A small, thin gnome woman with the tense, alert posture of someone who is always listening for a house settling in the dark. Her movements are quick but not graceful, full of tiny corrections, as though invisible threads tug her from one task to the next. Her skin has the dry, reddish-brown texture of a person who spends long hours near ovens, hearths, and windblown market roads. She keeps herself meticulously groomed, yet her clothing is perpetually dusted with silver soot. The contradiction is striking: she looks like a fussy village laundress who has somehow stepped out of a chimney. When she becomes excited, loose strands of hair lift as though underwater, even in still air.