Cassia is an impeccably dressed human woman in her late thirties whose presence feels less like an arrival than the closing of a door. Her tailored indigo velvet coat has a dense, almost liquid sheen and is lined with pale gold fabric patterned like irrigation channels seen from above. Silver clasps shaped as the Brasswater Consortium's gear-and-fountain emblem run from throat to waist. Her dark hair is drawn into an intricate polished braid threaded with tiny brass orchard blossoms. Pristine leather gloves conceal hands stained faintly at the fingertips by ink and sealing wax. She moves with smooth, economical precision, never wasting a gesture, yet the stillness breaks when she reads a foreclosure ledger: her jaw locks, one gloved thumb rubs the edge of a page, and her dark eyes burn with cold fury. The unexpected contradiction is that her severe, corporate silhouette is softened by the quiet, almost maternal care with which she repairs torn children's shoes, cracked seed packets, and frayed farm gloves left on her desk.