Summary: A princess of Satara, raised as an ornament in a gilded cage, meets Jeon Jungkook—her silent, storm-eyed bodyguard. Assigned to protect her, he becomes the only constant in her ever-changing, suffocating world. Over years of duty, silence, and stolen glances, an unspoken bond forms between them. But when her fate is sealed in a political marriage, one stormy night forces them to confront the truth and neither dares to speak.
Disclaimer: This is a fictional story inspired by historical Indian settings. It does not reflect real events or real people. Jungkook and other characters are portrayed in a purely imaginative context.
Trigger Warnings: Contains themes of arranged marriage, emotional neglect, mild violence, and gender-based discrimination. Reader discretion is advised.
Note: it's so humbling to see people ain't enjoying this 😝😝
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Prologue.... Chapter 1 (more chapters to come...)
You were seven years old when he first arrived at the palace gates of Satara.
Jeon Jungkook.
The name meant nothing to you then, just another foreign syllable added to the long list of people who came and went in your ornamental life. But his face stayed.
Even at fourteen, he stood taller than most of the men in your father’s guard, his shoulders already broad, jaw sharp despite the softness of boyhood still clinging to him. But what struck you the most—what made you peek around the pillars of the inner courtyard that day—were his eyes.
Not brown like yours, not black like the guards.
They were the color of monsoon rain.
Not just the color of rain, but the weight of it. As if every cloud that had hovered over your short, structured life had found a home in his quiet gaze.
He was to be your personal bodyguard.
Not because you were important.
But because you were being prepared.
A daughter who had to live long enough to be sold off was an investment worth protecting.
---
“Jeon Jungkook,” the court official had called, unrolling the scroll like a prophecy. “Trained in the Eastern Hill Ranges. Orphan. No land. No title. Sworn to the house of Satara until death.”
He had bowed then. Deep, precise, eyes to the floor.
You had been standing just behind your father’s chair, dressed in brocade and bangles too heavy for your wrists, your mother’s hand on your shoulder stiff like marble. They hadn’t introduced you, only gestured.
“That is the girl you’ll protect,” your father had said, without so much as looking at you. “See that she bleeds only when commanded to.”
You’d flinched at his words, even though they were delivered like everyday conversation. Jungkook’s eyes had flickered upward. Just briefly.
That was your first meeting.
Not a greeting.
Not an exchange.
Just an assignment.
_________________________________________
You tried to be indifferent to him.
You had learned already, even at seven, that the more you cared for someone, the easier it was for them to be taken away. Tutors were dismissed. Maids reassigned. Even your own wet nurse had been “rotated out” when your mother felt she was too attached to you.
So you didn’t speak to Jungkook for days.
But he was always there.
Standing by your classroom door while you recited poetry. Shadowing you during temple walks. Waiting by your bedchamber doors until the night lamp was blown out.
And the thing about silence was—yours recognized his.
You were taught to be quiet. Jungkook chose to be.
The first time you ever truly noticed him—not as a guard, but as a person—was the day you fell from the courtyard steps.
You were racing down, too quick in your anklets, when your foot caught on your dupatta and you hit the marble hard.
The palace echoed with your cry.
Servants panicked, rushing to help. Your lady-in-waiting screamed something about broken teeth and the difficulties you would face in marrying. But before anyone else could reach you, he did.
He knelt, wordless, lifting you gently, your sobs hiccupping against his shoulder. One of your bangles had cracked in half and your elbow was bleeding. You could feel the warm stickiness of it through your fabric.
He didn’t flinch at the blood. He didn’t speak.
He just carried you.
Through the garden. Up the stairs. Past the onlookers. All the way to your inner chambers, where the physicians would come later.
And that’s when you whispered, cheeks wet, voice trembling—
“You didn’t ask me to walk. Why?”
His voice was quiet, like footsteps on temple stone.
“Because you’ve been walking alone your whole life.”
From that day, you followed him.
Not in the literal sense—Satara’s rules didn’t allow a princess to chase after a guard like a puppy
but emotionally, spiritually, invisibly.
You watched him during sword training from your balcony.
You brought him water laced with cardamom in the afternoons and pretended it was for the other guards.
You asked about his home one day, and he said, “It was loud, i had two sisters and a mother. Father left as soon as my youngest sister was born."
That night, as you stood in your balcony, you looked at the bright seemly perfect moom and whispered a prayer for a home he would one day find again.
As the years unfurled, so did you.
Your figure began to blossom into the woman you were raised to be. Your eyes learned how to lower without seeming weak. Your voice turned softer, sweeter—coached into a melody men would pay dowries to own.
But inside, beneath the silks, you were fire and questions.
Why did your father never look you in the eye?
Why was your hand being promised like a treaty?
Why did the man standing silently behind you make your heart beat louder than the palace drums during festivals?
You never asked aloud.
Jungkook never broke rank.
But sometimes—just sometimes—he’d glance at you when you weren’t looking.
And sometimes you’d catch him.
---
On your sixteenth birthday, you were officially declared of marriageable age.
The court erupted in celebration. Princes from as far as Kashmir and Lanka sent gifts. One even sent a live tiger. Another sent a ruby the size of a lychee.
Your father announced that a suitor had already been chosen.
You’d never met him. You wouldn’t, until the engagement ceremony.
But he was older. A widower. Twice. With daughters of his own. His lands were prosperous, his ambitions larger than life.
And you—you were his next acquisition.
That night, you sat by the palace window, the storm rolling in over the Sahyadri hills, thunder grumbling like a warning from the gods.
Jungkook stood outside, soaked from the rains, still on watch.
You opened the window. "You’ll catch fever.”
“I don’t fall ill easily.”
“You’ve been out there all night.”
“You’ve been crying all night.”
Your breath caught.
He didn’t look at you. Just clenched his jaw and said, “I would fight the storm for you.”
You swallowed, voice shaking. “Then why can’t you fight the fate they’ve written for me?”
Silence.
Lightning split the sky.
And for the first time ever, Jungkook broke a rule.
He looked straight at you, his eyes unreadable, chest rising with something heavy, something dangerous.
“Because if I did... I wouldn’t be your guard anymore.”
And with that, he bowed low, and turned away..leaving you and your helpless heart behind the curtains of a storm.
