Her mouth was a hollow cavern, a dark space pinned between two wrinkled, worm-like lips that seemed to move in a perpetual, wet dance. Every time she spoke, the lips met with a soft smack, birthing a glob of spit that, by the grace of the Five, usually hissed into the embers rather than onto his boots.
Her hair was as white as mountain snow and looked as dead as his father's eyes were.
She held out a gnarled, trembling hand, the palm up-turned in the universal gesture of the hollow-bellied.
"I have some salted meat," Vilon muttered, reaching for the small, grease-stained pouch at his belt.
The woman cackled, a dry, rattling sound. She used two skeletal fingers to pull back her lips. "Wasted on me, I fear. Have but three teeth left to my name, see?"
Vilon looked, and promptly wished he hadn't. The dark gaps in her gums looked like a row of neglected headstones.
"Nothing else for a poor woman who doesn't remember the last time she tasted the world?" she wheezed.
