Marta moves like someone who has spent equal parts of her life lifting kegs and listening to secrets: purposeful, economical, with a soft sway to her hips that makes patrons think of easy laughter and warmer things. Her face is round and freckled from years behind the tavern's open windows, but one cheek bears a thin pale line, a healed nick that runs from just beneath her eye to the jaw—an old knife scar she touches when thinking. She wears her hair in a practical, messy bun most nights, though loose copper strands escape and catch light like embers. When she smiles, it's wide and disarming; when she doesn't, her eyes—sharp and dark like wet tea—do not. Unexpectedly, she keeps a child's faded ribbon braided into her belt, the same ribbon she used to tuck into her younger brother's hair at bedtimes. She smells of spices, cider, and a faint trace of ink.