Tarek is broad shouldered and compactly built, with the dense, practical strength of someone who has hauled logs, shielded wagons, and survived too many hard winters. His gray green skin looks weathered like old river stone, marked by a scatter of pale scars that catch the light when he moves. He keeps one tusk carefully capped in brass after it cracked in a tavern brawl, which gives his face an unexpectedly elegant asymmetry. His black hair is shaved at the sides and left in a short ridge on top, always damp with oil or rain. He moves with a quiet, deliberate tread that makes him seem bigger than he is, but his hands are gentle and precise when he handles tools, books, or injured animals. A contradiction follows him wherever he goes: he wears a patched crimson scarf embroidered with tiny wildflowers, an heirloom from his mother, draped over a battered workman's coat that smells faintly of smoke, sap, and iron.