Nella Underbough is the speaker of Willowmere, a village of the Greenfold known for its full grain stores and its steady, unglamorous good sense. When the fires of Bramble Night swept through hidden settlements, Willowmere alone was left untouched. Its roofs, stores and people became a refuge for the families who had lost everything.
Appearance
Nella is a short, stocky woman in her late sixties, with olive-brown skin, a broad lined face, deep-set dark eyes and tightly curled silver-white hair cropped close around her ears. She wears a faded indigo work dress under a heavy dove-gray shawl, with the iron ring of the speaker's key at her belt. Her hands are rough from years of storehouse work, and she is more often seen carrying grain sacks or folded bedding than giving speeches.
What she believes
Nella has spent her life believing that a speaker's first duty is simple: keep your own people alive and fed. She is practical rather than idealistic, patient with grumbling neighbors and impatient with grand talk. She loves Willowmere fiercely, its families, its storehouses, its warm windows on a cold night, and she would carry almost any burden to keep them standing.
Her place in the story
Nella says the Crown simply passed Willowmere by. As refugees crowd into the only village still standing, not everyone believes her, and the question of why one home was spared while others burned becomes one of the album's deepest wounds. Corren Ashfoot sees Willowmere's survival beside his own family's graves. Toman Reedwhistle finds himself carrying evidence he did not ask for. Elsi Honeyhand insists Nella still deserves care, and Mara Brambleheart insists that whatever the truth, it must be faced in public. Nella's story asks whether saving lives can still be a betrayal, and the answer, judged beneath the apple boughs, is one to hear for yourself.
Heard in: Willowmere Did Not Burn, The Price of One Warm Window, Moot Beneath the Apple Boughs