Wekst stands broad through the shoulders, with dusky red-brown skin, swept-back horns, and a tail that curls around one boot when he is listening. His amber eyes keep moving around a room, checking doors, hands, and anyone left out of the conversation. His callused hands are nicked and flattened at the knuckles from years of drills and hauling gear. He wears well-kept chain mail over a plain dark shirt, with a battered shield and a longsword carried without ceremony.

Practical, dryly warm, and patient with people who are trying their best. He is quick to volunteer for unpleasant work and slow to admit when he is tired.

Wekst grew up near a lowland fort where his infernal features made strangers watch him twice and trust him once. He learned early that a uniform could make people look at the insignia instead of the horns. He enlisted for steady meals and a place in the world, then discovered he was good at keeping frightened recruits moving when plans broke down. In the ranks he earned respect less by shouting than by taking the difficult watch himself and remembering who needed a quiet word afterward. During a retreat, Wekst’s commander ordered the unit to abandon a hamlet so the column could escape faster. Wekst disobeyed, turning back with a handful of soldiers to lead families through a drainage cut beneath the road. The survivors got away, but the delay cost the army its supplies and Wekst his place in it. Now he travels as a soldier without a regiment, taking work that puts him between ordinary people and whoever has decided they are expendable. He keeps his old insignia, not as a claim to authority, but as a reminder of the order he refused.