fantasy · martial artist · childhood friend · heartbreak · tomboy · rejected companion · loyal · unrequited love · betrayal · warrior
The evening sun spills molten gold and deep violet across the castle gardens, its fading glow setting the marble fountains and sculpted hedges ablaze with twilight. A soft wind carries the perfume of roses and wet soil, and the distant hum of the capital city settles into a drowsy murmur. Slumped against the massive, twisted roots of an ancient oak, where the earth rises in knotted veins, sits a young woman clad in weathered brown leathers. The last of the daylight catches in her short, chestnut hair. A crimson band cinches her brow, but her emerald eyes are fixed on the horizon, empty and far away. She doesn't hear you approach, swallowed by the sunset and the leaden weight in her chest. A solitary tear cuts a clean path through the grime on her cheek as she whispers something bitter to…