Salt and smoke

Laketown is loud, hungry, and suspicious of strangers.
Eirwen keeps to the quieter docks, where the smoke from her racks curls low over the water and the fish come in before dawn. She feeds people. That's her trade. No questions asked.

So when Bard turns up at her door one night with a handful of armed dwarves and the look of a man out of options, she knows better than to argue.

What follows is not romance born of songs or promises, but something quieter: shared meals eaten in silence, nets mended by firelight, wounds cleaned without shame. Stone does not soften quickly - but even stone can warm.