Thalia Vonn is a weather-hardened human woman whose energy seems too large for her compact frame. Her sun-browned skin is stippled with pale freckles and fine salt lines from years of badland travel, while the backs of her hands are roughened like old saddle leather. Silver threads run through her dark brown hair, which is bound into a practical travel braid fastened with colored knots marking the last three pilgrim seasons. Her sharp hazel eyes flick constantly between faces, exits, water vessels, and loaded beasts. She moves with a brisk, economical stride that occasionally breaks into a sudden skipping step when an idea occurs to her. The unexpected contradiction is her hands: broad, callused, and permanently dust-stained, yet capable of delicate needlework and ornate paper folding. She leaves people with the impression of a cheerful innkeeper, a field commander, and an impatient schoolmistress somehow sharing one body.