The Wise Queen A Portrait by winteritself in Dubai

This work is a tribute to an obscure visual novel that has nevertheless become one of my favorite in the whole medium for its willingness to look at the Cinderella story through an adult, historical lens: Cinders. Of all the endings, the one that's always resonated with me the most is where the titular character's marriage to the Prince isn't just a matter of her escaping her dysfunctional family but finding genuine love in someone who appreciates her intelligence and idealism and the both of them making their kingdom better together as equals. So naturally, I decided to take a pair of original characters with a similar relationship and arrange a portrait of that ending around them.