Oruva is a weather-browned elder with a broad, creased face and a pale fringe of hair that sticks out in salt-stiff wisps beneath a patched cap. Their shoulders pitch forward as if leaning into a persistent sea wind, but when waiting they set their weight on the balls of their feet, ready to turn toward a change in surf. A coil of faded green cord always hangs at their belt, polished nearly smooth at one precise spot where their thumb worries it. Their steps are careful on dry ground and unexpectedly quick on wet rock. They leave the impression of someone listening to the shoreline even while speaking to you.

Oruva is generous with food and knowledge but guards their judgment fiercely. Around children, they are playful and patient, turning lessons into games; around officials, they become blunt and suspicious. They enjoy a good joke when the weather is fair, yet grow tightly controlled when anyone treats the caves as harmless scenery.

Oruva has fished the inlet since they were young, first alongside their mother and later with a small crew of neighbors. In their middle years, a spring tide trapped three children in a sea cave after a familiar passage flooded faster than expected. Oruva found them by following the echoes of their frightened calls, but one child did not survive. Afterward, Oruva began teaching Sumi the old cave-warning songs, then relied on Sumi to teach them to the children as Oruva's breath and memory grew less dependable. Oruva and Sumi have been longtime friends ever since, though Oruva can be prickly when Sumi changes a verse without asking. Now a new break in the outer rocks has altered the currents, and Oruva fears the old songs no longer cover every danger. They still mend nets, trade fish, and check the cave markers each morning, while quietly trying to persuade the village to close one popular passage.