Torvald moves like someone always ready to catch a fall: purposeful, economical steps kept close to the ground. He wears a weather-darkened oilskin overcoat folded at the throat to hide a faded ribbon; beneath it, a well-used breastplate scarred with shallow grooves from glancing blows. His hands are callused and ink-stained from ledger-keeping he does at night. The left side of his face bears a pale crescent scar that lifts a small patch of hair into a permanent cowlick; when he smiles — which is rare and crooked — his left eye narrows and the scar seems to pull at the skin like a stitched memory. Unexpectedly, he always carries a child's wooden toy horse tucked inside his cloak, its paint long chipped. The impression he leaves is of someone tightly wound but not unkind: a man who has seen trouble and learned to make friends with it.