Willa is a gentle and joyful soul, with embers in her heart and soft light in her eyes.
Childhood
Willa carried the sun in her hair. On a typical day she would be stuck with duckweed, shoeless, trailing treasure in her pockets. She tried to keep a frog in the kettle once. She always had a way with small birds.
Harn noticed it first. Not the cough or the shivers, but something off-key. A hesitation in her laugh, a rhythm interrupted. The hum around her body was thinned, stretched in places like worn linen. He tried everything: teas, steams, poultices, lying beside her and listening for the shift. But whatever was wrong was not from the soil, and not from this plane.
In desperation, Harn turned to Tauren. Tauren came, bringing tinctures from the garden he wasn’t supposed to have access to, and a vial that smelled faintly of hot iron. He used something he wouldn’t name — not quite fae magic, but not ordinary healing either. She got better. Harn watched it happen, and his thanks curdled into something heavier: shame, maybe, or anger that his brother could do what he couldn’t.
She never quite returned to who she was. Her leg sometimes failed her, and in the rain she walked stiffly, leaning into walls. But she grew into herself anyway — a clever, rooted person with a sly sense of humour.
Adulthood
Willa lives in a warm, bustling farmhouse at the bottom of a hill, away from the fens. A few neighbouring homes and patches of woodland dot the land nearby, and a small river runs close by. Her house is always full of children—her own and grandchildren alike—lending a sense of cheerful chaos to every room.
Her two sons are good-humoured and close, often found sharing cider and cheeky stories by the fire. Their laughter fills the evenings, joined by Willa’s light, tinkling laugh before they head off to their own homes. Of her four daughters, all but the youngest are married. Marigold, still at home, is sweet-natured and many years younger than her siblings. She helps with the lambs and the house, often wearing a waist-tied apron like Sorrel once did, her clothes the colour of honey, straw, and custard.
As well as her six children, Willa has six grandchildren, from tiny bairns to tussling teens, just beginning to know themselves. The house carries the weight and light of a family fully in motion.
A Visit From Lowen
Willa’s house always smelled of something sweet and sharp — apple peel, lambswool, and the heat of the stove. There were boots in the porch, baskets stacked with dry kindling, and a broom that never stayed leaned up for long.
When Lowen arrived, a girl of maybe ten was dragging a stool across the kitchen floor, face flushed with purpose. Someone was singing upstairs — one of the sons, by the sound of it — and outside the window, Marigold was hanging linen the colour of egg yolk. Her apron was tucked into itself, hands red from the trough but eyes bright and merry.
Lowen didn’t knock. You didn’t knock at Willa’s.
“There you are!” Willa called from the back room. She came in brushing flour from her sleeves, her braid silver at the crown and still copper underneath. Her cheeks were flushed, her laugh already spilling before Lowen had said a word.
She folded them into an embrace, her arms still strong. “You’ve missed the cider, but not the stories. Sit. Tell me everything, or nothing. I’ll know either way.”
Lowen smiled, sat, and let the noise fill them — the crackle of firewood, the clang of pots, the buzz of life still lived close. It wasn’t quiet, but it was peace.
