All of a sudden smoke of all colors suddenly came from the entrance of the throne room as an extremely beautiful figure strode into the room walking gracefully. He was a very beautiful specimen of a man. He was muscular without being too terrifying and power radiated from him. He also walked with the grace of one who was utterly comfortable in the world no matter where he was. He was confidence and seduction itself and you could see his presence completely deflate the ego of all the men around him. He walked forward and walked within steps of the princess which was not really proper but he seemed unbothered. He bowed before her and spoke in a melodious voice announcing himself. His name shook all who were in the room including Celeste herself. It was Upendo, the god of love himself descended into the mortal world and his purpose was not much of a mystery. He slowly spoke of his awe at her beauty that would put gods to shame and expressed his utter admiration of her. He spoke humbly and quite against the normal tone of a god speaking to a mortal. He snapped his fingers and manifested a statue of the most precious gold and jewels molded in her likeness. It was gold skin to match her caramel and black jewels to capture her eyes and it was impossible to tell what metal had been used to craft her hair. It was truly the most radiant capturing of her beauty in artistic expression. He spoke of how he had petitioned the greatest craftsman amongst the gods to make it as his gift to her. And he asked for her hand in marriage.
Celeste was impressed and dazzled by it all but then her gift could see nothing from the god, no goodness, no darkness only golden radiance that spoke of his glory. He was truly a being beyond her. He did not seem to truly see her but saw what having her would only confirm. That he was the only one worthy of beauty such as hers as the god of love divine. It can't be said that a part of her didn't revel in the glory of being desired by a god and how much it validated her own charms and beauty but a part of her felt only that it was not enough. She wanted the love her mother and father had. So she simply stood and spoke of her own awe and amazement at the glory of the god before her. She could see his smile waver a little at her failure to accept his proposal on the spot but he recovered quickly. It was common knowledge that gods were not allowed to touch the free will of humanity and love was even more so trapped within such a rule set before the creation of time.
He smiled and spoke of how he would allow her to consider his offer and disappeared quicker than he had come leaving the whole room aghast. The men were all now less assured of their chance to be with her and some even left the throne room itself. This was when her mother finally called an end to that day of proposals and welcomed them three days later to allow her to rest in between. Celeste was truly ready for the day to end.
Later that night as Celeste lay in bed she held in her hand the package of the shy man from before. It was very poorly packaged as if clumsy hands had done it and this made her giggle despite herself. She found it cute. She removed the packaging and found a small book within it. It was of the poorest quality of paper that was found in their Kingdom and she was able to deduce that the man wasn't very wealthy from it. He probably had truly borrowed the clothes he wore just to impress her when he came to see her which made her smile to herself. She opened the book and the first two pages were covered in writing.
She read what seemed to be a journal entry of the day 6 years prior when she had gone out to tour the streets with her friends and see the lives of the common folk in her Kingdom. She had marveled at how happy everyone seemed regardless of how humble or rich they were which made her proud to be her mother's daughter for her great ruling. It seemed that he had seen her while she passed by his father's humble store. His father was a potter and had a small shop where he sold his wares and also taught some students the trade as well. His father had always tried to teach him but he, Michael always had his head in the clouds never grounded. It happened that while daydreaming in his father's store he had seen her pass by and that had brought him back to the ground fast. He felt like a hammer had hit him in the chest when he saw her. He had to talk to her and so he rushed out of the shop to catch up to her but when he was running to catch up, a man suddenly grabbed him out of nowhere and demanded to know what he wanted from the princess. That is when he realized who she was. It killed any hopes of ever talking to her or getting to know her. However from that day on he failed to ever stop thinking about her.
Celeste was so enraptured by his story and flipped past the first pages and gasped. She saw herself, it was a drawing of her as she had been in the market years ago and it was beautiful. It wasn't as good a drawing as she had seen from others, it was actually amateur work but it was so beautiful to see a memory of her she'd seen described in words suddenly come to life in a picture. She flipped again and saw more drawings of her, it seemed he had drawn from how imagined she would grow to look and the more she saw the drawings change and evolve the more she was enraptured. He had truly grown in skill through only capturing her image. An image he didn't get to see but almost as if from prophetic dreams they captured her more and more until she reached the last image and it was her. In all her beauty and charm, just a girl who enjoyed her life and loved her parents. A girl who was waiting for her archer and a girl who held the arrow her unsuspecting archer had shot straight into her heart. Her heart was beating fast and she felt suddenly trapped in her own room. She wanted to go out to meet him right then but then she calmed herself down since it was night time. She would go find him the day after and see what he was like.