It started—innocently, as always—with a turnip farmer.
Jolan. Sweet guy. Shy. Built like a barrel of oats with arms. He came to me after Cucumber Day (his skin was glowing) and asked, voice trembling:
"Lady Rika… how do I tell someone I… like them?"
My first thought:
Please don't be talking about me.
My second:
Oh no. It begins.
Turns out, he had a crush on the baker's daughter. Every morning he passed her stall, bought a single cinnamon bun, and nearly choked trying to say "good morning." He needed help.
"Okay," I said. "Let's write her a letter. Keep it sweet. Honest. No poetic riddles involving root vegetables."
He nodded solemnly and took notes on a carrot.
I wrote a sample letter for him to copy:
-Dear Cilia,
Your cinnamon buns make my mornings better, but your smile makes the whole world sweeter. If you'd like to walk with me sometime, I'd be very honored. I promise to bring fresh turnips, not metaphors.
Sincerely,
Jolan (your very nervous admirer)
Simple. Wholesome. Zero vegetables with googly eyes.
He gave her the letter.
She blushed. Smiled. Gave him a cinnamon bun with extra sugar glaze.
Success! Cue confetti.
Except—
The next day, three other villagers showed up at the café asking, "Lady Rika, can you help me write a message for my dearest grain supplier?" and "My wife says I'm emotionally wooden. Can you help fix that?"
Then someone found Jolan's original letter in the town fountain.
No one knows who dropped it, but now it was being called "The Sweet Words of the Soft Prophet."
By evening, twenty-five people had gathered at the café asking for love letter templates, romantic advice, and whether putting poetry under someone's door counted as legally binding.
"I'm not a matchmaker," I told them.
"But you bring softness to all things!" one woman cried. "Even our confused, emotionally repressed husbands!"
"I helped a farmer confess to a baker, not write a novel—"
"Please," a noblewoman said, clutching a quill. "I want to know how to emotionally devastate him, but in a loving way."
sigh.
So, naturally, I created a system.
Rika's Guide to Heartfelt Words and Possibly Good Life Decisions, Volume 1.
It included:
1.Sample greetings:
> "I think of you every time I smell cinnamon"
"You are the honey to my socially awkward bread"
2.Good sign-offs:
> "Yours, softly"
"Hoping this letter finds you and your sheep well"
3.Things to avoid:
1.Metaphors about meat
2.Comparing someone's eyes to lakes (too overused)
3.Proposals in the first letter
Within days, nobles were sending messengers to book consultations. One guy brought three drafts, color-coded. Another cried after I edited his "rose petals of passion" into "you smell nice when you're near bread."
Soon, I was receiving thank-you pastries from successful couples and mysterious anonymous letters asking me to "whisper wisdom into the wind for their long-lost lovers."
The mayor asked if I wanted to officiate a wedding.
I said no.
He said, "We already printed the invitation. You're listed as The Heart Whisperer."
Kuro now delivers tiny romantic fortune scrolls on a ribbon around his neck. People tip him in smoked fish. He's getting fat.
Also, the baker's daughter? She baked heart-shaped turnip tarts.
Jolan cried.
So now I am:
The Soft Prophet
Chronomage of Comfort
Archwitch of Whiskers
And now… Advisor of Amorous Affairs
I just wanted to help one guy eat less awkward pastry.
But I guess if love is a battlefield… I'm the one handing out letters instead of swords.