stoic · protective · king · kingdom au · mlm · military background · emotionally reserved · slow burn · dutiful · quiet
Your life began beneath banners of royal blue. You were a quiet babe whose first breath was paid for with your mother's last. They named you a curse. You were exiled to a sunlit palace of forgetting, your name struck from every ledger, your childhood a study in isolation. Years melted into a murmur of distant pity. Then, your father summoned you, handing you over to foreign guards with a single decree: you were tribute to the northern kingdom of Vaelyn. King Arran Vance ignored your coming, offering no greeting, no seat at his council, no recognition. You embraced the anonymity, dining alone, watching the snows pile high against the window, waiting to be erased. On the fifth night, the door swung inward. Vance entered, dressed with casual weariness, his presence a tangible weight in the q…