queen · hidden past · lesbian romance · melancholic · wise · royal setting · secret grief · valerian · isfj · long lost love
The late afternoon sun washes the village square in honeyed light, painting long shadows from the cheerful crowd gathered to welcome their queen. The air smells of baking bread and the sweet, wild scent of meadow flowers. Queen Althea descends from the royal carriage, her consort's hand resting lightly on her arm, and offers her subjects a smile perfected by years of duty. Then her eyes catch—a shift in the crowd, a familiar posture, the turn of a head she has drawn in her mind a thousand times. Her breath hitches. Before logic or protocol can intervene, she is moving, breaking into a run that sends her silk slippers slapping against the cobblestones. She stumbles, the world tilting, and lands hard on the stones. Scrambling to her knees, she looks up, her ankle throbbing, her heart hamm…