Toroy is more than 6'6 tall, and is built of solid muscle and strong bones. Though he has an imposing form, he's quite soft natured, and is very jolly toward everyone he meets.
His encounter with a strange blackbottomed woman left him wondering why his hair attracted so much attention, then he realized that his normally dark brown locks had been turned two colors! Instead of getting quite mad, he laughed for days about it.
Toroy is well-versed at most aspects of mining, including identifying ores and stones, places where faults run through the ground, ages of the land, and other geological aspects. He also has a strong ability with tools and actually makes his own mining shovels and picks at the blacksmith guild.
This man has a big burly body and a big loud sounding voice, sparkling brown eyes and a smile which melts most hearts. He is often dusty from the mines, but enjoys the attentions of one or more of his girl friends to take the aches out of his muscles. Toroy isn't a ladies' man, however he has an ease about him that attracts rough-and-tumble types and soft-hearted ladies alike.
Surprisingly, he can stand his own ground when speaking to lords or guild masters. They rarely seem to intimidate him, even if they are working on an intellectual level above him.
Toroy is not a brilliant thinker, but he puts his knowledge and senses to work for him in every situation. He is quite knowledgable about stones, gems and rocks, of course, and he is known to offer his girl friends pretty trinkets which he's had made for them out of stones he's dug up.
All in all, Toroy is a kind-hearted, barrel-chested teddybear of a man!
"Ahh, there you are. I knew it. With all this dark stone, hiding among the ores... heh." He pocketed the brilliantly glimmering multi-colored crystals, knowing that their value on the open market could land him a new homestead or a whole mine to himself.
But he continued to work anyway. This mine shaft had been worked before, but by rather inexpert hands. The young miners which had cleared out the year before wouldn't go back inside it, since a rock slide had killed one of their friends, and they were quite superstitious.
Toroy finally reached the area where that rock slide had occurred. They hadn't even bothered to remove the body! "Insensitive little brats," Toroy muttered to himself. He placed his pick with the other tools on his wheeled cart, and began removing the stones from the large pile.
His helmet had a flickering candle in it, light splaying everywhere with the mirrors behind it. Toroy had examined the slide before, noticed that this was as much dirt and stone which would probably be coming from that area of the ceiling, and while it would need clearing and shoring up, it was not a threat any longer if treated with care.
The kind of care only he could give. The stones moved under his big hands, and he piled them up beside the wall for later use. When he reached the body of the poor lad, it was nearly skeletal, but still gave off quite a reek.
His nose was long since used to certain smells like gas and ores, dirt and grease. But this... This stench was almost too much for him and he gagged back reflexively. After a few minutes of rest, though, he decided that the only solution for this problem was to remove the body and give it back to the boy's parents. They surely had wanted it back, right?
***
"What are we going to do with THAT?" Groaned the woman, her nose pinched with one hand and her other waving a delicate cloth in front of her. "Take it away!"
She squealed and bounced behind her skinny husband and Toroy furrowed his big bushy eyebrows. "But... This ... your son died almost a year ago... I thought you would have... maybe..."
"Take it outside, and bury it," said the boy's father with disgust. "I'll not have that mess in my home!" He abruptly turned and assisted his wife fanning her face. The slight smell of the corpse which was draped by a thick leather tarp reached Toroy's nose again, but he'd gotten used to it while taking it up to the homesteads.
People didn't really ask what was in the wheelbarrow, when he trundled by. Some children asked, but he shook his head and his grim countenance told them not to ask again.
When he walked back down the hillside, into the forested area below, Toroy grunted as he laid down the barrow and took out a shovel.
"Well, Pethtat, looks like your ma and pa didn't much care for y' after all..." He sighed. The grave wasn't very deep, but expertly dug, and soon the boy's body was set into the ground and covered again, with a tree above his head. Toroy carved a mark which looked like the boy's curved fingers, on the bark of the tree.
It never occurred to him that the boy wasn't liked or wanted by his parents because his arms were deformed and he was 'only good for a mine, out of sight'... Pethtat was a good worker. He wasn't able to lift very heavy tools, no, but he could carry things back and forth and he did as he was told. Toroy looked at the grave and finally swept the dirt from his apron, and went back to the mine.
***
It was two days later when a dragon was announced to arrive. Everyone came out to see it, as it was a differently colored one and certainly had interesting features which most Dawnlight or Blackstone inhabitants hadn't seen before. Long horns graced the head, and the green wings were dappled with a white outline.
"That's a mighty pretty dragon," Toroy said to the rider. She grinned and nodded.
"She sure is. And," the short woman looked from dragon to Toroy, "she tells me you're probably a good start for the clutch of eggs. Mountian Note Weyr, that is. I'm a search rider from there, and Zironath says you'd be a strong candidate."
"Mountain Note," Toroy said, holding his beard. "Now there's a nice sounding place! Have you need of a miner there?"
The woman's eyes brightened. "We do need to work on the weyr bowl and courtyard. It's a small, new weyr, so there's lots to do. You'd be kept busy, you know!"
"Well then I'm all for it!" Toroy said, and he finally left instructions for his mines to be tended while he was gone.
But for an unfinished weyr, or a slightly understaffed one, it already had three clutches on the sands! Toroy was summoned almost right out of his bed as the first of those clutches was ready to hatch! Karenenth and her mate Eantioth's eggs shook and shimmied on the sands, and Toroy took his place near them.
A beautiful bronze hatched first, and he was happy that the bronze went to another candidate. Then came a blue-green and a beautiful black and white dragon! A bunch of dragonets hatched and ran to their respective bonders, as Toroy watched. He was beginning to think that perhaps he was too old for this, that the stories of older candidates not bonding were true...
But it was just before the last of the hatching happened, there were only two eggs left and three candidates. Both eggs hatched, and one of them had a lovely grey-stone shaded dragon with night-black wings! He came to Toroy with a loping gate, and snuffled loudly at the bonder.
I am Queth! Did you bring me anything to eat?
"Wh-- well, I think there is food for you with the other hatchlings, Queth! I didn't know how hungry you'd be... Otherwise I would have planned better."
Well plan better next time!
"Queth, you're only hatching once!"
Then it's time to eat!
Laughing, T'roy snatched up the hatchling and hefted him over one shoulder. They both enjoyed a meal -- Queth his raw meat, and T'roy a fine late-night snack!
