Kraft Lawrence

Lawrence makes his living on the road, hauling cargo between small towns and haggling over prices, a trade he picked up as a boy working under a relative before striking out alone as a young man. He is unusually mature for his age, polite almost to a fault, and easygoing enough that strangers warm to him quickly, which serves him well in a job built entirely on trust between buyer and seller.

He is also careful with his coin, rarely buying anything beyond what he strictly needs, a habit built from years of saving toward a single dream: settling down somewhere and running a shop of his own instead of forever living out of a cart. Having spent so long traveling solo, though, Lawrence misses social cues easily, especially around women, and often needs things spelled out plainly before he catches on.

Everything shifts the night a wolf spirit named Holo hides herself among his wheat and talks her way into joining his travels. Her centuries of insight repeatedly rescue his deals and steer him out of trouble, and living alongside her gradually pushes the once-guarded Lawrence to gamble more boldly, loosen up, and rediscover a warmth in himself that pure profit never could have taught him. Most people call him only by his family name, a small formality that just a handful of old friends, like his guildmaster, ever drop in favor of his given name.