Othen noticed that she was struggling with actually shaking his hand, so he silently decided not to prolong this any further then absolutely necessary in order for things not becoming awkward. Having retracted his arm, he patiently waited for her meal to be served and for her to dig into the first bits of it.

"What brings me here ?" he repeated, buying himself one more moment of thinking before actually providing an answer. "Maybe you have already considered it, but I am a blacksmith from a small village close to the border. Normally I have a lot of very ordinary business to do: Horseshoes, nails, prongs and a great variety of farming tools. Sometimes however I receive more special requests since it seems I'm the only talented blacksmith in the neighbourhood and then I have to get some higher quality ingots or even different metals then steel in the first place. Eversong, despite the long travel, still is the best place to get this. There are vendors in other towns that are much closer, but sometimes they are sold out and I'm under time pressure."

Othen was both confident and satisfied with himself. That cover story was good -- and not [i]that[/i] overused yet. Part of him hoped that Branna wasn't the kind of person who'd not stop drilling until having asked every imaginable question, but another part hoped for a nice conversation and actually felt regret for so blatantly lying at her.

"I think that explains why almost nobody has seen me here before. I just don't live here usually. Do you ?"