DISCLAIMER (spoiler warning): There will be a reference to the plot of Mr. Queen, which is basically just an AMAZING historical kdrama about a Korean chef playboy that accidentally goes back in time and possesses the soul of Queen Cheorin and there's a really awesome romance between him and the king.....BUT THEY COMPLETELY RUINED THE ENDING BY THROWING THE MAIN CHARACTER BACK TO HIS ORIGINAL BODY IN THE LAST EPISODE AND PAIRING THE MALE LEAD WITH A FEMALE CHARACTER WE BARELY EVEN KNOW. Talk about homophobic asf.

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There once was a peasant girl named Shadow, living in the small village of Legend.

Shadow, along with some other villagers, was OBSESSED with hearing stories from Whisper, the local storyteller, every fourth and fifth day of the week. Those days were the highlight of her boring, village life.

When she felt the thrill and joy from hearing those stories, it inspired her to become just as great of a storyteller as Whisper one day. So, she practiced and constantly wrote stories of her own in the world of her imagination, telling all of them to her little brothers and friends.

One day, Shadow decided to muster up her courage and earnestly pleaded with the storyteller to take her as his apprentice so she could learn to get better at storytelling like him. The storyteller was reluctant, but after much begging and promises of free desserts from the local bakery, he caved in and took her in.

The wooden house he lived in had 2 floors and Whisper let the girl stay in the guest bedroom, near the front door. Whisper on the other hand, usually stayed up all night in his writer's workshop on the 2nd floor, breathing life into his characters and eating the peaches of human dreams for inspiration.

Whisper was used to living on his own and felt a bit awkward living with another person, but eventually he warmed up to Shadow and the two became great friends and partners in storytelling. They began creating a new story together, naming it "Mr. Queen."

It was a story about the unexpected romance between a 21st century modern day chef playboy and a wise puppet king from a different dynasty. When they presented it to the public, it was an instant hit among the villagers. Everyone in the village talked about it every day. And soon, what used to be a small throng of villagers in the storytelling square of the town soon became a massive crowd as Whisper and Shadow happily told the weekly chapters of their story to all the village people. The story became so popular that even people from nobility came down to hear them. Queen Claire herself, personally sent her royal messenger to invite the two storytellers to the palace to hear more of their story.

All was well for the two storytellers and Shadow had never felt so happy and proud of herself. Whisper on the other hand, felt overwhelmed and just wanted to go back home to the village and be in his writer's workshop again. Because of how famous he and Shadow became; they were constantly being invited to the grand mansions of counts, marquesses and duchesses. It was quite exhausting, to say the least.

But little did they know, not everyone liked their story. A small group of homophobic and selfish villagers would usually shoot Whisper and Shadow disgusted looks and cold sneers on the streets and would always complain to anyone that would listen about how it was gross for two guys to love each other and "not realistic." Arnold, a farmer, was the ringleader while his friend Frederick, was his other companion.

They weren't very popular.

Needless to say, when the finale of their story started to come around, the homophobic villagers decided to take action. They went deep inside the forest to seek the Clever Witch and traded their most precious item and memory with her in order to control the story's plot to their favor.

"Drop a pinch of this bell powder inside that storyteller's drink every 3 days and the moment it gets in their mouth, you will be able to make them do whatever you wish to your command," the Witch told them. "But be careful, should you ever forget to do this routine, it will break the spell."

"But how will us poor villagers be able to drug their drink when they're all the way in the Capital?" Arnold asked.

"Do not fret," the Clever Witch smiled with cold, amused eyes. "I have an idea."

Meanwhile, as their fame grew, Shadow and Whisper seemed to grow further and further apart the longer they stayed in the Capital to tell their story. As the nobles constantly invited them to their mansions for a storytelling session and the royal family kept inviting them to the palace, Shadow became spoiled from all the fame and started to lose interest in working on their story together. All Whisper wanted to do was go back home to get some peace from the publicity but Shadow liked the popularity and wanted to enjoy it a bit more, urging a reluctant Whisper to stay longer with her.

"But we need to work on our finale of the story for next week. I feel too homesick here to continue writing and if we were in my writer's workshop, I would feel much more comfortable," Whisper insisted.

"What about the invitation to Duchess Sophia's love salon? She said that if we come, they'll serve us melted chocolate koala bears! And I heard that a famous composer is coming to play the most beautiful melod-"

""Have you forgotten the real reason why we came here?" Whisper asked frustratedly. "We came here in order to plan and tell a story, not to get distracted by parties."

"Oh, come on. What's so bad about staying here for a couple of days longer? We could go to so many magnificent balls and fancy banquets with all these invitations!"

Whisper looked at her sadly and sighed. "And yet accomplish so little."

In the end, Whisper decided to head back home and work on the finale of the story on his own. Shadow on the other hand, decided to stay in the Capital for as long as she could.

Once he was back home, Whisper was able to focus and finished writing the final draft of the finale within five days, not stepping out of the house once. When he finally finished the draft, he jumped up in the air with joy and immediately went outside to send a messenger bird to Shadow, planning to notify her of the good news so they could start telling the story to the village people tomorrow afternoon. Unfortunately, someone was waiting for him.

A little boy with bright yellow eyes stood before his house, a round flower teacup in his hand. Whisper took note that he had never seen this boy in the village before.

"Hello, would you like a cup of tea, Mister?" the boy asked.

Whisper smiled politely. "No, thank you, but that's very kind of you."

The boy immediately transformed into the Clever witch's real form and smirked at Whisper, instantly shoving the cup of tea into the storyteller's mouth.

"You should've accepted it when I asked politely," was the last thing Whisper heard before he felt sleep overcome his senses and his eyes closed.

Somewhere else across the land, Shadow was having the time of her life, feasting on all the yummy cakes and sweets from the royal banquet table in the palace. When a mysterious noble woman handed her a cup of tea with a weird looking pink circle in it, saying it was delicious and good for health, of course Shadow drank the tea, health was important after all.

Unfortunately, she must've eaten way too much, because half an hour later, she immediately barfed everything out, including the tea. Unfortunately, at the moment she hurled everything out from her mouth.......it all landed on Countess Camilla's gown while they were dancing, who was NOT pleased from the looks of her shocked expression of utter disgust. Whoops.

"Um......sorry?" Shadow apologized awkwardly.

"I have never been this insulted!" the countess huffed and puffed but couldn't blow the palace down. Instead, she stomped off like Sharpay from high school musical, but much louder and dramatically.

Later at nighttime, Shadow waited by the window, checking outside to see if Whisper's messenger bird was in sight. He did say that he would send her the final draft of the story to her the day before they had to tell it to the villagers. So why was he taking so long?

After a couple hours, she eventually decided to retire to bed, hoping that maybe the messenger bird would come in the morning.

However, even in the morning, no messenger bird came and Shadow started to get worried.

"That's strange," she muttered. "He always finishes his deadlines. It's not like him to not send anything."

With that, she put on her warmest cloak and set off to go back to the village to see what was going on with Whisper. Unfortunately, when she was taking a shortcut in the woods towards the village, she accidentally hit her head too hard against a tree branch and fell unconscious until days later when the storytelling session of the fourth and fifth day was already over. When she woke up, it was nighttime when all the owls were hooting and the trees became scarier in the dark. 

"Oh no! It's already nighttime?" Shadow realized in panic. "Don't tell me I missed the storytelling session!"

She raced back to the village and managed to reach the nearby entrance quickly. She walked back home, went inside and tried to find Whisper.

"Whisper?" She called. "Whisper, where are you?"

Shadow went upstairs to Whisper's writing workshop, hoping to see him there, but saw nothing but a bunch of scattered papers on his desk. She grabbed one of the papers and read it aloud.

"And when the gun shot the king and the queen in the chest, it made the chef return back to his original body, never to come back. The original Queen's soul came back to her body and she rescued the king, who was thankfully still alive. With that, they defeated the rebels, restored peace in the kingdom again and they both lived happily ever-WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!!!"

Shadow was completely baffled by the sudden turn of events in the story. She knew that Whisper usually added a plot twist near the end of his stories, but they were never this shitty. Plus, this ending made no sense! Why would the king live happily with the original Queen when he never even loved her? And wouldn't he sense that the Queen he truly loved was gone because of how well he knew her? Did Whisper truly write this crappy ending?

"Whisper...." Shadow growled as she crunched up the paper in her white, clenched fist. "You and I are going to have a looooong talk once I find you."

She marched out of the house and walked all over the village, looking everywhere she could to find Whisper but to no avail.

"Seriously, where the hell is he?" Shadow grumbled. "Is he playing hide and seek with me or what?"

Finally, she went to the last place in the village, the wheatfields. The farmers usually worked there in the daytime and even though Shadow doubted that Whisper would be in a place where the homophobic villagers were, this was her last hope. But when she reached there, she saw something much stranger.

Instead of being in their beds, all the villagers were tirelessly plowing the fields with pitchforks with a blank look in their eyes, as if they had no meaning to their life but working. Arnold and Frederick were sitting on regal armchairs in the center of it all, wearing the fanciest of clothes while relaxing with rich teacups in their hands. The rest of the homophobic villagers stood behind them, as if they were personal bodyguards. Shadow took notice that a long whip lay against Arnold's chair.

"Faster, you peasants!" Arnold commanded, lashing his whip against one of the villagers.

"But aren't we peasants too...?"

"Shut up, Frederick."

Shadow squinted her eyes in disbelief. Why was everyone working on the field while Arnold and Frederick were acting like kings? Did they all go insane? Or maybe she was dreaming...

"Hey! You over there! Get back to work!"

Arnold took notice of the girl and started stomping over like a giant. "Do you not hear me- Wait, you look familiar...aren't you that storyteller girl that helps that other storyteller with his filthy stories?"

Shadow frowned. "And you must be that one farmer no one likes."

Arnold shook his finger angrily at her. "YOU ARE THAT GIRL! COME WITH ME!"

Before Shadow could say "no thanks," he grabbed her arm and tried to make her come back to the field with him until a sudden launch of several stones flew in the air and attacked the homophobic villager in the head.

"OW! WHO JUST THREW THAT STONE AT M- Wait, where did that girl go?!"

Amongst the chaos of the stone throwing, a girl with long white hair grabbed Shadow's arm and they both ran away. Shadow turned to see who had taken her away and was surprised to see Yulia, the herb collector, with her.

"Yulia?! What are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass, obviously."

They both took off to the woods and ran as deep as they could to escape the homophobic villagers. When they stopped, Shadow immediately asked Yulia what the hell was going on.

"A lot had happened while you were gone," Yulia said tiredly. "Everyone in the village is under control of Arnold and his cronies."

"What? How?" Shadow was completely confused.

"It started with Whisper. When I was returning home from herb collecting in the woods last week, I saw a witch force your master to drink a cup of tea. The moment he finished drinking it, his eyes became blank as if he had no soul and he did whatever the witch wanted him to do!"

"What did she make him do?" Shadow asked anxiously.

"Nothing much, really. Just made him go back home and change the entire ending of the story to what Arnold and Frederick would want."

"Those fuckers!" Shadow growled. "I knew there was something wrong with that ending!"

"Yeah, everyone was completely enraged when Whisper told them the story's ending the next day. A lot of people demanded a retelling of the ending. Only Arnold and his cronies were satisfied.

"No surprise there," Shadow commented grumpily.

"But Whisper seemed to be in a trance and paid them no mind, just walked off the stage and went back home. The next day, Arnold and Frederick started selling free delicious tea to everyone in the village and the next thing you know, all the villagers stopped complaining about the ending and praised it instead! Then, Arnold and Frederick ordered them to do their work for them in the fields and they just went off and did it like they were his servants.

The only reason I escaped was because I noticed what that tea was doing to everyone faster than everyone else and only pretended to drink it. While Arnold and Frederick were making everyone line up and head to the fields to do their work, I managed to sneak off to the woods when they weren't looking."

"And Whisper? Where is he?" Shadow asked nervously.

Yulia hesitated. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes."

"He's tied up to the fountain in the center of the village. Arnold got some of the villagers to tie him up there and hit him with thirty lashes with his whip because 'filthy homos who write filthy stories deserved to be punished,' or so he said."

Shadow gasped in horror and had to hold on to a tree to keep her balance.

"I'm truly sorry about Whisper," Yulia patted Shadow's back softly. "But you should escape while you have the chance."

Shadow lifted her head back up and took a deep breath. "You go on your own. I'm going back."

"What?! You should be trying to escape!"

"No. I'm the one that abandoned him when he needed me, so it's up to me to get him back."

"Even if you do get him back, the Witch could easily get him to return under her control!"

Shadow shrugged weakly. "Still, I can't just leave him there. He's my family."

Yulia sighed tiredly and threw her hands in the air. "Fine, if you're that determined, then... I'll help you out, I suppose."

"You would do that?" Shadow said, touched by her unexpected kindness.

"For a price. I need you to distract everyone in the wheatfields while I sneak into the local kitchen."

"Why do you need to do that?" Shadow asked.

Yulia quickly explained to Shadow that while she was spying on Arnold and Frederick from the woods, she noticed something. Every 3 days, Arnold and Frederick would go the local kitchen and make new batches of tea for the villagers and would drop a pink powder in the tea before handing them off.

"My guess is that pink powder is the key to controlling all the villagers," Yulia speculated. "If I could just sneak into the local kitchen, I'll steal all their powder supply with my cart so they won't be able to control the villagers anymore."

"Yeah, but the local kitchen is right next to the wheat fields, how are you going to-" Shadow groaned. "Oh, so you want me to be the bait, huh?"

"I just need you to lead them all away from the wheatfields. That way, it's easier for me to get in."

"But what if they capture me? I'm not exactly the fastest runner, you know."

Yulia placed her hand on Shadow's shoulder, looking her straight in the eye. "Better run as fast as you can, then."

Shadow cringed and seemed to be in deep thought for a moment. Finally, she looked up at Yulia again and spoke with great reluctance. "I'll only do this on one condition."

"What is it?"

"We rescue my master first."

Yulia sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "Fine, but don't take too long. They have my father captured too. That was mainly the reason why I was staying in the woods in the first place."

And with that, they both set off towards the direction of the village. Thankfully, Shadow and Yulia knew the woods like the back of their own hands and was able to navigate well without getting lost. Once they reached the entrance, they tiptoed all the way to the center within. There, they found Whisper, tied up, bloodied and unconscious.

"Whisper!" Shadow immediately ran to the fountain and untied him.

"How could they do this to you?" Shadow whispered tearfully as she saw all the scars on Whisper's bloodied back. She tried to wake him up by calling his name repeatedly and shaking his shoulders, but it was no use.

"Move out of the way," Yulia pushed Shadow aside and spoke as loud as she could in his ear. 'WHISPER. WAKE THE F*CK UP."

That seemed to do the trick. Whisper's eyes instantly flew open and he looked around, completely disheveled and confused, as if he had returned to reality from the dreamworld.

"What-what-Where am I-and why does my back hurt so much?"

Shadow sighed in relief and hugged him. "Whisper!"

"Wait," Yulia squinted her eyes at him. "Your eyes aren't blank."

Whisper was puzzled. "Should they be?"

"No," Yulia said slowly. "Have you drank any tea the past few days?"

"I don't think so," Whisper cleared his throat and winced. "Actually, I don't think I drank anything for the past few days. Do you have any water?"

Yulia smiled and turned to Shadow. "Looks like your master's back to normal now."

Shadow broke into a large, relieved smile and helped Whisper up. "That's great. Come on, Whisper. We need to leave."

"Leave?" Whisper asked, confused. "Why? Our home is here."

Yulia sighed impatiently and dragged him off the fountain. "No time for questions! Just go~!"

A few moments later, after they hid Whisper in a tiny cabin near the village's entrance, they hid behind the corner of one of the villager's houses, right in front of the wheatfields.

"Are you ready?" Yulia asked.

"No."

"Well, too bad. We're doing this on the count of three, got it?"

Shadow took a deep breath and exhaled. "Got it."

"3...2....1!"

Shadow ran to the front of the wheatfields and hollered at the top of her lungs, "HEY IDIOTS, COME AND GET ME!"

"It's that girl!" Arnold stood up from his chair in a fury and gestured to the villagers. "Get her!"

Not missing a second, she turned away and ran as fast as she could.

Meanwhile, Yulia opened the door to the local kitchen, which was easy to unlock with her hairpin. Dragging her wooden cart inside, she quickly searched the entire room for the powder supply, every cabinet, shelf, and corner. Finally, she found it at the very last section of the cabinets and saw dozens of powder bags piled on top of each other. She glanced at the small size of her wooden cart and cursed. How was she going to carry all of them by the time Shadow distracted them? There were just too many of them. And now that she thought about it, even if she stole all the powder supply now, there was no guarantee that it would free the villagers from Arnold and Frederick's control. If only there was a way to get Arnold and Frederick to tell them how to break the spell....

Yulia looked around the room, spotted a pile of buckets lying in the corner, and remembered that there was a well across the local kitchen. A wicked grin slowly formed on Yulia's face.

Maybe there was a way....

Shadow was starting to run out of breath. It had already been about fifteen minutes but her entire body was screaming "REST!" But with the steady crowd of villagers, Arnold and his cronies right on her tail, there was no way she could take a break.

"When will they stop following me?" Shadow grumbled as she kept running for her life.

"FASTER, YOU MORONS, FASTER!"

Even though she couldn't see them, Shadow could hear Arnold hitting some of the villagers with his whip from time to time.

"God, what an asshole," She gritted her teeth. "Isn't it already enough that he has all of them under his control?"

She ran and ran, past the houses, the market, the bakery, the church, until she reached the entrance of the village. By then, her face felt like it was on fire and her shirt was drenched in her sweat, but she forced herself to keep moving, no matter how tired she felt. Unfortunately, she couldn't move as fast as she did earlier because of how tired her legs were, so the villagers easily grabbed her and held her arms hostage as Arnold walked closer to her.

"Not feeling so tough now, do you, little girl?" Arnold smirked, swaying his whip eagerly to the side.

"Technically, my birthday's coming up soon, so I'm practically almost a teena-"

"I don't care how old you are stupid girl!" Arnold snapped impatiently. "Now, hold her still so I can give her a proper beating."

Shadow did not like the sound of that at all. Come on Yulia, Shadow thought desperately. Hurry up!

"How does thirty lashes sound like to you?" Arnold chuckled in delight.

SPLASH!

Suddenly, a huge gush of water spilled all over the farmer's head, dripping all over his face and while Arnold opened his mouth in disbelief, some of the water droplets...got into his mouth.

"Surprise, motherfucker."

Standing right behind the drenched farmer was a smirking Yulia, who was carrying a cart FILLED with buckets of water, which were all largely stained with pink liquid in them.

"What is that...?"

Yulia winked. "You'll see."

She then proceeded to dump all the buckets of water at the rest of Arnold's cronies. They tried to grab her of course, but not before getting splashed by a tremendous amount of freezing water first. Shadow stared in amazement as she saw the eyes of Arnold and the rest of his cronies become blank, as their arms fell to their sides and became still.

Yulia gasped and clapped her hands. "I can't believe that actually worked."

She grinned, taking Shadow's hands in hers, and jumped up and down in excitement. "We did it, Shadow! WE ACTUALLY DID IT!"

With a shaky breath, Shadow laughed weakly. "Yeah, we really did."

To make a long story short, it took about 3 days before the village people came back to normal. Of course, that also meant Arnold and his cronies, but by then, Shadow and Yulia tied them up to the village's fountain, making it impossible for them to escape or think of getting more powder.

It turned out that the reason why they had so much powder supply in the first place was because they easily got the villagers to give up their most precious items when their minds were controlled, so it wasn't hard for them to get more powder from the Clever witch.

The villagers were obviously not happy with that and wanted to get their items back, but no one was brave enough to face the witch, so they chose to move on with their lives instead.

Arnold and his cronies were immediately sent to the village's prison for a full life sentence for their crimes. The Elders personally made sure their cell was filled with cockroaches and nightmare demons for a lifetime. Some say you can still hear a faint sound of terrified screaming from the village's prison at nighttime.

As for Yulia and Shadow, they were hailed as the heroes of the village for rescuing them, especially Yulia, who's herb collecting business took off and became even more successful. She regularly got flowers and free food from the villagers as a "thank you gift" for saving them.

Whisper's wounds were pretty serious, but with the help of good healers, he quickly got better within a matter of weeks.

Once she got the chance, Shadow properly apologized to Whisper in private.

"I'm so sorry Whisper," Shadow said regretfully, "I never should've left you to do all the work on your own. I should've been a better apprentice for you. I was an idiot."

"Yeah, you were," Whisper said brutally, but smiled at her afterwards. "But I'm glad you're back to normal now."

"That's what I should be saying," Shadow laughed.

The two worked on their story again, reunited their beloved characters in the modern world, and gave them the true, happy ending they deserved. Once they told everyone the real ending, the villagers were all satisfied and stopped demanding retellings of it.

And so, they kept making the best of creative stories, enchanting and inspiring their audience with their tales and became known as the greatest storytellers in all of the land. And they all lived happily ever after........

THE END