Tomi occupies a doorway as if the building were made around their shoulders, though they are careful to shift aside when a customer carries something fragile. Years at the forge have left their deep brown skin with a dry, fine-grained sheen, pale heat freckles along the forearms, and a permanent reddish warmth across the bridge of the nose. Their movements are economical and grounded: feet placed as though testing a floor for stability, hands always aware of the weight of nearby objects. The unexpected detail is a pocket-sized collection of pressed marsh flowers, each mounted in a tiny paper frame and kept behind the counter.

Tomi is generous with practical help but wary of grand promises. With customers, they are patient and attentive; with a bully, they become blunt and physically imposing. They enjoy small jokes and quiet beauty, yet become brisk and controlling whenever someone they love takes a risk. Their tenderness is real, but it often arrives disguised as repairs, food, or a lecture about proper boots.

Tomi learned the trade from their mother in a riverside shed where the bellows were worked by foot and the roof leaked whenever the wind came from the east. At nineteen, a flood trapped the neighborhood's ferry crew on the wrong bank. Tomi spent a night forging replacement pins and braces by lantern light so the damaged ferry could carry people to safety. The work earned them a reputation for calm under pressure, but the death of their closest friend, a ferryman named Pavo, in the same flood taught Tomi that good tools cannot rescue everyone. Years later, Tomi opened Astorio Arms in a former public bakehouse, after the old ovens were cleared out and the workshop rebuilt. They now sell and repair weapons, armor, buckles, and farm tools, and quietly give credit to people who need a means to defend their homes. Their apprentice, Nemi, wants to leave town and join a traveling company; Tomi is proud of that ambition and frightened by it. A local militia captain keeps pressing Tomi to produce weapons in bulk, while the shop's leaky roof and dwindling charcoal supply make every month a small crisis.