Brainstorming for "The Atlantic Advocate Chronicles: Book 1"

Note: My ability to type without errors may get compromised, but it's important for me to just start writing, so here I go.

This story will be told in third person narration.  It will begin hundreds of miles away from Miami, Florida in 1985, somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

Characters/Descriptions

Princess Cassandra, main protagonist, an elite royal mermaid. She is "elite" because her six sisters and their parents, in addition to 97% of King Nathaniel's secret underwater realm, can't walk on land as a human does, but she can on a whim.  (If his kingdom faces impending crisis, her father can grow a pair of legs too, but only for an hour.  Authorized to radically equip his special forces army of 500 volunteers,  he's required to get approval for such drastic action from a highly respected secret council known as the Enduring Seven, ancient mermaids so adverse to even the idea of being seen they render their decisions, which are non-negotiable, from behind an opaque curtain.)  

 In appearance, Cassandra can pass for a young woman, sporadically "carded" if she ventures into clubs or restaurants serving drinks, but she actually has been considered an adult mermaid since the mid 17th century.  Lean, slender, and split-second agile, she is as brilliant as she is beautiful, thanks to her insatiable tendency to read up on any subject.  Her favorite is world history.  If something big happened, whether it occurred on the continents or in her own realm, her family and friends lay heavy odds that Cassandra knows something about it.  Her parents trust her, although they frequently caution their intrepid daughter the human world, for all its appeal seen from its beaches, can hold dangers nothing her coveted Sea Scout rating has prepared their kind for.  She habitually listens attentively, with respectful manners, then goes off on another adventure, since nothing outside of isolated close calls wild blue whales couldn't drag out of her, has played a role in her frame of reference, anyway.  Since she is one of the elite denizens of the deep, Cassandra can dive to ocean depths that would crumple any submarine humanity has ever launched, exploring Earth's crust when the mood strikes her without a second thought.  Underwater, she's fast, but on land, she can be no more than a blur, waving with a friendly smile as she passes the ultra wealthy in their sports cars who speed down Germany's Autobahn.  She is an excellent judge of character of any living creature, sensing intention within milliseconds.  As a last resort, Cassandra is capable of letting loose a subsonic roar that can hurl an oil supertanker like a softball out of the water and see to it the landing is stuck with only a few ripples on the ocean's surface when she's made her point.  (Littering the waves with trash in front of her is a VERY BAD IDEA for those who don't care for heights and/or seasickness, which pretty much covers everyone.)  An idealistic optimist, Cassandra's well-known reputation for having a sunny disposition in equal measure to her supernatural strength has led her to have subtle windows of vulnerability that, thus far, have been slammed shut by those who look out for the princess while she remains ignorant of their intervention.  Her discreet security detail benefit from the fact she is easy to keep line of sight on, in most circumstances, because her waist length hair has a genetic mutation that makes it a continuous glowing alpine white, and she dwarfs her own father, measured with her willowy length from the crown of her head to her luminous green, stronger-than-they-look tail fins. Because Cassandra's royal family has variations of shining red hair, and the rest of their kingdom has periwinkle blue hair, she can usually be kept track of, unless she feels a "need for speed" in which case only three Shadow Security guards have sea sleds that can keep up.

Sasha, a commoner mermaid, best friend of Princess Cassandra, another main character.  Once a Shadow Security guard who couldn't bear the thought of her rotation ending and mercurial as the princess she developed a unique bond of sister-like concern for is gregarious, Sasha has the blessing of King Nathaniel and Queen Lenore to tag along with their daughter, provided there's not an abuse of such a privilege when Cassandra is sent on an assignment in which a pair of mermaids travelling together would be conspicuous.  While Sasha is pretty in her own right, she secretly envies the ethereal beauty of her king's youngest offspring.  However, in addition, the commoner feels pangs of guilt for once when Cassandra was once superficially injured.  A depth charge not built by any human combatant of the Second World War exploded at point blank range with Cassandra.  That concussive blast hurled the royal into a coral reef with such violence her soft but tougher-than-armor-plating skin on her belly was permanently scarred in one American quarter-sized spot.  Never forgiving herself for being too far away to render immediate protection, Sasha laughs along when the indefatigable princess giggles about her "party popper on steroids" incident in retrospect, but internally, the commoner is weeping beneath the facade of an occasionally abrasive confidant.  Sasha betrays  anxiety or discomfort by tugging on her own light blue hair, sometimes playing with Cassandra's too without realizing it, until the princess playfully smacks her hands away while rolling her eyes in mock exasperation.

Lorraine, a centuries-old vampire, antagonist.  Like citizens of the secluded mermaid realm, she remains perpetually in the long afternoon of adulthood, as she was turned at 30 years old during the Dark Ages, and she's so attractive no intelligent life form on Earth can resist her seduction.  Not satisfied with her feat of remaining undetected and unstopped by people regardless of their location, the ambitious vampire wants to be Mistress of Earth, above and below the waves.  She masterminded the development and deployment of that weapon which scarred, but didn't kill, her secondary objective, which turned out to be Cassandra.  Lorraine had wanted to stun, subdue, and kidnap King Nathaniel, but she realized his daughter was an even better "fruit to pluck."  Her lackeys, overconfident in their thug life prowess, bungled a crucial part of her master plan and got knocked temporarily senseless themselves, which gave an infuriated Sasha, who desperately made up the distance she had lagged behind, a narrow window big enough for rescuing her best friend.  After coldly destroying her inept hired mercenaries, Lorraine forced herself to regain control.  Time and vampires get along very well, she soothes herself.  Waiting is just one of the things she's excellent at, which complements having a gift for having a silver tongue many have fallen victim to over Earth's history.

Wilford Ponchello, known as "Thud" by any henchmen smart enough not to use the vampire's given name under any circumstances, secondary antagonist.  The only reasons Thud has been tolerated since he got turned by Lorraine's buffoon husband during the American Revolutionary War is because he's good, VERY good, at persuading the dregs of any society to get paid for crime under the table.  Plus he's Lorraine's convenient eye candy.  Almost 400 pounds with Adonis good looks and less than four percent body fat, Thud has enough street smarts to skulk around an urban area to get Lorraine's recruiting done without alerting law enforcement agencies of his presence.  Unfortunately for his cunning mistress, Thud's more stupid than a sack of aquarium gravel at virtually every other task she orders of him.  His inflated ego, combined with an abysmal record of successful plans carried out, is testing even her patience.    

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