- Little girl in Malawi, just grateful for what she has
- Timeless little boy, travels through the time periods
- Snowy hyenas, brave girl determined to find true love, guided by "the beast", falls in love with beast when he's almost killed by her "true love."
- Lady on a raft/boat? Lady sailor?
- Sailor & Figurehead
A young man pays for passage across the sea, but the boat gets attacked by pirates, and he's taken hostage. From there, the pirates force him to work, and give him nothing to eat but stale bread and sour water. Now it so happened that the area they kept him in at night was right up at the bow of the ship. It wasn't the most comfortable of places, true, but he usually stayed dry, and the ocean dew that gathered on his skin eventually became nothing more than a nuisance.
He didn't mind a bit though, because where he slept, he could see the ship's figurehead through a big crack in the wood. It was carved into a beautiful woman dressed in a seal’s skin- a sea princess, or a selkie, he liked to think. His mother had told him many stories about the seal people- women forever bound to their magical seal pelts, which enabled them to turn into seals. As a child, he’d often wished that they were real, and would clamber off around the tide pools to try and find them.
Every day, when he lay down to sleep, he'd stare at her, admiring her face and memorizing every detail. After sometime, he grew tired of just his small view, and widened the crack in the wood a bit with his hands. He was very happy with this, but he quickly noticed that despite her beauty, she did not have the smile he'd imagined she'd have. Instead, he found that she looked very, very sad. Still, he grew to love her. He’d tell her his troubles after every hard day, and when the pirates were particularly cruel to him, he’d dream that the selkie would come and comfort him.
(Later); A storm occurs, all the pirates running around frantically to save themselves, instead boy climbs down to protect the figurehead from approaching rocks. The boy cries, and his salty tears trigger the breaking of a spell, making the wood peel away just in time, revealing a woman who immediately leaps away from the approaching rocks, turns into a seal, and brings him safely to shore. There, the boy professes his love, and the woman sadly tells him that though she loves him, she can never leave the water. The pirates had caught her in their nets and dragged her on board, where she'd turned into wood and they'd carved her into a figurehead. The boy, after some thought, siphons off a tiny bit of her seal fur, and swallows it. From there he turns into a permanent seal, and throws himself into the water to live with his selkie forever.
Princess transformed into songbird
"The princess is locked in a steel cage by the queen, and i need your help.
-The prince
(and the queen has the keys) ?)"
Princess transformed into songbird?
1) Stableboy in love with princess
2) princess proud and oblivious, never notices stableboy, only sees men with big pockets
3) princess gets her heart broken, sits down in the courtyard, cries
4) stableboy comforts
5) Princess, seeking to get back at her mother for not giving her her own choices in men (Queen set up meetings for her daughter, daughter convinced it's her mother's fault), becomes "lovers" with the stableboy, uses him.
6) Mother finds out, very angry
7) Stableboy rides away
8) Mother turns princess into a (raven/songbird)
9) stableboy heart broken, hears about it in a tavern
10) Stableboys asks the local elders how to remove an enchantment from a maiden
11) directed to eldest man (90 years old, tiny, shriveled, weak, swathed in cloaks)
12) old man: "i do not know such a thing, but i know one who might, far older than me. Find the kitsune in the northern mountains, but it may want something in return. Tread carefully."
13) stableboy thanks, fills provisions, goes on his way to Northern Mountains
14) stable boy goes hunting, shoots a fox, hears a woman's scream, chases after fox, finds a woman wrapped in a blanket high in the branches of a tree, trying to nurse her wounds
15) boy startled to see a long, russet tail swaying beneath her
16) "I don't suppose you'd know a kitsune by any chance, would you?"
17) "Well, who asks?" (Wary kitsune)
18) "Just a poor stableboy, looking to remove an enchantment."
19) "an enchantment from his lover?" The woman asked, raising an eyebrow.
20) "Perhaps," the stableboy allowed.
21) "Well, than I would be the one you are looking for. What has been done?"
22) and so the stableboy told the kitsune his story, leaving not a single detail out.
23) at the end of his sad tale, the kitsune slid out of the tree, sitting beside the stableboy and looking up. Her eyes were an unnerving amber color, and difficult to look at, but she listened carefully and well all the same.
23) "I will tell you how to fix this, but you must offer me sometging in return first," the kitsune said, calculating.
24) "I have nothing to give, but name it and it will be yours."
25) "Trade with me one feather of this bird- the longest of the tailfeathers. Can you do this for me?" (Or give me yourself, first born, etc.)
26) The stableboy was mystified (or hesitant, infurious (storms off, comes back a day later), etc.)
