Vardona is a broad-shouldered woman with the compact balance of someone raised on slippery stone and narrow bridges. She moves with a loose, sideways swagger that becomes startlingly precise whenever violence begins. Her hands are heavily callused, yet she keeps her fingernails painted with tiny blue dots made from crushed ceramic glaze. A battered copper whistle hangs at her throat on a cord of braided drain-rope, and the cord has worn a dark, polished groove into the leather of her collar. She constantly touches the whistle when thinking, though she never blows it indoors. Her smile is warm enough to invite confidence, while the rest of her face suggests she has already counted every exit. The unexpected contradiction is that her clothing and weapons look brutally practical, but she carries herself like a retired stage singer waiting for applause.