#asheron

It’s a bit of a common story – the kingdom is of need of a saintess and thus calls one from another world.  The perspective, though, is not of the saintess, but of one of the people who was born and raised in that world.  There’s not real solid plot to the story yet, other than the main character helping the saintess understand and adapt to the world while also attempting to win over her fiancée/husband.

Zelline Arias/Eden – the main character, a girl in her early twenties who is the daughter of a poor count.  Because of this, and because her mother needed to keep up appearances in the court, she spent a great deal of her childhood in the capital.  As such, she also spent a great deal of time with the Eden brothers, and considers the younger one, Levi, to be her best friend.  There’s no romantic feelings between the two of them (since Zelline is in love with the older Eden brother), but at some point, the Eden family took pity on the Arias family’s situation and arranged for Zelline and Levi to marry.  Zelline didn’t mind because of the aforementioned best friend thing, and it was helping her family.

The problem came with the saintess was summoned and the king declared that she should marry Levi instead.  The Arias family was thrown for a loop, since they had already used her dowry to help their territory, and had no way of paying it back.  (The Eden family didn’t really care.)  However, to help save face, the older brother Asheron offered to marry her instead, despite the fact that he had declared that he wasn’t going to get married.  Which, of course, is what Zelline actually wanted this whole time, but couldn’t say anything.  She’s still a bit unsure about the whole situation, and wants to prove to Asheron that he didn’t make a mistake in marrying her.  She doesn’t really have that much magical abilities, but it’s discovered that she has incredible potion making skills.

Asheron Eden – the love interest, and the older of the Eden brothers (by about two years).  He is also the master of the Magic Tower, and because of this, he gave up his claim of becoming the next Duke of Eden.  He’s extremely powerful in magic, and he’s also the one who summoned the saintess to the world.  He’s actually been in love with Zelline for quite a while, but he’s worried that his position as Master of the Tower would present too much danger for her.  Which is the main reason he declared he wasn’t going to marry anyone, because of the danger (or so he claims).  He was glad for his brother’s engagement to her, since while he couldn’t have her, he could at least spent time with her.

When the engagement fell through, he sort of panicked and offering to take her instead, mostly because he knew of the weird position it put her family.  He tries his best to be aloof around her, so his enemies think he’s just doing her a favor and not that he has genuine feelings for her, not realizing that Zelline is perfectly prepared to face those dangers if it means that she can be with him.

Su-jin Park – the saintess who comes from South Korea and who is trying her damnest to fit in and failing pretty hard.  She fell in love with Levi the moment she saw him, not realizing that he had a fiancée already, which is one of the reasons why the king ordered their engagement.  She stays at the Eden estate because Asheron’s hand in summoning her, which did help develop her relationship with Levi.  She’s a bit appalled upon learning about his previous engagement, and is extremely worried about Zelline hating her for ‘stealing’ her man, although Zelline doesn’t really care.  The court bashes her quite a bit for stealing Zelline’s position (despite the fact that they were bashing Zelline for her lowly status previously) and for her lack of etiquette knowledge.  Levi gets Zelline to teach her, and once Zelline gets Su-jin to understand there’s no hard feelings, the two became quick friends.

Levi Eden – pretty much the guy who causes all the drama, albeit unintentionally (although it’s pretty the king who causes the drama).  He fell in love at first sight with Su-jin as well, although he wasn’t willing to give up the engagement to Zelline until he was ordered to do so.    He’s immensely grateful to his brother for stepping up to take his place, allowing him to not feel guilty about the situation.  Zelline would have freely given up on the engagement if it wasn’t absolved for her because of his feelings for Su-jin, but he doesn’t realize that.  Both he and Zelline have to work hard to make it very clear that they only view each other as friends and there was nothing romantic between the two of them.  He is Captain of the Royal Guard despite his young age, mostly due to his powerful Sword Aura.

Emily – Emily is Zelline’s personal maid and confident, having assisted her from a young age.  Zelline brings her over from her family’s estate.  (I don’t have much on her, honestly).

Zachariah Arias – Zelline’s older twin brother.  He’s protective of Zelline but also the other best friend to Levi (probably more so since they’re both guys).  He’s staying in the capital at the moment mostly to keep an eye on his sister and also to attempt to find a marriage partner.  His Sword Aura is just as strong as Levi’s, and he’s works under Levi in the Royal Guard.  He’s also a bit annoyed at Zelline marrying, although he knew it had to happen eventually.  He is in love with Rosaline, although his low position makes him think he has no chance with her.

Rosaline Charlet – the daughter of a marquis and basically the queen of high society.  Despite this, she is a ridiculously kind person and one of Zelline’s close friends.  This is actually because Rosaline is in love with Zachariah and thus Rosaline wants Zelline to be her sister someday.  She helps Su-jin to navigate high society at Zelline’s request, and becomes good friends with the saintess as well.

Siegfried Elysia – the third prince of the Elysia Kingdom and Asheron’s self proclaimed best friend.  He’s always just around to annoy Asheron and Zelline sort of gets caught up in his schemes as well, despite Asheron’s best efforts to keep the two apart.  He is one of the few people who knew Asheron’s true feelings for Zelline from the start, and while he’s annoyed at his father’s meddling, he’s also grateful since it gave Asheron a chance to be happy.  He has no real ambition for the throne, although Zelline feels like he’d actually make a better king than his siblings.

This another attempt at making a story where the characters have colored hair, lol.  I couldn’t give Zelline pink hair since that’s ‘main character’ hair, and while she is the main character, she’s also not main character material, which is why I went with the blue instead.  I like blue hair.  It’s pretty.  And Asheron has purple hair because that doesn’t seem to be a common hair color (and also long hair because that’s not really a Thing I do with my love interests and it weirdly works here).  And I have Zelline and Asheron matching because I love when the artists give the couples matching outfits.  There’s one that I read that, at some point, all the main couple wore was matching outfits and I thought it was both sweet and hilarious.

So this morning I decided, on a whim, to give Asheron a vest instead of the shirt I had given him, and wow, what a difference!  He looks more noble now, plus the vest sort of matches better with the Victorian aesthetic that I seem to be going for with the story.  :P  I really like it, a lot.  Rosaline just gets some tweeks, mostly shortening the skirt and doing the top different, as well as giving her a different sort of bow.  I like it.  It matches what I did with Su-jin a little better, and it’s cute.  Siegfried I just changed the top of his vest as well as giving him a collared shirt and an actual tie, and it looks so good on him!  Again, it matches the aesthetic again.

The next one is of Aurelia’s actual casual outfit (and thus, what she’d be wearing most of the time), and Jesus, this woman is supposed to be something of a villainess, and I keep making her look ~*~amazing~*~.  I love it.  The outfit gave me the idea that her goal in life is actually to work in the royal archives, but her parents have different plans for her (which she doesn’t agree to, of course). 

The last one (on the first sheet) is of a new character, Isabella Dalton, and she’s the fiancée of Siegfried there.  She was originally designed as the wife of the oldest Eden brother, but ended up scrapping the idea.  But I liked her character, and she had more or less inserted herself into the circle I had created for the girls, so I decided, since he didn’t have a love interest or a fiancée (which made no sense), so I decided she was perfect.

Isbella is the daughter of the third ducal family in the kingdom (there are three – the Eden’s are technically the Grand Ducalal family, and then the other two are the Hensley family and the Dalton family).  Her self confidence is pretty much rock bottom, and she’s ridiculously shy.  She’s, of course, another victim of Aurelia’s bullying, because no one thinks that she’s worthy of being Siegfried’s wife (as in, being a princess).  Siegfried, for his part, does really love and respect Isabella, although their marriage was arranged.  He likes watching her freak out over simile things.  :P

I couldn’t decide if I should have them married or not, but in the end, decided not to.  The reason why Zelline and Su-jin get married quickly in the story is because the Zelline’s marriage into the Eden family was already arranged, and the Edens want to help the Arias’ as quickly as possible, and the Su-jin is to ensure she has ties to the Empire and she doesn’t get Ideas of going to another kingdom.   

When I finally decided to post up the designs for the story, I immediate was struck with this picture idea for some reason, enough so that I had to attempt it and see what happened.  What happened is that I managed to pop out a ridiculously pretty picture!  Just…wow.

So the girl is Zelline Arias, who is the daughter of a poor count who had gotten engaged to her best friend as a way to help out her family’s territory.  Neither of them had any romantic prospects at the time (Zelline had a crush, but knew it wasn’t anything that was going to work out), so they were completely on board with the idea.  I mean, if you can’t marry the love of your life, being with your best friend is a good option as well.  The problem comes when the saintess is summoned, and her fiancée falls head over heels in love with her, and the king up and decides to cancel their engagement so that he could marry the saintess instead.  Which Zelline doesn’t really care about – she’s happy for her friend for finding love, but her family had already spend her dowry on improvements to the territory and had no way to paying the duke back.

The guy is Asheron Eden, who is the older brother of Zelline’s former fiancée and the man she happens to have a crush on.  He had declared that he wasn’t going to marry because he was slated to become the next Master of the Magic Tower, which he is at the start of the story, and traditionally, the Master doesn’t get married.  For some reason, once her engagement was absolved and she was discussing with her parents how it put her family in a weird spot, he offered to marry her in his brother’s place to help everyone out.  While he is in love with Zelline as well, he’s a bit worried about putting her in danger, and this is a little distant with her at the beginning of their marriage, with Zelline trying her hardest to prove to him that she is a good wife for him and that she doesn’t care about the danger – she just wants to spend the rest of her life at his side.

They do end up working things out, obviously. 

The idea here is that Asheron is offering to dance with Zelline, probably after a conversation about how she enjoyed the few times she got to dance with him at balls or something.  I don’t know, it’s just them being cute together.  I really like the idea of them wearing matching outfits, which I think is the reason why they look so good together.  I really love Zelline’s blue hair here, and I’ve glad I gave it to her.  Asheron looks good with his purple hair as well.