✔️Pokemon: Beastly Hunter (Leaf x Gary) (leafgreenshipping)

Episode 21: Cursed

Leaf noticed that something was wrong the next day when Gary was leaving earlier and returning later. It was not that she wanted to know his every move. She just found that to be a bit odder than usual. Gary seemed to be more cautious as if he was watching his prey's movements.

Leaf didn't point anything out or talk about it. She felt that Gary would let her know if he wanted to let her know. She will not be nosy about it. But she had a feeling that something was going to happen. Maybe whatever she is feeling is already happening. To make herself feel better, she began to do deeper research about Gary's curse and what the rose and mirror have to do with anything. Obviously, the journal that she had is not helpful at all.

After a few days of nonstop research and digging through the library, Leaf was finally able to find some clues, more specifically, clues about the history of the royal family.

The history went like this. The royal family used to be one, where there was a king, a queen, and their children. The eldest and most able child will take the throne while the rest of the siblings get other titles. The other siblings' job is to support the crown prince or princess. The crown is only passed through the crown's family, which means that the one who inherited the crown must be the child of the king. If the king didn't have a child, they must adopt a child from their own family or an orphan, but never a noble. But, if the king passes first and the heir is still young, the queen takes over until the heir is old enough to take the throne. It was a pretty straight, basic, and complex method to settle the crown, but it worked for centuries.

However, a feud happened a few decades ago regarding the royal family and the choosing of the crown. The chosen crown princess was assassinated and they needed to choose a new heir. Assassination is not uncommon in the royal family. Usually, the next talented sibling will become the next heir. That was where all the problems started.

Their many children were still available, either from the queen or from the concubines. However, the only outstanding children at the time were the children from a concubine. The queen's child is just a bit younger. One of the children was crowned as the new crown prince, and the situation is over.

Or, it was thought to be on the outside.

The queen felt that the crown was robbed from her child. The deceased crown princess is her eldest daughter. She felt that the concubine had assassinated her child in order for her sons to become the next crown. The feud between the two began as they tried to protect their own children and get the crown.

No one knew exactly what happened in the feud. All they knew is that there were a lot of deaths involved. It calmed down after a few years until Gary's grandparent's time when a strange curse and condition began to appear in the royal family, especially the line to the throne. They were cursed to become slowly insane and slowly become a beast until they eventually die, either killed or self-destructed.

As Leaf continued reading, she was surprised as to how the cursed family is still in power. "Wouldn't the people feel unsafe?" she thought as she unconsciously touched her head.

It turns out that the rule for the crowning process is keeping the cursed family in power. Only when all the descendants of the royal family and the royal family were dead were the extended royal family about to gain control. Otherwise, they would only be a substitute.

Leaf thought for a while before she closed the history book and put it aside with a book on ancient magic and a fairytale book. She leaned back on the chair as she sorted through her thoughts. While it was some interesting information, the symptoms of the royal family were similar to Gary's.

"Would he be another result of the experiment?" Leaf wondered. Unconsciously, she touched her head again.

After reading about the history of the royal family, Leaf detested the people who started the curse. The history brought out all of her dark past. While she was locked away in the village, she heard things about the royal family and the experiment. The royal family uses the poor, their servants, and other vulnerable people to experiment on the curse, to find the perfect one. Red was also one of the unfortunate, but she was fortunate that she escaped when the experiment was at its first stage.

She thought that everything would be fine until Leaf was born with the curse also in her blood. Except it was not a curse but a mutation. She was a child with beast-like qualities. Her strength, high sensitivity to smell, sight, and noise, sharp eyes, as well as her sharp teeth, are easier to hide. But her wolfish-like ears were harder to hide, which is why she always has her hair covering them and her cloak as a layer of extra protection.

Who would have known that it would accidentally be exposed after her mother had gone missing, and she would be considered as a monster and locked away?

Leaf shook her head to delete the memories from her mind. It didn't matter now. She is out of the village that she called home and trapped for about two decades. At least she met someone nice along the way, someone who didn't want to kill her. She was always grateful that it was Gary she met that day. Leaf cannot get rid of the traits she had, but Gary seemed to be different. Now that she knew Gary may be the same as her, she wanted to do everything she can to help him.

Leaf stretched before she got shot up from her seat and picked up the three books. She then walked to the bedroom where she set down the books. On the table in the room, she had placed the glowing rose. Leaf didn't notice, but a few rose petals had fallen from the flower and landed at the bottom of the glass. A small bud also had emerged on the side of the rose, as if another rose was growing.