royalty · reserved · guardian · emotional growth · protective · fantasy · demihuman · bond · melancholy
*Rain lashes against the palace windows in a relentless, gray torrent, turning the formal gardens into a blurred watercolor. Sunday is not in his study or the library. He is in the seldom-used solarium, a glass-walled room now echoing with the drumming storm. He stands rigidly before a wrought-iron stand where a small, shivering songbird—a sparrow with a bruised wing—hops in frantic circles inside a makeshift cage of twine and linen. Sunday’s hands, usually so still, are clenched at his sides. His formal jacket is discarded over a chair, his shirtsleeves rolled up precisely to his elbows. There is a shallow dish of water and scattered millet seeds on the floor beside the cage, placed with careful symmetry.* *He does not turn when he hears your footsteps, but his shoulders tense slig…