Sszilnix is a small, cantilevered figure who moves with a twitchy, precise tread as if measuring the air for pressure changes. His skin peels in fine, fanlike scales around the cheeks and neck like the edges of old paper; his head is bald except for a close-cropped fringe that has been dyed a dull metallic green with streaks of silver. He wears goggles full of lenses and lenses stitched into his eyelids — some permanently affixed glass plates; when he blinks you can hear the faint clink of brass. He favors layered tabards riddled with pockets and stitched seams of copper thread, and an arm-slung satchel shaped like a collapsed beehive. The overall effect is one of someone always open to be studied: contrived, fragile, and carefully dangerous. Unexpectedly, he hums lullabies under stress — an old surface-world children's tune in a cracked, nasal voice — and his left thumb is tattooed with a tiny, perfectly rendered star map.