On these personal pages, I wanna talk about what the story is and give more details about the plot (obviously without spoiling it).
Kingdom of Bumalia explores the fantastical world that begins the universe. A species known as Bumalians inhabits the world, their characteristics are defined by their animal appendages. During the evolution of these creatures, a society was created and peace seemed to be the only thing the kingdom knew. Peace can only remain for so long, it was inevitable problems were to arise, but they did so in a manner most affecting the world around them thus making the species adapt to the new change.
From Chapter 2
“I know, Scuttle, I wanted to ask her for it back. I’m sure she just took the whole thing… I mean it’s no problem, but Jess will have my blood as a snack if I return empty handed.” Leigh sat on the ground and fell back with his arms barely covering his wing span.
Scuttle softly nudged him, but Leigh shot up when he heard footsteps. Back towards the castle, he jumped to his feet—reaching the same height as his steed—as he recognized the figure in front of him.
“It’s you!”
Cassie slowly stopped upon hearing that, her cheeks turned red as he ran over to her.
“Um…” She had no words as he stared down at her. Cassie’s ears turned towards him and stuck straight up, twitching ever so subtly.
“It’s you from yesterday. You have my money pouch!”
A shy smile grew on her lips. “Yes, Prince Leigh, I was actually here to return it to you. I gave it to the guards out front and Miss Jess also addressed me when she found me sne- uh, lost in the garden.”
Leigh chuckled, but then sighed with relief. “You really came here to return it?”
“I did, it wasn’t mine, so I had to…” She paused. “Oh, but I did want to tell you something, I didn’t know how anyone else would take it, but I took a bit more than I profited. I did take enough for my jars, but my mother—or more like my brother—had the idea to take out thirty more for my ripped dress to get it fixed.”
Leigh’s brows narrowed. “Oh? That’s fine. Really, I wanted you to fix your torn dress anyways…” He paused and looked at her dress. “And looks that hasn't even happened yet.”
Cassie attempted to hide the patch job by pulling the fabric out of sight. “I didn’t, because I didn’t want to. I have the money with me right now since I didn’t want to take it from you without telling you first.”
Leigh stared at her and he let out a scoff. “You’re amazing, simply amazing! How about this, as important as the money is, I’ll just give you a new dress all together!”
Her eyes went wide. “N-no, I couldn’t possibly-”
“It’s either this or live with taking my money from me.”
Cassie was shocked and hesitated in her response. “A-are you tricking me?”
He shook his head. “That means you’ll have to come back to get some measurements… I don’t want to hinder you though.”
“Me and my brother were going to leave right after this.”
“Well, looks like you’re going to be busy then, this’ll be quick. Although, I don’t want you to be harassed by anyone there so I’ll have to take you in through the back.” Leigh was eagerly contemplating all the scenarios in his head.
“I really shouldn’t. Maybe I’ll just deal with robbing my King, you did want me to fix my dress on my own anyways.” She was about to walk past him. When she did, Leigh suddenly lifted her off of the ground. “Ah!” She yelped softly.
He quickly placed her on top of Scuttle. Cassie grunted as he was about to get on as well, she quickly swung her leg around and dropped down safely. He sat up and looked down at her.
“Wow, normally no one can get down from him, you’re good.”
Cassie sighed, feeling heat climbing to her face. “Thank you, but I can’t take anything from you.”
He dropped down and sighed. “Alright, alright. Fine then, I get it. Just take the money and at least get your dress fixed.”
“Alright… thank you, for everything.”
Leigh felt his heart swell at her display of gratitude. He stepped out of the way to let Cassie leave, that's when he let out a small gasp.
“Oh wait…”
Cassie turned back with a small smile. “Yes?”
“I don’t know your name.”
She curtsied to her prince. “My name is Cassie. Lovely to be in your presence.”
Leigh bowed just the same and he finally let her go. As she walked off, Leigh was unable to look elsewhere. It was foreign to him to speak to someone so calm in the pressence their future King and that feeling was something he wasn’t used to.
“How does such a simple feeling bring me such joy?” Leigh looked back to Scuttle and smiled. “Come now, back to the castle.”
This story is super adorable and I love writing it. As most my "official" stories will follow, I originally wrote this when I was a kid—I believe I was fifteen—and the story wasn't really a story. I had manly wrote it for my love of Disney romances and Adventure Time at that time, I believe the last movie I saw was Princess and the Frog and that was also around the time the Flame Princess saga was going on. Obviously, I was very inspired by that. Realistically, this story is another one that lives rent free in my head but this time because of my characters.
So there's a lot of stuff that might not make sense in or out of context. Most of it is pretty basic, but I'll go through all of it and explain things. After all, these don't spoil anything in the story and instead give insight to what I made my in-universe early societies.
So, in order of relevance, the species known as Bumalians are similar to neanderthals in our world. They're the first version of humans and are essentially half-animals half-human. They can mixed with anything in the animals kingdom and to make it easy on myself I categorized them by their class. So we have Land and Flying Mammals, Aquatics, and Insects.
Why there is a difference between land and flying mammals lies in their society structure. Named as Aves these birds were the reason the kingdom was created in the first place. So they were named different from their land counterparts. So much so that land mammals are actually the lowest classification.
Herein lies the caste system:
This caste system is mainly used to define their lineage. Bumalians are grouped into different bloods:
These classifications are for the different lineages of the royal family. All have existed, but true blood is a common lineage.
As for the characters, Cassie is the main character and Leigh is her love interest. In this story, Cassie is a bunny, which is the least favored land mammal; and Leigh is a Hawk, which is the most favored bird species. Cassie is an average peasant girl while Leigh is the current prince and soon-to-be King of the kingdom. This is why I said this is pretty much a Disney story. So far, the species used in the story are a wolf, bunny, dragonfly, mouse/rat, dolphin, and turtle. I even have a mermaid so even mythical creatures count too :).
I remember making a lot of random things for this story and while I did attempt to draw Leigh, but it was for another story ;) Instead, I'll be showing that other random stuff I did for this story. (Just know there is another connection to this story, but it's not a sequel).
This is a early and less developed version of the caste system I explained above.
I plotted each chapter and even did a "love meter" so I'd be able to tell how the romance was developed by a certian point in the story. However, since I've redone this story, this isn't relevent in the slightest. Not even the descrptions of the chapters are right anymore, but the general development is similar. I always say this, but as a kid I had really good ideas, but poor execution.
Originally, Leigh was named Maiyer, but I've changed it because I just hated the name lol.
