Mara Fen looks like someone carved from old oak and weathered rope, broad in the shoulders and steady in the hips, with the practiced economy of movement of a woman who has spent years carrying trays through crowded rooms. Her hands are scarred, flour-dusted, and always faintly warm from tending the hearth. She wears her practicality like armor, except for one strange flourish: a bright silver brooch shaped like a swallow, pinned to her apron as if she were a court lady instead of a tavern host. Her smile comes slowly, but when it arrives it changes her whole face, making her seem younger and more dangerous in the same breath. When she listens, she leans slightly forward, as though every conversation is a ledger entry she intends to balance later.