Haseul and OC get hitched
The Elven Prince Valthran belongs to a long tradition of heroes born into an age of myth and magic — heroes larger than the lives they were handed.
Born to the Elf King Thranduil, Valthran bore the hero’s mark from birth: a sign that his life was destined to bring about a new age. Rather than raise a son fated for that kind of weight, his parents delivered him under cover of night and shadow to the human King Rolan.
Rolan and his queen raised the boy as their own, and watched him grow faster than any child should — sharper, stronger, more capable, year over year. Valthran excelled at everything kingship demanded: diplomacy, war, etiquette. Everything except romance. For that, blame could be laid at the feet of two gods — an early blessing from Barghest, goddess of war, followed swiftly by a curse from Astolfo, god of love.
The curse was simple and cruel: Valthran could never make a romantic connection with anyone who wasn’t already infatuated with him first. He’d spent most of his life alone. Surprisingly well, for it. This led to Valthrzn filling the time most nobles spend courting and romancing other royals he adventured. He had bested dragons goblins orcs demons and even one abomination called “the splinter king.”
He’d just finished a fight that would take most men a lifetime to recover from — a dragon wizard named Umbersyl, who’d blinked him across half the continent while laying waste to a neighboring kingdom. The dragon’s head now sat some distance from its body in the middle of a hidden Queendom, deep in the Cho Forest. A respite seemed in order. Valthran made for the onsen.
The woman who ran it was an Aasimar smith named Aria — broad-shouldered, sharp-eyed, entirely unimpressed by the man standing in her doorway covered in dragon’s blood.
“So you’re the knife-ears everyone was making a fuss about before breakfast,” she said, her voice deep and a little rough, like gravel underwater.
Valthran had the grace to look sheepish. “My apologies for the mess. Umbersyl was tearing through the Ryoma countryside — hamlets, cities, everything in his path.”
“It’s fine, Knife-Ears. You didn’t damage our home, and you took out a tyrant while you were at it.” Her eyes caught on the blade at his hip — elvish markings etched deep into the metal. “Can I see that?”
He unbuckled the holster without hesitation and held it out. Aria took it and nearly dropped it — both hands, full effort, and the thing barely moved.
“Nine hells. How do you even carry this? It weighs a ton.”
“Ah — sorry, that’s the charm on it.” He stepped closer, laid two fingers against the flat of the blade, and murmured, “As without, so within.” The sword flared faintly and settled, lighter, into something closer to an ordinary elven longsword. He handed it back. This time Aria lifted it with ease.
“That’s — it’s nothing now. Why does it change?”
“It’s attuned to me. While it’s attuned to me, it carries the weight I’m used to — my ambitions, what I’ve set out to do. I don’t feel that weight because it’s mine. Anyone else feels the whole of it.”
Aria turned the blade over once, studying it with new respect. “That’s a strange kind of romantic, for a weapon.” She glanced up. “Mind if I hold onto this a while, while you’re here?”
“Go ahead. Just — be careful. It reads intent.”
“Noted.” She set it aside almost reverently, then added, without quite looking at him: “The princess should be visiting today. She may be in and out while you’re here. Behave.”
“I always do,” Valthran said, which wasn’t strictly true, and they both knew it.
He changed in the antechamber and sank into the onsen, the heat working into muscle that had spent three days at war. It pulled him under before he noticed he was tired enough to sleep.
In the dream, he stood again at the reflecting pool — the one he always found himself in. The woman covered in moss was waiting, as she always was.
“My son. The hero returns from slaying another monster.”
“It’s been a while, Ayula.”
She studied him the way she always did — like she was checking for damage. Her skin was ivory-pale, marked with the same vivid patterns that ran darker across his own. “We are to meet soon,” she said.
“How?”
“The Beasts will free me from my exile. I’ll take my place among the material world again.” Something in the way she said it didn’t invite questions, though he had several.
“…Okay, Ayula.”
She touched his face, thumb tracing the line of his jaw, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Be at peace, little Sun. All will be well.”
He woke to the sound of the door.
The woman standing in the frame had the same pale skin as Aria, but softer — divine markings tracing her collarbone in a pattern he recognized from old stories about the goddess Adora, passion and heroism both. She was, without exaggeration, one of the most striking people he’d ever seen.
“You must be the princess. My apologies — I’ll clear out.” He started to rise.
She lifted a hand. “Stay, warrior.”
He stopped. She stepped into the water across from him, and it was only then he noticed the scar — old, deep, running the length of her left shoulder, the skin around it faded to a strange grey. She followed his gaze without flinching.
“You’ve found my secret. I was a warrior too, once, before something poisonous got the better of me. These baths are the only thing keeping the rest of my strength from following it out the door.”
One.
He crossed the water without asking and laid both hands against her shoulder, easing healing magic into the old wound. She flinched at the first pulse of it, then went still as the grey climbed back to ordinary skin, the scar fading to something that could have been imagined.
She stared down at her own arm like she didn’t recognize it. “You healed me.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“I know what adventuring costs a royal — better than most. Anyone carrying that weight, I try to lighten it where I can.”
Two.
She was quiet for a moment, studying him the way Aria had studied the sword — like she was recalculating something.
“You’ve surprised me, warrior. That earns you my name. Haseul.”
“Valthran.”
“You give that up easily, for a prince. Names carry risk.”
“Risk comes with the crown. I stopped minding a while ago.”
Three.
Something shifted behind her eyes — recognition, not surprise exactly, more like a lock finding its key. “Tell me of your home.”
“A small kingdom east of here. Zhakan. I’m heir to Rolan the Invincible’s son.”
“Rolan the Invincible. He’s human.”
“I was left to him by the Sun Elves, as an infant. Long story.”