Oru moves deliberately, each step measured as if marking tide-charts in sand. His shell is a lattice of hand-carved sigils and trading marks: sun-faded runes, neat maps of local shoals, and a shallow spiral that rings his crown. Thin lines of salt-white scar tissue rim one port-side ridge where a hawser once ground against him. Braids of dried seaweed and polished driftwood beads hang from the lower edges of his shell and from a rope threaded across his shoulders; the braids smell faintly of kelp and resin. He wears a wide, patched sash over the front of his carapace that is embroidered with the standard of Skatha-Kaarn: a gull over a coiling wave. His movements are slow but precise — when he pours tea, he counts each drop. Contradiction: his gaze is sudden and sharp, as if lightning could strike behind his patient face.