#franjay

Francis and Molly are the illegitimate children of a very bad prince; possibly the same mother, possibly Molly’s mother took in Francis, but they have the same father. the Prince staged a coupe to dethrone his father-the aging King-by killing his family making him the only heir. even the servants were caught in this; no witnesses, no one to challenge him. Francis and Molly fought back though; one of them killed their father. and as he laid their dying, the court Sorcerer/ess burst in and saw the carnage, and blamed the bastard nobles.

so the two were cursed to take the forms of the house that they had slaughtered; the bull and the lion. the only way for the curse to be broken is for one of them to legitimize their claim to the throne, and restore the bloodline to the land.

so for years, the local village gets this legend about the deepest darkest parts of the forest being home to a wild beast of evil. most liken it to a werewolf-actually it’s Molly, the lioness. no one goes into the deep woods, and as long as there’s an offering of a goat or whatnot left at the fork in the road every moon, they seem to be left alone.

anyways, Sanjay is a visiting prince from a far off land (lol cliche but whatevs) and is passing through the local village. of course the town pulls out all the stops for him, because oo prettys. he hits it off with a peasant girl (Chloe or Tootie), who sorta becomes his guide around town, letting him feel like a normal person..actually, he’s pulled a pauper disguise, and acts like one of the guards/attendants at first, because actually the villagers think it’s a Princess that’s coming through, and is hidden from view (maybe the closest Prince needs a queen, so that’s why they think that?). he gets a tad enamored with the local big game hunter/ex-commander Ben, until Ben starts talking about just marrying the Princess for money and blahblahblah.

moving forward, Ben takes Sanjay out hunting, thinking it’d give him some street cred with the Princess, if Sanjay starts talking about his epic skills. they go too deep into the woods, and Molly attacks them. Sanjay ends up getting lost and running into the ruins of the castle, where he runs into the beast, aka the bull, Francis. 

blahblahblah, typical BatB stuffs...wolves, Francis lets it slip that “she usually keeps them away” meaning Molly. but they start to bond, start to fall for each other

but while that’s happening, Molly was hurt by Ben. she winds up in...yeah we’ll say Chloe’s farmhouse, because Chloe sorta knows about them, so she has to help nurse her back to health, but that’s when Molly learns about the “Princess”, and thinks this is her one shot to turn human again. and how does she learn about that; because when Ben returned from his hunt sans-Sanjay, the royal party starts to panic because their noble is missing (he didn’t tell anyone where he was going, bad boy). so Ben starts to plan a search party, and he goes to Chloe since she was seen hanging around the royal tent so much, thus Molly over heard and escaped to go home to tell Francis.

but when the Lion returns to find the Bull shacking up with someone strange, well she is not happy. they fight, she accuses Sanjay of being the missing noble, which surprised Francis of course. more arguing, Molly being all “we’re damned forever now! this was our one shot and you ruined it!” and Sanjay ends up running away, but Francis goes after him...and they get caught by the search party.

so yeah, Ben lording that they caught the beast of the woods, yadda yadda, yadda. Sanjay tries to demand they let him go, but not listening to him; when he reveals he’s the noble, well Ben isn’t happy about that. accusations of bestiality since Sanjay clearly has feelings for the beast; his people tell him that they should just move on, lest a true scandal erupt. he runs away again though, back to the castle ruins, where he finds Molly and Chloe (who arrived after they ran off because he came to warn Molly and Francis about the search party) and he tells them what’s happening to Francis, so they devise a plan to go save him.

so that night, when they plan to burn the hellbeast at the stake i guess, the other beast attacks and people freak out. Ben of course has to be macho hero trying to defeat, but he ain’t gonna make it...they get Francis free, but they can’t fight the whole village, but a broken beast, a beast, a girl, and a boy...so they run back to the woods as far as they can, because Francis starts to collapse. Ben finds them; Molly is cut off from them due to another path taken, trying to draw teh mob from her brother. Sanjay fights him, ends up defeating him (kill? knockout? idk...) but Francis is almost gone. Sanjay professes his love, says some prayer/marriage vow in his native tongue? and...magic happens.

because in his heart, the Prince married his Bull. so the illegitimate prince, has become a real prince, his sister a princess. the ruined castle rebuilds, and the villagers are all “uh...whoa...”