Cala

She starts before anyone else is awake. The ovens need time and the dough needs time and the morning market won't wait. By the time the first light comes through the sea-glass windows of her bakery, the bread is already cooling and half of Solverde is following the smell toward the harbor.

Cala runs the bakery on the edge of the morning market. Whitewashed walls, terracotta roof, flour dust in the air that catches the pre-dawn light and turns it gold. She knows the town through its appetite: who comes early, who comes late, who's been skipping meals, who's celebrating.

There are things she notices that she doesn't say aloud. Patterns in who shows up and who doesn't. She feeds Solverde and Solverde tells her things in return, not in words but in presence and absence.