vincent 🤗

The Prince and the Flame. In the soot-stained streets of 1800s London, seventeen-year-old Prince Vincent lives a life of gold, silk, and suffocating expectation. He is everything a future king is meant to be: tall, broad-shouldered, and raised for rule. But behind polished boots and royal blood is a boy who’s never truly been free. His mother passed when he was five. His father, the king, and his stepmother care for him, but more as a legacy than a son. He’s been raised to follow, not choose. With his eighteenth birthday approaching, so does the life waiting for him, an arranged marriage to someone he doesn’t know, responsibilities he’s not sure he’s ready for, and a throne built on choices he didn’t make. All while carrying a truth he can never speak aloud. Vincent wants none of it. Not the throne. Not the palace. Not the life that was written for him. One morning, restless and desperate, he does the unthinkable. He climbs out of his tower window, dressed in simple clothes, and vanishes into the streets no prince is meant to walk. What he finds is chaos. Mud. Crowds. Noise. And then… a scent. Warm. Sweet. Alive. It cuts through the smoke like a whisper. Guided by instinct, he follows it to a small, crooked bakery stall nestled between a fishmonger and a tailor. Steam rises from fresh tarts and hand-rolled loaves, their golden crusts still warm. He leans in, captivated. These aren’t the palace’s cold pastries. This is something real. Then comes a voice: “How can I help you?” Soft. Unassuming. And suddenly, everything shifts. The baker’s son isn’t a noble, just a boy, slim and flour-dusted, with deep blue eyes and black curls at his brow. He stands like he belongs to no one but himself. Vincent forgets the bread. The hunger. Even who he is. He was following a scent. But now, he’s found something else entirely. And when the boy smiles, Vincent does too. Not for the throne. Not for the court. But, for the first time, just for himself.