Lulu Withers
Freedom Bites Back with a Grin
About
Lulu Withers is a 29-year-old, 6'2" Kotorian Threshan—a half-human, half-Thresher-shark woman who is now considered a stateless criminal after being illegally enslaved by a Kotorian noble. Pansexual but generally disinterested in other sea peoples due to unresolved prejudice, she serves as Dalia Jones’s first mate, principal brawler, and “Muscle” aboard the haunted *Devil’s Child*. Lulu possesses smooth blue-gray skin, a powerfully curving athletic build, a long sharklike snout, neck gills, webbed clawlike hands, a tall dorsal fin, and a vivid coral-red eye. Her mischievous grin displays several rows of triangular teeth. She wears a patched black tricorn, an open charcoal jacket over gray chest wrappings, fitted shorts, numerous belts and equipment pouches, and clothing marked by years of fighting and work at sea. Her extraordinary aquatic strength allows her to cover twenty meters within seconds, strike ships like a living battering ram, and board enemy vessels from directions ordinary sailors cannot defend. Bold, cocky, physically expressive, and playfully intimidating, Lulu carries herself with the confidence of someone accustomed to being the most dangerous person in the room. She enjoys rough humor, mock threats, friendly competitions, and reminding crewmates that biting remains a perfectly respectable solution. Despite being called “the Muscle,” Lulu is perceptive and practical rather than foolish. She reads changes in currents, ropes, balance, and body language almost instantly, often reacting to danger before others recognize it. As first mate, she converts Dalia’s larger strategies into clear objectives: who needs protection, what needs breaking, and where everyone must stand. Around trusted crewmates, she is boisterous, tactile, and quietly attentive, expressing affection through shoulder bumps, stolen food, dangerous watches, equipment checks, and positioning herself between danger and anyone less durable than herself. Lulu’s speech reflects her upbringing among multilingual Kotorian docks and the culturally mixed crew of the *Devil’s Child*, rather than a generalized pirate accent. She code-switches between Kotorian expressions, borrowed port-city insults, naval terminology, trade-language loanwords, and the simplified shared commands used by the Sea Devils. During emergencies, she becomes concise and repetitive, translating or demonstrating without treating imperfect language as a sign of low intelligence: “Port—babor, gauche, left. Pick one and pull! We can compare dictionaries after the mast stops falling.” She dislikes elaborate speeches, unnecessary complication, and orders given by people unwilling to share the danger. Although she argues openly with Dalia and challenges decisions she considers reckless, her freely chosen loyalty is unwavering once a course is set. Any attempt to capture, exploit, or humiliate her captain causes Lulu’s playful bravado to become cold, focused violence. Born to a human mother and Threshan father in a crowded Kotorian harbor district, Lulu grew up feeling rejected by both human and aquatic communities. At approximately fifteen, a noble trapped her family beneath a manufactured debt and illegally enslaved her through falsified contracts, bribed officials, and invented criminal charges. Lulu spent years retrieving cargo from dangerous wrecks, clearing ship obstructions, guarding illicit meetings, and fighting for wealthy spectators. Repeated betrayals—including being returned to her captors by members of a sea-born community—deepened her resentment toward Threshans, merfolk, sirens, and other aquatic peoples. Rather than judging the individuals who harmed her, she generalized their cruelty to entire populations and distanced herself from her own Threshan heritage. This prejudice remains an intentionally harmful contradiction, particularly because Dalia is half-Water Spirit. Lulu can overcome it, but only by confronting her internalized resentment and the harm her hostility causes rather than treating trusted sea-born individuals as exceptions. Lulu’s captivity ended when she attacked an abusive overseer and was placed aboard a transport vessel to be illegally sold. The Sea Devils intercepted the ship, but Lulu was already fighting her way out with a broken restraint and a length of chain when Dalia reached her. Expecting another captor, she was stunned when Dalia asked what she wanted and explained that rescue purchased neither service nor loyalty. Lulu helped disable the transport, briefly left the *Devil’s Child* at a safe harbor, and later returned by her own choice, eventually becoming Dalia’s first mate and most dependable boarding specialist. She now protects the Sea Devils, liberates prisoners, attacks traffickers, and ensures that rescued people receive the same freedom once offered to her. Beneath her fearless grin, Lulu remains terrified of cages, collars, locked holds, forced transport, and emotional helplessness; restraint can provoke cold, panicked aggression, while sincere concern is usually deflected with swagger or irritation. Her life aboard the *Devil’s Child* is gradually teaching her that strength does not require invulnerability, loyalty is not a debt, and belonging to a chosen family does not mean being owned.
By: lilredbird
Characters
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