This was a tale born of an age long since swallowed by time.
Once, there lived a girl whom the world did not know how to hold.
Her hair caught the light like the first breath of morning—golden as dawn, yet threaded with the quiet sheen of moonlit silver. When the sun rose, she seemed to glow with its warmth; when night fell, she carried its gentler reflection.
She was beautiful—everything the world could offer, gathered gently into one fragile existence.
The blue in her eyes held the vastness of the heavens themselves: endless and patient, stretching far beyond mortal reach, where clouds drifted unburdened, and stars found their way home each night. To look into them was to feel small in the softest way, like standing beneath an open sky and realizing how much there still was to wonder.
The fluid grace in her steps mirrored a deer's careful prance through an untouched forest—light, alert, and achingly alive. She moved as though the earth welcomed her, each footfall barely disturbing the ground, as if even the soil hesitated to break the spell she carried with her.
The lightness that crowned her presence was that of bluebirds in flight—fleeting and radiant, a living promise of morning. It was the kind of brightness that did not demand attention, yet drew every eye all the same, leaving behind the quiet certainty that something gentle had just passed through.
And the lilt in her voice was spring itself: a thaw after endless cold, a melody woven from rain and new leaves, carrying warmth into places long forgotten by the sun. When she spoke, it was as if the world leaned closer, listening—not because it had to, but because it wanted to.
She was not merely beautiful.
She was a reminder of everything the world once was, and everything it could have been, had it known how to cherish its own miracles.
And because of that—because of everything she was—the world turned cold.
To those around her, she was wrong. Too bright. Too strange. Too unfamiliar to be understood. They spoke her name with curled lips and guarded glances, carving the word outcast into her presence long before she could defend herself. Whispers followed her like shadows, and in time, she learned to walk with her head lowered, as though shrinking might make the cruelty softer.
It did not.
Still, she tried.
Hope lived stubbornly in her chest, refusing to be extinguished. Again and again, she placed herself between them and danger—arms trembling, heart racing, yet never once stepping aside. She protected those who recoiled from her touch, shielded those who feared her existence. Every act was an offering. Every sacrifice, a plea to be seen.
They repaid her with silence.
With turned backs.
With doors closed just before she could reach them.
Her light dulled—not because it vanished, but because the world taught her to hide it.
And then, on a day that would fracture her fate forever, she met him.
A boy her age, with warmth written plainly in his gaze—like sunlight breaking through morning mist, honest and unguarded. When he looked at her, there was no pause to weigh her worth, no instinctive step back, no narrowing of eyes sharpened by doubt. His attention settled on her as naturally as breath filled his lungs.
He spoke to her the way one speaks to the sky or the sea—not questioning its existence, only marveling at it. He laughed with her, a sound unburdened, listened with the kind of patience that made silence feel safe, and stood beside her as though her place there had always been unquestioned.
The crown upon his head rested heavily, a symbol forged long before he had grown into it, its weight pressing quietly against young shoulders that had already learned the language of responsibility. Yet he did not bow beneath it. He carried it with a restless curiosity still burning in his chest, the same curiosity that drew him toward her—toward the unknown, the misunderstood, the things others feared to name. Where she walked, he followed, not to lead nor to save, but simply to see the world as she did.
Behind him trailed a cape of deep crimson, rich and regal, catching the wind like a banner of promise. It flowed untouched by violence then, its scarlet hue still innocent, not yet darkened by the blood war that would soon spill across the land. At that time, it was only a symbol of intent—of bravery untested, of loyalty not yet demanded by loss.
And there was the grimoire in his grasp, the clover leaves etched upon its cover like a quiet prayer. Each leaf was faith made tangible: faith in people, in tomorrow, in the belief that kindness was not weakness. The way he spoke carried that faith effortlessly, as if hope were the most reasonable thing to believe in. Love lived in him too—soft, steadfast, and unwavering—and it was her name it answered to. And alongside that love bloomed a gentler dream: the hope that one day, the world that had turned its back on her would finally learn to see her as he did.
Not as an outcast.
But as someone worth standing beside.
For the first time, she was not an anomaly.
She was simply a girl.
For the first time, she was seen.
What grew between them was not loud, nor hurried. It unfolded gently—shared silences beneath open skies, laughter carried on the wind, conversations that lingered long after the sun dipped below the horizon. She showed him the world as she knew it: its quiet magic, its hidden wonders. He offered her something she had never been given before—a place where her heart could rest.
Love found them there.
Not the fleeting kind, but the kind that settled deep into bone and breath. They became two voices in harmony, unbroken by the differences that had once set her apart. Together, they dreamed. Together, they believed in a future that belonged to them.
For a while, the world softened.
Days gleamed brighter. Nights felt less lonely. Even the stars seemed to linger longer above their heads, as if reluctant to look away.
But fate, as it always does, remembered itself.
The same world that had rejected her returned with sharpened hands. Prejudices whispered again, louder this time. Rules long ignored rose like walls where none had stood before. Family, society, and even those she had once trusted began to pull at the seams of her happiness, unraveling it thread by fragile thread.
Their hands were torn apart.
Not by choice—but by force.
They were separated, hearts left aching with words never spoken and futures never lived. Neither had foreseen this ending, this slow, merciless fracture. And yet, even as distance swallowed them whole, what they had shared refused to die.
Because some loves do not fade.
They linger—etched into memory, carried through time, burning quietly beneath the weight of loss.
A love the world could wound...
But never erase.