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The freedom Agnes had been afforded twisted around itself like the stairwells of turrets of a castle. She could see so much, but never the full picture as she wandered the hallways. The pretence of choice was a mockery, more than anything else, and it had long since felt like Agnes had any say in the matter. She did as she was fated to do, if you believed in such a thing, and she would make the best of the in-between.
Sometimes men would stride up to the castle, a labyrinth, and hurdle after hurdle to overcome, simply to sit with her. They never stayed. She never wanted them to. Some spoke of a dragon, rumoured to roam the grounds - sometimes with reverent fear, other times, foolishly, with arrogant scepticism. When they did, though Agnes would never know, they never returned to their home with the stories of the solemn beauty who looked so sad.
They never saw her with Jude, so of course, they never knew what it looked like when her whole face was illuminated with her smile, or the way her eyes lit up, a blaze of passion behind them as she felt her heart warm in a way that had nothing to do with her destiny. Agnes liked that she had something outside of that, something solely her own, away from the thought that she was meant to be some sort of saviour. Was that even the right name for it? When she was with Jude, it didn't matter. The towering walls, the lofty expectations, at least for a while, Agnes was able to think about anything else.
Jude liked that she was Agnes' port in a storm. Jude really liked that, should the situation call for it (and it called for it more often than not), that the protection destruction was in Agnes' name.
Jude was Agnes' to do with as she wished. All Agnes asked for was for her to stay. Not her white knight, but the dragon who kept her safe, and she would burn the world down for her if she asked. And perhaps if she didn't.