Acara Blue Gourami (though hatched Gam Coleoid) struck Joy as being a teenager somewhere between an old seventeen year-old and a young nineteen year-old. Though Joy would admit that, for all she knew, all her Naiad Roommates might be 500 years old (and on some planet in another galaxy – Joy was still 45% sure she was dead and in purgatory by this point). Acara at first found Joy exasperating, likely because everyone in their apartment had decided that Joy should have Acara’s bunk.
The mermen of the wider Temple gawk at Acara and implore her to choose one of them for a mate, but she isn’t interested in all that. She has a boyfriend named Strombus, who is very interested in her. But she finds him, yes, flattering, but often times kind of needy. She would rather graduate from the Roller Tunnels and go to work in the Ples stables. Lover of all fish and critters, Acara still places the Ples above all else and, if she had her way, would rather this novel series be called “Temple of the Plesiosaurs.”
