Dwarf

The hall rang before the dwarf looked up. Beard, hammer, mountain stone, a bar worked until it held. Heat lived in the forge, not on the road above. People who came down from that deep carried a dwarf gift in the shoulders, the weight of finished metal. It shows again in dwarf playing cards that feel heavier than paper, in a dwarf notebook ruled like a tally of the hall, in a dwarf postcard of the hammer and the glowing bar. The mountain keeps its dark. The hammer does not rest.