Cairn moves like water running over stones: deliberate, low, and with an economy that reveals long hours on shifting ground. He wears his hair in a single, loose braid that is threaded with river-grass and a faded blue ribbon — a child's ribbon he never admits belongs to anyone. His face is an angular half-elf face softened by laughter lines on one side and split by a pale crescent scar that runs from jaw to ear on the other. His left forearm is tattooed with a dark, looping map of the marshes — ink so old it flares like a scar. When he stands still he looks smaller than he is; when he moves he seems to lengthen. The contradictory detail that arrests most people is the brass compass permanently chained to his belt — exquisitely made, out of place next to his mud-streaked boots and carved bone talismans.