A Wind-Listener has a lean person’s shape and skin like polished stone, grey and white like the wind-carved cliffs, smooth and cool, so that one sitting still on a ledge can be mistaken for a rock. Its ears are long and tapering, reaching above the crown, and they turn independently towards a sound. Its eyes are always closed, or covered with a band of cloth, because it sees by sound. It moves with a fluid grace that seems to follow the wind, and it does not speak. A faint dust of the valley’s fine white powder clings to it.

They live on the rock of the valley, among the jagged stones and bent trees, without buildings, since the zone is too exposed for any. A valley holds a small community.

They are quiet and contemplative, and value listening, patience, and the ability to tell truth from noise. They think outsiders deaf to the voices of the past. They do not speak, but they communicate with touch, gesture, and the stirring of the air, and some can point a visitor to where a particular voice is likeliest to pass. They are protective of visitors who are listening too long, and lead them out if they can.

They see by sound, perceiving the shape of rocks and bodies from echoes, and hear the voices of the wind more clearly than anyone. They draw sustenance from those voices, and are immune to the madness and possession that the voices bring on others.

Nothing is known of their birth. They seem long-lived, and their dead, it is said, are left on the rock with their ears to the wind.

People who come to learn what no book holds, or to listen for one voice, do best with a Wind-Listener to guide them. They are harmless.

Mountain folk believe a Wind-Listener can hear every word ever said in the valley and will tell it for a price; they hear it, but they do not speak. Others take them for the dead turned to stone, and leave them alone.