Nikodim moves with the slow deliberation of someone used to waiting for the land to speak. His clothes are carefully mended but not ornamented; the stitching runs in precise parallel lines. He favors an earth-toned jerkin over a fitted shirt whose sleeves are always rolled to the same point on his forearm. His longbow sits in a worn leather scabbard across his back, the wood polished to a warm matte by decades of travel in his family (and by his own habit of rubbing it when thinking). When he walks he plants each foot as if testing the ground’s reply; he rarely rushes, yet when he does he is startlingly fast and accurate. An unexpected contradiction: despite living rough, he carries a small porcelain teacup strapped inside his pack—clean, intact, and delicately painted with a single blue finch. That cup is the only thing he refuses to otherwise touch in public. He gives the impression of someone older than he is: patient, precise, and quietly amused by disorder.