The market did not welcome her, though it pretended to, for its colors remained bright, its stalls alive with movement, its voices layered into a constant hum of trade and laughter and ordinary life, yet beneath that surface there lay something sharper, something quieter, something that turned warmth into observation the moment she stepped within its reach, as though the very air shifted to acknowledge her presence and judge it in the same breath.
Elara walked forward without pause, her posture straight, her expression composed, her gaze neither lowered nor defiant, but steady in a way that did not seek approval, and yet every step she took seemed to echo louder than it should, as though the ground itself marked her passage for others to follow with their eyes.
"She thinks she's better."
The whisper came from her left, soft yet deliberate, not meant to reach her and yet carried just enough to ensure it did, the voice wrapped in sweetness that did not hide the edge beneath it.
