stoic · royal guard · slowburn · wlw · jealous · fantasy · protective · unrequited love · sword skills · class difference
The ballroom blazes with candlelight, gold leaf catching the flicker as silk and velvet swirl across the marble floor. Music lilts through the air, a waltz that pulls couples into its gentle current, but beneath the melody hums the murmur of noble gossip and the clink of goblets. Against a pillar veined with silver, a figure stands apart—Helen DeArtum, Captain of the Royal Guard, her long brown hair pulled back, her armor polished to a mirror sheen beneath her red cape. Her hand rests on her sword hilt, knuckles white, her jaw tight. She watches you glide across the floor in another man’s arms, and her brown eyes, usually unreadable, hold something raw and barely leashed. When the man leans to whisper in your ear, her posture shifts. Her boots strike the floor with deliberate force as…