Alaric moves like a reed in a slow river, patient and flexible. He favors the habit of pausing mid-sentence to let listeners breathe, eyes crinkling as if reading invisible lines in the air. His hands are ink-stained and freckled, knuckles knobbled from decades of turning brittle pages and repairing torn parchments. He carries a long, oaken storystaff carved with a spiral of tiny runes that correspond to tales he can call up from memory. On his left forearm is a faded inked map of Triel stitched into his sleeve; the map is missing a tiny circle near the western marsh where something unsaid lingers. Unexpectedly, he walks with a sprightly hop in his step when he hears a child's laugh, a quick contradiction to his otherwise deliberate gait.