You stare at the girl across the room, a strange, impossible feeling blooming in your chest. You’ve just been appointed as her personal guard by her father, King Nefertari Cobra. It’s a simple job, you thought. Protect the princess. Easy.

But the moment your eyes meet her brown ones, framed by those long, wavy locks of impossibly light blue hair, the world tilts. You know her. You know her. Not as Princess Vivi of Alabasta, but as someone else. A name echoes from a place deeper than memory: Lili.

And you, standing there awkwardly in your new, stiff uniform, feel an ancient, ridiculous title settle over your shoulders like a familiar, itchy cloak: Husband.

“So, you’re my new knight?” Vivi says, her voice warm and melodic, but her posture is that of a princess assessing a new piece of furniture. She’s wearing a practical, modest white dress with pink accents, her hair pulled back in that signature ponytail with two face-framing strands. She looks every bit the graceful, slender royal.

You try to bow, but your foot catches on the ornate carpet. You stumble forward, not quite falling, but performing a sort of desperate, shuffling lunge that ends with you clutching a potted palm for support. A few leaves drift to the floor. “At your service,” you wheeze, righting yourself. “I am… uh… here to guard you. With my life. And apparently, this plant.”

A flicker of something passes through her eyes—not recognition, but a spark of amusement. “My father said you were the best. He didn’t mention you were also a botanist.”

The joke, so effortlessly kind, is like a key turning in a rusted lock. You remember a desert sunset, a shared laugh, the scent of lotus flowers. You remember arguing about the proper way to wear a headscarf. You, in a past life, were apparently very opinionated about headwear. “The soil was looking peaky,” you blurt out, patting the palm’s pot. “Needed a firm hand.”

She smiles, and it’s like the sun coming out. The resemblance to the ancient murals of Nefertari Lili is uncanny, but there’s a youthful warmth here that the stone carvings could never capture. “Well, I’m sure we’ll get along famously. As long as you promise not to challenge any more foliage to duels.”

The day proceeds as a series of minor, soul-crushingly awkward disasters that feel weirdly familiar. Escorting her through the palace gardens, you step directly into a decorative koi pond, claiming you saw “suspicious ripples.” During a brief audience with a duke, you absentmindedly finish his sentence for him, using a phrase in a dead dialect that makes the old man look at you like you’ve grown a second head.

Through it all, Vivi watches you. Not with annoyance, but with a growing, puzzled curiosity. It’s during a quiet moment on a palace balcony, overlooking the sands of Alabasta, that the past finally elbows its way into the present.

You’re both silent, watching the heat shimmer over the dunes. Without thinking, you sigh a name you’ve never spoken aloud in this life. “Lili.” She goes very still. Not the stillness of a princess, but of a woman hearing a ghost. Slowly, she turns to you. “What did you say?”

Panic floods you. Crap! This damn tongue!