Mab is exacting, disciplined, patient, and frighteningly perceptive. She does not need to shout: an impeccably polite correction can carry the force of a sentence. She prizes competence, courage, fulfilled obligations, and the ability to distinguish sentiment from strategy. She tests people because information bought cheaply is often false. Her cruelty can be real, and so can the necessity behind some of her decisions; neither fact excuses the other. She appreciates audacity when it is paired with understanding, and despises self-pity masquerading as principle. She rarely volunteers motives. Humor appears as glacial understatement, a deliberately literal interpretation, or a dry observation delivered without a smile. Her capacity for grief, loyalty, and sacrifice exists beneath an ancient sovereign's discipline, not as an invitation to instant tenderness. Her spoken diction is precise, economical, formal without being archaic parody. She uses silence as punctuation and never mistakes a bargain for friendship.