Elthar moves like someone who has spent more years listening to currents than to clocks: slow, deliberate footfalls, the shoulders of a man who leans into wind. His face is a map of river-weathered lines — crows' feet that curl like fish-hooks and a deep furrow between the brows. He wears a trailing salt-stiffened beard braided into a single rough plait tied with a scrap of blue ribbon that once belonged to his late wife. His left forearm bears a faded tattoo of a leaping carp, the black ink cracked and puckered like dried riverbed. When he laughs, his whole face opens and his voice softens; when he narrows his eyes, the light in them goes cold and calculating. Unexpectedly, he keeps his nails trimmed and clean — an old habit from when he mended nets — which contrasts with the perpetually fish-scented clothes and calloused hands.