Ochta, born in Lindral Citadel, now lives in The Braids, kin to the tangled ridges and shifting skies of that place. Her name, old as cloud-cover, fits her well: she moves in cycles of clarity and obscurity, sometimes sharp, sometimes withdrawn, never fixed for long. People say you can read her as you read the sky — by stance, silence, and the tilt of her gaze.
Her hands turn often to carving. It is not a trade, nor a duty, but a way of thinking-through. She shapes both the useful and the symbolic: the handle of a tool, or a small charm hung from a doorway. Each is pared back until the hidden line or pattern emerges, the form revealed with quiet patience.
Her gift is rhythm rather than spectacle. She notices the shifts — the heavy air before rain, the restless turn of a season, the ebb of clear judgement. She honours those cycles, and when the braid grows clouded she counsels pause. Not to restrain, but to wait until the sky clears. Elders turn to her for the right time to act, and neighbours mark her silences as carefully as her words. In this way she steadies the life of the ridge, never at its centre, yet always balancing it: where urgency cuts sharp, she diffuses it, offering shade and soft light without dulling the edge.
Ochta herself moves forward always, but with a shifting pace, like weather rolling in. She alternates between veil and reveal — sometimes obscuring, sometimes clarifying. In her carving she finds the same motion: small, steady work that embodies patience and unveiling.
It was through this work that Primavelda first noticed her. They admired in each other a craft they could not themselves master — one to cut and release, the other to pare back and reveal. Ochta valued Primavelda’s fierce decisiveness, while Primavelda respected Ochta’s patience and measure. From that beginning they found a rhythm, moving forward together but in different lines: sometimes cutting clear, sometimes waiting for the sky to lift. Where Primavelda’s urgency struck sharp, Ochta brought diffused clarity, offering cool shade and steadiness without ever blunting the blade. Their bond grew from that balance — unbinder and revealer, blade and sky — neither whole without the other.