🎭 you and Tibarn + Beauty and the Beast? owo
*cracks fingers*
under a cut again, small note: the only other named character besides t/ibarn and i is Oliver
this has a bit of the original fairy tale thrown into it, with a few twists here and there.
-again, the merchant father and siblings are unnamed. plucky is the youngest of them all, and the fairest. the eldest sister, however, is the one with a black heart. the kingdom they lived still bore a hatred towards the laguz. though plucky and her father did not follow this, plucky, as a child, was told that the laguz would literally eat humans alive (which is obviously a lie)
-initially, the family was wealthy, until the father’s ship was raided by laguz, rendering them dirt-poor. still, plucky lived these days, her kindness unfaltering (her sisters have tried many a time to break it, but to no avail.) and optimism going strong. in this time, plucky worked as a small time florist.
-one day the father receives a letter, the letter saying that he needs to attend a meeting in another town. on his way there, however, a terrible storm hits and he ends up getting lost, taking shelter at a seemingly-decrepit castle...at least, that’s what it looked like on the outside. the castle’s interior was surprisingly well-maintained.
-later on the father finds a lovely rose bush, comparing the beauty to that of plucky’s soft disposition. however he is suddenly attacked by a bird-person (think the Rito tribe from z/elda), who turns out to be tibs himself. he (the bird beast) angrily asks why the father is picking a rose, and the father replies with the fact that he wanted to get one for his youngest daughter.
-this makes tibs strike up a deal with him: he’ll let the father keep the rose, provided he (father) come back with plucky. the father was going to object, but this meant that he’d pick a fight he knew he can’t win, so he agrees without any objection. when the father returned home, he gifted plucky the rose but immediately made a return trip, with plucky tagging along (unaware of the deal between her father and t/ibarn).
-upon finding out the truth, plucky became horrified. she wanted to turn back, but it was too late, her father had tearfully left her behind. afraid, plucky tried to hide from t/ibarn (she’s short enough to hide inside a closet), but this didn’t work. eventually, plucky ended up staying anyway, initially out of fear that t/ibarn will kill her, due to the hatred between humans and laguz.
-in the following months, they grew closer to each other, knowing bits and bits of info about one another. one day though, one of tibs’s servants give her a riddle: ‘sometimes, the exterior of a box lies. you have to look inside to find the truth’. it bothered plucky, but nonetheless, she continued on with her days, and yeah, she ends up falling for t/ibarn in secret.
-soon after, Duke Tanas (aka Oliver) visits the father, because they’re friends, but notices plucky missing. the eldest sister, as wicked as she is, misleads him by saying that Plucky has been kidnapped by a beast, enraging the duke. he departs for the castle with his top guard, the eldest sister hoping that plucky dies too.
-when Duke Tanas and the guard reached the castle, t/ibarn appears with plucky and demanded to know what they wanted. oliver claims that he’s ‘rescuing’ plucky from the ‘sub-human’ near her. big mistake on his part for saying ‘sub-human’, as hearing this made t/ibarn attack him in anger. the guard retaliated, by aiming for plucky, but...t/ibarn ends up taking the hit.
-plucky had to explain the entire story to Duke Tanas, and, even if he hated the laguz, Oliver agreed to leave the two alone (a thought he had in the backburner during this was to have the eldest sister arrested for a twisted lie). she then rushes over to tibs, concerned that he’s close to death, and professes her love to him. this is what the servant’s riddle meant: it turned out tibs was cursed, and when plucky confessed, it broke said curse, turning him back into his human form. and then they lived happily ever after.
(i didn’t want to make this overly long lol, hope you enjoy it!)
