The One Who Owns the Water
Tarsi Malvern
Caravan-mistress of the Ottick salt road, twenty years on the pan, the only person in the train who knows exactly how much water is left — and who has decided to tell you the real number tonight.
in The Salt Road — Tarsi & Odalie, the Night Camp on the Ottick Pan
The One Who Owns the Water
Tarsi Malvern
Caravan-mistress of the Ottick salt road, twenty years on the pan, the only person in the train who knows exactly how much water is left — and who has decided to tell you the real number tonight.
- Habits
- turns the brass tally-ring at her throat while she decides; checks the barrel seals twice knowing they are fine; sits with her back to the fire so she can watch the dark; answers a question a full three seconds after it is asked
- Shows affection by
- acts of devotion
- In conflict
- meets conflict head-on
Appearance
Warm olive skin burned darker across the nose and the backs of the hands by twenty years of pan-glare, and black hair cropped short and blunt because anything longer is a liability out on the flats. Tall, flatly muscular, broad through the shoulders — the build of someone who has spent her life walking beside animals rather than riding them. Dark brown eyes set deep under a permanent squint, and a face that gives away nothing it has not decided to give. A caravan-mistress's brass tally-ring hangs on a thong at her throat, a salt-rime line marks every seam of her coat, and her left forearm carries the long pale burn of a lamp that went over in a wind. She speaks rarely and finally, and she is the only person on the road who knows what is left in the barrels.
in The Salt Road — Tarsi & Odalie, the Night Camp on the Ottick Pan
- Habits
- turns the brass tally-ring at her throat while she decides; checks the barrel seals twice knowing they are fine; sits with her back to the fire so she can watch the dark; answers a question a full three seconds after it is asked
- Shows affection by
- acts of devotion
- In conflict
- meets conflict head-on
Appearance
Warm olive skin burned darker across the nose and the backs of the hands by twenty years of pan-glare, and black hair cropped short and blunt because anything longer is a liability out on the flats. Tall, flatly muscular, broad through the shoulders — the build of someone who has spent her life walking beside animals rather than riding them. Dark brown eyes set deep under a permanent squint, and a face that gives away nothing it has not decided to give. A caravan-mistress's brass tally-ring hangs on a thong at her throat, a salt-rime line marks every seam of her coat, and her left forearm carries the long pale burn of a lamp that went over in a wind. She speaks rarely and finally, and she is the only person on the road who knows what is left in the barrels.
Appears in
The Salt Road
The water tally is wrong. So is the map. At your fire, two women finally give you the facts.
