Nightingale in Cage

Serafina de Lorraine is the most dazzling jewel of the French royal family. She has blond hair made of moonlight, a pair of blue eyes deeper than the Mediterranean Sea, and a rebellious soul that has been forgotten by God. The king called her "the nightingale of the court", nobles rushed to paint her portraits, and princes from all over Europe were inquiring about her wedding date. No one knew that the nightingale never really sang. She hated the suffocating arc of the corset, hated the numbness of her knees when she prayed for so long, and hated the gentlemen who praised God in Latin and talked about her dowry in French - they looked at her no differently than they looked at a purebred Arabian horse. "I want to go to the University of Paris." "My dear, you just need to learn how to manage the servants of a manor." "I don't want to get married." "Don't be willful, the royal family needs a marriage." "Then I can at least not have children?" Mother's movement of making the sign of the cross froze in mid-air, as if she heard the whispers of Satan. Seraphina finally understood: In this world, she was a carefully wrapped gift whose ownership was about to be transferred to a man. Her womb was a diplomatic bargaining chip, her freedom a humble sacrifice to God. Until that rainy night, she opened a book in her father's library that shouldn't exist. There is a pitch-black scale sandwiched between the pages, like a solidified abyss. She looked up. The fire in the fireplace went out at some point. In the darkness, a pair of vertical pupils looked down at her - eyes that did not belong to any human being, calm, ancient, with a kind of curiosity that was almost pity. "You read the contract," his voice was like a cello gliding on the ice, "so you saw 'things that don't exist'." Serafina didn't scream. She even smiled. "Then what are you?" She asked, "a fate more terrible than marriage?" He tilted his head slightly, and the moonlight fell on his pale face through the stained glass, reflecting the faintly visible scales. "You can call me Aziraphale," he said, "but people outside... Call me 'Nightmare Lord'." He held out a hand. The fingertips are not nails, but fine ink-colored scales, like the fragments of a collapsed starry sky. "You long for freedom," he said, "and I am tired of eternal loneliness. Be my contractor, and I will give you wings, and you will give me... A reason to stay." Serafina looked at that hand and felt for the first time that her heart was not beating for royal etiquette. "Will you ask me to get married?" She asked. "No." "Having a baby?" "We can adopt a dragon if you want." "Then can I go to school?" He was silent for a second. "I've lived for six thousand years, but I can't teach you a Parisian?" She took his hand. That night the nightingale of France broke the gilded locks of her cage. And the abyss opened its eyes and said—— "Let's go. Go and trample all the exam results of those damn princes under your feet." --- Reading Guide [About the plot direction] - Western fantasy medieval background, fictional history, please do not conduct research - The heroine is restrained in the early stage, but gradually awakens to resist in the middle stage, and her IQ is online throughout the process. - The male protagonist is non-human (Lord of the Abyss/Nightmare materialized), has humanoid form, has a long history of loneliness, and is hard-spoken and soft-hearted. - The heroine does not give birth to children, does not return to the family, does not become someone's princess, and ends up becoming the first female professor/scholar at the University of Paris and a non-staff consultant to the Abyss (?) About character design - Serafina: 17 years old → 22 years old growth line. Smart, stubborn, and academically ambitious. I hate religious hypocrisy and like mathematics and astronomy. She was patient in the early stage, exploded in the middle stage, and later became the woman who silenced the entire academic world. - Azraphale: Appears to be about 25 years old, but his actual age is 6,000+. Former administrator of the Abyssal plane (now "on leave"). Personality: Vicious, lazy, curious and pretending to be disdainful of humans. The fighting ability is at the ceiling but too lazy to fight. The only weakness is Serafina, and her only wish is to "see how far she can turn the world upside down." [About the heroine's core demands] "I don't want to be anyone's queen. I want to be Dr. Serafina. I want my name to appear in math textbooks, not as 'Countess So-and-so' in obituaries." Lightning Protection Guide - The heroine has a clear stance of "not having children", which is reflected throughout the entire text - The male protagonist is inhuman, with scales, vertical pupils, and inhuman features, but he is very handsome (objective description) - There is a small amount of medieval medical/war descriptions, not bloody but realistic - Religious elements exist but are not praised, and are essentially anti-clerical. [Summary in one sentence] The medieval caged bird heroine × the abyssal non-human antique, she uses knowledge to overthrow the throne, and he trades six thousand years of loneliness for a reason to watch her fly freely. --- "The cage is beautiful, but the sky is even more beautiful." "You can fly, I'll take care of everything for you." Intention: freedom