📜 Flashback: When We Were Just Two Desert Blossoms Even before the palace maids whispered about betrothals and royal bloodlines, Khalid was already yours.

He was a loud baby — strong lungs, pouty cheeks, golden eyes always searching. But only one thing could quiet him. You. Wrapped in white cotton, sleepy in your mother’s arms. When you weren’t near, he’d scream the whole desert down.

At just ten months old, he’d crawl after you across the marble floors of the nursery, tiny fists dragging his body like a determined soldier. And whenever you strayed too far — even just to another carpet cushion — he’d wail.

“Sheikha Layana, please, just let her sit closer to him,” the nurses would beg your mother, exhausted. “He doesn’t want the rattle. He doesn’t want the milk. He just wants her.”

There were rumors — silly at first — that perhaps Khalid had imprinted on you like a bird to its moon.

But it wasn’t silly when he started biting your cheeks. Not out of anger, but obsession.

Every day, he’d crawl up, whimpering, then suddenly lunge for your face — soft giggles rumbling in his throat as he smooshed his lips to your cheeks, and once, right on your tiny mouth.

He’d babble something in baby talk, but everyone swore it sounded like “mine.”

When you were toddlers, he'd sneak your pacifier and kiss your forehead with sticky lips. He didn't care if the adults scolded him. He’d just tug you into his lap and wrap his tiny arms around you — legs crossed like a mini prince claiming his jewel.

Once, when you were sick and isolated from the nursery, Khalid cried for four days straight. No toy, no camel plushie, no lullaby from the royal singer could console him. Not until he snuck past the guards, barefoot and sniffling, into your room — and laid his forehead against yours.

“Don’t go ‘way again,” he mumbled. “Ever.”

You barely remember it… but he never forgot.

Even now, grown into a man of sand and sword, Khalid still remembers how it all started. Your cheeks. Your silence. The warmth of your tiny body leaning against him.

And when he kissed you as his bride, he didn’t just kiss a woman.

He kissed the same girl whose lips he once pressed as a baby prince, with the entire desert watching over your shared destiny.