The Green-Haired Trader’s Daughter
Shia was born on the road, somewhere between the southern trade routes and the edge of the Red Hills—though no one ever quite remembered where. Her family were caravan folk: traders, herbalists, and barter-savvy wanderers who believed that the world had too much to offer to ever settle in one place. She was raised among wagon wheels and canvas tents, beneath skies that changed color every week and stars that shifted position as the seasons turned.
She learned to walk in a moving cart and to haggle before she could write her own name. Her earliest toys were bundles of dried herbs, trinkets carved from bone or wood, and the occasional goose that took an inconvenient liking to her. Her father taught her the routes and roads; her mother taught her which leaves could heal and which would make a man see ghosts. Her world was wild and free, full of voices, smells, and color—endlessly shifting, always moving.
Shia herself was quick-witted and sharper-tongued than many expected from a child with leaves in her hair and mud on her boots. She had a confidence that came from knowing her own worth. She wasn't raised to believe a man would come save her, and she had no patience for softness that wasn’t earned.
Her most notable feature—aside from her stubborn chin and glare sharp enough to shear sheep—was her hair: a living green, the color of summer fields and moss after rain. Not dyed. Not painted. Natural, and entirely unexplained. It set her apart, and though she bore a few jeers as a child, she quickly turned them into fuel. “You only mock what you fear or envy,” her grandmother once told her. Shia made it a point to be both.
By her teenage years, she was already managing her family’s ledgers and negotiations at market stalls. She had a head for numbers, a feel for people, and a voice that could sell honey to a beekeeper. Her reputation grew—a clever trader with unusual hair and a gaze that could peel back lies like old bark. Still, no matter how skilled she became, the road life always wore her thin in places she couldn’t quite name. She longed for something steady—not dull, but rooted. A home not just built of canvas and wheels.
She met Yun in Ilik-Ving, during the season of crosswind festivals, when the city was swollen with trade. She was hauling six baskets of cookies through a market alley when a distracted baker from Lankhmar walked straight into her and sent them flying. She cursed him in three dialects and one she’d made up on the spot. He just stood there, stunned, looking at her like she'd fallen from the sky.
He was quiet. Broad-shouldered. Had soft eyes and big hands that looked too gentle for this world. She expected him to stammer, maybe argue. Instead, he picked up the broken cookies and apologized so earnestly she wasn’t sure whether to hit him or forgive him.
Three days later, he showed up at her caravan with a fresh tart and a note that made her laugh aloud for the first time that week. He kept showing up after that. And despite her better judgment—despite everything her upbringing told her about staying free and never tying herself to a single place—she stayed.
Because Yun didn’t try to outshine her. He didn’t want to tame her or own her or change her. He just… listened. Made her tea in the morning and saved her the crispy corner of the crust. Told her he liked the way she didn’t flinch from truth.
Now, years later, Shia Ilthmart is the co-owner of a bakery that feeds a neighborhood and quietly manages more than its share of secrets in the basement below. She still carries that trader fire in her veins, still speaks like a storm when angry, and still haggles like the devil at the market—but she’s found her roots in flour and hearthstone, in love and laughter, and in the quiet certainty that she chose this life, every step of the way.
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