Jenna Lockport

Jenna was born to a good family. An only child, her mother died a few weeks after she was born. Her father did his best to raise her well. Put her in private liberal schools, where she often spent Saturdays in detention. (compared to state schools, who couldn't do anything on the Sabbath day, not even detention.) With her father's successful locksmith business, she never had the best of clothes, but was never lacking food and water either.

When she was 14 the revolution began. Revolutionaries killed the mayor and his family. They established an iron fist and and rewrote the laws from scratch, compiling a list of 337 rules. Punishment for breaking most of these was death by hanging. Sentences were often reduced to a less severe penalty of 5-10 years in exile in work camps, placed on islands throughout the Southwestern Ocean.

the new government distributed rations equally among everyone. There was a large black market for contraband food. Everyone used it. out of solidarity for those who couldn't afford to do otherwise, Jenna tried to live on the normal rations and nothing else. By day 37 she was dying of starvation. She began to consume food her father bought on the black market.

When she was 15, she began to voluntarily live in the streets. The first night was hardest. It wasn't until 3:00 am she found somewhere to sleep. A park bench, next to another bench with a man in the same predicament. They worked together for a few nights. Eventually she left, finding a warm corner by a heating vent, on the roof of an unlocked apartment. Residents filed notices that she was a criminal, and asked the landlord to get rid of her. She left in the middle of the night. From there she found a gathering of people like her, living out of an abandoned subway station. She learned how to stay warm and find food. Who to trust and who to avoid. She also became a thief.

She went around Saltmarsh to doctors and dentists offices, stealing from waiting rooms. She always hoped to find wallets and purses, and valuables hidden in pockets of clothes hung up. On rare occasions she had enough time to steal the costs themselves, carrying multiple under her arm and out the door. She did this until she ran out of dentists offices to go back to.

There was one time she tried pick pocketing as she considered it the highest art form of thievery. A skill not everyone can do. She tried it once. Almost got arrested by police, before managing to run away and escape in the crowds. She gave up on it after that.

From there she progressed to stealing luggage from travellers. They key is to remain calm, to act like the luggage you're stealing is entirely you're own. That way, by the time someone notices, you can hurry out and be long gone.

One day she was in a station she thought she knew. She grabbed a suitcase, and began to walk. She walked, and walked and walked. No exit in site. She began to sweat. She stowed the luggage in bathroom. Coming back out, she stopped two young boys in the station and asked if they knew an exit. They nodded yes. She ran back and grabbed the bag, and the three of them hurried down a long dark tunnel. Eventually they were right, the boys led her to an emergency exit.

The three of them climbed up a ladder and out onto the street. They rode a bus for an hour, sorting through the things as they went. Inside the case were some clothes, a cotton jacket, gloves. A nice camera, a letter of recommendation, and an album of drawings. She sold the camera to a pawn shop. Let the boys have the clothes and anything else they wanted. And she took the artwork and letter, and dropped them off at a post office together, sending them to the address the were prepared for. She included a note in the package, "sorry these got lost. Hopefully they've been returned to the rightful place. Sincerely, the thief."

Eventually, she was arrested and convicted of law 67.3 (crimes against the state, conspiracy against the revolution). She was sentenced to death, before an anonymous benefactor stepped in on her behalf and got her sentenced to 10 years in exile. That's how she ended up aboard this ship, the Salty Selkie.

The ship was given no Captian. No sailors. Just 7 prisoners to sail to the ends of the earth. The government would be all the happier if they drowned.

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