Aurora

Role in Story

Guinevere’s mother. Her head is full of flowers, she thinks with her feelings, and Elaine is her golden child, the apple of her eye, and Elaine makes sure she doesn’t realize that makes her blind. Her relationship with her husband has been rocky ever since she rejected Guinevere as a baby.

Goal

To be forever young (or as youthful as possible).

To be the best princess she can be for all her years.

To repair her marriage (deeply buried wish, doesn’t know how to address it, always working in reverse).

Physical Description

Short 5’0” and pear-shaped, very curvy, thick in the thighs. Strawberry blonde hair carefully maintained through dye now that she’s getting some grays; kept in fashionable, current cuts of a medium length, just below the shoulder. Blue-grey eyes.

Personality

Entirely too gullible for a grown-ass woman. Selfish and childish. Even so, she’s very determined when it comes to obtaining what she wants — whether that’s the perfect body or her lone wolf of a husband. A go-getter, bright and bubbly. Charismatic despite her faults.

Occupation

Florist (owner-operator)

Habits/Mannerisms

Loves going on shopping sprees with Elaine, getting hair, nails, and makeup done. Won’t spend a minute or a dime on Guinevere unless she sees no reasonable way not to.

Called men by their full names, but women almost always by nicknames. She calls Elaine, “Lainie,” and Guin, “Gigi.” She refuses to call her “Guin,” even though everyone else does. This is a subtle jab, as Aurora considers “Gigi” a dog name, and says Guin looks like a poodle with her fluffy, white curls.

In the gym every day like clockwork. She’s got a pretty impressive following online as a gymfluencer for moms and older women.

Can’t bear to look old. Once makeup can’t hide the signs of aging, she gets procedures like Botox, or minor plastic surgery done. (Gavin hates this as both a waste of money and a sign of her immaturity. He feels like he’s living with a plastic doll of the woman he married.)

Likes to wear fashionable, youthful glasses with tinted lenses (wears proper contacts with them)

Background

Aurora got her name for being such a pretty baby, and she grew up like a princess. Her parents had her late in life and with much difficulty, so they doted on her endlessly.

She carried that perfect princess attitude with her for the rest of her life, bearing it as the exact image she was meant to have. She tamed the lone wolf, Gavin, and made him her husband because that was part of her image of what princesses did. And because she was simply meant to have a happy family, she got a proper house with her husband, white picket fence included, and had three children.

The problems arose with her third child, Guinevere. At first, Aurora was entranced. She’d gone with names from the legend of King Arthur for her children—and Elaine was given her name to keep it mostly modern—but the infant was the image of an ephemeral princess with her exquisite, pale coloring, and so Aurora completely gave in and named her the name she considered the most beautiful—Guinevere. But Guin wasn’t just pale, she had albinism, even in her eyes. The ocular albinism caused her to be extremely sensitive to light, and she cried constantly because of the bright lights all around her. She burned almost immediately in the sun. With such a needy, constantly upset baby who didn’t look like her—no, looked prettier than her, even with her red eyes—Aurora began to reject Guin as “creepy.” She couldn’t stand the demands made on her, and eventually left Guin entirely to Gavin while she cared for Elaine.

Once Guin grew a little older, Elaine constantly framed Guin in the worst light possible—as lazy, a liar, a thief, selfish, childish, and stubborn. Like the gossip girl she is, Aurora was all-too-quick to jump on Elaine’s accusations as gospel, completely ignoring any facts presented to her.

Internal Conflicts

She’s practically chewing on her handkerchief in anger over how Gavin lost his love for her after Guin was born. She blames Guin for this, even though the culprit is her own bad behavior.

Aurora is deathly afraid of growing old and turning into an “ugly old woman” or really, an “evil queen.” She does anything to maintain her youth, and runs with Elaine like a peer instead of a mother. Elaine has even invited her on her “paid dates” before, and Aurora has cheated on her husband on these “dates” several times. She can’t reconcile this part of herself, and it eats away at her. A proper princess would never cheat on her prince charming, but her prince charming hasn’t looked at her in so long she’s begun to villainize him and seek a “hero.” But she already “tamed” him once, and doesn’t understand why she can’t do so again. This spiral makes her more and more vulnerable to Elaine’s manipulations, and continues to strain her relationship with Gavin.

External Conflicts

Notes