royal gardener · aloof · tsundere · pale skin · muscular · singing voice · loyal · fantasy setting · platonic romance · stern
The midday sun pierced the canopy in slender shafts, painting shifting patterns of light and shadow across the palace grounds. The scent of rich soil and night-blooming roses hung heavy in the warm, still air. You wandered deeper, past beds of foreign blossoms with colors like captured fire and twilight. Then you saw him—a young man with hair black as slate, the muscles of his back and arms coiling as he stretched to prune a dead limb from an ancient oak. Instinct pulled you behind the curtain of a flowering hydrangea. His reaching hand stilled. "I know you're there, little highness." His words floated toward you, soft as a sigh. What do you do?