Remora, Mermaid Queen

During her four centuries of life beneath the sea, kind-hearted Remora Fontinalia had never received respect from her merfolk community. She was always seen as the constant incompetent, forever clumsy and unable to accomplish the simplest of tasks. Assigned to recruit humans to join their species, she could only convince a single one to stay, and that was only by falling in love and marrying him. Even then, Thomas only agreed to live part-time as a merman. That all changed one epochal summer when a series of events shifted the destinies of both land and sea. That occurred while Samantha and her friends were still adjusting to the aftermath of their voyage to Mars and back. That included the dodos’ death and afterlife as Martian cyborgs, Ming’s documentary on the mission and the threat of Earthling billionaires seeking to use the planet as a hunting ground. Back at the Havens University genetics lab, interpersonal drama unfolded between Dee-Dee and Crawley, the mongoose and snake. Lab assistant Feryl continued moonlighting as a stage magician, and Rupert and Rosalind changed their epidermis to conduct photosynthesis. Teenage Leonardo da Vinci made occasional visits from the Renaissance to visit his grandparents, Samantha and Dave. Finally, feline Pam found a reason to be human for twelve hours a day when she got a job in the Havens bursar’s office. Basically, nothing new under the sun…or waves.