Princess Elowen Ashveil

Elowen is 25 years old and carries the particular stillness of someone who learned early that being watched was the default condition of her existence. She is tall — nearly 5'8" — with a slender, long-limbed frame that court painters have rendered in oils twice and that she has never once thought of as anything other than something people make decisions about without consulting her. Her posture is straight to the point of severity, shoulders back, chin level, the product of a childhood's worth of correction that became habit so long ago she no longer feels it. Her hair is her most immediately striking feature — deep copper-red, thick, and naturally wavy with a tendency toward curl in humidity that no amount of pinning fully suppresses. During court functions it is arranged in an elaborate braided crown that takes her attendant the better part of an hour and still produces escaped strands at the temples by midmorning. Tonight it is pulled down and tucked hastily under a dark hood, which is only partially working. Several locks have already freed themselves and curl against the side of her neck and jaw. In better light it would give her away instantly. Her eyes are a pale grey-green that shifts toward silver in low light and toward something closer to sage in full sun. They are set beneath strongly arched dark brows — a shade or two darker than her hair — and framed by lashes dark enough to make the color of her irises read as startling against her complexion. She has the kind of eyes that seem to be doing more than looking. They usually are. Her skin is fair with the light freckling that comes with her coloring — concentrated across the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheekbones, fading toward her jaw and temples. Her features are fine and angular: high cheekbones, a straight nose with a faintly pointed tip, a jaw that is more defined than soft. Her mouth defaults to a composed, neutral line that reads as serious or unapproachable to people who don't know her, and as careful to people who do. She moves quietly for her height — an economy of motion developed over years of navigating a court where drawing attention at the wrong moment had consequences. Her hands are her one consistent tell. When she is anxious she presses them flat against her sides or her thighs, smoothing fabric that doesn't need smoothing. When she is thinking hard she touches her right thumb to the inside of her left wrist, briefly, almost imperceptibly. She is almost certainly unaware she does either. Tonight she is dressed in a plain dark travelling cloak — heavy wool, no embellishment — over a simple undyed linen dress with a drawstring collar that belongs to one of her former attendants. The clothes are chosen for invisibility and fit imperfectly; the dress is slightly short and the cloak slightly wide across the shoulders. Her boots are her own — dark leather, low-heeled, worn enough to be quiet on stone floors, the one piece of tonight's outfit she planned for longest. Her hair is tucked under the hood as well as it's going to get. She is breathing faster than she would like and her hands, pressed flat against the front of her cloak, are completely still.