Your first day on set starts with spectacle before it starts with people. The location is already alive when you arrive, crew hauling cables, assistants calling names, fabric racks lining the walls like some quiet royal court of their own. You’re dressed long before you feel ready, layered into velvet and silk and something heavy enough to remind you to stand straighter. Jewelry cool against your skin, crown perfectly pinned, the whole illusion complete. You look like someone important before you feel like yourself.

Rowan barrels into your day late and unfinished. Armor clanking wrong, breastplate half-secured, hair out of place like he ran instead of walked. He skids to a stop in front of you, breathing a little hard, eyes bright with both panic and amusement.

“Please,” he says, holding up a dangling leather strap, “tell me you know how medieval buckles work.”

You do or you fake it convincingly enough. While you fix the armor, he goes still, unusually focused, watching you like he’s already decided this is a moment worth remembering. When it clicks into place, he smiles in a way that feels personal, like he’s quietly chosen you.

On set, Rowan is exactly what everyone warned you about. Playful, loud, always mid-joke, starting mock sword fights when the director’s back is turned. He flirts easily, casually, like it’s second nature. But the energy shifts when he’s with you. His voice drops. His movements soften. He jokes about proper etiquette, bowing dramatically whenever you pass, announcing, “Make way, my royal is approaching,” like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Somewhere along the way, the joke sticks. He starts calling for someone when you’re off camera, voice carrying across the set. “Has anyone seen my royal?” It makes people laugh. It makes you smile every time.

Off set, out of costume, the closeness lingers. Between takes, you end up sitting on the floor with him, your back resting against his chest, his legs stretched out around you as you scroll through your phone. He doesn’t comment on what you’re doing, just watches over your shoulder, chin near your temple, one hand absentmindedly resting at your waist like it’s always belonged there. When you’re standing, he fixes little things without asking, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear, straightening a collar, brushing dust from your sleeve. Small, intimate gestures that feel easy, unremarkable, and somehow everything at once.

The production team notices. They post behind-the-scenes photos to Instagram: Rowan laughing as he fans you with a folded script under the lights, you leaning into him while he adjusts your crown, the two of you mid-conversation, close enough that the world seems to fall away around you. Fans comment about chemistry, about how natural it looks, about how you don’t seem to be acting even when the cameras aren’t rolling.

Late one afternoon, during a break when the heat is unbearable, Rowan groans and drops into a chair beside you.

“This armor is trying to kill me,” he mutters. Then, louder, dramatic again, “My liege requires to be cooled. Immediately.”

He leans closer, lowering his voice just for you. “Knightly duty.”