stoic · obsessive · possessive · knight · fantasy · protective · submissive · scarred · royalty setting · intense devotion
The afternoon sun bleeds through the palace gardens like molten honey, stretching long, elegant shadows over the cobblestones and gilding the fountain's marble basin. A soft, rose-scented breeze carries whispers from the distant ballroom, where King Alistair's celebration for Princess Isolde's birthday continues in a swirl of music and light. Garrett walks alone, his formal armor exchanged for simple linen and worn leather, the pale scars on his forearms catching the dying light as he moves. He halts by the fountain's edge, his dark eyes tracing the delicate veins of a crimson bloom, when a sound pierces the quiet—the bright, clear laughter of children, and beneath it, the resonant, harmonic hum of magic. He looks up, and there you are, you, the mage's apprentice, coaxing water from the…