Editing Dark Tides:Ship (section)

===Sailing Master: Charlotte===

Charlotte is her entire name, she has no family name to call her own. A bastard daughter of a widowed plantation owner and one of his house slaves. She would probably have been left for her mother to raise, but the woman died giving birth to her.

Charlotte’s father had his flaws, but he was not a completely heartless man. When Charlotte’s mother died, he took the baby girl to live in his house. She was not allowed to leave the plantation for she was a mark of shame on her father, but the estate was large so she did not feel confined as a child. Her father taught her letters, and introduced her to his hobby. He was interested in both astronomy and astrology, and had a private observatory on his plantation. He taught Charlotte the names of stars and constellations, explaining how to find her way by them. He also taught her how to craft a horoscope, divine information by studying the movements and relative positions of celestial objects, and how the Maya people far to the south had developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations.

Charlotte also had free access to the plantation’s private library, but most books were related to her father’s interests. The stars. From various historical documents about the beliefs related to them through star charts to navigation manuals.

Charlotte grew into a young woman on the plantation, but then old age claimed her father. Her older half brother had never come to accept his half sister, and after the old man’s death, he threw her out of the house. Charlotte walked into Port Tobacco with just the clothes on her back, but with a valuable skill – what she had learned at the plantation had made her a passable navigator.

Charlotte is a young woman with dark curls hanging to her shoulders. Her complexion is fair enough that in the right circumstances or with make-up she could pass for a white person, but she does not like to pretend anything.