Canned BPR - The Chariots Gen 1
Parents (L to R): Orchid Bloom Anthurium (Spouse), White Knight Chariot (Founder), Ianeira Oceanus (Spouse)
Kids (L to R): Aetna Pearl, Angel Wing (Gen 2 Heiress), Chrysanthemum, Page Ivory, Colt Squire
Story:
Once the most popular football player in his raw high school, White Knight Chariot was just looking for a life of lounging on the beach and flirting with hot babes when he moved away from his conservative family to the sunny shores of Starfruit Island. Expecting to spend his days partying and drinking in an endless frat party, the reality of bachelor life turns out to be far more difficult and lonely than he ever imagined, especially when he can only manage to nab a job waiting tables at a touristy tiki restaurant, and can’t seem to make any friends among the locals.
Then one day, drinking away his troubles on the beach, Knight meets a mysterious violet woman. Immediately enamored with her, Knight spends an evening of passion with her before she drags him into the water and nearly drowns him. He is only saved when a local lifeguard, Orchid Bloom Anthurium, spots his unconscious body bobbing in the waves and saves him.
Weeks after the incident, Knight can’t get the image of that violet woman out of his mind. He can remember her eyes turning black, her teeth sharpening into fangs... and a mermaid tail? But try as he might he can’t get the local authorities to believe his story. The only one to believe him is Orchid, who swears she saw something swimming away from him at incredible speed the night she saved him. The two team up to try and solve the mystery.
Knight turns to art to try and spread the word about the mysterious woman, and paints endless pictures of what he saw that night. Orchid befriends the local authorities and discovers a string of apparently accidental drownings of young men, most blamed on alcohol or carelessness. Then, one rainy night, a small infant girl shows up at Knight’s door with a note - it’s from the mysterious woman, who informs Knight that the child is the result of their evening of passion. She urges Knight and Orchid to stop poking their noses where they don’t belong.
Unused to fatherhood, Knight does his best to raise his new daughter, Aetna Pearl. Now quite close to Orchid, he enlists her help, and the new responsibilities cause the two to fall in love. Soon, Orchid is pregnant with Knight’s first child, and the two have a shotgun wedding on the beach, unaware that a pair of eyes are watching from below the nearby waves...
Years pass and Orchid and Knight have four children, the bookish Angel Wing, the independent Chrysanthemum, and twins: the loner Page Ivory and punk-rock Squire Colt. Aetna has also grown, and she and Angel are very close. Yet, one stormy evening, Aetna disappears.
Orchid, a new police detective, throws herself into searching for their missing daughter, but Knight can’t help but feel he knows where she is. He enlists the help of a local boater and sets sail to find his missing daughter. Sure enough, before long, the mysterious violet woman appears. She introduces herself as Ianeira, and she and Knight call a truce to talk.
Ianeira explains that she is a siren, a species of oceanic creatures that masquerade as human women in order to draw their prey, young men, in. Ianeira admits, however, that she had intended to eat him that night, but instead had fallen for him, which explained her inability to finish him off. Previously, no union between humans and sirens had been known to exist, so when Aetna was born, the kingdom of sirens was thrown into chaos. Ianeira had to leave Aetna with Knight in order to protect her. Now, however, Ianeira has ambitions to use her daughter to encourage sirens to coexist peacefully with the humans, and perhaps work on hunting small prey, like fish, instead.
Knight asks her why she would do this, and Ianeira explains that their reliance on remaining close to the humans has put many sirens in danger - tangled in fishing nets, poisoned by pollution, or struck by boats. Ianeira believes they must change their relationship to the humans if they are to survive, to advocate for their ocean homes in a public way. Knight understands, but tells her he wants to be able to see his daughter. So, Ianeira and Knight agree that Aetna must be allowed to split her time between her parents.
Aetna returns with Knight to her worried family, and she and Knight swears them to secrecy on the sirens until they can begin the gradual process of integrating humans and sirens together in harmony. Angel is particularly moved by her sister’s story, and begins to write books and blog posts in support of cleaning up oceans, and surprisingly realistic “fiction” novels about a kingdom of aquatic women attempting to redefine their relationship to the humans they once called prey...








