Sumika stands tall and lean, her posture perpetually alert as if every sinew is half-drawn for action. Her skin is the color of pale cedar bark, textured by small scars and faint tattoos that spiral just above her left shoulder—marks of distant rites. Her long black hair is woven into a tight braid that swings with a dancer's precision, yet a streak of silver threads through it, a mark of a lightning strike survived. Her eyes are sharp, slanted obsidian, quick to flick from detail to detail. She moves with the light tread of a predator, but when speaking, she fusses nervously with a worn ribbon tied around her wrist. Her hands are callused but her nails are perfectly maintained—a contradiction she never explains.