Daurava stands with her weight always on the balls of her feet, as if the ground might shift under her. Her broad face is framed by a ridge of coarse black hair bound with strips of dried grass. Tiny pale lichen-like flecks mark her cheeks and shoulders, harmless growths encouraged by years of tending old trees. Her hands are thick, blunt-fingered, and permanently stained dark with sap; when she listens, she presses one palm flat to the nearest surface. She leaves the impression of a patient, watchful storm that has decided not to break yet. Unexpectedly, she keeps a tiny collection of polished river-glass beads, arranged by shade and carried in a pouch sewn into her sleeve.

She is generous with practical help but wary of promises, and she will defend a stranger more readily than she will admit she is lonely. In calm company she can be unexpectedly playful, sorting river-glass by color and making dry jokes. Under pressure she becomes decisive and blunt; when someone is hurt, that certainty gives way to restless self-blame.

Daurava grew up among the reed-cutters of the flooded lowlands, where her mother taught her which plants healed and which merely delayed a death. At seventeen she guided a village evacuation through a marsh fire, leading people by the sound of frogs after smoke erased the paths. Her younger brother, Grkt, stayed behind to save a trapped child and suffered lasting damage to his lungs. Daurava blamed herself for not turning back, then spent years learning to protect people without mistaking control for care. She now tends the floodplain's old growth and negotiates with the nearby settlements over logging and drainage. The villages need timber to rebuild a storm-damaged bridge, while the marsh is already drying from an illegal ditch cut by the contractor Tekk. Her former apprentice, Bregga, works for that contractor and insists the ditch is harmless.