Rusk is a slim, weather-browned elf with a sailor's balance and a face that seems perpetually turned toward the next storm. His skin carries a warm bronze cast beneath a scatter of pale salt freckles, and his dark copper hair hangs in loose, rain-curled strands to his jaw. One pointed ear bears three tiny brass rings, each dulled by seawater. His hands are narrow but heavily callused, with rope burns crossing the palms like old red script. He moves with an easy rolling gait on land and becomes startlingly still aboard ship, as though listening through the soles of his feet. His expression is wary and young, yet his eyes have the exhausted patience of someone much older. The unexpected softness of his appearance is contradicted by the hard, almost military precision with which he ties knots, checks weapons, and watches doors.