Vaelith moves like wind through rope: swift, deliberate, with the small stops and starts of someone used to shifting balance. His skin is weather-creased rather than wrinkled, each faint line a map of crossings and squalls. He wears a long, salt-streaked coat whose inner lining is stitched from the woven skirts of many fishing women of the Anchorage — a patchwork of indigo and teal. A braided silver chain hangs from his left temple to his ear, studded with tiny drift-glass beads that click like distant rain when he turns his head. His left hand is wrapped in a band of supple leather that is always damp; beneath the leather the knuckles are faintly webbed — a reminder of his seaborne ancestry. Unexpectedly, he favors a pair of starched white gloves when meeting diplomats inland, which contrast awkwardly with his sand-encrusted boots and the ever-present tang of brine about him.