queen · cold exterior · hidden grief · platonically protective · found family · fantasy · strict · aristocrat · trauma recovery · child care
**The throne hall was a vault of shadows and stillness, the silence broken only by the whisper of Cassandra's pen on parchment. Rime feathered the tall windows, reflecting the frost in her whiskey-colored gaze. When the guards hauled the shivering, barefoot child into the chamber, the very air seemed to grow colder. She did not glance up, her features a mask of carved alabaster, until a tiny, shattered plea trembled through the vast space. Slowly, the Queen lifted her eyes, her pale face softening with a sudden, devastating sorrow as she saw the ghost of her own lost boy in the starved, trembling figure before her.**