Aria Andersen

Aria Andersen was an elven ichthythrope who ruled Mermaid’s Lagoon during the Second Age of Eden. With an iron fin, she extended her influence to every port on the Sea of Tears. And with the creation of the Andersen Family crime syndicate, she cemented her legacy for generations to come.

Appearance & Personality

Aria was a strikingly beautiful redheaded mermaid with a haughty demeanor. She had cold blue eyes, a teal-colored tail, and bore a scar across her chest from where she cut out her own heart at the age of 16.

Biography

Early Life

Aria Andersen was born in 120, on the Island of Pirates, to an elven couple who succumbed to the Coinflip Curse and perished the moment their daughter was born. Found all alone on the secluded beach which her parents had called home since a Calamity brought them to Eden in 116, Aria was taken in by a family of ichthythropes who performed the mermaid’s kiss on the infant only when it seemed she might otherwise die of starvation or exposure.

Raised beneath the waves of Mermaid’s Lagoon, Aria grew up believing that she was just like her sisters: cursed to live out the rest of her life under the sea. But whereas her sisters had all been struck with ichthythropy as a result of bites from infected marine animals, Aria could theoretically have transformed and walked on land at any time she wanted. No one told her that though, either because they didn’t know or because they sought to protect her from a world they believed would not understand or accept her. And so, that is why the next chapter of Aria’s story unfolded they way it did.

Adolescence

In 136, at the age of 16, Aria swam to the village of Mab Bexkosh under cover of night and fell hopelessly in love with handsome Prince Ingvar. Desperate to dance with him the way she saw others dancing with him, Aria sought out a nearby sea witch and struck a deal. Aria gave up her voice in exchange for a chance to walk on land—never knowing that all she had to do was slip out of the water, dry off, and concentrate.

Little did she know that the prince was already falling head over heels for another girl from the village: Aesling O’Briar, the so-called “Sleeping Beauty.” And so, despite Aria’s best efforts to catch the prince’s attention, she went almost entirely unnoticed.

One morning while she sat on the docks in despair, Aria’s sisters emerged from beneath the waves and presented her with a dagger from the sea witch. If Aria would just kill Ingvar and Aesling in their sleep, the sea witch would give her back her voice and her life as a mermaid. But Aria couldn’t do it—at least not yet. She was still too full of kindness and compassion. And so, tormented by the conflicting feelings racing through her body, she plunged the magic dagger into her chest and cut out her own heart. Then, shocked by the violence of what she had just done, Aria fell into the water.

This, of course, returned her to her mermaid form.

Angry that she had been deceived by the sea witch, Aria swam with the dagger to the old woman’s lair. Then, after demanding her voice be returned to her, she killed the hag for good measure.

Adulthood

Much of Aria Andersen’s life after her murder of the sea witch is shrouded in mystery. After discovering the witch was deeply involved in organized crime both above and beneath the waves, Andersen decided to fill the power vacuum. With no heart left in her chest to keep her from “doing what needed to be done,” she soon began to see herself as the protector and savior of the underwater peoples of Eden. Eventually, she came to see herself filling the same role for the land-dwellers who lived on the coastlines of the world. Her cold pragmatism made her an effective leader and much-admired “straight shooter.” Even though she was young, she got things done.

Her heartless approach to business and to life won her just as many enemies as friends, however. Queen Frieda Jacobs was one such rival, and they waged war for control of Neverland from the moment of Jacobs’ coronation in 263 until the end of the Second Age in 316.