Tavo would have thought his mentor Kavarn would be happier to receive such a fine gift from his apprentice.  “Do you like it?”

“Like it?”  Kavarn echoed, his expression unreadable, even by dwarf standards.

“Yeah, I closed up the smithy early yesterday after you left and worked through the night on it.  I thought a sword would be a good way to show how far my skills have come these past few years.”

Kavarn simply grunted as he idly took a couple of swings at the open air.  He stared at it for a moment, then heaved a great sigh.

“Ye really are the village idiot, aren’t ye, boy?”

With a casual flick of his wrist, Kavarn shattered the blade against the nearby quenching barrel.

After a long while, Tavo found wits enough to speak.  “How... why did it do that?  I did everything right!”

Kavarn snorted.  “Sure, would even have been a decent weapon, if ye’d actually used iron in the making.”  His expression darkened.  “Where’d ye get the billet to make it?”

Sweat greased Tavo’s palms.  “I, uh, from the lockbox in the storage room.”

“The one I’ve told ye to stay out of.”

“... Yes.”

Kavarn stared at Tavo.

“I made sure not to touch the mithril, or the silver, I swear!  I thought this was just a higher purity iron–”

A sharp bark of laughter startled Tavo into silence.  “Purity!  Purity, he says!”  Kavarn shook his head, then said, “That was an elfglass billet ye used, boy.  It doesn’t get much purer than that.”

The lad’s jaw fell open as the full weight of his mistake rolled over him.  “But elfglass is shiny!”

“Gods above,” the dwarf swore as he clenched his fists.  “It’s shiny because ye gotta alloy it with steel in order to make it worth somethin’!  Or mithril, if ye’re bein’ fancible.  It’s what makes enchantments stick to those metals like feathers stick to pitch!  Pure elfglass, on the other hand”–he raised his fist and let the now-crumbled remains of the hilt and wrapping fall to the floor like sand–“is worthless once it’s been forged.”

Silence ruled once more, as now Tavo was too frightened to speak.

After several long, uncomfortable moments, Kavarn went to a nearby closet and pulled out a broom.  “An elfglass billet runs about a thousand gold.  Ye’ll remain an apprentice at this shop until ye’ve paid off yer debt.”

Tavo’s mind reeled.  At a silver a day, that would take...  “That’ll be twenty years from now!”

“Twenty-seven.”  Kavarn handed Tavo the broom, then backhanded him hard enough to knock him to the floor.  “Get to sweeping.  I’m goin’ to the tavern and drinkin’ ‘til I forget how badly I want tae skin ye alive.  I best be able to see meself in the floor when I get back.”

With that, Kavarn left, and slammed the door to the shop behind him.

Tavo took his time hauling himself to his feet.  He wiped a pair of tears away with his sleeve, then set about sweeping up the fragmented remnants of his hopes and dreams into a dustpan.