FOREWORD

By Eva Luz Villalón Turrubiates

When I see things in retrospective I find really interesting how far we've come with this Quest Trilogy that started just as a simple idea long time ago. Checking my old notebooks and notes I've found that the first time I wrote about Prince Ali of Agrabah as Aladdin and Jasmine's son was back in the Autumn of 1995. My first notes are dated on November 27, 1995. It's been an amazing adventure for me and Ali has been my best partner through all the years he's been here by my side.

I was always reluctant to write Aladdin fan fiction since I'm very concerned about those characters I love so much as most of the times I don't feel myself at the level they deserve, mainly because, being Disney's characters, it's stressing to me work with them trying to keep them 'in character' and I'd just hate to portrait them in the wrong way. Disney's standards are very high and that is quite a challenge to me. Maybe that was what motivated me to try new stories with new characters in the same old and beloved background of Agrabah. And I can say this has been the most thrilling, awesome and magical adventure of my life.

I tried several approaches to the character of Ali from the beginning and I have several stories I tried to work out with him as the main character, trying to get to know him. I wrote 3 or 4 stories back then (all of them in Spanish) and I think I reached that bond with him as a character and as a living person. Many years had to pass before I finally decided to take things seriously with him and try a real story featuring him as the Prince of Agrabah and the son of Aladdin and Jasmine. Thanks to the support and encouragement of my dear friend Sedeara the first story was written and published, The Secret of Immortality which was, at the same time, my first Aladdin fanfic EVER. But that wasn't enough. I had Ali as a baby in that story and I was dying to present him as a grown up man, the man I knew so well.

I started to figure out who he really was as a character. In the first stories I wrote he was in a different background since I didn't put him in Agrabah back then. In those stories he was pretty much a copy of Aladdin but as time went by I realized that Ali's personality was different. He sure has a lot of Aladdin in him and he has a lot of Jasmine too but he's got a personality of his own. A series of character qualities that make him different from his parents in so many ways even if he keeps a lot from them. Little by little I discovered who he really was. It was not an easy job and it took me months to get to know him perfectly as the character he was going to be. And suddenly one day without even think about it I started writing Quest for Freedom.

I enjoyed that story deeply and I discovered that what I had with Ali was much more than just the author-character relationship. For me Ali became my best friend. And it's so easy to write about someone you care about that much. When Quest was completed I admit that it was not in my plans to go on with a sequel. But I had the encouragement of two dear friends of mine, Lisa and Fede, who kept pushing me into a sequel. I realized then that I DID want to write a sequel and Ali wouldn't stop bugging me about it either. I finally decided to give it a try and from the first second I knew the sequel was going to deal with Ali taking new steps in his journey from boy to man. And without any doubt the biggest step he was going to take in that growing process was going to be love. When the idea of Q2 came to my head I had a very strong idea of what I wanted for that story: Ali falling in love.

Then the biggest challenge of my life appeared right in front of me. Who would be the woman Ali would fall in love with? Ali had evolved deeply as a character from my first attempts in 1995. He was more complex and deep and I knew the girl he'd fall in love with had to complete him in every aspect, in every single way. And with that Azul was born on June 17, 1999.

Azul's evolution as a character was perhaps more dramatic than Ali's. She started as "a funny girl, sparkly and always speaking out her mind. Mischievous and very outgoing" (Q2 notes - Summer 1999). Basically a copy of Sadira. But as days went by I started to see her from a new perspective, from a new point of view and she started to talk to me and to develop herself as a character. Her development was quicker than Ali's was. It took me years to get to know Ali. Azul showed me who she really was in just a few weeks. She has always been amazing. At the end I was able to look at her and find the quiet, sweet and caring woman she is. I've said this before but I'll say it again: for me Azul created herself.

Then a new challenge arrived. It's easy to develop such wonderful characters but, how easy it would be to put them together and actually make them work as a team? Can you force a character to fall in love?

I started planning Q2 in the Summer of 1999 even if the story itself was written on October of the same year. By then I was already counting with the support and advice of Kristin, who's always been a great partner to work with and a great inspiration for me through her beautiful art and devotion to the characters.

The first time I put Ali and Azul together in a scene I was very nervous. I knew they could click right there or they could just be indifferent about each other. And amazingly, as soon as they were together I could feel that magic, that bonding, that thunderbolt. At that moment I knew for sure they were meant to be. I knew they were going to fall in love... and they did. In an amazing way! I still keep thinking how far we've come from a simple kiss on the hand. That was the beginning of the most exciting adventure ever. The beginning of their love story.

In Q2 we were dealing with love and war and following the grow up of Ali as the Prince of Agrabah. A prince that has to make decisions and take responsibility for his actions. Maybe the love story is subtle and it seems to stand in the background for most of the story. But at the end that love became the main theme of the story. We tried to keep war and the royal responsibilities in a front level and yet the love story stood up all by itself proving that Love is really the theme of Q2.

But when Q2 was finished there were no doubts that there was going to be a Q3. A complete trilogy. From the beginning we knew we didn't want to have Ali getting married at the end of Q2. He was going to take things easy, slowly. They needed to get deeper into their relationship and into their love. I wanted to have a big, epic story that would lead them to the final step of their love: marriage. And I wanted something special, they DESERVED something special.

I was still working in Q2 when I started to have some blurred visions of what I wanted for Q3. In November 1999 I started to write down some ideas, very vague and rough ideas. I only had two clear ideas in my mind, two ideas that ended up being the backbone of Q3: a big magical adventure and a burning love.

Marriage was going to be the last step, but that final 'I do!' was not going to be the ultimate aim of the story. I wanted the peak of love to be reached even before marriage. I wanted marriage to be just the result of something bigger. Of a commitment they should've already reached in their hearts long before.

I wanted a story in the style of the great adventures of the Arabian Nights. A magical story. A story with love as the main theme. And most of all, a story that placed Ali and Azul at the same level. As Fede once told me: "It's not about a main character, it's about a main couple!" And I think it resumes it all.

I wanted them to have an unbreakable bond between them. I wanted their love to be pushed to the extreme, to be taken to the ultimate level of devotion and sacrifice. I wanted big adventures, I wanted magic, I wanted romance. And I knew Q3 was going to be quite a challenge to me but I was a little more relaxed since I knew that Ali and Azul, being the great couple they are, wouldn't desert me.

The idea of Q3 was huge, and I had no clue of how to tie all those thoughts together. I would need a very complex plot and the story would be huge. But no ideas were coming to my mind.

But suddenly and unexpectedly one morning the plot came to my head. It was a thunderbolt. It all started with Azul's blue eyes and me wondering where those blue eyes had came from. And suddenly I knew everything about Azrak. I rushed to my room and wrote a very rough plot for the story (dated on January 7, 2000). From the first moment I knew that story was going to be different and very special. But even if I knew it was going to be long and complex I never thought it'd be as long and complex as it turned out to be at the end.

But Ali and Azul didn't feel ready for such a story yet. They wanted to develop their love a little further before going into the big adventure. For me it was an oportunity to get to know them better as a couple and also to take them to a higher level of their relationship. That was when the Crescent Love Trilogy was written in just a couple of months. And with those stories Nevi Publishing was born making official the partnership between Kristin and myself.

As I was writing those short stories, Kristin and I were already working out the plot of Q3. The actual development of the Q3 plot started on February 5, 2000. And little by little the story started to grow... and to get messy.

We spent weeks trying to work things out, to figure out events and situations, to have the complete story perfectly worked out in our heads and on paper before start writing it. We had to do a lot of research of the Arabian Culture and also we had to re-read all those magical stories in the Arabian Nights in order to create a magical story of our own with a 100% original plot. Kristin and I soon learned that magical stories are way more complex than normal non-magical plots. At first I thought it was going to be easy, seeing how magic has no boundaries. As the days went by I discovered that because magic has no boundaries, it is really hard to work with it. But the experience was very rewarding.

From the beginning we found "the sound of Q3" in musical scores such as Enigma's Return to Innocence and the complete The Cross of Changes album and also in the music of Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance. Little by little new songs came to complete the scheme and very soon we found ourselves listening at what we called The Q3 Soundtrack.

That particular Return to Innocence song stuck on us. I remember one night Kristin telling me: "I'm listening to a song, a song that I imagine being played in the background during A+A's wedding ceremony! It's Return to Innocence!" I had always liked that song and I agreed with Kristin. That song was the heart of the story and as the plot was being developed more and more we found ourselves relating that song to the story more and more, until it became the main musical theme of the story.

We started to write Q3 on Friday, March 10, 2000 even if I had planned to start it until the Summer. From that moment on Q3 became a roller coaster of thrilling emotions and an endless source of headaches. We got really into the story, we were living it and we were putting our hearts in what we were doing. The plot was becoming more and more complex and we had to add new chapters, new situations, new challenges, new characters. It was a real maze and sometimes I thought we were getting lost but since we had our aim very well visualized from the beginning, whenever we got lost we only had to look up and see the final purpose of the story: that burning love.

During a short break from Q3, I decided to write Azul's point of view of Q2 in the form of her diary. It was a sweet experience that helped me to understand her even better and it was of invaluable help specially for the last chapters of Q3.

We spent many days in the deserts, on the sand and in the darkness of Karak. We laughed, we got excited, we cried, we felt depressed, but at the end all those emotions helped us to really feel our story, to get into it and develop that devotion to it. After a long, painful and yet wonderful journey, Q3 was finally completed on July 13, 2000, but there was still one thing left... something we still owed to A+A, what makes the real date of the end of Q3 Monday, August 14, 2000, which means we spent five months in this great adventure.

My final words about this is that it's not often you find such bonding and I feel blessed by it. The bonding between the characters, the bond I feel with them and most of all that bonding with my partners in this adventure. Q3 is a magical story, but not only in the sense of the magic of Karak or Azrak, but magical from a personal point of view. Magical because it allowed me to feel real magic in my heart and around me. Real magic in my partners and real magic in the world.

Q3 has been my ultimate challenge and even if many things are still to come, so far I consider this story my masterpiece and I know it's going to be hard, real hard to top it... or to overcome this Q3 feeling. This is my own personal milestone and I know that I won't forget those magical experiences ever!

And I hope you all find interesting this tribute to love that Q3 turned out to be. As for me, I only want to thank again to my dear and wonderful partners. Without them this story would have never existed: Kristin for all her help and inspiration, for her priceless collaboration and advice and for all those endless nights we spent planning this story. To Fede for all her support and all those analysis she always does of Ali and Azul, also for accepting the challenge to build a site for Q3. To Lisa also for all her support and the fact that she kept me laughing even in the worst moments, when I was so lost. Also for all the work she put into the design of the Q3 site. Also to Sedeara who allowed me to use her characters and, as always, edited and corrected the story. And finally to Gaia who also helped with the image design of the Q3 site. They all have always made me get deeper into the story and the characters and feeling them alive.

And finally I want to thank Ali and Azul, for they have been the real stars here. It's not often you find characters that get into your heart and sould in such a deep way, stealing your heart. Characters you really relate to and really love in a sincere, deep way. They are not characters anymore, for me they are real people and I think it's a wonderful thing when you feel that friendship and connection to them. Without A+A this story wouldn't be here today so they deserve all my recognition and my love and respect. Those guys are the greatest!

And to the readers of the story, I hope you can find and feel what we wanted to give to you all through this story. Without you this story wouldn't have any purpose, so thanks for being part of the magic of Q3.

When Fede told me about this section she wanted to call The Art of Q3 I thought it was a great idea but also a new challenge. But I have no doubts Fede is the best person to take such a challenge since she has been with me from the beginning, being part of the creative process of Q3 and getting deep into the story and its sources, meaning and symbolism. She has a great analytic mind and I know what we all are going to read in these pages will be the best approach anyone could do to the world of Q3 and its legacy.

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