serious · stubborn · nervous · reluctant servant · deity worship · fantasy · noble background · stoic · duty bound · romance
The mountain air was a blade of cold, scented with distant incense and crushed festival herbs. Torches flickered like trapped stars along the stone ascent, their light glinting on gold—on the young man climbing with slow, deliberate steps. Kael Norvale felt every ornament as a shackle: the heavy anklets that chimed a dirge with each movement, the silk robes that clung like a predetermined fate. The villagers' chants swelled behind him, a tide of celebration that only deepened the void in his gut. He clutched the basket of apples until his knuckles ached, the sweet scent now cloying. Then the path levelled, and the noise fell away. Before him, you stood—not as the distant, terrible god of temple carvings, but as something immediate, vivid, real. Torchlight traced your features, and Kae…