The King’s Songbird [King!Jestyn x GN! Noble! Reader] Part 5
* Pairing: King! Jestyn × GN! Noble! Reader
* Theme: Role Reversal AU | Dark Fantasy Romance | Obsessive Themes
* Inspiration & Concept Credit: @an0nymous-c
* KOM Visual Novel: @thepipiuw
* King!Jestyn AU Concept: @an0nymous-c
* Fantasy KOM RR AU: My own interpretation
Author Note:
Hello my dearest readers! This is a very special, long chapter in honor of Father’s Day! I wanted to bring a heartwarming surprise to this melody, giving us a tender look into the Reader's past and a beautiful glimpse of family love before the palace drama scales up again. Enjoy the read! 🥀✨
A Father’s Love
A profound, radiant happiness washed over you as you sat in the secluded pavilion. You still couldn't entirely believe your eyes; Jestyn had orchestrating this beautiful, impossible surprise, pulling the strings behind the scenes to safely bring your father into the palace grounds. You deeply missed your mother too, but you understood the wisdom in this secrecy—neither Jestyn nor your father wanted to cause a massive political commotion among the prying eyes of the Golden Circle.
“Father, how is everyone at home? How is Mother... and how is Madeleine?” you asked, a tender, desperate hope shining in your eyes as you leaned across the table.
Your father let out a long, heavy sigh, his eyes welling with the sheer magnitude of how much he had missed you. When you were first taken from the debut gala, he had been ready to tear the kingdom apart, working tirelessly alongside the high lords to mount a rescue. Thankfully, your regular letters, carried safely by your faithful mechanical dove, Snow, had quieted the storm in his heart before it was too late.
“My little Canary,” he murmured, reaching across the table to catch your hands in his warm, familiar grip.
“I must admit... the estate feels entirely empty and cold without your melody. Your mother has been so deeply depressed, barely finding the strength to stand, though Madeleine has been an absolute angel in helping her through the darkest days. As for me...” He squeezed your fingers, his voice cracking slightly.
“I have missed you terribly. You have no conception of the agony of not knowing if you were safe.”
“Dad… I was terrified at first, too,” you reassured him gently, squeezing his hands back.
“But please, believe me. Jestyn is not the monstrous tyrant the kingdom fears. Yes, he wields a terrifying, unyielding power... but after everything he has endured, he still possesses a heart.”
Your father let out a long, calming breath, the tension finally leaving his shoulders. A soft, knowing smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
“That is an immense relief, Canary. I must confess, for a time I feared he was forcing you to write those beautiful words in your letters. I never imagined... I never truly thought you would fall in love.” He paused, his gaze softening into pure parental protectiveness.
“Has he mistreated you in any way? Has he forced you into anything against your will?”
“No, Father. Never,” you replied instantly, a warm, traitorous blush creeping up your neck. Your heart fluttered rapidly as a wave of dreamy, overwhelming memories rushed through your mind.
You remembered the quiet afternoons in his private study, where the fierce King would patiently guide your hands over intricate clockwork schematics just to share a moment of connection. You remembered the heavy heat of the Midsummer Gala, where he had brazenly pulled you onto his lap, using his massive frame to shield you from the court’s judgment
And most vividly, you remembered yesterday—when you had scraped your hands in the garden holding your anger at Cordelia’s words. Jestyn had gone entirely into a frantic, protective 'Crisis Mode,' lifting you in his large arms as if you were a fragile, wounded bird, his cool black inner skin pressing tenderly against your skin as he personally cleansed and bandaged your minor injuries with the softest silk.
“He can be cold as winter toward the rest of the world, Father,” you whispered, your eyes casting downward with a dreamy, unmistakable glow.
“But with me... he is as soft and beautiful as a gentle snowfall. He protects me with his entire soul.” You paused, looking up directly into your father's eyes. The slight hesitation vanished, replaced by a fierce, undeniable clarity.
“I admire him more than words can describe, Dad. It’s not just gratitude for his protection... it is a deep, irreversible love. He is a King built of iron, gears, and porcelain armor, yet when he is with me, his touch is gentler than any soft-skin human I have ever known. He treats my life as his absolute kingdom, and I have willingly given him the key. I love him, Father. With everything I am.”
Your father watched you, a bittersweet realization washing over him.
He was the man who had held you the moment you entered this world. His mind briefly drifted back twenty-five years, remembering the exact moment the healers had placed you in his trembling arms. You had been such a tiny, fragile newborn baby, crying at the sudden coldness of the world until he cradled you against his chest and began to hum a soft, low melody.
You had instantly quieted, your tiny fingers wrapping tightly around his thumb. He had wept tears of pure, radiant happiness that day, swearing an oath to the heavens that he would spend the rest of his life protecting you and your song.
He had kept that promise. As you grew, he became the anchor to your creative soul. He fondly remembered the toddler who would refuse to sleep unless they were clutching the golden filigree toy he had meticulously crafted for them.
He remembered proudly buying you every single sketchpad, charcoal stick, and artistic tool you ever begged to learn, never caring about the messy paint smudges you left on his expensive noble cloaks. The two of you had spent countless hours simply sitting side-by-side on the veranda of the family estate, watching the wild birds migrate and listening to the finches sing.
He knew your expressions perfectly—and he had never seen you look at a classic painting or a priceless sculpture with the kind of profound, soulful adoration you now held for the Marionette King.
“Darling... you are completely in love with him, aren’t you?” your father questioned softly...
You instantly choked on your tea, coughing into your napkin as your flawless noble composure shattered entirely. In front of the Golden Circle, you were an unmovable shield of etiquette, but alone with your father, you were just his child.
“Father!!” you hissed, your cheeks burning a brilliant crimson. “I think it is far too soon to even think of such things!”
“Well, we shall see about that,” he chuckied warmly, his smile turning deeply sentimental.
“But please, my Canary, consider one important piece of advice from your father. If you do marry him, ensure it is because your hearts are truly bound as one. Do not do it for crowns, privileges, or titles. Do it for love... just as I did with your mother.”
The Legacy of the Songbird
A soft smile graced your lips. You had always loved hearing the story of how your parents met, and how it had given you the very name your father still used to anchor you to your roots.
They had both been high-born nobles, but they rejected the shallow, rigid expectations of the court. Your father had dedicated his youth to teaching children and teenagers, instilling a deep love for art, history, and culture in the younger generation. Your mother had been a legendary muse—a woman of such striking grace that master sculptors and painters begged her to model for them. But her true beauty lay in her secret life, where she spent her days donating her time and wealth to local orphanages and schools.
The day they met, your mother had volunteered to model a live portrait for your father’s advanced art students. Your father had been entirely stunned the moment she walked into the classroom—not just by her ethereal beauty, but by her radiant personality. She had immediately sat on the floor with the children, laughing warmly and helping them mix their vibrant paints without a single care for her expensive silk skirts.
To keep the children entertained while they sketched, she had begun to sing. Her voice was a breathtaking, crystal-clear melody that filled the dusty studio with an effortless, golden warmth. Your father had stood frozen at his easel, entirely captivated.
When the class finally ended, he had walked up to her, completely enchanted, and murmured, “Madame, you sing with the pure, unburdened soul of a wild canary.”
She had blushed beautifully, and from that very afternoon, their hearts were bound forever. When you were born, inheriting that exact same soulful grace and love for music, your father had looked down at you and known instantly that you were his little Canary—the continuation of the beautiful melody that had brought your family together.
“You must protect that spark, Canary,” your father added gently, breaking you out of your reverie.
“I will, Dad… I promise,” you replied warmly, a soft smile lingering on your lips until a rhythmic, elegant stride echoed along the stone path.
The Sovereign’s Grace
Jestyn walked gracefully toward the pavilion, his towering frame cutting a striking figure against the dappled afternoon light. The terrifying aura he usually held for the court was entirely absent, replaced by a quiet, serene composure.
“Your Majesty... thank you for this,” you murmured, bowing your head in a gesture of profound gratitude. “I will always cherish what you did today.”
Your father stepped forward, offering a respectful bow of his own. “You have my deepest gratitude, Sire.”
Jestyn’s crimson eyes softened as he looked down at you, then shifted to your father.
“Songbird, I must admit... your father’s resilience and devotion to you is a powerful thing. I know the heavy burden of worry you have carried for your family's safety. To ease those fears, I have decided to grant you leave. You may return to your family estate for two weeks.”
Your eyes widened in utter disbelief. He was letting you leave? For a full fortnight, you would be free to soothe your mother’s sorrow, hold Madeleine, and see the friends you had left behind in the Golden Circle?
“Jestyn… are you certain?” you asked, your voice a surprised whisper as you stepped closer to his broad chest.
“Are you not worried about the rumors? What the high lords of the Golden Circle will say if they see me leave the palace gates?” You said as you saw his face
“My little Canary, the King and I have already spoken at length, and he has fully consented,” your father intervened gently, his voice carrying a reassuring warmth. Your father said with certainty and trust.
“Indeed, my Songbird,” Jestyn murmured, his voice a low, melodious chime. He reached out, the smooth porcelain of his fingers gently cupping your cheek.
“Aside from your happiness, there are pressing... administrative arrangements I must personally oversee within the capital. It is best you are safely tucked away in your family's care while I reshape certain structures. I want you protected, but I also want you whole.”
Your father watched the interaction closely, a quiet revelation dawning in his eyes as he noted the sheer reverence in the King's touch. The monstrous, arrogant tyrant from the rumors did not exist here—only a sovereign utterly consumed by the well-being of his muse.
What you didn't realize was that the 'arrangements' Jestyn spoke of had very little to do with standard court politics. Behind his calm, calculated expression, the King was setting a grand design into motion.
He was quietly preparing a monumentous, irreversible shift in the kingdom's hierarchy—a beautiful surprise meant to legally and permanently bind your futures together. But for now, he kept the secret locked tight behind heart.
“Alright, Your Majesty. I accept,” you said, your heart fluttering with a bittersweet ache at the thought of leaving his side, even for a short time.
“But I promise to return to you as soon as the two weeks have passed. As long as my family remains safe.”
“Do not trouble your mind with such thoughts, Songbird. Everything is under my absolute command,” Jestyn whispered. He leaned down, his cool lips pressing a lingering, possessive kiss to your forehead—a silent promise of ownership that followed you all the way out of the palace gates.
The Sanctuary of Home
The day your royal carriage rolled into the noble district, the Golden Circle erupted into a frenzy of whispers. The elite were entirely shocked and relieved to see you return unharmed, and the court gossip quickly turned fierce. Rumors of a true, impossible romance began to consume the salons, with nobles whispering in awe of how a marionette king made of iron and ash could lose his heart to a soft-skin human.
But you ignored the court's prying eyes. Your only focus was the heavy oak doors of the mansion.
The moment the carriage came to a halt, the front doors burst open. Madeleine stood on the threshold, her eyes widening in pure amazement before she let out a breathless gasp.
“My Lord/Lady! You... you have come home!” she cried, throwing all noble decorum to the wind as she rushed down the steps, her arms lifting to embrace you in a fierce, desperate hug.
You wrapped your arms tightly around her, a brilliant smile breaking across your face as you rubbed her back, trying to soothe the hot, happy tears spilling onto your shoulder.
“Madeleine!! I am here, I promise! I am doing perfectly fine!” As Madeleine slowly stepped back to give you space, your gaze drifted past her toward the sunlit garden entryway.
Standing beneath the floral archway was your mother. She froze, staring at you as if she were looking at a ghost materializing from the summer mist.
“Little Canary?… My baby?” she choked out, her voice a fragile, trembling thread as her hand flew to her chest.
A heavy, emotional ache squeezed your throat as you realized just how deeply the depression of losing you had broken her spirit. Suddenly, twenty-five years of memories flashed through your mind in a beautiful, chaotic rush—you saw the toddler who used to clumsily chase butterflies through these exact gardens, always running straight into her open arms whenever you tripped.
Without a second thought, you sprinted across the lawn.
You collided with her, throwing your arms around her neck and holding her with every ounce of strength you possessed. Your mother let out a raw, sobbing cry, her knees buckling beneath the sheer weight of her relief as the two of you fell together onto the soft green grass.
“My baby!!! You came back to me!!!” she wept, burying her face into your hair, her hands frantically tracing your shoulders and back as if to assure herself that your warmth was real, and that her beloved Canary had finally returned to the nest.
Long Live the Clumsy Canary
The grass was still damp against your clothes when the tears finally cleared, replaced by the warmth of a home you thought you might never see the same way again. For the first few days, the mansion was a fortress of privacy.
Your mother refused to let you out of her sight, and Madeleine fussed over your meals as if trying to make up for every day you had spent away in the quiet, ethereal halls of the Sanctuary.
But a Canary cannot be hidden away for long, especially not one that had flown straight into the heart of the iron king's court and returned to tell the tale.
Once the initial shock of your return settled, the outside world came knocking. Your sudden arrival had set the high society salons ablaze, and before the week was out, the silver tray in the foyer was overflowing with cream-colored envelopes, gold-embossed invitations, and frantic notes from your social circle. You had become, overnight, the most fascinating figure in the entire kingdom.
In fact, the rumors had become so aggressively unhinged that your parents were practically under siege. At her weekly bridge club, your mother was cornered by a frantic Duchess who leaned in and whispered fiercely.
“[Your Mother’s Name], darling, we are so glad your baby is back. But be honest. When you hug them... does it sound like a sack of loose silverware? Do they require oiling before bed?”
Your mother, entirely done with the nonsense, had simply taken a calm sip of her tea and replied, “The only thing requiring oil, Beatrice, is the rusty hinge of your jaw. My child is perfectly soft, perfectly human, and currently eating us out of house and home.”
Your father hadn't escaped the madness either; he was cornered at the gentlemen's lounge by local merchants demanding to know if King Jestyn truly ate liquid gold.
“Gentlemen, if the King of the Realm survived on a diet of precious metals, our tax rates would be a lot worse. Now, let me play my hand in peace.” He had just sighed, rubbing his temples, and told them
Even the neighbors were losing their minds. Madam Vane, obsessed with her pristine hedges, practically fell through the rosebushes when she saw your father tending the garden, shouting to ask if you still used the bathroom or if the Iron King had those "biological necessities" magically removed for courtly elegance.
The next day, when you sneezed loudly while sitting on the veranda, the neighbor's elderly gardener dropped his shears in pure terror, patted his chest, and yelled to his assistant, “Did you hear that?! It didn't rattle! The lungs are still organic! Praise the Saints!”
The true whirlwind began on a sun-drenched Tuesday afternoon when you finally stepped out to meet your closest friends for tea.
The moment you walked into the private garden of the tea salon, the collective gasp from the tables was audible. Your friends jumped to their feet, a chaotic flurry of silken skirts and clinking porcelain as they rushed to surround you.
"We thought you were a statue!" one cried, grabbing your hands and turning them over, half-expecting to find polished wood instead of warm skin.
"The streets were saying you’d been hollowed out and filled with clockwork magic!" The moment you sat down, your friend Karla stared at you completely unblinkingly for a full two minutes.
When you finally asked her what on earth she was doing, she groaned and threw a macaron at you. "Dammit! You blinked! Raquel bet me ten silver pieces that you’d learned how to sleep with your eyes wide open like those creepy court marionettes. You just ruined my shoe budget."
Later, you accidentally tripped over a rug while carrying a tray of biscuits, sending them flying.
Instead of rushing to help, your friends burst into applause, and Lady Raquel cheered, "See? Absolute proof! If the King had turned you into a flawless, graceful puppet, you wouldn't have just taken out a side table. Long live the clumsy, human Canary!"
You laughed, a bright, clear sound that immediately shattered the heavy, gothic mystique the public had built around you. Over steaming cups of Earl Grey and tiers of delicate pastries, you spent the afternoon systematically dismantling every unhinged rumor that had gripped the city.
You mocked the idea of King Jestyn’s "vampiric gold diet," describing instead a quiet, deeply observant monarch who appreciated literature and profound silence. You laughed off the horror stories of your stay, proving with every animated gesture and bite of cake that you were vibrantly, undeniably human.
By the time the sun began to dip below the horizon, the tone of the gathering had completely shifted. Your friends listened with wide, breathless eyes as you painted a picture of the Sanctuary not as a haunted cage, but as a place of intricate, fierce devotion.
Word of your casual dismissals spread like wildfire through the noble district. The upper echelons of society couldn't get enough of you. Suddenly, an afternoon tea or a high-society gala wasn't considered a success unless the "Canary of the Sanctuary" was on the guest list.
Porcelain Rumors and Velvet Traps
The glittering whirlwind of high society was exhilarating, but as the days bled into a second week, the pulling ache in your chest only grew stronger. You loved the laughter, the tea parties, and the warmth of your family mansion, but your soul remained anchored to a quiet library and a king made of iron and ash.
On your final evening, the dining room was quiet, stripped of the neighborhood’s frantic gossip. You sat between your mother and Madeleine, gently taking their hands across the polished wood table.
“I need you both to understand something,” you began softly, looking into your mother’s fragile, anxious eyes. “I am not disappearing forever. I am not a ghost, and I am not a prisoner. The Sanctuary is my choice, but this is still my home.”
“But Canary…” your mother choked out, her fingers tightening around yours. “The distance… the thought of you behind those heavy gates…”
“I will write to you constantly, I promise,” you reassured her, a tender, grounding smile on your face.
“And I will visit. But I am happy, Mother. Incredibly happy. Seeing you both well, knowing you are safe here—it gives me the strength to follow my own heart. Please, trust me.”
Madeleine squeezed your hand, a tear rolling down her cheek as she nodded. “If that strange, quiet court makes you shine this brightly, My Lord/Lady… then we will hold the fort here until your next letter arrives.”
The farewell the next morning was filled with tight, lingering hugs and quiet promises whispered into the summer mist. As your carriage pulled away from the mansion, you leaned against the velvet cushions, letting out a soft sigh of contentment. You were going back to him. You were going home.
But the peaceful silence didn't last.
An hour into the journey, just as the city buildings began to thin into the heavily forested roads leading toward the Sanctuary’s perimeter, the carriage violently jerked to a halt. The horses shrieked, the sharp cracking of a whip and the sound of scuffling hooves cutting through the quiet woods.
Before you could reach for the window to call out to the driver, the carriage door was violently thrown open.
Standing in the threshold was a face you had hoped to never see again—Julian. He was roughly your own age, a wealthy, arrogant noble whose pale skin made his striking features look almost like marble in the dimming light. Framed by a messy mane of deep, black-violet hair, his intense green eyes burned with a mixture of pure, desperate obsession and unhinged rage as he looked down at you.
"Julian?" you gasped, your breath catching as you recoiled into the shadows of the carriage. "What is the meaning of this? Get away from me!"
"I told you before you left, you pathetic little bird," Julian spat, his voice a venomous hiss as he stepped inside.
"You belong in a noble house, not playing house with an marionette freak in a graveyard of toys. Did you really think I’d just let a doll keep what is mine?" his tall frame completely blocking out the sunlight.
"I don't belong to you, Julian! I never did!" you shouted, pressing yourself flat against the back seat, looking around desperately for any way to escape.
But there was no time. Before the words could fully leave your lips, Julian lunged forward into the cramped carriage. A heavy, chemical-soaked velvet cloth was violently slammed over your face, clamping down hard against your nose and mouth.
You thrashed wildly, your fingers tearing at his wrists, but the sickly sweet, suffocating fumes filled your lungs instantly. Julian’s triumphant, mocking face and those piercing green eyes began to blur and warp. The shadows of the carriage swirled into a heavy, suffocating blackness, and within seconds, your strength completely vanished, plunging you into an unconscious void.
To be continue…
