Another entry in
The vast, unexplored reaches of the open ocean, distant from land, thousands of feet above the sea floor, are places where even the most powerful predators must constantly struggle to stay alive. Like a barren, tropical desert, it stretches for leagues in any direction.
It's here that Shant typically makes her home. Unlike her more costal cousins, her society has no underwater city which they thrive and expand in.
Her kind, which are nomadic and exclusively predatory, are typically stronger, larger, and more agile than the coastal dwelling kind most are familiar with. Shant, a fine, newly mature example of her species, stretches nearly eighteen feet from the tip of her agile, powerful tail to the top of her long, swirling mass of blonde hair. Though she hasn't been weighed, her sheer mass seems to indicate she'd be rather on the hefty side. She has the pale, smooth skin of a human woman above her waist, although it's not quite what one would expect, being smooth and slightly thick and rubbery to the touch, to help her retain her body heat in the chill of the vast ocean. On either side, at the level of her ribs, a smattering of scales is visible, looking almost decorative. In truth, these mark her gills, which allows her to poke out of the water without having to hold her breath.
She is, of course, also capable of breathing above the surface, but feels uncomfortable doing so, and rarely has reason to, as there's little prey up there for her, typically.
Her lower half is as different from her upper half as any other mermaid. More, even. A pair of dorsal find just from her 'hips', assisting her turning and maneuvering, as most meals she finds out on the open ocean are agile and quick, and she has to be as well. The entirety of her lower body is colored in brilliant pink-red scales, that glint and shine in the sunlight, and her underbelly is formed of scutes, hard bone-plates that protect her vulnerable bits from attack, in the case of a larger predator thinking she's food herself.
Her other distinguishing features are her sharp teeth, quite usable for ripping and tearing purposes, though she shares some common adaptation with whales, and is entirely capable of yawning her jaws immensely wide, and sieving water through her gills, to separate out any food she catches from it. A pair of horn-like protrusions jut from either side of her head, just above and behind her ears. Filled with sensitive bits of nerve endings, they're capable of sniffing out prey's electromagnetic signature in the water, a valuable hunting tool when prey are swift and elusive.
Her kind tends to have little in the way of possessions, clothing, or jewelry, as all these things are scarce in the endless ocean, and carrying more than a trinket could be the difference between eating and not. Remote islands, and the caves that honeycomb them, serve as meeting places, in the rare times they aren't traveling or hunting.
Shant is, however, a bit unique for her kind. In addition to hunting fish and schools for survival and food, she also chases boats, particularly those running into storms, and happily picks off anyone who falls overboard. Shipwrecks are her favorite, and, on rare occasions, she might even be drawn into a busy beach, by the sheer number of apparent food!
She isn't, as a rule, particularly social, though she's quite capable of speaking and understanding English. Making friends with her is a hard thing to do!
