Soren moves like someone who once learned to steal attention before anything else: lithe, rehearsed gestures, and an easy smile that reaches only half his face. His clothes look like a captain's wardrobe and a theater costume had a child — a salt-dark duster embroidered with tonal silver thread over a fitted studded-leather jerkin, sleeves rolled to reveal forearms inked in cryptic script. A jagged pale scar arcs from temple to jaw, the skin puckered and slightly reflective as if powdered with mica. When he laughs he tilts his head back and a thin ridge of faint, silvery scales along his left temple flashes in the light — the remnant of a childhood fever the sea-witch failed to cure. Unexpectedly, his left hand is always ink-smudged; the right hand smells faintly of citrus and gunpowder. He favors standing with one foot on steps or boxes, as if perpetually posing for an audience, and when he stills he appears almost statuesque.