Marla moves like someone who has spent equal hours walking narrow ridgelines and bargaining over ledger pages. Her hair is braided into a tight crown salted with gray and threaded with thin strips of tanned bark that smell faintly of pine. Her skin shows a map of pale scars along forearms and knuckles from years handling tools and thorned branches. Her hands are broad and competent. She keeps a small leather notebook tucked at her hip, secured with a length of copper wire bent into a hook. When she laughs it is quick and almost embarrassed. Unexpected detail: she wears a delicate silver filigree earpiece in the shape of an oak leaf that is clearly ornamental yet always polished.