Meriandra Nestorina
Information
Name	Meriandra Nestorina
Species	Mermaid
Gender	Female
Born	17 AGE Ducal Palace, New Atlantis
World	Asleep Universe
Occupation	Doctor (35 AGE - )
Native language	Novoatlantean

Meriandra Nestorina (17 AGE - ) is the senior doctor in the infirmary of the Ducal Palace at New Atlantis. Here, she works alongside Lydia, healing injured soldiers and curing diseases and other physical ailments.

Appearance

Meriandra is a fairly tall, tubby mermaid, with lavender-coloured scales and sapphire-blue hair. The fact that she's both taller and heavier than Aliana often confuses people into thinking that she's the older of the two - whereas, in fact, she's two years younger.

While she's at work in the infirmary, Meriandra can be seen wearing plain white robes, accompanied by a the mark of a healer on her forehead: a cross of rubies on a pearlescent disc. When she's off duty, she tends to wear fairly casual, understated clothes - such as plain black shirts and dresses. She's certainly less glamorous than Aliana, but even so, most people still wouldn't describe her as 'ugly', and she does have her admirers (most notably Frederick).

Personality

In contrast to her father, and her two older siblings, Meriandra is calm and introverted by nature. She's always had little interest in social interaction - preferring instead to stay in her bedroom and read books. Unlike Lysander (who's spent years trying and failing to chase girls), or Aliana (who's lurched from one turbulent relationship to another), Meriandra has never had any interest in pursuing romance - seeing it as an unnecessary distraction from her career. However, this has arguably led to her enormous success in her chosen field: she became chief doctor of New Atlantis at the age of only 18.

Unlike her older siblings, Meriandra has no interest in ever becoming ruler of New Atlantis. The main reason is that, as a Duchess, she would be expected to continue the family lineage by having children - which is something she has absolutely no desire to do. This is partly because she had such a crazy family life as a child (growing up with Nestor, Lysander and Aliana), and partly because her medical career occupies almost all of her time and mental energy. Furthermore, her position as doctor has required her to oversee several traumatic births - and she's scared of having to endure one of her own. Most people understand and respect her reasoning; however, some do consider it to be a shame, since she's the most level-headed of the three, and therefore would likely make the best leader.

Relationships

Aliana - In their youth, Aliana and Meriandra tended to fight frequently, as siblings often do. However, as they matured and grew out of this behaviour, their relationship became much more co-operative, as their differing personalities began to complement one another. Meriandra became an important calming influence on Aliana, as she talked her out of some of her wilder ideas. Meanwhile, Aliana gave Meriandra the courage to attend some social events, thus stopping her from retreating completely into her shell. These days, their careers prevent them from being around one another constantly; however, they do still aim to speak at least once a day, to give one another the support that they need.

Kyle - Meriandra never formed a particularly strong friendship with Kyle, as her profession requires her to keep a certain emotional distance from him. However, the two of them do spend quite a lot of time together - partly because she's the sister of his long-time girlfriend Aliana, but mostly because he frequently gets himself into trouble, and requires treatment from her at the infirmary. Here, she's usually sympathetic towards him; however, she can easily see through his attempts to lie about his condition, and she has no qualms about calling him out on these. Furthermore, she has no patience for Kyle's refusal to take needles - and she'll make sure he gets his injections, by force or deception if necessary. Still, she does genuinely care about Kyle's well-being - and, when he falls out with Aliana, she'll often be on hand to speak to one or both of them, with the aim of remedying the situation.

Frederick - In the main timeline, Meriandra harboured an intense dislike of Frederick. This was because he was obsessively attracted to her, but lacked the confidence to speak to her - and therefore, he instead chose to stalk her around the castle. He even went as far as to drink Dook-O-Vision, to turn himself into a ferret so that he could follow her around without her noticing. This infatuation escalated over time, until he snuck into her bedroom as a ferret, and stared at her as she was changing her clothes - giving her a nasty fright. Frederick was lucky to escape expulsion from the castle for this stunt - and, afterwards, he and Meriandra kept well away from one another.

By contrast, in the alternate 'Another Childhood' timeline, Frederick and Meriandra end up meeting at a dance for Cassandra's birthday. Both of them arrive without a dance partner - and so, they reluctantly agree to go together. The two of them are nervous at first; however, a relationship eventually blossoms, and now, they intend to get married.

Story

As a young child, Meriandra was somewhat more outgoing and mischievous than she would be in her later years. She always played with her parents and siblings - and she had an intense fascination with their bodies. As a result, her favourite game was to play doctor, and pretend to heal one of their body parts - usually either by slapping it or by smearing it with paint.

By the age of five and a half, Meriandra had grown out of her childish games. However, she was still very interested in people's bodies - and her knowledge of merman and mermaid anatomy was unusually deep for her age. This knowledge came in useful when Aliana attempted to teach her about "Boy Waves" - and, she knew immediately that boys had no organs that were capable of emitting them. However, it did lead to rather too many incidents where she embarrassed Nestor and Cassandra by making inappropriate remarks about their guests' body parts. Eventually, she learned to keep quiet about other people's physical features; however, this came at the cost of making her socially anxious, and reluctant to speak up at all. She began to hate social events of any kind - particularly dances, where she would usually just sit and watch with her mother, rather than participating herself.

By the time Meriandra became a teenager, it became clear that New Atlantis's chief doctor, Anastasia, was going to retire in the next few years, and a replacement would soon be needed. Therefore, Cassandra encouraged Meriandra to begin training as a doctor. At first, Anastasia was reluctant to train Meriandra, since she was considered too young to start medical training at only 13 years old. However, she was very impressed with the level of knowledge she showed - and, from then on, she began to educate and mentor the young princess. After five years of training, she was satisfied that Meriandra was ready to take over - and so, she handed over the keys to the infirmary, and retired.

After a few months in the job, some people (such as Cheryl) began to see Meriandra as too much of a workaholic - who was missing out on other important aspects of life (such as romance). In order to remedy this, Cheryl arranged for Meriandra to go on a date with Christopher Light - a 16-year-old fake prince from Light Kingdom. Meriandra was reluctant at first; however, she eventually agreed to let Anastasia cover for her, while she went out with Chris to the theatre. Unfortunately, the date proved to be a total disaster - and it only confirmed in her mind that she belonged in the infirmary, and not in the arms of any man. Even after she began sharing her duties with Lydia, and thus had more free time available, she preferred to keep herself to herself most of the time.

In the year 56 AGE, after over 20 years of continuous service at the infirmary, she was still working there as its head doctor. She never married or had children of her own; however, Kyle and Aliana did name one of their daughters 'Meri' in her honour. The older Meriandra does enjoy her namesake's company - although, she is a bit embarrassed by her tendency to ask inappropriate questions (especially since it reminds her of her own behaviour as a child!)

Trivia

Meriandra speaks two languages: Novoatlantean, and Modern Archonic.

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