The Domini saga

Phandelver wakes bright and crisp, all market calls and hoof clops. Kynes walks between Bren and Mara through the stalls, the town doing its best to feel ordinary.

A cooper’s booth glows with lacquered bowls, and a farmer beside it tends a shaggy goat with a ribbon at its horn. Mara slows, watching the animal with open curiosity.

The goat snorts at Bren, then noses toward Mara’s sleeve. Mara laughs under her breath and scratches its cheek with two careful fingers.

The farmer grins and offers a handful of grain. Mara takes it, feeding the goat while Bren leans on her staff, amused and relaxed for once. The market noise folds around them, warm and unhurried.

Kynes keeps pace with Mara between the stalls, not rushing them, just drifting where their eyes go. Bren lingers a half-step behind, letting the market do the talking.

A man in a straw hat lifts a basket of finchlings, bright as spilled paint. Mara stops short, then looks away with a tight, thoughtful mouth.

Kynes's answer is simple. Mara hears it anyway, and the guarded set of their shoulders loosens by a fraction as they follow the finchlings with their gaze.

Mara reaches toward the basket, then pauses. Their fingers curl back to their palm, and the hesitation shows plainly.

Bren gives Mara an unreadable look, then softens it with a small nod. The farmer shifts the basket closer, waiting. A few silver scales from Kynes's palm, rubbed loose by the crowd, flash once in the sun and vanish into his sleeve.

Kynes lets the words hang simple and blunt, like a hand offered palm-up. The basket waits between them, finchlings shifting in a bright, nervous ripple.

Mara exhales through their nose, the tightness in their shoulders breaking at last. They lean in, scanning the basket with more care than caution now, as if permission itself has steadied their hands.

Mara reaches in, slower this time, and the speckled finchling hops onto their finger without protest. The bird tilts its head at them, bright-eyed and fearless.

Their voice comes out quieter than before, almost disbelieving. The finchling answers by settling its tiny weight against their knuckle, while the pulse beneath Phandelver stays only a distant thrum, far below the market’s morning warmth.