Breden walked through the village, hoping to see some of his friends. In truth, his walk was almost a limp, as he tried his best to keep pressure off of his somewhat-injured toes. The village had streets of dirt and had no concept of sanitation in the ways humans or elves understood it. As such, Breden had to watch his step in some areas of town even in the best of times. 

He made it to Koglan's smithy. He knew the old blacksmith, but given his age and lack of major successes, never had the money to purchase an iron weapon from him. He wasn't sure how much longer Koglan had, given the short lifespan of the goblins. He stood, watching the smith work, seeing that his endeavors had attracted no small number of females, young and old alike. Most were either too young or too fixated on Koglan to pay an unproven male like Breden any heed, but there was one female who was different.

"Look at that swing. It's almost hypnotic. I could watch it all day." Breden snapped out of his daydream of owning an iron blade by a familiar voice.

"Oh. Siwa. How's the dancing thing going?"

"Pretty well. I still get a few copper coins for it. Wish they'd give me food instead of little metal discs. Can't eat those, and it takes a lot of these coins to get a tiny bit of food from the humans, and they're useless here." The goblins bartered for items among themselves, only using money when they had to interact with merchants from other races. "I don't know why they put faces on them." Siwa showed Breden a copper coin with what appeared to be a king's head on the obverse, with the symbol of the town it was minted in on the reverse; the symbol was that of a triskelion.

"Huh, interesting."

"And how've you been doing, Brey?"

"Eh, so-so. I was on a hunt earlier. No luck."

Siwa took a moment to look him over. "And I see you hurt your foot again."

"Again? How'd you notice?" A small smile came over Siwa's face.

"I'm not just a dancer, you know. My mother taught me the art of massage, and with that comes a certain eye for other goblin's bodies. I noticed that you're avoiding putting pressure on your right foot, that you have a tense posture, and even though I can't see a bruise, there's some discoloration on your toes."

"I... may have kicked too big of a rock after failing to kill a deer."

"Well, if you like, I can help you with that, but not quite yet. When I'm done here, I'll help you out with your foot." She looked directly at the smith, giving a smile. Breden thought about it for a moment.

"Oh, you want to-"

"- I'm thinking about it; not like I'm gonna do anything like [i]that[/i] today; I'm just not in the mood. Still, if I'm going to have my first litter, I want a good sire, and getting some blacksmith blood in my children's background might be good for 'em. Plus, if I'm gonna get him to help me there, it'll have to be soon. Best to at least bring the subject up with him."

"You'll have me for a long time, Siwa" Breden looked down at his feet, embarrassed. With a warm smile, Siwa walked over to him and gently ran her right hand through his red hair.

"Brey, we'll have plenty of time to consider that later. You've got years of hunting and fighting ahead of you, and I'm sure you'll be a great prospect for mating one of these days, but for now, a girl's got to go with who she thinks will be good for her kids, not who might be good someday." She gave him a little hug, only serving to interest him in her further. He wasn't going anywhere with her today, tomorrow, and possibly ever. "Plus, while we can't be sure who the father is, it would be nice to think that he'd sire an apprentice or two with me."

"Yeah, yeah. I understand" Breden remarked, not happy at being snubbed yet again.

Siwa waited until it looked like the old smith was nearly done with his work. When the crowd began to die down, she stepped into his shop while Breden waited outside.