Checkpoint #2
Happy November, everyone. It's time for our second checkpoint. There's no required word count but be aware that rough drafts are coming up in a month and they DO have a requirement of 5,000 words. So be sure you can make that deadline
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Summary/overview: From this prompt/Jim C. Hines's Princess Series.
Aurora is a seer, woken by a True Love's Kiss that was also Prince Philip's dying breath. Mulan is thought dead and hides in the identity of Ping, able to steal only moments to be with her husband Shang. Giselle fell a long way through the magic wishing well. The city of Agrabah has been shifting dangerously in its interactions with the world, and it has drawn the suspicion of the women; they turn their feet south to investigate. In a foreign, secretive land, danger lurks on every corner, and no sooner do they think they have discovered the villain than they discover that they were wrong all along.
Current word count: 8,266. This is going BOOM.
What you're enjoying most in writing your story: It's getting big and meaty and it's fun getting back into darker writing.
What you're stuck on most in writing your story: Working in the backstories are getting complicated. Also not 100% sure of how it's going to end, though I've got a general idea.
Anything else? Definitely going to need a beta reader, though I may ask at the Disney kink meme. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with how it's going. It'll just need some polishing afterwards.
Story blurb/excerpt (anything from a single sentence to a paragraph or two):
They readied themselves to leave in the morn, but none could find sleep, and all ended up waiting for the sun to rise in order that they might have reason to move on again. Finally the sun breached the horizon, red and hot and stifling already, and there was a flurry of activity in return. Ping had shined his armour in the night, returning it to a gleaming silver against the green and black fabric, and he wore it like regalia with his sword ready at his side. Beneath her abaya, Giselle carried a knife in the crook of her right arm, another at her thigh, and single slice of poisoned apple-flesh in a stoppered glass bottle at her throat. Once shrouded in black cotton, though, with the fabric falling more easily on her frame as she became used to wearing it, she became a shadow once again, and with her head bowed and posture unassuming she all but vanished from sight.
Between the others, Aurora sat like a statue. She wore the fragments of her fine blue dress, the fabric still almost garishly bright with the magic that had coloured it. Though with time strips had been torn from the bodice, or holes made in the skirt, or blood in a bright breath-pattern across her heart, it held its shape still, stern and sharp-lined. She rose to her feet and allowed Giselle to help her into her own abaya, shielding the colours, then stood and allowed her veil to be tied into place as well with a bow of her head, a closing of her eyes.
Ping watched with troubled anger in his gaze as they prepared themselves, then nodded gruffly to the door. “Come on, then. I’ve found a couple of street kids to accompany us; they’ll carry the bags.”
He did not look round as they approached the Palace, as he spoke to the guards with perfect command in his voice and presented the scroll that he had written that very night. The guards pored over it, turned it the wrong way, muttered between themselves and called for a translator only to discover that none could be found. After an eternity, it seemed, they were allowed in, the great gates of the Palace falling closed behind them with a deafening thud.
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