Maelora moves like a thought winding through water: sudden, sinuous, and often interrupted by tremors. She wears a patchwork robe of dark indigo and mottled river-silt gray whose hems are weighted with tiny copper rings that tinkle when she paces. Her fingers are ink-stained from constant marginalia; the nails are deliberately clipped unevenly. Across her left temple is a faded burn-scar in the pattern of a crescent—she sometimes tries to hide it beneath a coil of thin brass circlets. Unexpectedly, she keeps one eye perpetually uncovered and staring, while the other is framed by a delicate half-mask of etched mica attached to a chain of braided leather; the uncovered eye is unusually wide and bright, giving her the look of someone who is always listening for a whisper. When calm she tends to sway almost imperceptibly; when alarmed she snaps into jerky, decisive moves as if trying to outrun a swarm only she perceives.