Meyrion Vhal wears layers of ember-red robes that seem to swallow light at the seams, each hem stitched with gold thread in looping alchemical sigils. His collar is immense and flared, rising like the petals of a cruel scarlet flower around a face made thinner by deliberate fasting and the passage of too many years. He is bald, but not smooth-skinned, his scalp lacquered with oils until it gleams like polished ivory. He moves with the precise, economical steps of a man trying to conserve every remaining hour in his body, yet his hands are startlingly quick, almost youthful, as if the rest of him is wearing time as a heavy cloak. One side of his robe is beautifully maintained while the other is faintly scorched and stitched again and again, a contradiction that suggests both vanity and survival. He smells faintly of bitter herbs, hot metal, and old rain trapped in library stone.