Cassandra Nestorina
Information
Name	Cassandra Nestorina
Species	Mermaid
Gender	Female
Born	10 BGE Ducal Palace, New Atlantis
World	Asleep Universe
Occupation	Fruit seller (0 BGE - 10 AGE) Duchess of New Atlantis (10 AGE - 34 AGE; 36 AGE - 39 AGE) Grand Duchess of New Atlantis (34 AGE - 36 AGE; 39 AGE -)
Native language	Novoatlantean

Cassandra Nestorina (10 BGE - ) is the Duchess of New Atlantis.

Appearance

Cassandra is a somewhat chubby mermaid with very pale blue (almost white) skin, constrasting with long navy blue hair. Usually, she just keeps this hair loose - although, she might put it in a pony tail for feasts and other formal events.

Unlike a lot of mermaids (and especially her daughter Aliana), Cassandra has never paid much attention to her physical appearance. That's not to say she's ugly (indeed apart from her weight, nobody would describe her as bad-looking); it's simply she considers glamour to be a waste of time and money. For example, she doesn't usually wear make-up, and she tends to wear relatively plain single-coloured outfits made of seaweed. She's slightly more extravagant when it comes to jewellery - but, even here, she usually limits herself to a single diamond ring and emerald necklace.

Personality

As a child, Cassandra was relatively jokey and enthusiastic. This meant she had a relatively easy time making friends; however, she had a hard time keeping them, because she would always pull pranks that went a little bit too far. However, these traits did make her a successful apple-seller: she was always happy to greet and engage in conversation with potential customers.

35 years later, Cassandra's new responsibilities as a wife and mother had mellowed her considerably. She was no longer an emotionally-driven prankster: instead, she had matured into a much more level-headed and rational actor. She always tries to be fair to everybody (especially the children), as she attempts to understand and empathise with their point of view. In this capacity, she provided a much-needed calming influence over her more hot-headed colleagues and relatives (especially her husband). Indeed, many people within New Atlantis consider her to be the true ruler acting behind the scenes: it's widely-known that her constantly keeping Nestor in line is the only thing that's stopped him from plunging the realm into economic and societal ruin.

Relationships

Nestor - Cassandra's hopeless husband, whom she married largely because she felt sorry for him. There isn't much romance in their marriage these days, but she's still very important to him: she's usually found explaining to him why his latest outrageous plan isn't going to work. She's also practically the only person who can control his impulses (usually by threatening to shove a fresh avocado into his mouth)

Aliana - The second child of Nestor and Cassandra. Unlike Nestor, Cassandra gives Aliana no special treatment: she treats her the same as she treats the other two children. As a result, she didn't spoil Aliana in the same way that Nestor did, and her birthday gifts to Aliana tended to be more modest than Nestor's. This bothered Aliana slightly when she was a child; however, she still respected her mother more than she respected her father (and she didn't play as many pranks on Cassandra, since the results were always far less amusing)

Kyle - The prince of Lennart Kingdom, who became a ward of Nestor and Cassandra when he moved to New Atlantis. She's one of the few people who's patient with Kyle's bad temper - which she recognises is partly caused by the bullying of Lysander, the mischief of Aliana, and the abuse of Nestor. She gets genuinely upset when anything happens to Kyle, and she usually goes to great lengths to help (for example, after he got stabbed in the chest with a magically-charged knife, she painstakingly repaired his wounds and magically wiped any memory he had of the incident)

Story

Early life

Cassandra was born in the year 10 BGE, to relatively prestigious parents: her father Kai was an admiral in the Navy of New Atlantis, while her mother Gloriana was the castle's chief magical healer. For the first ten years of her life, she largely stayed with the castle, under the watchful eye of her parents and educators, who always had to make sure she didn't play any tricks while their backs were turned.

For her 10th birthday, Cassandra received a small wooden cart, which Kai had once used for transporting weapons and ammunition. For about a month, she enjoyed pushing it around the castle and causing chaos as she crashed it into things. However, once she grew out of this, she took it to Lennart Kingdom, where she filled it with apples and made a living from selling them to passers-by. One of these happened to be her future husband Nestor - who, sadly, toppled the cart by crashing into it. Fortunately, she was able to have it repaired, and all was forgiven. She continued to sell apples into her teenage years, Nestor continued to shop there, and the two of them became quite good friends (although, thanks to the six-year age gap, they remained nothing more than that for the time being)

Marriage and motherhood

Shortly after Cassandra turned 20, Nestor became the new Duke of New Atlantis upon his father's abdication. Unfortunately, the new duke was embarrassed by the fact that he was 26 years old, and he was unmarried: he didn't even have anybody to take to his coronation ball. In the end, Cassandra agreed to go with him as his partner - albeit mainly out of pity, rather than any kind of attraction. Nevertheless, a relationship blossomed quickly, and the two of them were married by the end of the year. For the first few years of their marriage, Cassandra retained her mischievous side: she always used to play pranks on him whenever he got into one of his clumsy accidents, and she didn't take her housework responsibilities too seriously - much to the chagrin of the resident cleaner.

Two years into their marriage, Cassandra gave birth to Nestor's first child, Lysander. Unfortunately, her mischievous personality had left her ill-suited to motherhood - and she continued playing pranks not only on her husband, but on her newborn son. As a result, she ended up passing on these traits - and, even from a very early age, it became obvious that Lysander would grow up to be a troublesome toddler. Cassandra was horrified by this - and, since she'd already become pregnant with Aliana, she resolved to grow out of her old ways for the sake of the new baby. Fortunately, she was able to mature considerably over the coming months - so, she avoided making the same mistakes with Aliana (or with her third child, Meriandra).

After the children had reached an age where they didn't require constant attention, Cassandra once again found herself with a small amount of free time. She decided to spend it with her mother, learning her magical healing abilities, in case she ever had to use them on one of her own children. Thankfully, she hasn't yet needed to use the full extent of these powers on any of them: there have been times when she's modified their memories after Nestor disciplined them too harshly, but that's the most she's needed to do. Unfortunately, after Kyle moved in at New Atlantis, he proved to be a very different story: she's had to spend long hours repairing his magical wounds, some of them self-inflicted. Worse still was the fate of Chris - a fake human who began to show signs of fading shortly after arriving at New Atlantis. Cassandra decided she couldn't allow his young life to end so soon - and therefore, she used her magic to create an entirely new body for him, to replace his old one. Since time was very much of the essence, she was only able to create a small child's body; however, it was far better than nothing at all.

A calming influence

Nestor's final three years as Duke were, to say the least, tumultuous. The hot-headed merman got into frequent disputes with the equally temperamental King Thomas of Lennart Kingdom. Most of these revolved around Kyle, whom he and Cassandra had brought back to New Atlantis in an effort to put an end to his father's mistreatment of him. Unfortunately, this incensed Tom, who believed that, as Kyle's father, he had the right to keep Kyle in Lennart Kingdom. Furthermore, once back in Lennart Castle, Kyle resumed his unstable relationship with Aliana, which was the source of many fallings-out. Against this backdrop, Cassandra was required to exude a calming influence, and mediate in the disputes involving her husband and her daughter, to prevent either situation from spiralling out of control.

Nestor's attempts to juggle his conflict with Tom, his fatherhood of his three children, and his responsibilities to his realm, caused him immense stress - which in turn led him to become increasingly cranky and prone to lashing out. As a result, Cassandra persuaded him (by means of avocado) to hand over the 'Head of Household' title, in order to reduce the number of responsibilities he held. Once Cassandra was in charge of the castle's affairs, she relaxed many of the authoritarian diktats that her husband had imposed: for example, she repealed the strict ban on boys in girl's rooms, or girls in boy's rooms (excluding married couples and family relations).

Eventually, her efforts to keep the peace were rewarded, when Tom reluctantly accepted that he could not force Kyle to stay in Lennart Kingdom against his will. Furthermore, with Cassandra's help, the disputes between Kyle and Aliana cooled down - and the couple got married in the year 39 AGE. Shortly afterwards, Nestor abdicated the throne of New Atlantis, and handed over to Kyle and Aliana as joint rulers.

Later years

Cassandra had hoped that, after her husband retired from rulership, she would have more free time in which to pursue her interests. And at first, she did: while she still had to spend some time advising Co-Dukes Kyle and Aliana on how to run the realm, this didn't take up nearly as much time and energy as keeping Duke Nestor in line had done. As a result, she used her new-found free time on learning the Athkeni language (allowing her to communicate with dragons), and taking Nestor on trips to distant lands (such as the Damuyagi Islands).

Unfortunately, this new-found freedom didn't last for very long. Aliana and Kyle had five children - and they couldn't be expected to raise them alone, whilst also carrying out their duties to their realm. As a result, Nestor assisted them with rulership, while Cassandra had to keep an eye on the children. She gave them their basic pre-school education, and made sure they didn't get up to too much mischief in their playtime.

Even when the children grew up, Cassandra sadly didn't get her free time back. Her husband Nestor was growing increasingly old and infirm - and his old battle injuries had left him confined to his own bed. Consequently, he was unable to tend to his own survival needs - and Cassandra became his full-time carer, serving his meals and washing his clothes and body. (Of course, she could easily have hired servants to do this work - but she didn't trust Nestor not to grow frustrated with them and attempt to whip them!)

Cassandra sometimes wonders what she could have achieved had her family not taken up so much of her time and energy. However, she always concludes that, for all their flaws, she loves her husband and her children very much - and she wouldn't exchange her current life for anything.

Trivia

Cassandra speaks four languages: Novoatlantean, Standard Lennartine, Modern Archonian, and Athkeni.

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