Xi'yan Mao is all angles and half-finished habits, a young Vandor elf woman who looks as though the river wind has been polishing her for years and never quite finished the job. Her pale copper skin carries a faint sheen of ash at the wrists and throat, and her lank bronze hair hangs in damp-looking ribbons no matter the weather, as if it has absorbed every chimney and hearth she has ever passed. Her faded green eyes are alert and tired at the same time, with a hungry, darting focus that snaps toward pockets, belt pouches, and any source of smoke. She moves with a quick, birdlike hitch in her step, then freezes completely when thinking, cigarette already between two fingers even when unlit. The contradiction that makes people remember her is that she wears a neat, almost scholarly collar pin shaped like a reed flower on an otherwise stained, frayed shirt, as if some part of her is still trying to look respectable while the rest has given up.