Ovi Still-Rate

Ovi Still-Rate has the broad ears and unhurried hands of a Goblishili who has spent ninety years letting impatient people bargain against themselves. Her skin is deep plum gone silver at the jaw. Grey hair lies in two flat braids behind a fan of dark iron house rings. She wears no grand seal. The dock clerks look at her before answering anyway.

As Scale Hold's sitting factor, Ovi can explain every refused bridge. Pad Three's mass certificate is under review. The survey writ uses a Core register not adopted locally. Outside instruments require a competitor bond. S-band is safe, the weather is pleasant, broth can be sent up. She delivers each reason in a low courteous pitch and offers a practical solution that ends with Nari Quiet-Scale somewhere else.

Ovi isn't a thug and isn't pretending to be one. She believes the hold's resident desks built the wetland port when central houses thought it was mud, and now those same houses smell fuel traffic and arrive carrying the word fairness like a cutting tool. She's protecting a closed local market that pays her neighbors well and overcharges them quietly. If the crew gives her a way to admit Nari without sounding conquered, Ovi will take it. If they swagger, she'll teach them how long six days can be.