The city-state of Tialira straddles a broad riverbend in the southern Wastes, where it facilitates and profits from a comfortable amount of trade between Relvos and the world north of Relvos. It's a pleasant, prosperous place, for the most part, bustling with merchants and encircled by good green grazing land whose inhabitants keep it well supplied with milk and meat and wool.

Nema is, without question, the most accomplished calligrapher and illuminator in the ducal palace. She got her start copying out tax records, but she has been steadily on the rise since then, proving over and over again that if you need words made beautiful, she should be the first person you ask. Her pay is much higher now than it was eight years ago when she started, and her clothes a little finer, and she's recently managed to afford some minor fleshcrafting for which she's been steadily saving up these past few years. It's a quiet, unassuming life, but it's hers and she likes it very much.

Until the Duke's third son takes a liking to her.