Broad-shouldered and slow-moving with a gait like an old tree yielding to wind; his gait is unexpectedly light when he is hurried. Skin like spalted oak bark, freckled with moss and pale lichen, he keeps a thin braided vine wound about his left wrist. His hands are large and soft with knuckles nicked by years of gathering roots. He wears a crown of little stitched feathers and wilted wildflowers on his forehead as a promise to the wild, and his staff is carved with the names of people he has healed. Contradiction: his face carries a quiet, paternal warmth, yet his eyes can go utterly still and distant, as if listening to a different time. When he moves through a room, small seedlings and dust motes seem to tilt toward him.