The Man Like Atlas

You asked, and so I've decided to fling orderliness to the wind and write my post on the Assassin.  I'm afraid I will have to ignore a few of the questions, but I'll try to give answers to as many as I can, as clearly as I can.

...who exactly is the Assassin, who is he working for, and what is his goal? ...is he [Regina's] love interest?

[kelsey]

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where is [the Assassin] from, what time period, what is his occupation, does he have a love interest, etc.?

[joy]

Well, that's certainly all-encompassing!  For a general introduction, the best place to go is his Beautiful People post; I wrote it five or six months ago, but reading over it now, I think it's still pretty accurate.  Not that he hasn't developed and changed since that point in the story itself, but his personality - likes and dislikes, looks and habits - remains the same.  The very old excerpt, on the other hand, has been completely overhauled and no longer provides an accurate picture of either the Assassin or Regina.  I'm considering posting the revised version (though I'm sure it will change again in the drafts to come).

So then, who is the Assassin?  He's a big, cheerful, often childish fellow who has traveled the Western and Eastern Empires and somehow ended up in Britain, possibly because it was the only place in the known world he hadn't visited before.  Throughout the story he is known by a variety of names, including "the blond man," "the man like Atlas," and, yes, his real name.  He has a generally sunny outlook on life, in contrast with Regina's pessimism; and aside from his hazy background, there is nothing about him that would bring his occupation to one's mind.  His path crosses with Regina's by chance, as far as she knows, and he promises to serve her and get her back to her own time - in exchange for a promise that, once he does, she will give him the pocket watch.  On the surface that is his goal, but what he really wants is always a variable. 

At the time when "Regina's personal continuity intersects with his personal continuity," the Assassin does not appear to be working for anyone.  If he had been, however, his employer would have found himself dumped in a heartbeat, for the Assassin is first and foremost...something other than an assassin.  Killing or quack-salving pays the bills, as it were, but they are not the love of his life.  If he suddenly inherited a fortune from all those relatives he doesn't have, he would probably give up at least one of the two vocations.  I'll leave it to you to decide which one.

Love interests!  I see you are trying to sneak in the back door and eliminate the possibilities one by one.  You will next be asking whether the Time King has any love interests, or whether Regina's could possibly be the White Demon, or whether the Fisherman...!  They are all, I think, better bets, for the Assassin is not your typical love interest material.  He is frequently so childish, so lost in his own happy world of diagrams and theories, that whether or not he recognizes Regina as a woman is a debatable point.  Remember that he was partially inspired by Sherlock Holmes, and then don't get your hopes up too high.

Does the Assassin regret any of his kills? 

(To avoid spoilerisms, you can limit this to kills before the story starts.) (But because time-travel, before is problematic, so, to kills before the intersection of his own personal continuity with the personal continuity of Regina, or, in the event, the personal continuities of any other important characters with which his own personal continuity has intersected or will intersect in any sort of way, timey-wimey or otherwise.)

[chewie]

No, the Assassin doesn't regret any of his kills.  That is, he doesn't until he travels back in time with Regina and his personal continuity intersects with those of the people he will eventually kill.  Then he gets to know them and is very cut up in the knowledge that he's going to sneak up behind them on a future dark night and stab their future selves.

But don't worry, he's comforted in the knowledge that once he does, his future self won't regret it.

As Dreams Are Made On

pinterest

we are such stuff as dreams are made on,

and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

- shakespeare, the tempest

I considered doing a post on the Assassin next, since people wanted it so badly (and since I actually know what I want to say on that subject).  But that wouldn't be orderly and anyhow, I like to keep everyone guessing, so I decided instead to address the question of Tempus Regina's setting.  It came up a couple times, and it seems there is as much confusion about that as there was - and probably still is - about the whole time travel business.  Hopefully I can give a clearer answer this time.

...does Tempus Regina take place in the real world, or an imaginary one? You've referenced Victorian England, but on the other hand I've gotten the sense that it's fantasy.

[elisabeth grace foley] 

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do any of your characters originally come from outside of our own planet earth? 
[joy]

Elisabeth, you've hit the proverbial hammer on the head.  Tempus Regina is technically "historical fantasy," which means the answer is yes and yes.  It deals with real time periods (Victorian England, for example) and even some real people, but  it also incorporates time travel and dragons and, yes, also some "magic," so it obviously can't be marketed as straight historical fiction.  It's funky.

The best example of the genre that occurs to me off the top of my head is Anne McCaffrey's Black Horses for the King, a mostly historical novel set during the time after the abandonment of Britain by Rome, when the man who became the legendary King Arthur probably lived.  But we don't actually know that he lived at all, and since the story deals with legends, it's "historical fantasy."  And Tempus Regina is even more fantasy-driven than that.

In answer to Joy, the story takes place entirely in the real world; there is no inter-dimensional travel, not even of the vague That Hideous Strength brand.  Everyone is from Here, though whether everyone is human is debatable.  This also somewhat answers the question about religion in the story, but I'm planning on giving that its own post, since it demands fuller explanation.

...so is Regina in any way related to the Arthurian legends? ...is there any connection between Morgaine and Morgan le Fay?  I hope not.  I love Morgaine.

[anne-girl]

Tempus Regina is, like Black Horses for the King, a novel of legends - a novel of the stuff that "dreams are made on."  When she travels back in time - when she finds herself burdened with the role of time queen - Regina is tangled up in the threads of the two most fantastic and enduring legends of Western culture. Which legends those are is, for the moment, open to speculation...though I will say that those of you putting money on Arthurian legend are more likely to see a return on the investment.

As for Morgaine, she is, well, Morgaine.  And not as likeable as her Beautiful People appearance has (it seems) led many to believe.  In fact she's quite annoying and I'd like to hit her with a frying pan.  Interpret that as you will.