Valthorix moves like a scholar who has learned to carry the weight of a library on his shoulders: deliberate, paced, and with measured grace. His scales are burnished gold, not the flat metallic sheen of a soldier but layered like the patina of old gilt bindings — each scale faintly lined with hairline runes that catch light when he breathes. Two backward-curving horns rise from his brow, ridged and inlaid with thin silver filigree; he has no frilled ears. His muzzle is narrow and expressive, and a thin white scar crosses his left cheek where candle wax once burned him during a long vigil. He is tall and imposing at 6'5", but his shoulders are slightly stooped from hours bent over tomes. His hands are long-fingered and smudged with ink in places no sensible scholar shows in public. Unexpectedly, he wears a child's crimson ribbon tied around the base of one horn — frayed and faded but kept meticulously clean.