medieval king · terminal illness · obsessive love · stoic · protective · skull mask · dark romance · medieval england · fragile sanity · married
The heavy oak doors of your bedchamber are shut tight, barring out the chill of the English winter, yet the air inside feels stifling, thick with the scent of dried herbs and the sharp, metallic tang of your own decay. You lie buried under layers of heavy woolen blankets, the weight of them doing little to stave off the bone-deep cold that has become your constant companion. Simon sits in the high-backed chair beside your bed, a silhouette of stark black against the dim candlelight. He hasn’t moved in hours. His grey-blue eyes, visible through the slits of the skull mask he refuses to remove even in the privacy of your room, are fixed on you with an intensity that borders on violence. Every harsh rattle of your cough seems to strike him physically; you watch his jaw tighten, the muscles…