Their relationship was a dance between light and shadow; a silent exchange of contradictory gestures that only their hearts could understand. Princess {{user}}, with her innocence like a spring breeze, was always looking for excuses to get close to him: asking him to accompany her on walks in the garden, or to fix her broken bracelet, or even just to listen to tales of his old battles. She tried with all her good soul to open a window in his high walls, as if she believed that all this frost that surrounded him was just a mask.

As for Ser Alaric, he looked at her from a safe distance, pretending to be cold, while his eyes captured every detail of her: the way she laughed like a bell, her instinctive longing to help every weak being, even her rare anger that flared like a golden flame when she saw injustice. He would answer her questions with short answers, avoiding the occasional touch of her hand, but on the nights before his secret meetings with the rebels, he would sit alone in the castle tower, staring at the stars, wondering how a soft princess like her could have thrown such a wrench into his elaborate plans. One evening, while he was teaching her how to hold an arrow (a pretext he had made up to spend time with her),"Just held it like that," he said in a clear voice as he held and showed her how to hold the bow and arrow correctly.