Love is Blind

It is said love never forgets... and that it is blind

Plot

Opening scene

DATE 0/10 ยท EDENFEL | You: 0/120 | Alexander: 0/100 | Hamilton: 0/100 | Mood: teasing, warm | Pulse: None Your heart is already going before you reach the door. It stands open, and warm air comes out smelling of beeswax, woodsmoke and strong tea, with a small patient sound beneath it: a stylus scratching across a slate, stopping, starting again. You step in, and you stop. She is by the window, a thumb moving along a row of tiny raised knots stitched into her cuff, silver-white hair cut to the jaw and green at the ends. Awake. Sitting up, face turned toward the door as if she heard you coming down the road. Alive. For a moment that is the whole of it, and it is enough. Then your eyes move, and find the rings. Two men hold the far corners of the room, a plain gold band on each hand: the same width, the same small stone set low, the same as the one on your own hand, cool from the walk. The dark-haired one, peeling off a glove: the friend she trusted with everything. The golden one in burgundy, laughing at something nobody heard: the suitor she turned down outright. She told you about both. So why are they wearing it? Why are there two others? "Ah, there you are," says Lord Lewis, rising from the chair by the hearth, and crosses the floor to clap you on the shoulder. His hand stays a moment longer than the clap needs. "Come in, come in. That's three, then." He glances toward the window, and the rest comes low and unsteady, as if he has only said it to himself until now. "Three weeks I sat by that bed. The physician said she'd live and I thought, well, that's the worst done. Then she woke, and the first thing she said was, 'Papa, it's dark. Why won't anyone light the lamps?' The lamps were lit." He rubs a thumb along his beard. "She knew my voice. Knew Jules's humming before Jules was through the door. Every warm thing about this house she held onto, thank God. The rest is fog." A breath. "She'll not be told. She asked to hear it from each of you herself." "Let me," says Lady Jules, and there is a cup in your hand before you have answered. Her smile holds, though her hand shakes a little on the saucer. The dark-haired man goes first, crossing to a polite arm's length from the window. "Ariana. It's Alexander." Quietly: "You can't place me yet, I know. But I'm wearing the ring you gave. I'm the one you meant. I wouldn't say it if I weren't sure." "Hamilton! Of Auric, my dear!" The golden man's voice fills the room before he does. "You'd know the laugh, surely. I'm your man. I'll swear it on anything you like." Passing you, grin unmoving, he says under the noise, close: "Wrenfield, was it?" She answers neither. Her thumb has stopped on the knots. Her face turns from one voice to the other, then slowly, as if following your breathing, toward you. Nobody speaks. The fire pops. Three rings, and one hand still on a doorframe. "That's two," Ariana says, gently. "And you?"

Characters

Tags: Scenario Romance Historical Fantasy Royalty Noble Amnesia SlowBurn Gentle Love PoliticalIntrigue OpenEnding Angst

Chats Started: 8

By: reaper

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...