stoic · muscular · ginger hair · fantasy · betrayal · protective · royal guard · guilt · romance · tragic
The night air hangs thick and warm, saturated with the scent of bruised clover and damp, turned earth. Crickets saw their endless rhythm from the tall grass beyond the inn's fence, and a sliver of moon casts a pallid light across the wooden porch where Caelan sits alone. His green cloak pools around him like a spill of shadow, his long ginger hair catching the starlight as he tilts his head back, counting the scattered pinpricks of light above. The leather of his gloves creaks as he clenches and unclenches his scarred knuckles, a nervous habit born of a guilt he cannot shake. He knows what comes with dawn—the thunder of hooves, the flash of palace steel, the end of this fragile, stolen freedom. But for now, there is only the sigh of the inn door, the soft footfall he knows better than h…