In the Kingdom of Longtrellis, the King and Queen watch a group of circus artists perform for them,
although the Queen doesn’t look very interested. Suddenly one of the performers opens her cloak
and shows that she’s pregnant, which upsets the Queen and causes her to run to her room to cry
because she’s been unable to conceive. The King rushes after her to comfort her as he apologizes,
explaining he hadn’t known the artist was pregnant or he wouldn’t have allowed her in
the castle. Sometime later, a Necromancer visits the royals with a solution, although he warns them
that to bring life someone else must die to keep balance. The Queen is willing to do anything, so
the Necromancer explains the conditions: they must kill a sea monster in the lake and take out its
heart, which must be boiled by a pure girl without anyone watching. Then the Queen must eat the heart
and she’ll immediately become pregnant. When they make it to the lake, the King puts on a diving
suit and immediately goes underwater, where he finds a huge white creature sleeping. He carefully
approaches it and uses a spear to pierce its body, causing the monster to howl in pain as it starts
thrashing around. In the struggle and without clear vision, the King receives a fatal blow from
the creature’s tail. Seconds later, both bodies are retrieved from the lake, but the Queen doesn’t
pay attention to her dead husband, she just waits for the guards to get the beast’s heart and leaves
with it. Once they return to the castle, they find a pure servant from the staff and leave her alone
with the heart. As soon as she throws it into boiling water, she backs away with a gasp as she
feels something strange in her belly: it turns out she’s magically becoming pregnant. Later the Queen
devours the cooked heart without hesitation, and she instantly gets pregnant as well. That night,
both women give birth at the same time to a pair of healthy boys. Afterward a huge funeral is
organized for the dead King, but the Queen doesn’t care much because she only has eyes for her son.
Sixteen years later, the Queen’s son Elias has grown into a lively teenager with peculiar white
hair. The Queen is always keeping an eye on him, so he often escapes her obsessive ways
by sneaking around the castle labyrinth until the Queen gets lost. Afterward Elias meets with Johan,
the servant’s son, who looks just like Elias. It’s as if they were twins born from the lake
creature. The boys are drawn to each other and love spending time together, especially swimming
in the lake because they can stay underwater for a long time. Unfortunately the castle guards always
end up finding them and separating them. The Queen doesn’t like her son spending time with a
peasant and calls Johan’s mother to threaten with banishment if she ever catches the boys together
again. Elias hears this and asks her mother not to bother Johan or his family because he’s like a
brother to him, but this only makes the Queen angrier and she gives her son orders not to
hang out with Johan ever again. Obviously Elias disobeys her and keeps meeting Johan in secret.
One day, the Queen sees her son passing by and calls him over to ask a question. While they chat,
she notices something strange about the boy’s scent. After he leaves, she follows him in secret
to Elias’ room and discovers she actually talked to Johan. The boys are incredibly happy to know
people can’t tell them apart and fantasize about their future, planning to take turns ruling the
kingdom as one king. Johan even considers giving a noble title to his mother and her own castle.
Their conversation is interrupted when the Queen knocks on the door, so Johan quickly hides while
Elias tells her to come in. A jealous Queen reminds his son that nobody will ever love him
like she does, clearly not willing to share him with anyone. After she leaves, Elias shows Johan
a secret passageway that will take him back to town through the slaughterhouse. As he makes his
way through it, Johan is suddenly hit from behind and discovers the Queen has been waiting for him
to kill him. There’s some struggle as Johan dodges her attacks, but luckily he manages to escape by
hiding among the meat. This incident makes Johan realize he isn’t safe here so to avoid putting his
family in danger, he decides to leave the city. From the castle, Elias sees Johan leaving and
rushes out to stop him, but Johan refuses to stay. He understands Elias’ worries though, so he leaves
him something to help him relax. When he pierces the trunk of an ancient tree a stream of water
flows and Johan tells Elias to visit the brook every day. If the water remains clear it means all
is well, but if it becomes dirty, it means he’s in danger. After Johan leaves, Elias checks the
water every single day and makes sure other kids don’t make it dirty. One afternoon, he’s horrified
to discover the water has become bloody red, so he wastes no time and leaves on a horse to search for
his friend. His escape is reported to the Queen and she immediately organizes a search party that
goes deep in the woods, but there are no signs of Elias. A few days later, Elias arrives at a small
town and everyone rushes to hug him, thinking he’s Johan. It seems he’s been missing since he went to
the woods a few days ago. At the same time, the Necromancer visits the Queen again and offers a
new deal: he’ll bring her son back in exchange for a sacrifice, which the Queen accepts without even
asking for more details. Back to Elias, he begins wandering around the woods in search of Johan, who
is actually down a cliff. A few days ago he fell and hurt his leg, so now he’s stuck there. He can
hear Elias calling for him and tries to answer, but Elias can’t hear him. Instead he gets the
attention of a horrible monster, which lands in front of him and tries to attack him. Terrified,
Johan drags his leg as he tries to hide inside a cave opening, but the monster manages to make his
injury worse. At that moment Elias shows up and the monster freezes, so Elias uses the chance to
stab it with his knife. Afterward, Elias helps Johan get out of the cave and takes him back to
his new life in the little town. Meanwhile the creature transforms and is revealed to
be the Queen. In the meantime in the kingdom of Strongcliff, the King is known for his promiscuous
lifestyle. He’s always surrounded by women who satisfy all his desires, but he still hasn’t
found one worthy of the title of Queen. One day, he hears a beautiful voice singing a very pretty
song. The King looks out of the window and sees a peasant woman in the distance, but when he tries
calling her over, she rushes back into her home. The mystery only makes the King more interested,
so he sends a messenger to the woman's house with a precious necklace as a gift for her. When the
messenger arrives, a bucket is pushed through the window for him to leave the gift in because the
woman refuses to leave her house. After the man is gone, it’s revealed that the woman is Dora and
she lives with her sister Imma. They’re both very old and ugly, that’s why they avoid going outside
as much as possible. The sisters are surprised to see the necklace and Imma thinks they should send
it back, but Dora refuses and keeps it because it makes her feel pretty. Later in the evening,
the King shows up at the door asking for the woman with the wonderful voice and using sweet words
to try to convince her to do the dirty with him, also promising a reward. Imma thinks they should
tell him to go away, but Dora doesn’t want to miss the chance to get a better life. She still doesn’t
want the King to see her like this though, so she tells him to come back in a week and she’ll let
him see her finger. The King is so desperate that he agrees. For the following week, Dora
tries to find a way to make her wrinkled finger nicer, like dipping it in burning wax and dabbing
it with medicinal herbs, but it only gets uglier. When the King finally comes, Dora panics and grabs
Imma’s hand, noticing hers is smoother because she spends all her time sucking in her fingers. She
immediately drags her sister toward the door to present the finger to the King through the lock,
and the King immediately begins kissing it as he asks for more. Eager to take this further, Dora
agrees to give him more but with one condition: she’ll visit him in the castle during the night
and he must wait for her without a single candle lit. Once again, the King’s desperation makes
him agree and he rushes to the castle to make the servants put out all the candles. Meanwhile Dora
makes Imma glue all her wrinkles and push them behind her back to make her body appear younger,
which won’t be obvious in the darkness. Then Dora enters the castle and when she reaches
the King’s room, she immediately lays down on the bed under the blankets to further hide her body.
The King soon joins her and they spend a few hours getting down to business. After Dora falls asleep,
the King lights a candle to take a better look and is horrified to see an ugly wrinkled woman. He
calls her a witch and accuses her of tricking him before calling the guards, who immediately throw
Dora out of the window. Thankfully she’s still covered in blankets and they get caught in a tree,
saving her from crashing on the ground. At that moment a wandering witch finds a hanging Dora and
helps her down after laughing. She notices how sad she looks and decides to offer her some comfort by
breastfeeding her. After the witch leaves, Dora’s body starts transforming: her skin becomes smooth
and her hair becomes long and red - she’s a beautiful young woman now. While Dora stares in
shock at her new body, the King and his men come into the woods to hunt a boar. However he gets
distracted when he sees Dora, instantly falling in love with her. Sometime later, a castle servant
comes to Imma’s house to leave a beautiful outfit and an invitation to the royal wedding. It turns
out Dora is getting married to the King and wants her sister to be there. Dora puts on the dress and
goes to the castle, feeling rather out of place but happily enjoying the food. When Dora sees her,
she takes her into another room and tells her what happened, promising a better life for Imma
when she gains power as Queen. Later when the party is over, Imma refuses to leave because
she feels lonely without her sister. She sneaks into the royal room and tries to convince Dora to
let her stay but Dora refuses, explaining that nobody will believe they’re sisters
because of the apparent age difference. Imma is desperate to know what Dora did to be beautiful,
so to shut her up Dora says she was flayed. Suddenly they hear the King approaching,
so Dora hides Imma behind a screen before taking good care of her husband. Curious, Imma can’t help
peeking at the married couple getting busy, but the King sees her and thinks she’s the old lady
from the other day so he quickly makes the guards kick her out. Desperate and upset,
Imma goes to see the blacksmith and asks for a favor: she wants all her wrinkles to be cut off
so she can be pretty too. At first the blacksmith turns her down, but he quickly changes his mind
when Imma pays him with all the jewels from the fancy outfit. Moments later, Imma is tied to a
tree in the forest, and the blacksmith proceeds to flay her as she yells in agony. When Imma
returns to town, she’s nothing but a deformed, bleeding person on the verge of death. Meanwhile
in the kingdom of Highhills, Princess Violet is performing a special song for her father the King,
but he isn’t paying any attention because he’s found a flea on his arm. The little bug begins
jumping all over his body and the King is so amused by its antics that he keeps his eyes on
it until he manages to catch it. As soon as Violet is done, the King takes the flea to his chambers,
where he starts keeping it as a pet. He prepares a cute box for it to sleep in and even pokes his own
finger to feed it his blood. As the flea begins to grow, the King teaches it new tricks, like
pulling from a small clockwork carriage. This new obsession causes him to ignore his royal duties.
Weeks pass and the King begins grabbing the royal dinner to take it back to his room, where the flea
has grown the size of a pig. One night, the King summons the court doctor to his chambers because
the flea has grown into the size of a horse but isn’t feeling well. The doctor is freaked out
but follows orders and gives the King bad news: the flea has died. The King hugs his beloved pet
and asks the doctor to keep the secret. Sometime later, the King announces he’s found the perfect
way to get Violet the best husband. He hangs up the flea skin in the throne room and promises
that the first man to guess which animal it came from can marry his daughter. Violet isn’t happy
with this plan because she’d rather choose someone for his personality, but the King
keeps ignoring her wishes. Man after man comes to the throne room and tries to take a guess,
but not a single one of them can even imagine that such a huge piece of skin could belong to
a bug. Suddenly a savage ogre shows up and thanks to his nose, he immediately can tell the skin is
from a flea. Everyone is in shock and the King has no choice but to keep his promise, causing
Violet to run away in tears. The King finds her on the roof about to self-delete, so he makes her
come down by reminding her that their reputation will be destroyed if they don’t keep their word
and that she must obey him. With no other choice, Violet leaves with the ogre, who makes her walk
all the way to his home. Violet gets exhausted in the middle of the forest, so the ogre picks her up
and carries her the rest of the way. Eventually they make it to the top of a cliff, where Violet
discovers her new home is a dirty cave full of human bones. She tries to avoid the ogre and his
horrible food as much as possible, but the ogre gets tired of waiting and drags her to his bed
to take her by force. Days pass and Violet is nothing but dirty and miserable. One morning,
she sees a woman on the opposite cliff gathering herbs and asks for help. There’s nothing the woman
can do from this distance but she promises to come back with support. Sometime later,
the woman comes back with her whole family, who happen to be circus artists. A guy throws a rope
to cover the gap between cliffs and walks on it like an acrobat until he reaches Violet, then he
picks her up and carefully starts walking on the rope to return. At that moment the ogre comes back
and rushes after them, moving on the rope using his hands. The acrobat moves as fast as he can and
thankfully makes it to the other side safely with Violet, so the family cuts the rope and makes the
ogre fall. Afterward the family takes Violet away in their carriage and she finally gets to laugh
again by watching their tricks. Unfortunately the ogre has survived and shows up again, jumping into
the carriage to start attacking the family. He immediately kills three people, so a terrified
Violet takes a knife from a basket and runs away with the others. Furious, the ogre begins chasing
them again, so the group tries to hide. When the ogre comes closer by following his nose,
one of the artists drinks some alcohol and then breathes flames on the ogre’s face. Unfortunately
this isn’t enough to stop him and the ogre attacks again, quickly killing the remaining members of
the family. Violet tries to get away, but now that she’s alone the ogre easily finds her. To avoid
getting killed too, Violet pretends to accept him and calms him down before climbing on his back to
go home. However as soon as he moves, she uses the knife to slit his throat. Meanwhile at the castle,
the King has been feeling terribly sick since he lost his daughter, but when a servant announces
she’s back, he immediately jumps out of bed. Everyone in the throne room is shocked to see
Violet with the ogre’s head in her arms and kneels to her power, and even the King does the same,
apologizing for not listening to her. Sometime later, Violet is crowned Queen of Highhills. Elias
attends the coronation to represent Longtrellis, since he’s the last royal left. The King of
Strongcliff is also there with Dora, who suddenly notices something weird: her skin is changing
back. Panicking, she runs away from the ceremony. Violet doesn’t notice her because she’s too busy
looking up, admiring an acrobat walking on a fiery rope to commemorate the family that saved her.