The Lonely Shark

Unlucky. Somber. Yearning. Deaf. Kind.

Maddie is a hard-working shark girl down on her luck. Having lost her job at the canning factory. She feels lost, trying her best to navigate the cards that life has given her.

Born to a industrial ocean town in the high Victorian era. Her luck already showed it hand making Maddie a shark and partially deaf, something that acts up even worst when she's not in water. She spent most of her childhood watching her mother and father work hard jobs and slowly getting the point where she could naturally read people's lips as a form of communication. Maddie mostly speaks through sign language most of the time because of it as she talks yet she rarely finds anyone who can understand it. But when she does speak her words comes out an elegant soft albeit unevenly crack and stutter as she doesn't want to startle anyone with a near yelling tone. But those who do get to hear her voice notice how polite she is. The fact she is deaf often gets her placed into areas of heavy machinery which have most likely contributed to her hearing loss as well.

Maddie sadly never got to go to any form of college, the industrial town not leaving many options then to go work for the port. So she did. Getting jobs to check up on the nearby guiding buoys. Or to swim and slowly and painfully chisel off the barnacles of the bottom on a ship, wading through stale rotting and dead fish and heavy ship fuel. Cleaning the heavy massive propellers for the navy forces there. And catching and butchering fish for some fisherman or cleaning the carcasses from the sides of the boats even if it was nasty. Where there was money, she did it.

This allowed her to buy a home away from her parents, mainly to let them be able to be free from an extra mouth to feed. At the age of 23 Often, she never gets to properly socialize on the job, mainly due to many of her coworkers not knowing sign language, her bosses finding her to low class to even talk to, other than order. However, she is often harassed for being a shark in a port town full of fisherman. Often having her tail grabbed and hearing the joke. "I caught a big one." Hundreds of times. This has made her quite sour when it comes to fish jokes. And since often her employer would be the one making said joke, she often could not tell them to stop without risk of them docking her pay or outright firing her.

Many of these jobs involved being exposed to harsh conditions both chemical, and natural due to the pollution of the port weaking her immune system. Something that caused her a harsh case a pneumonia that nearly saw her drown in her own pus as her gills were completely filled with infection, a near death experience that nearly ended the poor lass. But thankfully slowly overtime she did heal from it even if she does have a few nightmares of drowning in her own lifeblood from the event.

Maddie was then back onto the job deciding to avoid any more risky exposure. Going to work as a maid for the various wealthy admirals and businessmen in the area. Helping to cater and keeping their manors clean during parties and gatherings they hosted. Some of the nicer ones giving her the leftovers along to her and her fellow coworkers. However, she found an opening at a local canning factory. The overseer however is a loud foul-mouthed man who has no issues with smacking a worker with a cane, and she has had her knuckles popped by the cane before. Often followed by a very cruel insult about her shark heritage.

Of course, Maddie is not a worker drone, she has self-interest. Some of which involve reading adventure novels written by explorers. From tall mountains. To beautiful natural springs. All kind of natural wonders excite her and gives her a sense of wonder. And it's a dream of hers to go visit these sights, her favorite of this type of genre being a small book series called "Black Tip." written by a shark mountaineer would suffer frostbite scars on their fins. She finds jellyfish quite cute looking. Owning a few plushies of the critters. And one big man of war jellyfish from a kind and stern deer admiral she works for every now and again. She also has a love for chocolate. She also is quite a good two-person dancer. Having learned various dances across her books, like the tango and such. But often finds herself lacking a partner. But often gets to dance with the kind deer admiral for when he needs to bring a lady friend to a gentleman and lady's ball as a friend, since he can't bring his preferred male partner to it.

Maddie does her best to be helpful to people out of kindness rather than money. Even if she has some trouble with noticing that there is a difference between land and see. She once tried to help a diver by cleaning his goggles and then realized that he could not open his eyes under water. She of course made up with it with swimming him carefully to the surface but small mistakes like that can slip past her. She can make a slight dangerous mistake and not realize it. Like climbing a bookshelf by its shelves then using a ladder for fun. Even if she is a very light girl. Climbing on shelves can be quite dangerous when it's at risk of being tipped over.

Maddie typically wears Victorian worker clothes due to not having time to really lounge around. Often wearing hair nets and other cloth hair catchers despite her black hair being somewhat short and a deep grey scaly skin. But due to it being curly, she is forced to wear it. Maddie is a bit of a short woman and thus often has to improvise when having to get something from the top shelf. Being an expert climber even if it usually isn't safe to do so. Maddie has a dorsal fin on her back like most anthro sharks. Hers is a bit stunted and small, however. Over her back lies her gills. Over the area of her land lungs are to help adjust for what her body needs when coming out of the water, or for going into it. And finally, a long aquatic tail with a fin at the end. All of her clothes well-tailored to allow her to be comfortable with it with tail covers or socks to allow it to be safe. She also has a variety of maid dresses and a modest worker swimsuit for when working on the ships at port. She also owns a Victorian era pajama set for when she goes to bed.

She swims only by her tail when fully submerged, tucking her arms and legs and moving like a natural shark when it comes to going underwater. Its often seen as pretty cute that she could do that so well. And fully proving that the girl is at home when she gets to go into the water freely.