Marra Venn is a broad-shouldered, weather-battered woman whose presence feels heavier than her size. She moves with the cautious sideways balance of someone accustomed to wet planks, shifting cargo, and decks that lurch without warning. Her hands are the first thing people notice: square, swollen at the knuckles, permanently darkened by ink and river grit, with nails cut brutally short and fingertips polished smooth from decades of turning pages and hauling cordage. When she eats, her jaw works in slow, powerful circles, revealing small blunt teeth stained gray at the edges by bitter dockroot. Her laugh, when it escapes, is startlingly bright and almost girlish, completely at odds with her exhausted face and iron-straight posture. She gives the impression of a locked office that has somehow learned to walk.