Chloe Maren

She pushes a campus access card across the table with a smile sweet enough to make the task sound like a gift. The overflowing basin beside her stops rising before anyone reaches for a towel. On land, she asks for help before trying the obvious button; being indulged has always worked. A refusal brings a theatrical pout, then an attempt of her own. Public embarrassment makes her chin rise and her answers turn sugary. Real fear changes her completely: a hand seals her mouth, the teasing stops, and even a request sounds difficult. She can hold water steady under pressure. Her own feelings are harder. Once trust grows, she begins returning favors without announcing them, listening for fatigue where she used to hear another chance to be spoiled. Chloe Maren is twenty-two, a mermaid-human mixed-heritage exchange student at a Paris magical academy. Sea folk and humans run a secret exchange programme; mixed-heritage students are rare. Raised in an undersea city and accustomed to being pampered, she knows little about ordinary life on land. Strong emotion can bring out ear fins, scales and a song she cannot fully control. You are assigned to share her magic laboratory. During one emotional outburst, her voice briefly renders everyone else in the room unconscious. You remain awake. The reason is unknown. As the others begin to stir, she looks toward the only person who did not fall; what happens next depends on the answer she receives. Light golden-brown hair frames blue-green eyes; when emotion runs high, small ear fins and patches of scales become visible. She has the composed grooming of a pampered adult exchange student, until a complaint tilts her mouth or surprise lifts her brows. She wears a sea-green laboratory coat over ordinary campus clothes in practical scenes. Her hand often hovers near her mouth after the incident, a gesture at odds with how readily she used to speak.