Just Lurking

To start, the original story I had planned took the perspective of Gilbert. Or at least, whoever’s soul from our world was brought into the Ikémen universe to become Prince Gilbert at birth. As to who he was before that, he couldn’t fully remember, as his memories seemed to rapidly slip from his mind while he acclimated into his new body.

But one of the memories he did have was a story that seemed to take place in a similar timeline to the one he’d been transported to. Well… the timing, yes, but wherever he was far darker… grimmer… than the interpretation of Beauty and the Beast he’d read.

As soon as he was able to hold a pencil, he’d find quiet spots away from watchful eyes (learning to slip away was a necessary lesson he’d taken up early on), and he began taking notes on the concepts he’d remembered from his past.

He’d like to say that he had only “practical” memories circling his mind. Really, he had been past the age of simple fairytales. And yet, with repetition in his darkest times in his new Obsidian home, he would retell the story he had once read. The story where a lovely Belle could save him from this nightmare.

He worked on his own fairytale, yet hoped it would help him come across that tale he had read before. His closest bet was Rhodolite, which he thought sounded familiar, but he couldn’t say for certain.

Thankfully, given his station in the world, he was able to visit, and he even ran into another boy around his age who was also strangely interested in fairytale romance novels. He was a rather… difficult… child to converse with, but Gilbert still found himself interested in searching the same books.

Cut to a bit later on: you have Prince Gilbert who is no longer living a life built for exploration, only survival. He had lost his closest brother in what he could only describe as a cruel, pointless death. He had remembered and written down long ago how 2 of the brothers in that old fairytale had died such deaths. As if to only further the other siblings’ stories… Gilbert swore he’d never write such wretchedly stupid endings for brothers.

Cut to even later on: Gilbert has lived a life he would only wish on his worst enemies. Thankfully, the majority of the worst had been decimated, leaving him room to revisit his written scribbles of a story he never forgot. He had recently heard of a Belle being chosen from his spies, and from a woman he had long suspected as being from the fairytale; he just wasn’t sure on the when. But now that he received word, he wanted to jot down the pieces that were missing… though, oddly enough, the amount of missing or changed pieces were staggering, as if already rewritten.

As Gilbert attempted to write past the present, however, he noticed the strange illness that had always plagued him started acting up more than ever before. As he set the pen down, he was able to catch his breath. He had noticed this pattern, though, and wondered if it wouldn’t be worth writing the future in person if interfering would kill him anyway.

As soon as he safely arrives in Rhodolite, he smiles at his success.

He meets the princes. All of them. Even the two who he could’ve sworn had originally died meaninglessly in the war. How one survived the fire, but not his sister… how one survived an immense attack without his twin… it seemed miraculous.

The beast of the story may have ordinarily been hard to find, if he hadn’t noticed the look of awe Belle gave him at the ball. The beast who had ended up being the difficult friend from childhood who had also been so invested in finding a romance book…

—-

Aaaand that’s what I have so far. I’d like to think Chev and Gil isekaid, in that order. Chev simply changed the story himself by living it, but Gil rewriting it and changing things caused his strange illness.

Oh, and I also think Clavis played a much bigger role in the original (aka before Chev isekaid). I think before Chev’s new soul, they were on equal footing, but since Chev was writing the second version he already knew everything that would happen/was older and wiser/etc etc.

Chev knowing what would happen would also explain why he and Gil feel they can’t actually kill each other, even if they “should”.

Bonus!:

Ring’s “accidentally lewd” meter is also correct 🫣: