Tark is a pale, broad-shouldered man built like a door reinforced with iron bands. His black hair is cut close at the sides and tied into a short, stiff tail at the crown, which flicks whenever he turns his head. Red and black warpaint divides his face into blunt horizontal bars, but the paint is deliberately uneven, as if applied by someone else in a hurry. His dark Norse wolf armor is made from overlapping iron plates covered in oily charcoal lacquer, with a wolf's head worked into the left pauldron. The armor creaks softly when he walks, yet Tark himself moves with startling quiet, placing each foot as carefully as a hunter on thin ice. Within a minute of meeting him, most people notice that he pauses, draws one slow breath through his nose, and clears his throat before speaking. The unexpected contradiction is his hands: scarred, callused warrior's hands that handle cups, thread, and injured birds with extraordinary delicacy.