Tavren moves like a man who learned to keep his balance on rolling decks and shifting sands: light-footed, deliberate, with the practiced steadiness of someone who often counted coins while walking. He wears a long patchwork coat of deep indigo and sun-bleached gold thread — at first glance sumptuous, but closer inspection reveals careful patched repairs and a faint scent of brine and cinnamon. His beard is peppered with white salt flecks and is braided at the chin with a single bead of carved bone. One eyebrow is streaked white from a scar; his left ear bears a flattened copper earring in the shape of a merchant's scale. When he smiles it is theatrical and warm, but his fingers keep twitching to an invisible abacus. Unexpectedly, his traveling cloak lined with velvet hides a child's crude cloth drawing stitched inside the hem, its edges frayed as if kept as a talisman.