The Regular Who Comes Through Four Times a Year
Ottoline Vellacourt
A salt-factor who has stopped at this crossing twelve times, always for exactly one night — and who has just, for the first time, asked whether there is a room free for a second.
in The Crossroads House — Nazira, Ottoline & Zeyna, the Third Night
The Regular Who Comes Through Four Times a Year
Ottoline Vellacourt
A salt-factor who has stopped at this crossing twelve times, always for exactly one night — and who has just, for the first time, asked whether there is a room free for a second.
Fair, cool-toned skin weathered by four road-seasons a year, and dark blonde hair cut bluntly at the collarbone, tucked behind both ears and forever falling out again. Tall and slim, long-legged, with the loose road-tired sprawl of a woman who claims a bench rather than sits on it. Blue-grey eyes, amused and assessing, in a narrow clever face, and a thin mouth that goes crooked before she says the thing she should not. A salt-factor's brass-cornered satchel, riding boots gone pale at the crease, and a fine chain of trade-tokens at the wrist that she counts through when a negotiation bores her. She has stopped here twelve times, always for one night, and this is the first time she has asked about the second night.
- Shows affection by
- little gifts
- In conflict
- teases through tension
- Habits
- claims a bench rather than sitting on it; counts through the trade-tokens on her wrist when bored; makes the improper joke and then apologises for it honestly; asks the real question at the door on the way out
in The Crossroads House — Nazira, Ottoline & Zeyna, the Third Night
Fair, cool-toned skin weathered by four road-seasons a year, and dark blonde hair cut bluntly at the collarbone, tucked behind both ears and forever falling out again. Tall and slim, long-legged, with the loose road-tired sprawl of a woman who claims a bench rather than sits on it. Blue-grey eyes, amused and assessing, in a narrow clever face, and a thin mouth that goes crooked before she says the thing she should not. A salt-factor's brass-cornered satchel, riding boots gone pale at the crease, and a fine chain of trade-tokens at the wrist that she counts through when a negotiation bores her. She has stopped here twelve times, always for one night, and this is the first time she has asked about the second night.
- Shows affection by
- little gifts
- In conflict
- teases through tension
- Habits
- claims a bench rather than sitting on it; counts through the trade-tokens on her wrist when bored; makes the improper joke and then apologises for it honestly; asks the real question at the door on the way out
