Parker Valiant

Parker Valiant [he/him] is the son of Sir Percival, an iconic knight in the Arthurian Legends associated with retrieving the Holy Grail.

A new arrival to Ever After High, Parker had been homeschooled for his whole life by his mother, and had never ventured outside the Welsh forest in which he called home. Because of this, he's very excited about the prospect of destiny and looks up to his fellow Knights very highly.

Personality
enthusiastic

soft! sweet! loves people!

determined!

tries his best!

innocent naive and easily lead astray by people he trusts!

Appearance
Parker is a black youth, with deep brown skin and dark brown hair, which he often weaves flowers into. His eyes are a soft hazel.

He is tall and well-built, after years of tending to his mother’s forest home and farm, and being an adept gardener.

How does Parker come into this?

 * To distinguish between the Arthurian character Perceval and the Percival of the previous generation, I’ll use the ‘e’ spelling for the former and the ‘i’ spelling for the latter in this case.

The Sir Percival of the previous generation had initially resolved to follow an earlier variant of his tale, where he married his sweetheart, the Blanchefleur is his generation. He did so, and sired several kids - three sons and a daughter. In addition to that, he was granted kingship of Corbenic, after healing the Fisher King.

He hexpected happiness. He hexpected peace. But despite following what seemed like a more stable, happy path, Sir Percival felt like something was off. This was not the peace he wanted. Because of this, he had a bit of a religious revelation, and recalled the later legends - the ones people thought he would follow. In those legends, Sir Perceval maintained his virginity and went into monk-hood.

Despite having strayed from that path, Sir Percival wished to return to it. He sent his older two sons off to some academy to study knighthood, and his only daughter off to a convert or a nunnery. His youngest son, however, he left behind with his wife, with the desire that this son would be raised as the next Perceval.

His two elder sons went on to serve as knights. One was killed by the then-Lancelot, while he was defending the execution of the then-Guinevere, and the other perished in a war against the Romans. Neither of them attended Ever After High, studying in a specialised school for (more minor) Arthurian knights. Both of them died not long after their graduation.

Meanwhile, his daughter made her escape from the nunnery, running off to live with her uncle, a hermit. She briefly toyed with the idea of attending Ever After High, but wanted to get to her role as the next grail maiden (also known as Dindrane, in some legends), and applied as soon as possible for a position at the Castle of Maidens. She lives there now.

Percival stayed in the monastery all his following days, writing and recounting his past days of glory. He found peace with himself, even if he did have to lose his family.

As for his youngest son?

Well, that would be Parker.

"Hence, as the last hope of his family, his mother retired with him into a solitary region, where he was brought up in total ignorance of arms and chivalry."

- Bulfinch’s Mythology

Parker's mother realised exactly what happened when she was left alone with Parker. He was to be raised in the same way every Perceval before was raised. Alone, in the woods, by his single mother, clueless to chivalry and knightship, oblivious to what a sword or a horse was.

That was precisely what she did. It would be her only legacy to the man who she once loved.

Except, with the Storybook dissolved and fairytales still persisting, albeit earlier (as seen by Darling’s kiss and Daring’s curse), destiny pushes on.

Knights pass by the woods that Parker lives, and he mistakes them, as Percevals do, for angels. And they realise that they must take him, not to King Arthur, but to the land of Ever After.

"By my faith, I will go and become an angel with them."

Sir Percevals don’t generally attend Ever After High. The destiny itself is built on being utterly clueless and separate from anything knightly, and they are expected to be trained in all that is necessary by their mother, and rush into their destiny requirements only slightly prepared. Parker is an exception to this rule, and would not have been an exception had Raven not dissolved the Storybook’s power.

Opinions on Destiny
he loves it

wants it more than anything

slowly learning about the rest of his family and wants to honour them and their deaths and make it all worth it

he's very godly and strives to attain the same classic purity of perceval

Parallels

 * Parker was raised in the same way, with the same backstory as Sir Perceval was.

more tba

Trivia

 * Parker Valiant was a play on the name Perceval.
 * P-Val, if it weren’t obvious.
 * Parker is an Old English name meaning park keeper. A nod to his upbringing and his hobby of rangering.
 * Valiant is also an adjective frequently associated with knights.
 * The name on Parker’s birth certificate is Parker le Gallois, or “Parker the Welshman”. However, he uses the Valiant surname in the context of Ever After High.
 * Zena alternates between spelling Percival as “Percival” and “Perceval”. Although Percival is the most common anglicisation, both spellings are commonly used.

Quotes
TBA