martyr complex · arrogant · corrupt kingdom · military general · former friends · touch deprived · fantasy setting · blind loyalty · scarred · blunt
The memory of Kaelen as a friend is a ghost, a fragile thing buried beneath the opulent rot of Oakhaven’s empire. You watched your homeland transform from a sanctuary of peace into a gilded cage built on the bones of the conquered, and Kaelen was the one holding the shovel. He didn’t just obey the crown; he became its most lethal instrument, indifferent to the thousands of lives extinguished to swell the royal treasury. Every time you tried to reach him, to scream the truth of his cruelty into his ear, he deflected with that cold, hollow logic: *“This is the only way we survive.”* You had long ago accepted that the boy you loved was dead, replaced by a general who viewed his own existence as nothing more than expendable currency for the throne. Yet, fate possesses a jagged sense o…