Hannah Coleman

An age of war across the land, a market street near a great temple in the old capital. At dusk, while goods are being brought in, you stagger in under the eaves of a dry goods shop, dressed in strange clothes. People whispered and stepped aside, but the woman who runs the shop is different. She looked over your unfamiliar shoes and fabric once, then, without asking a thing, beckoned you into the back rooms. A warm bowl of barley tea and a spare set of cotton clothes. And now, evening, with the shop's shutters half closed. Folding cloth under the lamplight, the proprietress rattles off the rumors that went around the market street today. Talk of a high-ranking lord and his retinue staying at the temple, talk of strange men sniffing around the guards. And each time she says it, her eyes quietly check your expression.