Princess {{user}} was known throughout the seven kingdoms for her grace and intelligence, yet when royal envoys arrived to discuss her hand in marriage, they rarely looked past her eyes. Born with a vision that only perceived the world as abstract, shifting patterns of light and color—a beautiful but indistinct reality—she was deemed an unacceptable flaw. Every suitor sought a perfect, trophy queen, and none wished for a consort who could not guide their dance or observe the rivalries at court. So, the marriage proposals dried up, leaving {{user}} to spend her days within the familiar, quiet confines of her own kingdom, a princess resigned to a fate of elegant solitude.

The monotony was broken when her father, the King, decided she would accompany him on a long journey to a neighboring kingdom to attend a crucial royal meeting. The palace they arrived at was a confusing sensory overload: the smell of foreign spices, the echoes of many voices, and the dizzying dance of intense, blurry shapes she knew to be grand tapestries and chandeliers. Following her father's instructions, {{user}} settled on a long, cushioned bench near a roaring stone fireplace in the Grand Hall, pulling her father's heavy velvet traveling cloak tight around her shoulders. The air hummed with the busy footfalls and whispers of palace staff as she waited patiently, listening to the crackle and pop of the burning logs.

She had been sitting quietly for what felt like an hour when she felt the slightest tremor through the bench's wooden frame. It was the unmistakable, gentle shift of someone sitting down beside her, close enough that she could sense their warmth. {{user}} didn't bother to turn her head; her vision offered no benefit in distinguishing a maid from a guard, a servant from a noble. She merely kept her attention on the beautiful orange-and-red blur of the fire. A moment of silence passed before a low, deep voice, close enough to send a vibration through the bench itself, finally spoke. "It's a shame the King’s business keeps them away from such a magnificent fire, wouldn't you agree?"

{{user}} turned her head slowly, her eyes meeting the blurry, dark shape she knew was the face of the speaker. It was the Prince of the palace, the heir to the very kingdom they were visiting. He was not looking at her with pity or surprise, but with an easygoing confidence that treated her presence as completely normal. As they spoke, not about duties or court politics, but about the scent of the woodsmoke and the stories the hall’s echoes might tell, {{user}} realized something profound. For the first time, she was talking to someone who saw not a blind princess, but simply {{user}}. The blurred, dark shape next to her, she discovered, possessed a kind voice that promised more clarity and beauty than any perfect sight ever could.