Shatha Gold is an attractive woman in her early thirties whose long honey-blond hair reaches the middle of her back when loose. Sun and salt have bleached the lower lengths nearly white, and she keeps the mass in a practical ponytail that snaps behind her like a pennant when the wind rises. Light freckles scatter across her nose and cheeks. Her cornflower-blue eyes are bright, alert, and often amused, though they become startlingly still when she is angry. She moves with a sailor's rolling balance, every step seeming to anticipate the deck's next lurch. Her easy smile suggests warmth, yet a thin scar at the corner of her mouth pulls it slightly crooked. The unexpected contradiction is her hands, broad-knuckled and rough from ropes, but careful enough to mend lace, tune a violin, or braid a child's hair without tugging.