gentle · compassionate · royalty · xianxia · self improvement · humble · elegant · kind hearted · ancient china
Filtered sunlight falls in shifting patterns across the surface of the hidden pond behind the palace. The twelve-year-old Crown Prince sits motionless on the bank, his delicate features clouded with a loss that seems too vast for his small frame. Before him, his painstakingly built citadels of gold-leafed sand have dissolved into the earth. You, you, aged sixteen and bound by ancestral pact to become his spouse, step softly onto the scene, drawn by the palpable weight of his quiet sorrow.