Week 2 Topics: Continuing my previous storybook

So I'm pretty sure that I want this storybook to be a continuation of my previous storybook about a time travelling alien: Constellation Stories: Facts or Myths? In this storybook I have a time travelling alien who likes to experience the world by living in the sidelines of good constellation stories (or in this case, Indian epics). She meets a man and tells him all about some of her past lives and they fall in love and live happily ever after. In this storybook, I'd like to have her telling him more stories, you know, they're just walking along one day and he says "Tell me a story," to which she replies, "What kind of story would you like to hear this time?" Maybe they're on a vacation to India or something, or maybe that's where they live as the location of the story was never revealed in the last storybook, so he wants to hear about Indian epics. I'm not sure what kind of Indian epics I want her to tell him though, or how I'm going to work her into the sidelines of these stories, but whichever way I decide to go, he'll say something like "Oh I don't know, tell me stories like ours, about great loves in history," or maybe it will start out with a love story and morph into something different if I don't want to do it all about love stories.

image information: screenshot of my other storybook's title page taken 1/25/15

So the topics I am considering for this storybook are Love Stories, Animal Characters (in the last storybook, my character was a mermaid type so it wouldn't be unusual for her to assume the shape of a non-human), Karma, and Geography Stories (especially if I go with they're travelling around India when he asks for a story).

For love stories, the only one I know so far of course is that of Rama and Sita, which would definitely have to be included even though I'm not a fan of the ending. So further research would include finding more love stories to write about. On the course website about love story storybooks, there are several names mentioned including two other couples that I recognized from my reading thus far: Keikeyi and Dasaratha and Mandodari and Ravana. I haven't read these stories yet, so I don't know if they will catch my interest and go with the flow. I might also not want to do just love stories, I might start with the story of Rama and Sita and let it morph into another story about how Rama wasn't always right (killing the monkey king who had done nothing to him), or maybe even some of the other incarnations of Vishnu. At this point I'm not really sure but it certainly fascinates me.

For Animal Characters, she could be a monkey in the monkey kingdom and be watching as things unfold there, from Sugreeva's story all the way up to what happens with Rama and even thereafter if I can find stories from after the assassination. Or she could be a squirrel who just follows Rama around out of curiosity and tells about everything that happened to him, including my other story from Thataka's point of view. Maybe that's where the squirrel first encountered him, she'd been observing Thataka's misfortunes for some time and then decided to follow Rama around after he killed her?  There are many other animals she could be, she may be an animal even if all of the stories are about Rama, for example, or she may be an animal that is deeply embedded in the story, though that one would be a little tough to explain as she tries very hard not to get involved in the world's goings on.

For Karma, I'm not sure how I would insert her into the stories yet, perhaps she'd be an animal in one and a more vital character in another, as she was in the stories of her last storybook. All I know is that I would tell stories that, like her last storybook, illustrated how getting involved was bad for other aliens or maybe how not getting involved was bad (since now she believes that she should be living life to its fullest consequences be damned). I'm not sure which direction I'd go with this but it would require some research about the different stories and how they tied into the idea of actions and re-actions. 

For geography stories, I'd start the storybook right where I left the old one off, with them just leaving the cave in which they'd taken refuge from the storm. For this, I'd need to do some research on hilly or mountainous parts of India (if there are any, I have no idea) and rainy parts of India, then follow them on a journey around India, since he is showing her how to live he has to show her where he lives and has lived, etc. All the while, she is seeing the land through eyes that have seen it all before in the very very distant past and telling him all about what's different and what happened there to cause that particular feature (such as the story of the river Ganga's origin that we read about in the Ramayana). 

So far, I have no idea which of these appeals to me the most, so if you've read my other storybook (and if you haven't you definitely should!) and have a favorite from above please comment and tell me why that one appeals to you. Thanks!

EDIT: I've just thought of another great possibility by reading through other storybooks: she could be telling these stories to her and her true human love's kids as bedtime stories! But I don't want it to seem like I'm just stealing someone else's idea, so let me know if that's not okay!