Maris moves like someone who has spent half her life atop wagons and crosswise between sleepers: economical, balanced, and ready for sudden shifts. She wears a wind-darkened leather coat patched with canvas from three different borderlands; the right cuff is embroidered with an unfamiliar sigil from a desert trade house. Her face is a map of small scars and laugh lines, with a permanent sunburned rim along the cheekbones. Her right hand still bears faint callus rings from a rope burn long healed but remembered. Contradiction: she carries herself with the cautious poise of a veteran leader but decorates her packs with bright paper charms and a single child's ribbon tied to her staff, an odd softness against her grizzled exterior.