Gaja is a tall, lean woman with hair like burnt gold and a midday thunderstorm in her eyes.  Her skin is smooth but not soft, the color of old banyan bark, and it hugs her figure tightly—no deprivation, not quite, but certainly no sign of plenty.  The proportions of her limbs and face come closer to Vissian marble nudes than the block-cut brawn expected of a barbarian nomad, but the tattoos spiraling up her arms and winding down her flanks are unmistakable Howler marks, carefully representative of nothing but breathtaking in motion.  And oh, are her motions breathtaking.  The young woman moves with a grace the very seas might bitterly envy, even in sleep.  Her lips are full in exactly the way that makes old men wistful, and when she opens them, the resonant coloratura mezzo-soprano that spills out could shame angels.