Zephyra Sparkplug is a compact, quick-moving gnome with the alert posture of someone forever half a second ahead of disaster. Her skin is warm copper with a faint dusting of soot in the creases of her knuckles, as if the world itself keeps leaving fingerprints on her. Her hair is a bright mess of silver-gold curls shaved close at one temple, often tied with wire scraps and tiny brass charms that jingle softly when she turns. Her left eye is a clear storm-gray, while the right is an impossible pale green with a glassy sheen from an old workshop accident, giving her a look that is both sharp and oddly fragile. She wears heavy soot-stained boots under a finely tailored coat of midnight blue velvet, an expensive garment lined with pockets full of tools, which creates the contradictory impression of a noblewoman dressed as a street mechanic. When she smiles, it is with one side of her mouth first, like a gear catching.