Asherah Rankin

Asherah Calanthe Rankin, also known as The Little Mermaid, The Mermaid, or occasionally Ash Rankin, is a recurring character in.

Physical appearance
Asherah is 20 years old, 1.67 metres tall, and weighs 54 kilograms. She was 19 years old when she made her first appearance, but she is 20 now. Asherah has long curly electro orange locks, brown eyes, tanned skin, an oval diamond shaped face, a defined jaw, and a slender body shape. She wears winged eyeliner, mascara, and copper lipstick. She has four gill slits on each side of her neck, a wine coloured horizontal fish tail with wine coloured scales and fins, and a wine coloured seashell bra.

When Asherah is washed up on the beach, she automatically changes to her human form, revealing a pair of tanned legs with no shoes, and wine coloured swim shorts with a waistband. She automatically reverts to her mermaid form once the bottom half of her body is back in the water, and her gills reappear once her head is back underwater. Though Asherah is 1.67 metres tall and 54 kilograms in her human form, in her mermaid form she is a few centimetres taller, and a few kilograms heavier.

Abilities
Asherah's most impressive ability by far is her superhuman speed while swimming underwater. She used this ability to catch up with Harrison and Piercy Provost within seconds, while the two of them were swimming back to shore with Asherah's treasure chest which they'd robbed. Although Harrison and Piercy were unable to swim at full speed while handling the treasure chest's weight.

Even with Harrison and Piercy's massive head start, when Asherah's fellow sea creatures shook her awake, she had no trouble in catching up with the Provost brothers. As a mermaid, she is able to lift things underwater as easily as humans can above water. Asherah is able to speak normally underwater so both land and sea creatures can hear what she is saying. She is also able to understand humans when they speak underwater as revealed when Harrison visited her in her cave after regretting having stolen her treasure chest.

Despite her ability to lift things underwater as easily as humans can above water, Asherah's overall superhuman strength appears to be quite lax, at least when not completely underwater. This is shown when Harrison and Piercy were able to work together to bring the treasure chest to the shore while holding her off when she as trying to wrest the treasure chest from them. Because Asherah automatically changes to her human form out of water and her mermaid form in water, she cannot experience what it is like to be a human underwater or a mermaid out of water.

Trivia

 * Asherah is loosely inspired by Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Both characters are mermaids, have slender body shapes, long hair, similar hair colours (electro orange and red respectively), first names that start with "A", and "The Little Mermaid" as one of their aliases. However there isn't much else that can be compared between the two.
 * The reason I picked a name starting with "A" is because when I was looking through first name ideas for mermaid characters, I'd found a name that I liked and wanted to use before I'd reached the names starting with "B".
 * When it comes to her heritage, Asherah is half-Brystian and half-Zabwean on her human side. It is unknown what kinds of fish she is related to, but they are definitely from the ocean. The colour of Asherah's fish tail suggests that she may have Betta coccina descent on her fish side.
 * Asherah's appearance and heritage is partially inspired by American singers Beyoncé Knowles and the late Estelle Bennett, both of which are of mixed heritage, including some African-American descent, though Asherah's Brystian descent is not the Erais equivalent of American descent, but British descent.
 * Her eye colour, skin colour, and face shape are mostly inspired by Beyoncé, though her skin and eyes are a bit lighter, her nostrils are a bit thinner, and her hair is less bushy. Asherah's makeup also appears to be more inspired by Beyoncé than by Estelle, except for her winged eyeliner which is almost if not completely inspired by Estelle.
 * She is the only character in to have a nationality other than Brystian. Instead her nationality is Eraisan which is the nationality that most sea creatures on the planet Erais are classified as.
 * Asherah is very easily offended if someone mistakes her for a Siren, as she is a Mermaid, and a generally graceful one at that.