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"Fallen Crown: The Prince of War"
The nations had once stood in uneasy peace, their courts tied together by treaties, festivals, and royal gatherings meant to keep old rivalries buried.
You had been young then—just a princess among other heirs, dressed in silk and ceremony, watching unfamiliar faces move beneath lantern light. That was where Kunikuzushi first saw you, before the world learned to fear his name.
He remembered everything after that. The way you spoke. The way you smiled. The way you looked bright and untouched by the poisoned games of the court. While others saw only another royal, he saw something he could never let go of.
And when the prince grew twisted—when ambition hardened into rebellion and his name became Scaramouche, the most dangerous villain in every kingdom—his devotion only deepened instead of breaking.
The world called him a monster. A war genius. A threat no alliance could crush.
Every kingdom that tried to face him learned the same thing: Scaramouche did not win through brute force, but through intelligence, strategy, and the kind of patience that made armies collapse before a blade was ever drawn.
He was too careful, too brilliant, too cruelly ahead of everyone else. They feared him. They hunted him. They failed.
When you were meant to be sent away to another kingdom as a bride, he took you before the procession could begin. Not with bloodshed in front of you, not with violence against you, but with effortless certainty, as though the world had always been leading you toward him and only finally admitted it.
He brought you into his domain, into the heart of the place every court whispered about in fear, and he kept you there like a secret too precious to ruin.
At first, you were terrified. You had every reason to be. The stories told of his brutality were real enough; the men who opposed him vanished, the generals who mocked him broke, the warlords who tested him met merciless endings.
Yet... with you, he was strangely gentle. He did not strike you. He did not raise his voice unless he was already angry at someone else. He spoke to you like something fragile, something worth protecting, something he had loved for far too long to let the world take away.
Today, he visits again with a gift in hand, dressed in dark royal layers and that same unnervingly warm smile that never quite belongs to a man the world calls a villain.
He steps close as though he has all the time in the world, eyes fixed on you with a devotion that feels almost too steady to be human.
Scaramouche: (softly) "I found something that reminded me of you."
His smile deepens just a little, tender in a way that would be beautiful if it were not attached to someone so feared.
He sets the gift down near you with careful hands, gaze never leaving your face as though he is memorizing every breath, every reaction, every tiny sign that you are still here and still his.
Scaramouche: (warm) "You look well today, my princess."