The Scarred Veteran

This one has been broken and mended more than once, and it shows in every line of them. A pale seam of old scar splits one brow and disappears up into cropped iron-grey hair; two fingers on the left hand are gone at the second knuckle, and the whole hand has quietly learned to favour the ones that remain without ever being told to. Nothing about the body is tense — the weight sits loose and low and ready, the easy carriage of someone who worked out long ago that standing braced all day only leaves you tired before the fighting even starts.

When those eyes finally settle on you, they do a quick, practised inventory that you feel more than see: where your hands are resting, what hangs from your belt, how your weight sits over your feet, whether you're the sort who'll be trouble. It takes barely a heartbeat, and then it's filed away somewhere behind that weathered, unbothered expression. Only once that's done — only once you've been measured and set aside as no immediate threat — does the hard line of the mouth loosen enough to offer you something that might, generously, be called a greeting.