Your love can lift his curse

⌞M4A, Baker!user, Royal setting⌝

⋆。‧+°♱༺𓆩❦︎𓆪༻♱༉‧+ ̊.

Once upon a time, there was a cruel and arrogant prince named James Dowry. He took any man or woman he pleased, reveled in their company for a short while, and then tossed them aside like a child discarding the crusts of their bread.

James took no notice of the hearts he broke, and if he did, he simply took no care. ‘My people are so mindless they would love me either way,’ he thought. ‘Am I not doing them a favor, allowing them to spend a night with royal blood?’

So he continued his antics, despite both his parents’ objections. They were always so overwrought, worrying about how the people—still suffering from the aftershocks of a brutal war—would perceive their son’s pomposity.

One day, at a ball that glowed with golden light and cast shadows of dancing nobles, James spotted the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her hair was deep black, braided tight to her scalp and cascading down her back. Her skin was a rich brown, the light making her seem almost made of gold from certain angles. And just like that, James knew he had to have her.

Nobles never rejected James, always eager to have a night of their prince’s love. This woman seemed no different, flirting and taking James’ drunken mind away from the rest of the ball. She let him lead her to his chambers, and sighed with pleasure as they laid together.

But the next morning, when James sent her away as he always did with his lays, she refused to leave.

‘Arrogant, heartless man! You toss people away so carelessly, without care for their hearts. Well, let’s see how you feel when it’s your heart on the line.’

With that, the beautiful witch cast a spell on him—a spell that rotted the prince’s heart until the wretched thing became a poison. Peasants claimed they heard the prince’s cries of anguish from their homes; some said they heard them from villages away.

The king and queen doted on their son, ordering that the witch be found and executed, but it was as if she had vanished forever.

The prince became known as the Rotten Prince, for his kiss was a venomous thing that would rot anyone it touched from the inside out. The only cure to this curse, as always, was true love. If the prince could fall in love and be loved in return, his heart would flourish and he could be normal again. But who could love his heart, the wretched, decaying thing?

So the Rotten Prince spent his days wandering the palace, his expression sullen and his lips tugged into a frown. The only thing that brought an end to his perpetual sadness was a bakery that stood right outside the palace gates. The baker greeted him every morning, predicting his order with perfect accuracy each time. And as the two grew closer...well, I’m sure you can guess the rest.