New idea thats…*ghasp*…not YA
I think my subconscious is trying to get me to finish Shades, too. It keeps spouting new story ideas at me! Here’s the dream I had:
There was this kingdom, which bordered another kingdom that had been swallowed in evil and darkness; trees weighed down by noxious moss, poisoned water, goblins that killed and ate people, trees that ate people, always dark.
There was a princess, looking for a cure for her country. She has limited magic, but most of it was corrupted along with her land. She has brought some of her nobles into the neighboring kingdom, where they have been disrupting things, trying to take over, though they really aren’t trying to do anything *bad*. (Nobody really knows what they want, actually). The princess herself is rarely seen, and her nobles seem arrogant and dangerous to everyone.
There was a soldier, a knight of this neighboring kingdom who is mistrustful of these new “nobles”. He makes a plan to expose their hidden activities. The plan fails, and he and his cohorts get themselves thrown into the forbidden kingdom to die. In a twist of happenstance, the populace turns against the princess and she is thrown in with them. The soldier is inclined to hate her at first, but he ends up befriending her and learning the truth about the hellhole they’re in. He decides that the only way they’ll all survive is by lifting the curse on the corrupted kingdom.
Classic fantasy fodder, as it were. Not a young adult story, because of the age I’m going to have to make these characters. The princess was old enough to know her parents, to know some magic, and to have a general understanding of what happened when her kingdom fell to darkness. That puts her, I’ve decided, around 9 or 10 years old at the time of the incident. This fallen kingdom also needs some time to gain some notoriety in the surrounding regions, which means a decade or two needs to have passed. That will put the princess in her late 20′s or early 30′s when the story opens. My soldier also needs to be in his 30′s…long enough to have been in the army for some time, to have the loyalty of his comrades and the respect of his superiors, perhaps to have earned some rank.
I’ve only figured out a few details beyond the original dream, and probably won’t take it much further before it goes on the backburner like all the others.
Raethe is my soldier character. He comes from a poor family and has had to fight his way to where he is. As a result, he tends to have a low opinion of nobility, who have everything handed to them on a silver platter. He is extremely loyal to his kingdom, Itasia, and its ailing king, and he especially mistrusts the “new nobles”, whom he feels are here to take advantage of the king’s illness. Raethe is a careful, calculating kind of guy, who doesn’t like to make mistakes and feels responsible for everyone around him. He has a soft spot for the weak and innocent.
These are the characters whom he will recruit for his plan to expose the nobles:
Tril- one of the few female soldiers in the army. Technically women are not permitted in the ranks, but a few always join and the commanders tend to turn a blind eye. She and Raethe have been friends for many years…they might have a romantic past, but it’s a casual one.
Vors and Wills- twin brothers, also soldiers in the army
Issat- palace scribe, one of the group’s “insiders”
Delartes- disgraced noble who was packed into the army because his family didn’t know what else to do with him. A bit of a womanizer. One of the few people of noble blood Raethe trusts.
Perine- one of the foreign nobles’ maids, the group’s other “insider”
Eolissa is the princess from Uskelia, the forsaken kingdom. The place is now more commonly known as the Skels. A soothsayer made a prophesy about Eo when she was a little girl, predicting her death and the death of the land. Her parents, who loved their little girl, tried to prevent the prophesy from happening (and in doing so, of course, they brought it about). They sheltered her, and when she turned 10, they sent her away and enacted a magic they thought would protect her. But the magic went wild and destroyed Uskelia, turning it into a living hell. The only Uskelians who didn’t die in the curse were those outside the borders of the kingdom: the princess and the loyal nobles who’d accompanied her.
Tydairin is Eo’s older brother, and they were very close. He disappeared like everyone else in the curse, but Eo stubbornly believes that he is still alive. She claims she hears him speak to her in her dreams, sometimes. When she and the others are banished to the Skels, one of her primary objectives is to find Tydairin. He probably is indeed alive, but if so, he’s at the center of the curse. Rescuing him may be the key in curing the land.
Raethe and Eolissa will fall in love, of course. At first, Raethe will dislike her and resent her because she is royalty. But her innocence and isolation will eventually get to him, and win him over. She loves her kingdom and sincerely mourns for its present state, and she desperately misses her brother. All of these things will endear her to Raethe. He will probably frighten Eo at first, because soldiers and commoners aren’t the sort of people she’s used to, but she’ll quickly pick up on his kind nature.
Don’t know where this one will get dumped in the queue. Probably somewhere with the Syoja story and the zombie short story.
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