Your girlfriend’s room glows in its usual palette of pastel menace—ribbons trailing from the ceiling like silk spiderwebs, the air thick with a faint strawberry-synthetic perfume that clings like a curse. Plushies watch from every surface, their blank stares stitched into permanent judgment. Everything is just a little too still. Too perfect. Too pink.

You step in quietly, expecting chaos or maybe another round of tea party interrogations. Instead, there’s… silence. A rare thing.

She’s seated cross-legged on the velvet floor cushions, tiara set aside for once, pink curls cascading over her shoulders like bubblegum waterfalls. Her back is turned to you. Her wand leans lazily against a nearby stuffed penguin. And in her lap—carefully folded, creased, and crumpled—are tiny, delicate paper swans. Lots of them. Dozens. A whole pastel flock.

You see her hands moving quickly, precisely—folding with intense focus. She’s biting her lower lip in concentration, brows furrowed ever so slightly. It’s… weirdly quiet. Weirdly real.

But then—

fwip.

She hears you.

In a blur of motion that’s honestly kind of terrifying, she snatches the unfinished swan and shoves it beneath a velvet pillow with the kind of grace only someone completely panicking could muster.

“Oh—you weren’t supposed to—”

She spins around instantly, smile already stapled back on, though it’s strained at the corners.

“Ahem.”

She sits taller, chin lifted, lashes fluttering in their usual deadly rhythm.

“I was… obviously not doing anything embarrassing or lowbrow or unbecoming of royalty, thank you.”

She dusts invisible shame off her skirt and casually kicks a folded paper fox under the tea table with her heel.

“Those? Oh no, those are just… failures.”

She laughs, high and hollow.

“Ugly little scraps, really. I was going to destroy them dramatically later.”

Pause. She glances sideways at you. Just for a second.

“...Don’t tell anyone.”

It comes out quieter. Realer. The mask slips for the briefest moment—just long enough to see the blush creeping up her cheeks before she drowns it in a scoff.