NaNoWriMo 2015: The Defender and the Thief - Universe Primer
Summary:
Benka was a Defender, an Honoured Blade tasked with protecting the Imperial family, until she stumbled over a conspiracy and attempted to expose it to the wrong people. Stripped of her title, disgraced, and exiled to live as a wandering Blade without a patron, Benka takes what jobs she can while searching for information that will prove her innocence allow her to return to the Imperial City.
During her travels she meets Ansi, a lackadaisical thief with a weakness for pretty girls and shiny objects -- the combination of which resulted in the loss her right hand a decade prior. After a rough run-in with an angry castle lord, the pair form an unlikely friendship and decide to travel together despite their differences. They soon run into Kura, a priest from the Imperial palace, who offers them a job: find Princess Mai, exiled three years ago for a crime she doesn't remember. They must find the princess and bring her back to the Imperial City to help save her family from the plot Benka uncovered, now much deeper than she ever realized.
Princess Mai doesn't actually like her family, youngest sister Mizuki excluded, and Kura may or may not be lying about one or a hundred things, but like it or not it's too late for Benka and Ansi to walk away.
Gay Meter: High, ish. Benka is asexual. Ansi is 100% all about the ladies, and this is part of her character/backstory/incidental actions, but she doesn't romance anyone in the main cast. Kura is a celibate-by-profession genderqueer priest who identifies however they darn well feel like. Princess Mai is straight, probably (?) but it doesn't really factor. There's no romance in this one because I wanted to write something without it, but Benka and Ansi are totally non-sexual homoromantic life partners.
Weird Meter: Middling, probably. There's gods and magic and all that kind of fantasy-imbued stuff, and there's also omens and rituals and blood magic and gods/spirits being personified.
Self-Indulgence Meter: High, as all the best ones are! I've got ace characters and lesbian characters and genderqueer characters, I've got a story with female friendships, with women who are competent at different things in different ways, women who are not always very nice, and people trying to do the right thing even if it leads them to monumental screw-ups. Hooray!
FIRST DRAFT COMPLETE
PART 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
PART 2
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16