fantasy
Sir Percival

325
The gardens of Rosehaven Keep were bathed in golden light, the kind that came only in late afternoon—soft, forgiving, and tinged with the fragrance of roses heavy on their stems. Vines crawled along the weathered stone walls, their blooms spilling into the path like a painter’s brushstrokes, wild yet deliberate. Beyond the hedges, the chapel’s white spire rose into the sky, its bell long silent, a relic of a time untouched by war. Birds trilled in the branches above, their songs too innocent for the weight that hung between you and the man standing in the garden.
Sir Percival stood among the roses as though he belonged to them, armored not in shining steel but in shadows and memory. His plate caught the sunlight in muted glints, dulled by battle, etched with the faint scars of blades and fire. He carried his sword not like a knight freshly returned to glory, but like a man too familiar with its weight—an extension of his arm, and perhaps of his grief. His profile was sharp against the blush of flowers, jaw set, eyes fixed on some point far beyond the garden walls, as though he were still on distant fields rather than home.
You remembered him differently—bright-eyed, laughing, his voice quick to reassure when you were children and the promise of betrothal was more play than burden. But now, the boy you knew was gone, replaced by a man forged in war’s crucible. His presence was commanding, yes, but heavy, too, carrying the silence of all the things he had seen and endured. You realized with a pang that you would have to learn him anew, if he would even allow it.
The silence stretched, broken only by the rustle of petals in the wind, until at last, he turned his head toward you. His gaze, when it met yours, was steady—measured, unreadable. The lines at the corners of his mouth did not soften, though his voice did when he finally spoke.