Ro's slender hand moved over the cracked breastplate feeling for the breaks and weaknesses. His small and subtle fingers felt the damage other smiths (whose hard work had left their hands calloused and hardened) couldn't. A new patron looking on might find it odd that a lad Ro's age would be covered in smoke and ash, sweating from the heat of a forge, working along side the largest blacksmith on smith street, but frequent visitors would have seen him on occasion.

Ro hopped down from the chair where he stood. Standing on the ground he could hardly see up to the worktable. "I can fix it," he said to the giant-blooded blacksmith, "but it's broker than broke near ruined it is." Ro's voice hadn't matured yet - still high pitched and lacking any authority he almost sounded like he were whining about it.

"It's gonna cost extra, tire me out this one will." He could afford to ask for more. He didn't have much to loose really, he could as easily find repair work at a number of smiths, each one he serviced made it a point to save particularly difficult repairs for him. And when work pilled up for any one of them they would send a note to the stables where he boarded for the occasional wheel-wrighting.

He smiled, a crack of white broke though the ash covered rose lips. His black hair, a tussled mass of curls punctuated by an occasional piece of hay from his stabled bed, gave the impression that he didn't have a proper home where boys his age would have been better groomed or at least washed.

The blacksmith gave him a grunt and a nod, which was his way of saying, "I know it's almost ruined that's why I'm not doing it myself."

Hopping back up on the chair, Ro gazed down at the breastplate with his dull-gray eyes. A ray of light bounced off the armor over his pale ash covered skin. He rolled up the dirty brown sleeves of his patchwork clothes and got to work. The irises of his eyes glowed with an auburn light as he moved his hands over the armor.

A minute later the armor was as good as new - Ro collapsed against the coal bin exhausted but a little richer for his effort.