Joan and Donatello arrived a little bit earlier than predicted and immediately noticed that they were in a military town. Military towns are towns located near military camps. Most supplies for the camp are attained from these kinds of towns. The most distinctive feature of military towns is the presence of soldiers, everywhere. They managed to avoid most of them and get to the town's clinic. That's when they met Nara.
At the time she was working as a nurse at the clinic and she was apparently very nosy. After Joan asked for the medicine, she began to interrogate them. They told her that they were merchants on their way to Ceres for business. They said that they were caught in the storm and one of their companions got sick. She told them that they should keep their destination quiet since guards were stopping everyone headed for Ceres.
They asked her what she knew about Nathaniel and I and according to her, the government had closed the Ceres-Pasiphae land border and were refusing to trade with them under suspicion that the Ceres government was involved in the massacre at the palace. After she said this, a few guards walked into the clinic and asked for some medicine from Nara.
While they were waiting, one of them stared at Donatello and began to interrogate him on his travels.