#finding fate

This, of course, also allowed me to come up with new names for the characters that still shared the same names in The Gatekeeper.  This, obviously, would be it’s own Thing now. 

Azregard Starleaf/Blair Hudson - Blair is the main character (formally Persephone).  She was accidentally switched at birth with the princess of her kingdom.  Her mother was working as a nursemaid for the princess because she and Blair were born on the same day, but when Blair and Princess Azregard were around one, Blair’s father got the family banished from the kingdom.  Blair’s mother was working at the time and she had to leave in a hurry and managed to grab the wrong baby in the process.  By the time she did realize she had inadvertently kidnapped the princess, it was too late to switch her back without completely destroying the family.

The thing is is that the king and queen had wanted nothing to do with their daughter up until that point.  Also, Azregard and Blair looked remarkably alike, such that Blair’s mother was the only one who could tell them apart in the palace.  So the servants had no idea the two were switched, and neither did the monarchs.  They just continued to assume Blair was Azregard and raised her as such.

The problem was that Blair wasn’t their blood and acted completely different.  She had sympathy and empathy for people and was kind and friendly.  The king and queen, by contrast, were tyrants.  She grew up thinking something was wrong, because she identified more with the common people than the nobility.  She wanted to be a good queen but she also wanted to run away from it all and live as a peasant. 

When she was around twenty or so, the real Azregard shows up and obviously wants her life back.  Despite the fact that they raised her and trained her to be the heir, her ‘parents’ eventually kick her out after Azregard is able to prove she really is who she says she is, mostly at the urging of Azregard.  Blair, now understanding the truth, is a bit baffled at first, because the palace was her home and she had all these plans for the future.  But she eventually realizes this is the a golden opportunity for herself, and embraces her new identity as a peasant while also deciding to find her real parents.

River Johnson – River is the love interest (I said I was going to use the name somewhere and for some reason, after doing his design, he looked like a River to me.).  He’s the second son of a peasant who had met with Blair as Azregard a few times when she snuck off to explore the village around the palace.  She comes across her again after she leaves the palace and offers to assist her, knowing full well that she’s the princess despite the fact that she had been hiding her identity from him the entire time.  He talks her into cutting her hair because there’s a lot of peasants who dislike her because of her ‘parentage’ and everyone knows what Azregard used to look like.  He did fall in love with her at first sight, which is why he’s so willing to help her out despite barely knowing her.  His family is weirdly accepting of him bringing this strange girl into the house, and Blair, while grateful, is a little weirded out by their kindness.  (She fell in love with him at first sight as well, so she’s this opportunity as well to get to know him.)

Luna Harrison – Luna is River’s best friend, although there’s no real romantic interest between the two.  People always assume that they two of them would end up getting married someday, and she entertained the idea, but also could tell he never felt that way about her.  And honestly, neither did she.  She’s quick to befriend Blair and help her understand the world she belongs to now, and it takes her a bit to learn that she’s the former princess.  While River had always at least respect Azregard until he actually met her and fell for her, Luna has no love for the princess, which does make some conversations a little awkward. 

Azregard Starleaf – Azregard is the actual princess who had accidentally kidnapped when she was one.  Blair’s parents attempted to raise her as one of their own, although they never changed her name and made sure she understood that she wasn’t really a part of their family, at least biologically.  They had always planned on returning her to the throne one day, but even before they told her all of this, they had trouble connecting with her.  She was a terror growing up, acting entitled and selfish and narcissistic like her parents.  They eventually gave up trying to act like she was their adoptive daughter, with Azregad finally deciding to leave home to find her true place around when she was twenty. 

She arrives in the palace and pretty much takes over the place, forcing Blair out and trying to take over her life, since she claims that it’s always been her life.  The king and queen are pleased with the way Azregard treats people, because they always felt Blair was too ‘soft’, despite the fact that nearly everyone in the palace respected her.  She’s out to make Blair’s life hell like it’s her fault she was kidnapped and raised with love and care.

Elias Brightwood – Elias is Blair-as-Azregard’s best friend in the palace, and her fiancé.  This was mostly decided through their parents, because Duke Brightwood wanted his son to be king and he has a high enough position to get the king to agree to it.  Elias is very much like Blair – he’s rather disillusioned with the nobility, in part thanks to the treatment of his younger illegitimate brother.  He doesn’t love Blair romantically, but views her as his best friend, which is why he was fine with marrying her.  The engagement switches to the real Azregard once she shows up, which Elias is horrified about.  Azregard is thrilled, throwing herself at him constantly.  When Blair, River, and Luna leave to go searching for her parents, he goes along as well, because he wanted to help (and he wants to get away from Azregard).  His status also helps them a lot on the journey.  He and Luna end up falling for each other as they spend time together, though.   

The main basic plot of the story would mostly be the group journeying around the kingdom to find out what happened to Biair’s family, since Azreagard absolutely refuses to let her know where they are.  They, of course, discover how terrible the kingdom actually is, which eventually leads to a plot to overthrow the monarchs and put Blair on the throne, since most people outside of capital city want it to happen.

In any case, while looking around my external drive (which houses files from my old desktop, so pretty much everything prior or 2011) looking for something, and spotted the original version of Finding Fate, which was what The Gatekeeper was originally called. For whatever reason, I got excited at the idea of redrawing the old designs in my current style, especially after reading the old version.

(The very first version was bad and weird. The second version of the story is much better, and what I'm basing pretty much everything on. They were only a year apart, which I thought was sort of weird.)

So while I was working on that, a though occurred to me - The Gatekeeper is literally nothing like Finding Fate at all. I could go back and use that story as a completely different story, and no one would be the wiser. All I'd have to do is change a bunch of names and tweek some things! So that got me thinking about how I would go about doing the story today.

For simplicity sake, I'm not actually changing names right now, because that would be effort I don't want to take right at this moment.

So basically the story was supposed to be a 'reverse fairy tale', where the princess discovers that she's actually a commoner rather than the other way around. The story would revolve around her figuring out commoner life while also trying to find out where her biological family is and what happened to them.

Persephone Porter (Azregard Starleaf) - so these first two are of the same person - the first one is how she originally appears and then the second is after she embraces the commoners life. So Persephone was accidentally switched with the real Azregard when she was a couple of months old, when her parents were banished from the kingdom and had to leave in a rush. Her mother was Azregard's nursemaid because Azreagard and Persephone were born on the same day. They also looked incredibly alike as babies, although Mrs. Porter was the only one who could tell them apart. But when she was rushing around in the castle after learning about her family's banishment, she accidentally grabbed Azregard instead of Persephone, and didn't discover the screw up until later. And at that point, the damage was done, and it wasn't like she could come back and just be like 'whoops, grabbed the wrong baby!' without being beheaded or something.

So Persephone was raised as Azregard, and had never really connected with her parents. They are cruel and unkind, and Azregard is compassionate and caring. She's always felt something was missing from her life, but could never quite explain why. She's also never connected with most of the nobles, since they tend to be as cruel as the king and queen. She is a bit envious of the lives commoners live - sure, it's hard, but they at least feel love and comradery with other people.

So when the actually Azregard shows up with her claim and Persephone starts finding the clues that it's true, she ends up jumping at the chance to live that life (after going through a bit of denial over the fact. She was raised as a princess, after all, and was training to become queen some day, and this is all weird and shit). She cuts her hair, turns out that she needs glasses, and she discovers that the townspeople really hate her and her family, somehow getting involved in the rebels trying to take them down. So she's also trying really hard for everyone not to figure out who she is.

Tobias Jonston - Tobias is a guy that Persephone runs into at a museum a couple of times that she talks to who ends up taking she in after learning that she was kicked out of her house. Persephone, of course, develops feelings for him fairly quickly (although she's a bit unsure about him offering to house a complete stranger like he did). In the original version, he was a bit of a 'bad boy' in that he rarely showed up for work, but I think in this version he's a lot more responsible. He is a part of the rebels wanting to remove the Starleafs from power and is the one who gets Persephone involved in everything. He actually does know that Persephone is Azregard (the first couple of times they meet, while she doesn't reveal her name, was as Azregard, and he sort of already knew who she was), and is basically waiting for her to tell him herself. He already knew the rumors about her were false after the first couple of times talking with her.

Luna Harrison - Luna is Tobias' best friend, and does have feelings for him. But she knows they are unrequited, so she's basically given up on him. Her mother was once a Lady of the Court who gave up her family and her title to marry Mr. Harrison, and Luna's been taught Court etiquette. Luna doesn't like Persephone at first because 1) she's a stranger and 2) it's clear that Tobias has a thing for her as well. But she also takes pity on Persephone's situation, even though she doesn't know the extent of it, but as they spend more and more time together, they get a lot closer.

Azregard Starleaf - the actual princess, the one Persephone was switched with. Despite being raised by the Porters, who were a loving and caring family, she takes on her parents' mannerisms and is a massive bitch. She claims that the Porters were horrible to her and ignored her because she wasn't their real daughter, but in all reality, they gave up on trying to love her. She treated them all horribly and abused the hell of her siblings until she finally decided to leave and live with her real parents after finding out they were the king and queen. She takes over Persephone's life fairly quickly, the king and queen pleased with how she acts, as they both thought Persephone was too 'soft'. She's also determined to make Persephone's life hell because she blames her for living the life she was meant to. even though it wasn't exactly her fault it happened.

Douglass Bradley - Douglas is Persephone's friend from her days as a princess and the only one willing to accept her as she was born. (In the original, they were boyfriend/girlfriend, and i was rooting for them as I reread it, even though I knew I was going to have Tobias end up with her. Their relationship was so cute that it was sort of annoying knowing I was going to ruin it). He is the first son of a duke, with a younger illegitimate brother who takes cares of because no one else wants to acknowledge his existence. He's a bit disillusioned with the nobility because of this - his father ignores them and his mother is always absent - choosing kindness other cruelty like the other nobles. This is the reason why he and the former Azregard got along so well, and why he chooses to remain Persephone's friend even after finding her living as a commoner. He does end up joining them once they start their journey to find where her parents are because he's supportive of her, and plus he could use his money and influence to help.

I'm honesty not sure what's going with the style of the world. Like, the original idea I had was that it was medieval and modern combined? Like, the aesthetic was medieval, but there were talks of, like, fridges, Tobias worked at a grocery store, and the way they determined Azregard was telling the truth was through the use of DNA tests? I sort of liked the idea that the nobility has a bit of a medieval thing going on, but then like the commoners did their own thing, IDK. I was mostly just trying to give them their original outfits but also, like, tweeked into something I liked more?

I also think it's funny how everyone has dark hair except for Luna there, lol. She and Aregard would be the only two who wouldn't get name changes, since their names aren't used in The Gatekeeper. (Luna became Juliette and I figured Mrs. Porter wouldn't rename Azregard to something else in this version, so she remains Azregard.)