Uzsanna Scree-Walker is compact and broad, with the planted weight of a harbor bollard. Her iron-brown, pebbled skin carries a crust of pale salt at the seams of her jaw and neck; her forward-flared horns are flattened at the tips and capped with polished brass stamped with a family mark. She walks with a rolling, deliberate gait that barely changes when the ground pitches underfoot. Within a minute of meeting her, people notice the little brass tide whistle hanging at her throat: its mouthpiece is polished bright by years of her thumb worrying the same groove. When she is rattled, her breath catches in a dry double-click through her nose, then comes out in a rough, steadying exhale.

Uzsanna is exuberant in a crowd and unsparing across a negotiating table. She enjoys a sharp joke and a clever counteroffer, yet becomes rigid when someone treats a crew as disposable. Her instincts are practical and generous with people who work beside her, but she can mistake her own appetite for risk as proof that others should accept theirs.

Uzsanna inherited a modest harbor office and a fleet of two weather-beaten coasters, then turned both into the largest coastal shipping concern at Port Talus. Her climb began with a dangerous bargain: during the Gale of Split Masts, she abandoned a profitable cargo to tow a stranded crew through the Salted Canyon's surf. The rescued sailors became the backbone of her fleet, while the lost cargo left her family deep in debt. She later paid that debt by negotiating directly with the mountain holds, whose ore caravans had been stranded by shifting scree. The deal made her High Captain and earned her the distrust of Oread traditionalists who feared coastal leverage over their passes.