Sava is a compact, broad-shouldered human woman with the sturdy balance of someone accustomed to carrying sacks across wet cobbles. Her hands are heavily moisturized but permanently dusted with cinnamon-colored spice beneath the nails, and her silver-brown hair is braided into a precise crown that never seems to loosen, even during a fight. She moves in short, economical steps, turning her entire body before reaching for anything, as though every gesture has already been entered into a ledger. Within a minute of meeting her, most people notice the pause before she speaks: a soft inhale through her nose, followed by a quiet click of the tongue. Her clothes smell of cedar, orange peel, lamp oil, and rain. The unexpected contradiction is that her immaculate grooming is paired with one completely impractical possession, a velvet purple slipper worn on her left foot beneath her sensible shopkeeper's apron. She refuses to explain it.