Skravik is a compact, broad-shouldered dwarf whose body has the dense, slightly hunched shape of a man who has spent a century leaning into storms. He moves with a sailor's rolling precision on dry land, as though the ground is merely a badly behaved deck. His beard is braided into five heavy cords, each wrapped with tar-black thread and tiny bits of sea glass. His skin is weathered copper-brown, creased deeply around the mouth and hands, while his eyebrows remain startlingly pale and soft. He smells of kelp, lamp oil, juniper, and old iron. Within a minute of meeting him, most people notice that he occupies more space than his height suggests, bracing one hand on furniture and unconsciously judging every ceiling beam. The contradictory impression is that his battered, storm-worn exterior surrounds an almost delicate habit of folding paper birds from discarded charts.