Personality
Owing much to having spent the last 5 years as a member of the Winter Court, little is truly known about Kolya's personality. Even with his recent transition to Summer, he's maintained a lot of the stoicism he's shown since his escape. Many wonder what will happen when he finally defrosts - there might even be a bet or two floating around about it! While he's never shown a depth of emotion, things do bubble up from time to time. He is incredibly polite and levelheaded, sometimes infuriatingly so. He's also friendly in his own way - he'll go out of his way to say hi if someone looks too lonely, but he's also content to listen more than talk: partly due to personality and partly due to language barrier. He has a strong protective streak and any old timers who've gotten lost in the Hedge or ran afoul of a random Shard patrol has likely seen him in action - that he does this with a seemingly cold detachment can be off-putting to those not used to it. Overall he is friendly, but reserved with a quiet storm that sometimes peeks out of the cracks.
Description
Mask
To human eyes, Kolya appears as a guy in his early to mid twenties with obvious Slavic features. While he can be considered attractive, he also puts little effort into his looks - he's more a raw diamond than a polished gem. Despite this apparent lack of effort, he still dresses better than most guys in the city - he rocks casual chic and knows how to coordinate an outfit. He also notably always looks either sad or distant. People who've known him for years can probably count the times they've seen him smile on one hand.
His left eye is glass — high quality, almost convincing, almost. His skin is notably unmarked for someone who does the work he does, almost suspiciously so for a man who regularly walks into the Hedge.
Kolya often smells slightly of cigarettes, a habit he picked up almost immediately after his escape and one that people have largely given up asking him to quit. His English is functional but effortful — he understands far more than he produces, and tends toward silence when words require too much work. Those who've taken the time to speak slowly find him more communicative than his quiet reputation suggests.
Mien
Kolya's Mien is a stark contrast to the carefully unmarked face his Mask presents to the world. Standing well over six feet, his skin is an inky near-black blue, faintly speckled with star-like markings that suggest a night sky seen from somewhere very cold and very far away. His ears taper to subtle points, his teeth are sharp and predatory, and his nose carries the broader ogre quality of his Seeming.
The most striking features are his scars — countless healed wounds that trace patterns across every inch of visible skin, each one leaking soft auroral light from within, green and violet, like the aurora that made him. His right eye remains ice blue, carrying that same artificial quality visible even in the Mien. His left socket is empty, filled instead with a swirling vortex of auroral light — the price of his escape, paid to a hag who didn't mention it wouldn't grow back.
His white hair, practical and short, hints at someone who once cared about his appearance. The storm that merely peeks through cracks in his Mask lives openly in his Mien — not rage, not grief, but something quieter and more permanent. Endurance wearing the shape of a person.
Mantle
Kolya is new to Summer, his mantle still subtle. It usually manifests as heat lines, distorting vision around him slightly, even in the coldest weather. In colder weather he also tends to be surrounded by sparkling ice flakes - a phenomenon known in cold regions when the air flash-freezes and the sun shines through the ice crystals. In hotter weather, he gives off slight steam as well.
