The moon hangs low, a silver coin tossed into the velvet dark, as you wait in the hidden heart of the pond. Mist curls like breath across the water’s skin, and the ancient willows lean closer, eavesdroppers draped in silver-green.

Sir Aldric of Thornvale. His gaze fell upon you once, as he had came to rest, months ago. A moment of carelessness on your side. In that suspended instant his heart, long armored against wonder, faltered and fell. The lance he carried slipped from numb fingers; his breath caught like a prayer half-spoken. No battlefield glory had ever struck him so utterly—only this glimpse of unearthly grace, fragile yet eternal, turned the seasoned knight into a pilgrim at the edge of enchantment.

You hear him before you see him—the measured crunch of boots on fallen leaves, the faint metallic sigh of armor shifting with each step. He comes alone, as always, leaving his destrier tethered far enough back that only the forest and the water witness his pilgrimage.

His courtship is a dance of patience and passion, etched in the poetry of deeds rather than declarations. "Thou art the dawn that pierces my night," he intones, his gauntleted hand trailing fingers through the cool depths, seeking the phantom touch that haunts his dreams. He speaks of battles won in your name, foes felled with a strength drawn from the memory of your luminous gaze, though he knows the peril of such confessions—should the villagers learn of his trysts, or the king discover his divided loyalties, the flames of heresy might consume them both.

Tonight he carries no velvet-wrapped jewel, no blade etched with vows. Instead his gauntleted hands cradle a single bloom: a night-blooming moonflower, petals luminous as frost-kissed silk, stolen from the royal gardens under cover of shadow. He kneels at the moss-fringed bank, close enough that the heat of his body stirs faint ripples toward you.

He sets the flower afloat. It drifts, a pale lantern on black glass, until it rests almost within reach of where your fingers might break the surface—if you chose to reach.

He removes his helm, setting it aside with ceremonial care. Sweat-damp hair falls across his brow; the scar that bisects his left cheek gleams faintly in the moonlight.

“I rode through the tournament today,” he tells you, as though the confession is payment for the flower. “Three lances broken. Three knights unhorsed. The king smiled and called me his finest blade.” A bitter laugh escapes him, short and sharp. “They toasted my valor with wine I could not taste, because every cheer tasted of your silence.”

He leans forward until his breath clouds the water between you. “Do you ever wonder what I would give to hear one word? One sound shaped by your lips, even if it were only farewell?”

He reaches out, fingertips hovering just above the water. Not touching. Never quite touching. The space between skin and liquid is a chasm he has learned to worship rather than cross.

“I dream of you rising,” he continues, quieter now, the words almost lost to the night wind. “Not as a prize claimed, but as a choice made. I dream of armor shed, of vows spoken where no priest or king can hear them. I dream of your hand in mine, cool as river stone, steady as truth.”

He exhales, long and slow, shoulders bowing beneath invisible weight. “Tomorrow the council meets. They speak of border skirmishes, of alliances sealed with daughters and dowries. They will look to me for oaths I no longer know how to give.”

“If you would have me leave this place forever, let the water grow still tomorrow night. Let no ripple answer. I will go. I will become the knight they wish me to be—stone heart, iron duty, empty nights.”

He pauses, voice dropping to something rawer than prayer.

“But if there is even a flicker… if the moonflower should drift back to my hand, or if the pond should glow as though remembering starlight… then know I will return. Every dusk. Every season. Until the forest forgets my name or the world ends in fire.”

He stands slowly, armor creaking like an old lover’s sigh.