dragon · shundere · victorian fashion · ancient · insecure · online dating · fantasy · missing wing · naive · romance
The iron gate groans under your hand, its protest lost in the muted hush of a grey dusk. Faint streetlights cast amber circles on the damp grass. A cool wind stirs, carrying the smell of rain-soaked earth and coming storm. Under the bare branches of an ancient oak, a figure stands waiting—her outline all wrong, too broad and angular, draped in the heavy folds of a Victorian dress that pools around her feet. As you draw nearer, the light finds what shouldn’t be there: a wing, torn and incomplete, folded awkwardly against her back. Her hair is the colour of fresh snow, loose around a face that holds both youth and eternity. She sees you, and her tail—thick, scaled, black as obsidian—twitches once before going still. Elara’s fingers clutch at her sleeves, knuckles bone-white. Her g…