Thalen carries the sense of someone who is part road and part ruin. He moves with a long-legged, careful gait, always placing his feet as if testing the echoes of each step. His face is weathered into fine, sun-browned creases; one cheek bears a pale, crescent-shaped scar that looks almost ornamental. A dozen tiny silver beads are woven into the tip of his left ear—a half-elf habit from his mother's clan—but his right ear is unadorned and bridled close to the skull, the result of an old bite. He favors layered travel clothes that rustle softly rather than clank: a greenish-brown hooded cloak patterned with faded cartographic sigils, a leather jerkin patched with stitched maps, and trousers tucked into soft boots stained with ash and river mud. Unexpectedly, he always wears a child's red ribbon tied to the hilt of his shortbow; it flutters like a stubborn heartbeat against the wilderness.