Tarric moves like a man who has spent decades circling a barroom: economical, attentive and slow to surprise. He has a shock of tight black curls that never lie flat even under his battered cap, and a close-cropped black beard threaded with one streak of silver at the jaw — a line he insists is from a candle-wax burn but never says how he got. His face is warm and round, skin patterned faintly by old sun freckles and the tiny white scars of kitchen knives. He wears an apron always dusted in flour and beer foam; when he walks there is a faint clinking of coin and keys from his belt. Unexpectedly, he carries himself with the coiled posture of a man trained to listen for footsteps: shoulders slightly forward, head inclined, the habit of scanning a room's three exit points. That alertness minus urgency leaves an impression of someone bored with danger but never careless.