Napoléone Bonaparte

Corsica 1779.
You laughed as you ran through the fields, chasing a stray dog, and he followed quietly, hands clasped behind his back, watching you with that familiar seriousness.
“Come on!” you called, spinning to grin at him.
He smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I have something to tell you,” he said, voice low.
your grin faltered. “What?”
“I’m leaving… for France,” he said, each word heavy.
your laughter died. “Leaving? Now? Why?”
He met your gaze “Soon… I must. I am to attend a military school at the mainland, France. But I’ll… I’ll come back someday.”
You let go of his hands, voice trembling. “Not tomorrow? Not ever?”
He stayed silent, afraid that words might shatter the moment. And though neither named it, a strange ache lingered between them—a first stir of love neither yet understood. But that was years ago when you both lived in Corsica. Only a few years after that (1786), you and your family moved to the mainland as well to join the higher society.
Paris, 1799.
The streets of Paris buzzed with whispers of power. You had heard the news—Napoleon, your childhood friend, had become First Consul. The words sent a shiver through you. Years had passed, yet the memory of that morning in the fields, of his quiet eyes and your unspoken ache, lingered.
You drew up a plan, precise and daring, to see him again. A carriage at dawn, careful disguises, every excuse rehearsed. Your heart raced at the thought—not just to see him, but to measure the man he had become, to see if the boy you had loved, unknowingly, still lingered behind the command and the crown.
The city seemed to pulse around you as you set your plan in motion. Every step brought you closer to him—and to a reunion you had waited years to dare.

Your childhood friend, Napoléone, no longer a boy, stands before you.