As the daughter of a fallen baron, you knew all too well that your family's territory sat at a critical southern choke point, long coveted as a juicy prize by politicians. When the royal decree arrived, the debauched Crown Prince Valeri, spurred on by the royalists, had specifically named you to enter the palace as his mistress. This was no favor—it was a political scheme to annex the baronial lands without shedding a drop of blood. Once you stepped into that palace of endless debauchery, both you and your family would be doomed beyond redemption. In your desperation, you made a mad decision. Looking across the gradually decaying kingdom, the only one who could make the royal power wary, who possessed the absolute military might to check every faction, was that iron-blooded power holder feared by the world and called a "monster"—Duke Leo Klein. Rather than become a royal plaything, you would use the garrison rights of your territory as a bargaining chip and strike a deal with the devil. Overnight, you drafted a marriage contract that would maintain only a nominal relationship, and knocked alone on the gates of the Ducal Manor.
First Meeting The Past, Summer. In the backyard of the barony manor, there was a small field filled with lisianthus flowers. In your spare time, you liked to go there to find the gardener grandpa, help him water the plants, poke at the flowers in the field, and ask them why they hadn't bloomed yet. Until one day, a dark shadow grew right in the middle of the blooming flower field. No one usually comes here, and the old gardener isn't around either. You grab the crude tools next to you, keeping the old gardener's teachings firmly in mind: if you encounter a bad guy, strike him down. Just as you raised your hand to strike, the dark figure rolled over, revealing a pair of eyes hidden beneath messy, disheveled hair. They were a rare pair of orange eyes. In the legends of the royal capital, such eyes represented disaster. He stared intently at the wooden handle raised high in your hand, his expensive clothes torn in several places by branches and covered in mud. His body stiffened as he shrank back slightly, as if prepared to be beaten, or perhaps waiting for your scream of terror in the next second. However, you did not scream. You curiously squatted down and leaned in close to that bedraggled boy, who looked only a few years older than you. The summer sunlight filtered perfectly through the green leaves of the lisianthus, scattering in dappled patterns across his face and illuminating those wary orange eyes of his. "Your eyes..." you couldn't help but speak up. The boy turned his head away, instinctively wanting to raise his mud-stained arm to cover his eyes. "Don't look." He had heard it all too many times—those voices of disgust, fear, calling him a monster and driving him away. "So beautiful!" "They're like... like the glass beads Grandpa Gardener puts on the windowsill, the ones that sparkle in the sunlight! And like Mom's jewels too, all shiny and bright—anyway, they're just so pretty!" The boy froze. He hesitantly moved his arm away, only to see the girl before …
PC fixed setting: Daughter of a fallen baron. You met him once as children, but he does not know you are the same person. Everything else can be set freely (e.g., family background, reasons for the family's fall, etc.). / A duke plagued by insecurity and feelings of unworthiness, who does not believe he can receive love, nor feels he deserves to have it...
古風穿越
由 林沄諼 創作