<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/wyqzW.jpg)</div>Up in the riggings, the breeze stirs their hair and cools their skin from the blazing Shackles sun.  Mathle hangs perched on one mast, her feet in the rungs and one hand, by habit, holding to the rigging ropes.  She listens to Beriana, her gaze roaming from the angling and righting horizon to the rugged features of her fellow half-orc.  "I too grew up in the harbors," she says softly, her free hand dangling loose until she gestures at her face, fingers lingering at one elongated ear.  "Didn't know my parents.  Probably not a good story.  Guess they figured the harbors were a better place for one like me."<br/><br/>She purses her lips, swings off for long enough to wrap her arms around the mast, pressing her thin body against the blackened wood as she feeds rope through a square block and tackle.  Hand-over-hand she lowers the rope, past the deployed sails, to the deck below.  "I was only at home there because of the sea, so-- eventually-- I stayed away from my work.  The sea was calling me.   I couldn't understand it...  I spent all my days climbing the cliffs, exploring the caves on the outskirts, trying not to stumble into claimed territory."  She shrugs, a wry and pained smile on her face.  "I failed more than once."  She shrugs.  "Anyway... the master harbormen that allowed me to stay on... they started punishing me for shirking my duties, until they were done with me, and I left.  I was lucky to find the circle."  She smiles faintly, remembering them.  "Kindred spirits.  They accepted me, helped me find the sea's place in my heart, and use it."<br/><br/>Sighing, Mathle leans back and secures herself on the rigging again.  "That... is the most I've said about myself in years.  And the most I've learned about someone else."  She shakes her head in surprise at her own openness, and is glad to go back to listening to Beriana.<br/><br/>Certain that she and Ber are of a like mind... even if for different reasons... she nods.  "Your logic is sound, but I won't be of much help.  I can set snares and the like.  As I showed you, last night... I can tap into some of nature's gifts, focus into magic."  She shrugs.  "I'll need to know how to help, if I can."  She smiles faintly at Ber.  "Tonight, the galley."  She wraps one arm in the rigging rope she just deployed, and rappels her way to the deck.