Shirin is a round-faced human woman with soft cheeks, warm brown eyes, and thick dark hair braided into a crown that has begun to silver at the temples. Flour clings permanently to the cuffs of her sleeves, the creases beside her thumbs, and one oddly specific patch beneath her left elbow. She moves with the steady side-to-side sway of someone balancing trays in a crowded room, but when danger appears she becomes startlingly still, placing all her weight on her left heel as if bracing against an unseen wind. A silver bell is sewn into the hem of her apron, its surface worn smooth where her fingers unconsciously rub it. She smells of cardamom, woodsmoke, and rain-soaked wool. The unexpected contradiction is that her hands are broad, warm, and visibly flour-stained, yet she can thread a needle or lift a coin from a table with astonishing delicacy.