Daro's presence is easy to overlook until he leans over a map: then his long, precise hands move with the confidence of someone who has measured every ditch in the district. His cheeks are weathered and faintly dimpled, his jaw broad, and his square teeth show in an unexpectedly open, almost boyish laugh. He smells distinctly of damp paper, beeswax, and the sharp green scent of crushed pennyroyal; he knows about the herbs but not how strongly the marsh clings to his coat. He walks with a surveyor's careful heel-to-toe placement, as if every floor might conceal a soft patch.

Daro is considerate in small, tangible ways and evasive when a truth could cost him authority. He can be patient with frightened villagers but turns procedural and stubborn when challenged in public. In private, especially with his sister, he is warmer and more self-mocking; when the festival is threatened, his gentleness tightens into a brisk, controlling focus.

Daro learned the roads as a young surveyor, pacing routes with a chain and a slate while older officials argued over where a boundary ought to be. During the wet spring of his thirty-second year, a survey crew tried to cross the Sedgefen on a route Daro had marked as firm ground. A sudden thaw swallowed their pack mule and nearly took his apprentice, Edrik, with it. Daro dragged Edrik out by the collar. Afterward, he began omitting the broadest stretches of marsh from public maps, first to keep travelers from attempting the crossing, then because a dry-looking map made the settlement's claims easier to defend. He became Council Speaker when his predecessor died during a fever season. He now brokers disputes between landholders and peat cutters, while his former apprentice Edrik presses him to publish an honest map. Daro's sister, Grelf, runs the village bakehouse and still sends him supper, though she refuses to discuss his maps. The Boughcut festival is days away, and residents have noticed that the council's official count of usable grazing ground does not match the waterline.