Sashi stands like a weathered gatepost at the edge of a storm, solid and unyielding until she chooses to move, then suddenly fast and sharp. Her skin is deep olive with a blue-gray cast over old scars, and it looks almost polished where years of salt wind have worn it smooth. She wears one iron hoop through a torn ear, carries a half-shaved mane of black hair shot through with silver, and keeps the rest braided with tiny beads made from wolf teeth and river glass. Her right cheek bears a pale burn mark shaped like a bent crescent, but she dresses it with careful, elegant paint when she expects company. The contradiction that makes people remember her is the delicate embroidery inside her battered traveling coat, as if a seamstress and a brawler shared the same body.