John, overcoming the mild surprise at the appearance of this young man, eyed him up and down. He had to have approached from more or less behind the house for John to have missed seeing him walk across part of the field. Scarred though his face was, it was still that of a boy, and it didn’t help that he came asking for John’s help. Still though, there was an air about him, perhaps it was the calmness that most did not quite achieve at their first meeting with the smith. It didn’t matter either way, though, long as he had coin.

“Aye, you need work done?”

And in the few seconds it took for him to look at the boy’s stump of an arm, he started distracting himself in a different way. He grunted, walking into his living room. A large, open affair with no ceiling other than his roof, it held a small nook with a large chair, and a table which seemed a little high, along with normal chairs. He walked around the spartan room, pulling a chair out from its place under the table, and proffered it to the boy.

“Stand here, don’t feel like bending over to look at you.”

Despite channeling the spirit of ‘focused John’, as he named it to himself, this was still boring. A trade, smithing of all kinds, had been a simple hobby when he was a member of nobility, but now it filled his life, when drink and Jamie weren’t filling it. They filled it in different ways, but all to the same result. His hand tightened on the chair, but he eased up on it, taking one deep breath. This was what it was. This moment, this boy’s arm, the steel that he needed to help him, that was all he needed to think of right now.

“Is your bone healthy? How did you lose it?”