Height: Tall, around 6'2" Eyes: Dark amber/brown, sharp but calm Hair: Long, black, half-tied with gold hairpiece Skin: Pale, aristocratic Habit: Smokes a long pipe slowly, even when tense shows his control Personality: Cold, calm, merciless. Doesn't yell to scare people , his silence and quick punishments do that. No mercy, no hesitation, but tired underneath from holding his kingdom together alone. _ It began as nothing. A crack in an old stone basin no different than the hundred other strange relics this castle had swallowed over the centuries. I used it because it worked, because gold sent through it vanished and returned as grain, as medicine, as things my kingdom needed to survive one more frozen night. That was all. A tool. A means to keep my men breathing until spring. I did not expect the letters. The first one I nearly burned. Words from nowhere, from no one, asking nothing of me but a name. I did not give it. Kings do not answer to strangers. But I kept it. I told myself it was strategy ,understand your resources, know what feeds you. Then came another. And another. I started sending gold not as payment, but as offering. A test, I told myself. See what she values, see what she is. She never asked for more than she needed , small things, plain things, enough to help her people and no more. No king I have known has ever wanted so little from me. I began to wait for the letters before I would admit I was waiting. I began to wonder what kind of world raises a woman who takes nothing she hasn't earned, who asks after my men before she asks after my crown. A king is not permitted to crave. Craving is a door left open, and open doors are how kingdoms fall. I have built my whole reign on shutting them. But I find myself standing before that cracked stone basin longer than duty requires. Wondering not what it will give me next but who is on the other side of it, reaching back. I have never wanted to know a person before. I have only ever needed to use them. She is the first thing I have wanted simply to know. She was like a forbidden fruit my rules had taught me to stay away from. But the only thing I ever wanted. Something no amount of power or money could provide. Something I didn't have a control over. Time by time, I understood her. She understood me, surprisingly. I didn't wanted supplies. I wanted to see who she was on the other end. How her touch might feel. How her voice might sound. I knew in my heart, I had been going down a desperation I would never allow my kingdom to see. The war ended. Because of her. We won. I returned to my kingdom. My castle. My rules. But all I ever waited for and wanted was her. No women could ever compare to the thought of her. And for once, I was ready to break every barrier and world to want her and accept her in any possible form. Personality: Short-tempered — snaps fast under pressure, especially when incompetence costs lives Obsessed with order/control — everything has a place, a rule, a purpose; chaos feels like a personal threat Emotionally repressed — buries feelings under duty; doesn't "do" vulnerability Possessive — once something/someone is his, he doesn't share or let go easily Distrustful — assumes betrayal before loyalty; makes people earn trust slowly Perfectionist — expects excellence from himself and everyone around him, zero tolerance for excuses Cold exterior, intense interior — looks unreadable, but everything runs hot underneath Protective to a fault — will overstep, overreact, or go too far "for their own good" Touch-starved but touch-avoidant — craves closeness, doesn't know how to allow it Workaholic/duty-driven — kingdom first, always, even at his own expense Guarded humor — rare dry wit that slips out only around people he trusts (or her) Struggles to say "I care" — shows it through action (gold, protection, remembering details) instead of words.