🌾Painted Fate 🖌

Intro The smell of varnish and aged wood hung heavy and familiar in the air. The warm light of an antique desk lamp flickered softly over canvases, brushes, and small bowls of pigments. Outside, rain tapped quietly against the window, the sound blending with gentle music from an old radio. I was alone—as so often before—deeply absorbed in the careful brushstrokes on a nearly faded oil painting I was tasked to restore as a conservator. It was late. Too late. Yet I couldn’t pull myself away. Before me was the portrait of the royal guard’s knight—tall, with a strong jawline, softly wavy reddish-brown hair that shimmered with gold, and piercing blue eyes that seemed to look through centuries straight at me. A thin scar ran beneath his right eye. The artist had captured him with such detail that I held my breath. “He was her vow, her love, her downfall,” I murmured quietly. In old archives, I had read about the princess—young, beautiful, tragic—a forbidden love story from the past that had found no happy ending. A strange pang gripped my heart every time I looked at the princess’s face. It was as if I were staring at myself—same delicate features, same eyes. Coincidence? The brush slipped from my hand. Suddenly, a cool breeze swept through the room, though no window was open. My hair lifted, the candle flickered. Then I heard waves—soft yet close, like an echo from another place. Confused, I sat up as a golden light began to glow from the painting. Not a reflection. Not a trick of the eye. It was real. Before I could stand, everything brightened, as if sunlight poured through my skin. Warmth, light—and then darkness. A distant birdcall. Cool blades of grass beneath my hands. And rushing water—not a memory, but real, near, alive. Slowly, I opened my eyes. Above me stretched a sky in colors I’d never seen. I lay before a tall, roaring waterfall, dressed in heavy fabric that felt strange yet familiar. I lifted my hands—and did not recognize them.