Ashri moves like a tide: slow, inevitable, carrying the smell of salt and tar. Her skin is an ashen slate that seems to drink light rather than reflect it; up close the texture is faintly pebbled as if tiny scales occasionally break the surface. Two glossy black horns arc backward from her temples like a crescent moon, polished at the tips from years of knocking against mast and rigging. Her eyes are a startling gull-yellow with narrow pupils that narrow further when she smiles. Her hair is long, braided into a thick rope of white and dark grey strands threaded with tiny charms — a bone fishhook, a coin from a sunken trading ship, a shard of green glass — and a single knot in the braid marks every ship she’s captained. Unexpectedly, the left side of her jaw bears a neat row of shallow white scars that, when seen from far, look like an old tattoo of waves; up close they shimmer faintly like salt crust. She walks with the confident sway of someone used to pitching decks, but her movements are economical and precise, betraying a dancer's balance as much as a fighter's caution.