✦ Strange Magic — A Prince’s Tale ✦

Gender-swapped AU | Based on the original movie

The enchanted world was divided between two kingdoms: the beautiful Fairy Kingdom, where flowers bloomed beneath eternal sunshine, and the Dark Forest, a shadowy realm inhabited by goblins, strange creatures, and beings who preferred the comfort of darkness.

The two kingdoms had little in common, and their uneasy separation had lasted for generations.

In the Fairy Kingdom lived two royal princes.

The elder prince had grown increasingly disillusioned with love after discovering that his betrothed had been unfaithful. Abandoning the marriage, he swore never to let romance make a fool of him again.

His younger brother, Dawn’s male counterpart, Prince Dorian, was quite the opposite.

Dorian was a hopeless romantic, cheerful and affectionate, with an imagination full of grand love stories. He believed wholeheartedly that somewhere in the world, someone was destined to love him. Unfortunately, his heart already belonged to someone who regarded him as little more than a childhood friend.

Sunny, a young elf who had grown up alongside the princes, had loved Dorian for years. He was devoted, earnest, and determined to win the prince’s affection, even though he had never found the courage to confess his feelings.

When Dorian became enamored with the idea of finding true love, Sunny decided he would do whatever it took to make that dream come true.

Unfortunately, his desperation led him toward the one place he had been warned never to venture: the Dark Forest.

There, the Bog King ruled over his peculiar kingdom with an iron will and an almost pathological hatred of love. He believed love brought nothing but misery, foolishness, and trouble. He had no intention of allowing its influence to spread into his territory.

His solution was simple: destroy the magical flowers used to create a powerful love potion.

But magic rarely cooperated with anyone’s plans.

When Sunny attempted to obtain the potion for Dorian, his actions set off a chain of events that brought the young prince into the Bog King’s world. The consequences threatened to complicate relations between the two kingdoms, and the Bog King found himself dealing with a situation far more irritating than he had anticipated.

He had goblins to manage, a kingdom to protect, and a magical disaster to contain.

The last thing he needed was a fairy prince wandering into his forest.

Especially one who seemed determined to involve himself in everything.

As the events unfolded, the Bog King encountered the elder prince, whose sharp tongue, stubborn independence, and refusal to be impressed by royal authority made him an unexpectedly formidable opponent. Their interactions were frequently argumentative, with neither willing to surrender the last word.

Yet beneath the hostility, something unexpected began to develop.

The Bog King had spent years convinced that love was a weakness. The elder prince, meanwhile, had sworn never to trust it again. Both had reasons to distrust affection, and neither was particularly eager to admit that their opinions might be changing.

Meanwhile, Dorian continued searching for the love he had always dreamed of, slowly learning that genuine affection could not be manufactured by magic or obtained simply by wishing hard enough.

Sunny, too, would have to confront the truth about his feelings and decide whether loving someone meant possessing their heart or allowing them the freedom to choose.

As the Fairy Kingdom and the Dark Forest became increasingly entangled in the chaos, the characters discovered that love was far more complicated than any potion could explain.

And the Bog King, who had once believed himself entirely immune to such foolishness, would find that the most troublesome thing in his kingdom was not the goblins, the fairies, or even the magic.

It was the possibility that his own heart might have other plans.