We are leaving Greyharbor this afternoon.
Part of me feels relieved.
Another part feels strangely guilty for feeling relieved at all.
This morning I went downstairs early because I could not sleep properly.
Also because I wanted potatoes again.
Primarily the potatoes.
The kitchen was already warm when I arrived.
Joan stood near the stove grinding salt root while half-awake fishermen waited silently near the front tables for breakfast.
The harbor outside looked pale grey beneath morning fog.
For the first time since arriving here, Greyharbor almost felt peaceful.
Joan laughed after noticing me watching the potatoes immediately.
“You’re addicted now,” she said.
I denied this accusation with dignity.
Unfortunately she did not believe me.
She spent the next hour teaching me how to prepare them correctly.
Apparently the oil temperature matters more than I realized.
Also the salt root must be crushed unevenly or the flavor disappears entirely.
This knowledge feels spiritually important somehow.
While she worked, I kept accidentally looking toward the markings across her arms again.
Not intentionally staring.
Just…
looking.
Eventually Joan noticed.
Naturally.
People here notice everything.
“You’re curious,” she said.
Not accusingly.
Just gently.
At first I tried denying it.
Then she continued staring at me patiently until I finally nodded.
For some reason I felt rude asking.
The marks no longer felt like strange tattoos anymore.
They felt closer to scars people happened to wear outside their bodies.
Joan stayed quiet for a moment afterward.
Then she surprised me completely by saying:
“Come upstairs after breakfast.”
So I did.
Her room sits above the rear kitchen overlooking the inner harbor.
Very small.
Very clean.
A little lantern near the bed.
Dried flowers hanging beside the window.
Everything smelled faintly like oil and salt root.
Then Joan closed the door quietly and began unwrapping the cloth around her arms.
Not dramatically.
Not ceremonially.
Just casually.
Like someone opening an old journal.
“The marks don’t appear all at once,” she explained.
“Usually they come after something changes.”
The first one she showed me sat on her left wrist.
A broken compass.
Its needle split crookedly through the center.
Joan touched it gently with one finger.
“I left Greyharbor when I was thirteen,” she said.
“Thought I’d find something better.”
She laughed softly afterward.
“Three years later I came back with less money than when I left.”
The mark appeared the night she returned home.
Near her collarbone rested a single candle with a flame bent sideways like wind had nearly extinguished it.
That one appeared after her mother died.
“I became the oldest woman in the house afterward,” Joan said quietly.
“It felt like everyone expected me to stay burning no matter what.”
Further down her arm, wrapped near the forearm, were interlocked chains with one broken link hanging loose between them.
That mark appeared after escaping a man she once intended to marry.
“He liked controlling things,” she said simply.
I did not ask further.
Something in her voice suggested the story already hurt enough.
On her lower back rested a small lantern glowing faintly beneath the skin itself.
That one surprised me.
Because unlike the others—
it felt warm.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
“It appeared after I started working at the inn,” Joan admitted while looking slightly embarrassed.
“I realized I actually liked taking care of people.”
Then after a pause:
“Even when I’m tired.”
There was also a wilted flower near her thigh.
Thin dying petals surrounding one tiny new bud.
That mark appeared after she lost a child while still very young.
For a while afterward, Joan stopped eating properly.
Stopped speaking much.
Stopped caring whether she woke up each morning.
Then eventually—
she survived anyway.
The bud appeared later.
On her right shoulder rested a silent ocean wave.
Perfectly still.
Frozen mid-curve.
“That one came after my father died at sea,” she said.
Then quietly:
“I stopped crying after that.”
Near her opposite wrist sat a small anchor wrapped in cracked chain.
That mark appeared after deciding to remain in Greyharbor permanently despite several opportunities to leave.
“I was scared,” Joan admitted.
“Not of staying.”
Then after a pause:
“Of leaving people behind.”
There was even a tiny curved line near the corner of her mouth.
So small I almost missed it.
A faint tilted smile.
“That one embarrassed me the most,” Joan confessed immediately.
Apparently it appeared the first time she genuinely laughed after years of pretending happiness in front of guests.
Then finally—
She hesitated.
Actually hesitated.
Before pulling aside the last layer of cloth near her right hip.
A tiny potato wearing a crooked crown stared back at me.
I think I stopped functioning briefly.
Joan immediately burst into laughter after seeing my face.
Apparently the mark appeared after years of obsessively improving fried potatoes because customers kept complimenting them.
Eventually her body apparently decided this counted as emotional significance.
Honestly?
Reasonable.
I told Joan I suddenly wanted markings too.
Perhaps if I concentrated hard enough on potatoes, my body would eventually bless me with superior cooking abilities.
Joan laughed so hard she nearly fell off the bed.
But afterward she grew quieter again.
Then she said something I do not think I will forget.
“When I die,” she said softly, “most people outside Greyharbor would only see skin.”
Her fingers brushed lightly against the marks.
“But these are my life.”
Then she looked directly at me.
“So if you write about me somewhere…”
She smiled slightly.
“…maybe part of me stays.”
I promised her I would.
Properly.
Before we left this afternoon, Joan handed me three paper bundles filled with fresh fried potatoes.
“Payment,” she declared proudly.
“For recording me correctly.”
I accepted very seriously.
Naturally.
Then I told her I would make sure the journal remembered her properly.
Not just the marks.
Her.
Joan looked strangely relieved afterward.
The harbor is quieter today.
The wagon roads already waiting.
Ryn finished preparations downstairs.
Spathian somehow acquired two boxes of mechanical junk from somewhere deeply concerning.
The sea beyond Greyharbor still looks pale beneath the fog.
Still blue.
Unfortunately.
But now when I think about this place…
I do not think first about fear anymore.
I think about a woman standing in a warm kitchen at sunrise teaching me how much salt root potatoes truly deserve.
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