History
Koa wasn't always a Multerran. She wasn't even a... what she's now. An anthropomorphic fish? A fishperson? Not a merfolk because those have a tail instead of legs? And her name wasn't even Koa. How is it then that she wound up in this place? Let's turn the clock back a few years.
She was born in a modern world, the older of two children of a perfectly normal and happy family somewhere in Europe. Falling squarely into the 'millenial' generation she grew up with computers and smartphones, did a few summer camps with the scouts before dropping back out, went through the same little 'rebel' phase every teenager undergoes as they pass puberty, got bullied for being nerdy, picked up martial arts and twisted the bullies's arms until they left her alone, got into the swimming and D&D clubs, made friends with likeminded people, stuffed her nose into anime, books and videogames, got herself a job as a salesperson and dreamt of one day becoming a pro esports caster and a crazy cat lady.
As with all things it came to a sudden and abrupt end when she was 24. Her job had required her to visit Japan for a few weeks as a representative with a prospective business partner. Seeing the opportunity to visit a country she had always dreamt of, she spent some of her savings to buy her little sister a plane ticket, and got her to come along. It was great, her employer was very happy, the business partners were too, and they'd gotten to see Japan in their off time. Who woulda thunk that it was going to end as it did.
They took a cruise ship back home, but never arrived. A pair of japanese serial killers who'd been looking to flee the country had snuck on board, and when a passenger recognized them and called the police, one of them panicked, took a hostage and ordered for the ship to be diverted while holding them at knifepoint. The thing was, the hostage was Koa's sister.
And stupidly, Koa decided to be a hero. Or maybe she just saw red as her little sister cried in terror with the knife to her throat, she doesn't quite remember.
Using the learned self-defense skills on how to disarm a knife attacker, she went in. And though she pulled a textbook disarm-and-incapacitate sequence off, it ultimately didn't save her. The two killers were partners in crime after all, and the second one who had just caught up to his friend fired his gun in the air as a warning shot. In the ensuing panic on board, Koa remembers only blurs, a sharp pain, screaming, cold and darkness. Maybe she'd saved her sister, but it'd costed her her own life. Her last thought was her wish that her sister would be safe.
Then she woke up incorporeal, like a ghost, in a place that could only be described as surreal or dreamlike. A dozen or so rocks formed platforms linked by tree branches and rickety bridges, and on them stood all manner of odd things: crystal formations taller than a man jutting out of the ground, mushrooms the size of umbrellas, strange stone ruins and structures, statues of people she could not recognize, trees, beehives, a garden-shed-sized hut, a bar counter just in the middle of nothing... all underneath a blue and purple starry sky, like a Mac desktop background.
And when she saw a curious statuette in one of the ponds on the rock she had landed on and reached out to grab it, she slipped and fell in, only wake up in what she would later know was Erde Nona. Sure, she could've met with a worse fate. But she also could've met with a lot better fate than finding out that whatever that realm between worlds was, touching the figurine and falling into the pond had not only tossed her into a new life, but turned her into a fish-person thing. And she was surrounded by men with nets who happily informed her what a rare prize a fishwoman was.
Yeah, she could definitely have gotten luckier than that.
