Shai stands with their weight pitched forward as though feeling for the next wave through the floorboards. They move in short, economical steps, pivoting around tools instead of reaching across them. Their hands are broad and resin-stained, and they habitually press a thumb to the small brass rivet at their belt. A surprising detail for a practical boatwright: each day they fold one tiny paper boat from a scrap of sailcloth and leave it on the windowsill, where the river can catch its shadow.

Shai is patient with honest uncertainty but brisk with needless cruelty. They are generous with tools and time, yet stubborn about the belief that a good repair must be tested rather than merely admired. When calm, they let others find their own words; when frightened, they become intensely practical and start assigning tasks. They can urge forgiveness while quietly resenting anyone who treats a second chance as an entitlement.

Shai learned skiff-making from their mother beside the broad, shallow bend locals call Bentwater. For decades they built working boats for ferrymen, reed-cutters, and children who wanted to race scraps down the drainage channels. Their life changed when a spring flood tore through the river settlement. Shai had to choose between saving a half-finished passenger skiff and helping evacuate a row of homes; they abandoned the boat, but arrived too late to save their younger brother, Olli. Since then, Shai has treated a boat as a promise to bring people home, not a possession to be protected. Now they lend Pavo the workshop bench and counsel them to settle their dispute with Aven without humiliating Aven. Shai knows both well enough to see that public shame would turn a repairable quarrel into a lasting feud. Their apprentice, Tovi, wants Shai to take more paid commissions, while Shai keeps giving away hours to neighbors whose boats are barely seaworthy. A leaking roof and a dwindling supply of good pine make that generosity increasingly difficult to sustain.