountain was an odd thing. There were bats instead of birds, rocks instead of grass, but the ceiling sparkled with glowworms. 

 

The tightness returned. RU0 sipped her oil and gestured at the view. “It’s pretty.” The words fell awkwardly. It’s been decades since she felt this out of place. 

 

“It is.” Dagna reached out and touched her hand. “You okay? You’ve been quiet since we got here. Is everything okay?” 

 

Now that there was a chance to talk, to ask, RU0 found it impossible to speak. What if the answers to all her questions were not what she wanted to hear? What then? Not knowing what else to say, she said, “Everything is okay.” 

 

Dagna looked at her closely, eyes narrowing. RU0 stiffened. Her face would betray nothing anyway. All she had to do was hold still. In the end, Dagna cleared her throat and looked away. “So, where do we want to head to next?”
 

That question caught RU0 by surprised. She blinked. “You’re not staying?” 

 

“No. Why would I?” Dagna stretched, and her joints popped. 

 

“Because this is your home.” 

 

“No. This isn’t…” Dagna cocked her head as she struggled to find the words. “I mean… It is, and it’s not at the same time.” 

 

RU0 stared, still confused. 

 

“Yes, it is my home, only because this is where I was born and where I grew up. I’m familiar with it, but it is not at the same time because it’s been a long time since I’m back. My heart isn’t tied to this place anymore. Does that make sense?” 

 

RU0 frowned. “No… Not really. If it isn’t tied to this place, where is it tied to?” 

 

Dagna laughed. Her finger stabbed at RU0’s chest. It thumped solidly against the metal. “Here.” 

 

“My chest?” 

 

Dagna laughed harder. “No, silly. You!” 

 

“Me? What does that mean? You can’t set up home in a warforged. I’m not a place.” 

 

“You’re not a place, but you’re a person. And you’re… mine.” Dagna’s gaze held hers, steadfast and unwavering.

 

“Me?” RU0 repeated, but this time softer. A warmth spread across her chest. It felt weird, but not unwelcome. Her normally yellow eyes slipped slowly into a blend of yellow and pink. 

 

Dagna leaned forward. “Is everything okay? Your eyes… They changed colours.” 

 

RU0’s eyes were now completely pink. The heat in her chest spread upwards to her face. “Did they?” 

 

“Wait a minute,” Dagna said. She cupped RU0’s face. “You’re blushing! Warforged can blush! I’ve made a remarkable discovery!” 

 

Somehow, that made RU0 not only happy but extremely embarrassed at the same time. It was all she could do not to cover Dagna’s mouth with her hand. She watched as Dagna dancing, laughing and leaning in close to look at her eyes. Relief flooded over her. It was the same feeling when she found out Dagna would be okay after she injured her leg the first time. 

 

RU0 was Dagna’s home. With that knowledge came a revelation — she too had a home, and it was Dagna. She didn’t know it then, the feeling she had in her chest, that warmth that came with being with Dagna, it was love. It grew for two hundred years, and now it had blossomed. Even though the words never passed either of their lips, their actions said it all.