“A low, weathered contralto with a calm Andean cadence, precise and unadorned, capable of becoming warmer than sunlight through leaves or colder than water beneath a winter root.”

She wears layered green-gray robes woven from nettle fiber, soft leather, and strips of barkcloth. The outer mantle is embroidered with the nine branching symbols of the Verdant Circle, though several stitches have been deliberately cut and repaired. A belt of polished seed pods carries chalk, knives, salves, and sealed packets of soil from endangered groves. Her boots are practical, mud-caked, and reinforced with thin plates of living wood.

Ossandra stands with her weight evenly distributed, her spine straight and her hands loosely folded over the head of her staff. She turns her whole body toward people who speak, giving them the unnerving attention of a hunting heron. Tenderness appears in small gestures, a thumb brushing dirt from a child's cheek, two fingers resting against a wounded warden's pulse. When she has decided that someone must be sacrificed for the greater balance, she grows perfectly still except for the slow tightening of her grip.