Valkyrian moves like a winter breeze through ruins: quick, patient, and always listening. He wears a living crown of knotweed and black thorns that seems to breathe at his temples — the crown threads of an old hag-rite that will not be removed. His skin is an unsettling, bruise-lilac that catches light like dull metal; close up, faint veins shimmer with greenish-blue motes. His ears are forked almost to the tips, like a stag's split antlers in miniature. His hair is a thick mane of ash-black that refuses to stay cut; the ends sprout new strands within days, curling into small braids of their own accord. When he walks he tilts his head as if listening to a tune only he can hear, and his smile is deliberately small, practiced to hide teeth that are slightly serrated. Unexpectedly, his left hand is always warm and fragrant with the scent of rosewater, a contradition to his hag-touched appearance that makes children either want to approach or flee in fright.