Hanspur appears as a broad-shouldered human man in his late thirties, though his face has the weathered patience of someone who has watched civilizations wash away. His skin is deep brown and permanently burnished by sun, river glare, and cold rain. His beard grows in thick, uneven clumps threaded with pale reed fibers, and his hair spikes outward like a bundle of wet rushes caught in a current. He moves with a boatman's rolling balance, never quite standing still, even on solid ground. His hands are remarkable: large, callused, and ridged with tiny pale lines where river reeds have cut him over centuries. They look capable of violence, yet he uses them with exquisite delicacy when handling a rat, a child, or a cracked clay cup. The unexpected contradiction is his smile, which is soft, shy, and almost domestic, utterly at odds with the sensation that floods rise when he enters a room.