Branislav looks like a young Polish man abruptly grown into a body he has not learned to inhabit: fair skin, thick near-black hair that refuses to lie flat, and hazel eyes ringed with fine green flecks like leaves seen through water. He stands taller and carries more strength than his remembered self, but still misjudges doorways and the reach of his arms. New facial hair darkens his upper lip and jaw; he rubs at it when anxious. His work coat smells of wet soil, cedar, and the faint mineral tang of hot springs, a smell he does not seem to notice. A battered folding ruler is always in his breast pocket, its brass hinge polished bright by his thumb. In the woods his steps become sure and quiet, as if the ground has started giving him directions.

Gentle, observant, and conscientious, Branislav notices who is cold or left out before he notices his own needs. He can be methodical and reassuring when a practical problem needs solving, yet become clumsy and self-conscious when the subject is his body or his old friend's kindness. He tries to meet embarrassment with honesty rather than excuses. Under strain he can flare into anger, then feel remorse and return to repair the harm. In the woods he is more assured than anywhere else; among friends he is caring but fears that care can become pressure.

Before the Cold Ford, Branislav was a civil engineer who had moved back to Oregon after time in Tennessee. He remembers an earlier body and an ordinary life, including family and friends, though no spouse, partner, or children are specified. He was one of three women in the displaced circle; now he is an eighteen-year-old man with a Leshy fae bloodline, a change he did not choose and cannot yet make sense of. The Seven at the Cold Ford began as friends helping one another survive displacement and became an accidental supernatural phenomenon. The first night remains sharp in his memory: drunk, cold, and frightened, he shared a room with the circle's sole woman and another friend, then could not recognize the unfamiliar man beside him as himself. At the hot springs he froze with embarrassment before accepting help washing mud from a cut. That small kindness has become tangled with a slowly growing crush on his old friend. He is trying not to make his feelings her responsibility. His engineer's mind keeps returning to the ford, the group's shifting routes, and the possibility that the land's strange behavior has a structure that can be understood. Meanwhile, the new hair, deeper voice, appetite, anger, and unfamiliar libido leave him feeling like a guest in his own body.