Olli is a halfling with a round, weather-browned face, a small cleft in the chin, and thick curls that spring from beneath a battered cap. Their movements are quick but economical: they turn sideways through crowded doorways, then spread their elbows wide when sorting notices, apparently unaware of how much room they claim. A brass tack tin hangs at their belt, its lid polished bright by a thumb rubbing the same crescent into it. Olli pins every missing-person notice with a different colored tack, and can identify an old posting by the tiny rust bloom beneath its pinhole. They smell faintly of hay, lamp oil, and rain-soaked paper.

Olli is welcoming toward frightened newcomers but suspicious of anyone who treats other people's troubles as entertainment. They are brisk and competent during stable work, then unexpectedly patient with children who ask repetitive questions. In a crowd they can be expansive and talkative; alone with an old notice, they grow methodical and guarded. They want to help people let go when there is no hope, yet cannot bring themself to do so with Pérun.

Olli grew up in Seven-Sacks, where their mother, Zubá, repaired harness and their older brother, Pérun, took seasonal work guiding caravans. When Olli was young, a spring flood tore through the low road. Pérun went back for a stranded wagon and never returned. Searchers found the wagon, but not him. The first missing notice Olli ever pinned was Pérun's, and the tack slipped from their shaking fingers into the mud. After that, they began using a different colored tack for every missing person, convinced that no two absences should blur together. Years later, Olli became the settlement's notice keeper and stable hand, working for Djemi, who runs the stable at the bend. They know which travelers arrived alone, which horses are being kept saddled too long, and which notices have been taken down without permission. Olli still writes to Zubá, though they argue about whether Pérun is dead or simply chose not to come home. Their current trouble is a run of fresh notices for people last seen on the north road, all written in the same unfamiliar hand. One of those notices appeared before its named traveler arrived in Seven-Sacks.