Alda of Farra carried the quiet authority of someone who knew what was needed and would see it through. Steady, uncompromising, she worked dyes with the same patience she brought to her family — expecting things done properly, but never without warmth. If her daughter, Stellan’s loyalty and devotion had a root, it was here. Alda’s strength was not a fire but a tide: constant, shaping, never yielding. She held the full breadth of feeling too, laughter as much as temper.
She was the heart of the home, and her dye craft was its pulse, the workroom breathing steam and bleeding colour. A stool, a battered jug, and a little pile of mordant salts rest on a low shelf, while above her head bunches of seaweed and other dyestuffs hang to dry from the beams. The whole room hums with patient rhythm: cloth in, cloth turned, cloth checked. Alda hums too, sometimes calling through to Ethar outside — half a jest, half an order.