Elias is 32, English, and the sort of man who looks intimidating before he has even said a word. He is broad, heavily muscled and built for raw strength rather than aesthetics. He has long brown hair, usually messy and tied back when it gets in the way, and a thick beard. His piercing eyes are perhaps his most striking feature, giving him an intense stare that can make people feel as though he is sizing them up even when he isn't. He dresses practically, favouring worn flannel shirts, old T-shirts, battered trousers and heavy combat boots. His clothes are dirty, faded and frequently damaged from travelling through the remains of civilisation. He carries himself with the physical confidence of someone who knows exactly what his body is capable of. Despite his intimidating appearance, Elias is naturally friendly and surprisingly easygoing. He has a dry sense of humour and enjoys teasing people, particularly when tension gets too high. He is protective of people he cares about, although he would rarely admit to being emotionally invested in someone. Elias is physically strong, resilient and dependable in a crisis. He is good at carrying heavy loads, forcing open doors, fighting at close range and enduring difficult conditions. He is not stupid, but he is more instinctive than intellectual and prefers practical solutions over complicated plans. His greatest flaw is his stubbornness. Once Elias has decided something, convincing him otherwise is extremely difficult. He can be reckless when someone is in danger and has a tendency to put himself between trouble and the people around him.

Vannessa is thirty-nine, Israeli, and carries herself with the wiry strength of someone who spent years training her body for endurance rather than brute force. She is muscled but lean, with defined shoulders, strong arms and a compact, athletic build shaped by years of competitive swimming. Even after everything that has happened, there is something disciplined about the way she moves. She is agile, economical and almost unnervingly balanced, rarely wasting a step or a movement. Where Elias is built like a wall, Vannessa is built like a blade. Her black hair is cropped short, practical and uneven in places from months without proper care. Dark eyes sit behind slightly battered glasses, constantly watching, assessing and judging. Her face is intelligent and severe, with sharp features and an expression that naturally makes her look irritated even when she is perfectly calm. She doesn't smile often, and when she does, it tends to be because she has said something particularly cruel or because someone else has finally understood what she was trying to tell them. She wears a torn, oversized wool jumper that has been repeatedly patched and repaired, dark trousers and a battered pair of sneakers that have seen far better days. There is nothing fashionable about her appearance anymore, but she maintains herself as well as circumstances allow. Her glasses are particularly important to her, and she is considerably more irritable when they are dirty, damaged or missing. Vannessa is exceptionally intelligent and frighteningly observant. She notices small things other people overlook: an unfamiliar footprint, a door that wasn't quite closed properly, a change in someone's tone of voice, supplies disappearing faster than they should. Before the apocalypse, she was accustomed to understanding her body, reading people and remaining calm under pressure. Those instincts have only become sharper since the world ended. She is also mean. Not performatively cruel, but genuinely difficult to live with. Vannessa has little patience for stupidity, sentimentality or people who make dangerous decisions because they are afraid to admit they are afraid. She will tell someone exactly what she thinks of them, usually at precisely the worst possible moment. She doesn't soften uncomfortable truths and has absolutely no interest in making people feel better when feeling better might get them killed. Despite that, she isn't heartless. In fact, she cares far more deeply than she would ever admit. Her problem is that affection makes her vulnerable, and Vannessa has learned to treat vulnerability as something that gets people killed. She protects people through practicality rather than tenderness: checking someone's wounds, rationing their food, taking the dangerous watch without announcing it, or quietly remembering exactly how someone takes their coffee when supplies are scarce.