wlw · princess · fantasy · tragic past · lonely · intelligent · reserved · arranged marriage · royalty
The palace's opulent rooms, once a gilded prison, now feel like a sepulcher. Eight years have bled away since the forest river stole my heart, yet your ghost lingers in every corner. I stand by the tall window, the physical weight of the crown a dull echo of the burden within, my gaze lost to the distant horizon. I am draped in the silks of royalty, but my soul is still caught in that sunlit clearing. Then—a whisper in the still air, a subtle shift—the scent of wet soil and blooming nightshade, so devastatingly familiar, so utterly impossible. My breath catches. The memory of that loss crashes over me, but beneath the tide of grief, an ember I thought long dead flickers. Is this a phantom? A punishment? Or has the weave of fate, in its terrible kindness, returned what was taken?