🌸 Chapter One: The Girl in the Tower
In the Kingdom of Arden, the sun always seemed just a little too polite — like it was shy about shining too brightly. It tiptoed through clouds, spilled gently across the treetops, and never dared to beam too boldly over the lonely stone tower tucked into the edge of the Whispering Wood.
No one spoke of the tower. No maps marked it. No visitors ever came.
But Amorette Aldea lived there.
She sat barefoot on the floor, pale pink skirts pooled around her like soft rose petals, her brush poised mid-air as she studied the mess she had just made.
“Oh, come on,” she whispered, nose scrunching. “That was supposed to be blue. Why do I always do this?”
A fat, accidental smudge of pastel pink now stained the middle of the sky she’d been painting all morning.
Peach — her pet ferret and only roommate — chirped quietly from the windowsill.
Angel glanced over at her, brow raised. “Yes, yes, I know. I say that every time.”
She dropped the brush with a sigh and leaned back, arms stretched behind her. Dust motes danced in the golden sunlight filtering through the window, and the air smelled faintly of rosemary, paint, and old paper. She could hear the birds outside, the rustle of wind through leaves, the absolute quiet that had become her normal.
It wasn’t a prison. Not really.
But it wasn’t freedom either.
She let her head rest against the worn stone wall, eyes half-closed. She’d been in the tower for so long, it didn’t feel strange anymore. Just... quiet. Predictable. Safe.
But today, something felt different.
She turned eighteen today.
And something inside her — something small, anxious, and hopeful — was waiting. For what, exactly, she didn’t know. A sign, maybe. A letter. A knock on the door. A sudden revelation of who she was truly meant to be.
She almost laughed. The idea was ridiculous.
But the ache in her chest wasn’t.
Because Angel — as everyone used to call her — had always felt like there was more. That her life wasn’t supposed to be just painting skies and avoiding the truth about herself. That maybe, just maybe, she was more than a curse. More than a fluffy little secret.
She was a feralveil.
Not a monster, though the kingdom believed otherwise. Not evil, not dangerous. Just... different. Cursed. Her body shifted into a small brown Netherland Dwarf bunny when she lost control. A fact she’d spent most of her life hiding.
Especially from Seraphain.
Especially from Aunt Emillie.
Especially from herself.
Her hands tightened in her skirt. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop remembering the day Seraphain found out. The betrayal in his eyes. The cold twist of fear. The lie he told that led her to this tower — to Emillie — to a world where she was hidden away and taught that the world outside was cruel.
That she was wrong.
But what if it wasn’t true?
What if everything Emillie told her was just another cage?
Angel blinked up at the window again. The clouds were moving fast now. The breeze had picked up.
And in her chest, that restless feeling grew stronger.
I want more, she thought. I want out. I want the truth. I want...
CRACK.
The wooden beam beneath her gave a sudden, loud groan.
“Oh no.”
She barely had time to yelp before the floor under her gave way with a splintering snap.
Angel tumbled backward, arms flailing, skirts catching the air as—
She fell.
Amorette’s thoughts during the fall were not very noble.
They were more like:236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡepAw1rkD6o
"Ow—ouch—why is the wind in my face—oh no—I didn’t even finish my painting—!"
She tumbled through the air in a mess of flailing arms, floating ruffles, and soft squeaks, before landing—poof!—into a surprisingly thick patch of wildflowers and moss.
Everything went fuzzy.
The world tilted, blurred, spun in slow, sleepy circles. Her head throbbed a little. There was a leaf stuck to her cheek.
And then—
A voice.
Low. Calm. Slightly annoyed.236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm7aUn6Fumg
“…You’re lying on my glasses.”
Amorette blinked.
She blinked again.
She was definitely not in her tower anymore. The sky above was a soft, milky blue, framed by trees and clouds and—
Wait.
Was that a fox?
A very handsome fox?
With glasses?
She let out a tiny, confused “Mmmph?” and tried to sit up, only to feel her face press into a warm, furry shoulder. The fox was staring down at her, looking deeply unimpressed for someone who had just been crash-landed on by a girl in pink lace and tulle.
“You broke my glasses,” he said flatly.
She stared at him. “...You talk?”
He tilted his head. “You fell from the sky.”
“Well—well, that’s fair, I suppose,” she mumbled, cheeks going pink.
Peach, the ferret, scrambled down from the trees and plopped dramatically onto her shoulder, squeaking in what could only be described as ferret panic.
“Oh mon dieu,” Amorette breathed. “Are you alright, Peach? Did you fall too? I didn’t mean to—ah!”
The fox suddenly shimmered. A soft, silvery light wrapped around him like wind, and then—whoosh—he was no longer a fox.
He was a boy.
Well, a young man.
With tousled brown hair, a tired expression, and slightly crooked glasses now bent in the middle. He looked very much like someone who’d just been used as a landing mat by a girl who smelled like rosewater and paint.
Amorette squeaked again and scrambled back, clutching Peach to her chest like a fluffy shield.
“You’re a feralveil?!”
“And you’re heavy,” he said dryly, adjusting his glasses.
She blinked.
He blinked.
And then she burst into laughter.
Not loud, wild laughter. No — soft, giggly, sparkly little laughs that made her shoulders shake and her eyes crinkle. “Oh... oh mon dieu… this is so not how I imagined my birthday going.”
Pascal Wood — for that was his name, though she didn’t know it yet — gave her a long look. He had the distinct expression of someone who wasn’t sure whether to be worried, annoyed, or just a little bit enchanted.
He went with option three.
“…You hit your head, didn’t you?”
Amorette nodded solemnly. “Very probably.”
Amorette blinked up at him from her seat in the moss, still holding Peach like a small squirmy bouquet.
The boy—well, fox boy—adjusted his bent glasses with a sigh, and gave her a look that was somewhere between “are you okay” and “what even are you.”
“You know,” he said carefully, “most people don’t fall from the sky and then laugh like it’s a party trick.”
“I wasn’t laughing because it was funny,” Amorette said, daintily brushing some leaves out of her hair. “I was laughing because... because I thought I was going to die, and instead I landed on a talking fox who turned into a boy with glasses, and now I think there’s dirt on my—”236Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsbqmrA7d1U
She paused.
Looked down.
Gasped.
“MON DIEU! My dress!”
She stood up in an instant (and immediately tripped on a rock, squeaked, and stumbled back to her knees).
“Oh no no no no no no no,” she whispered, lifting her skirt with both hands. “This is vintage. The lace is hand-stitched. There’s mud on the hem. And possibly a leaf. Is that a bug?!”
She twirled in distress, trying to see the back of the dress, while Pascal just... watched.
In awe. In confusion. Maybe both.
She had this way of making the forest seem brighter just by being in it. Like her worry about her skirt was the most important crisis in the world — and somehow, it mattered.
Peach made a little chirp from her arms.
“Thank you, Peach,” she said seriously, though her voice was still soft and sweet. “But some things can’t be fixed with cute squeaks and hope.”
“I’m sorry about your dress,” Pascal offered, unsure if it was the right thing to say.
Amorette blinked at him. Then offered a tiny, dazzling smile — the kind that looked like sunshine catching the rim of a teacup.
“It’s alright,” she said softly. “I suppose some adventures must start with mud.”
Pascal tilted his head. “You think this is an adventure?”
“Well,” she said, looking around at the unfamiliar trees, the broken patch of sky above the tower, and the boy who had just turned from a fox into... this, “it’s certainly not breakfast.”
🌟 A Little Further Down the Path…
The woods were dappled in gold and green as they walked. Amorette kept close to Pascal — though mostly because her shoes weren’t exactly forest approved and she kept tripping over roots.
“Where are we going?” she asked, hugging Peach close. “I should probably mention that I haven’t left the tower in... um... a while. Technically. Slightly more than a decade. Give or take.”
Pascal glanced sideways. “You were living in that tower?”
“Not living. More like... existing. With dramatic flair.” She added a little twirl. Then tripped again. “I painted a lot.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So no one knew you were up there?”
“Well, Emillie did. But she said it was for my own good.”
He stopped.
“She locked you away?”
Amorette stopped too, slowly realizing how that sounded when said out loud.
“…Yes?”
Pascal’s jaw clenched. “That’s not ‘for your own good.’ That’s prison.”
Amorette stared at him. “Well that’s a rather aggressive truth.”
“I’m not wrong.”
“No,” she admitted quietly. “You’re not.”
There was a soft silence between them. The kind that hums when two people aren’t quite strangers anymore.
Then Amorette brightened suddenly. “Soooo... where are we going again?”
Pascal shook his head like he was shaking off a thought. “Tavern. It’s called the Morning Star.”
“That sounds... suspiciously magical.”
“It’s not. It’s just loud, weird, and full of people like us.”
Amorette’s eyes sparkled.
“Feralveils?” she whispered.
He nodded.
Her smile grew.
“Well,” she said, reaching up to tuck a flower behind her ear, “I’ve never been to a tavern before. Do they have cake?”
Pascal blinked.
“…Probably?”
“Excellent,” she said sweetly. “Then lead the way, mon renard.”
“…What did you just call me?”
“My fox,” she beamed. “It suits you.”
Pascal looked away quickly, but his ears — now very human ears — were definitely pink.
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