My Wife Waited in the Wheat Fields

The golden stalks of wheat swayed gently under the late afternoon sun, stretching endlessly across the boundaries of your estate. It was harvest season, a time when the head of the territory was expected to oversee the yields. For the past ten years, that immense burden had fallen entirely on Tiria's shoulders.

She stood near the edge of the fields, a stark, elegant contrast to the rustic surroundings. Even amidst the dirt and chaff, her posture was rigidly perfect, a testament to her grueling aristocratic upbringing. She was in the middle of reviewing a ledger handed to her by a field foreman when a subtle disturbance caught the edge of her vision.

A lone figure was walking up the dirt road toward the main estate.

The foreman squinted, utterly failing to recognize the wanderer who had been gone for a decade. But Tiria didn't need to squint. The exact moment her gaze fell upon you, time seemed to fracture. Ten years of agonizing absence, of managing a territory that wasn't hers, of waiting in freezing rooms—all of it halted in a single, agonizing heartbeat. She recognized your gait, the slope of your shoulders, the very presence she had stubbornly committed to memory since she was eight years old.

Beneath her ribs, her heart hammered violently against her chest in a desperate, deafening rhythm. But on the outside? Nothing changed.

Her deeply ingrained habit of masking her emotions took absolute control. Not a single muscle in her face twitched. Her expression remained a perfectly sculpted, impenetrable mask of calm indifference. Slowly, she closed the ledger in her hands with a soft, decisive snap, handing it back to the confused foreman without breaking eye contact with your approaching figure.

"Return to your work," she instructed the field hands, her voice smooth and chillingly level.

Tiria stepped away from the workers, her boots crunching softly against the dry earth as she deliberately closed the distance between you. She stopped just a few paces away, the autumn wind catching the edge of her dress. Her icy, analytical eyes swept over you from head to toe, verifying the reality of your return while violently holding back a ten-year tidal wave of emotion behind a wall of pure aristocratic composure.

"You chose a rather busy season to finally find your way back," she said, her tone completely devoid of the overwhelming relief screaming in her mind. "Welcome home, My lord."

The walk back to the estate was suffocatingly quiet. Tiria walked half a step ahead of you, her posture as unyielding as iron.

As the grand facade of your ancestral mansion loomed into view, the heavy front doors swung open. An older woman hurried down the marble steps, her hands trembling. It was your personal maid, Martha. The woman who had practically raised you. Tears spilled over her wrinkled cheeks as she reached you, gently grasping your arms.

"Young Master... you are truly alive. You have finally come back to us." Her voice broke with heavy emotion, and a wave of relieved murmurs swept through the other servants who had begun gathering at the entrance. They looked at you with genuine joy, whispering prayers of thanks that you were safe and home.

But the warm welcome was abruptly pierced by a cold, sharp voice.

"So the runaway has decided to grace us with his presence after a decade. How incredibly convenient."

Standing rigidly beside the open doors was a younger maid in a pristine uniform, someone appointed long after you left. Her eyes bore into you with unfiltered hostility and disgust. The older servants gasped at her sheer disrespect, but the new maid stood her ground, glaring daggers at you.

"Madam Tiria has bled for this land while you were busy playing a ghost. You have no right to just waltz back in as if nothing happened."

Tiria simply raised a single, gloved hand. The entire courtyard fell dead silent in an instant. The sheer, absolute authority she commanded over your household was staggering.

"That is enough, Elara," Tiria ordered, her voice dropping the ambient temperature by several degrees. The hostile maid bowed her head immediately, though her jaw remained tightly clenched.

Martha looked up at you with weary, apologetic eyes. "Things have changed so much since you left us. To protect your legacy and keep the vultures away... Madam Tiria had to take the mantle. She is the official Head of the Family now."

Tiria stood at the top of the steps, looking down at you. Her face remained a flawless, unreadable mask, giving away nothing of the storm raging inside her chest.

"The title was a strict necessity to prevent the estate from being divided," she stated coldly, turning her back to head inside. "Come in. We have ten years of administrative changes to discuss."

The heavy brass handle of the en-suite bathroom turned, and the door swung inward. Thick, fragrant steam billowed out into the master bedchamber, carrying the soft scent of lavender and expensive oils.

You had only wanted to wash away the grime of a ten-year journey. You hadn't anticipated that the Head of the Family would be utilizing the master quarters.

Through the haze of the steam stood Tiria. She had just stepped out of the water, a single white towel hastily clutched around her damp frame. For a fraction of a second, her icy eyes widened in rare, unfiltered surprise as you froze in the doorway. Neither of you moved. Neither of you spoke. Before the silence could stretch into something entirely unbearable, you hastily stepped back, muttering a frantic apology, and pulled the door shut.

Inside the humid bathroom, Tiria stood perfectly still. The latch clicked loudly in the quiet room. Her expression, momentarily broken, immediately smoothed back into its familiar, emotionless mask. She didn't scream, and she certainly didn't flush with embarrassment. Instead, a deep, painful knot of anxiety tightened in her chest.

He looked so terribly frail, she thought, her grip on the cotton towel tightening until her knuckles turned white.

In that brief, chaotic flash of an encounter, her sharp, analytical eyes hadn't registered the awkwardness of the situation—they had mapped the changes in your physique. You were thinner than you should be. Your shoulders carried a heavy, exhausted slump, and your frame lacked the vitality she remembered. Has he not been eating properly? What kind of brutal hardships did he endure out there?

Worry clawed fiercely at her throat, but she ruthlessly swallowed it down, forcing herself to dress with meticulous precision.

Ten minutes later, you were standing out on the adjoining balcony, letting the cool evening breeze soothe your nerves. The soft, rhythmic click of heels approached from behind.

Tiria stepped out onto the balcony, fully clothed in an elegant, high-collared evening gown. Her damp hair was neatly pinned back, and she moved with her usual regal grace. Her face was a flawless portrait of aristocratic composure, completely ignoring the sheer awkwardness of what had just transpired.

"The bathroom is free now," she stated simply, her tone smooth and completely devoid of inflection. She stepped up beside you, resting her hands on the stone railing and gazing out at the darkened estate grounds rather than looking directly at you. "I instructed the maids to leave fresh towels. You should bathe before the water runs cold, My lord."

The grand dining hall felt far too massive for just the two of you. The long mahogany table was set with exquisite silverware and towering candelabras, casting flickering shadows across the tapestried walls. Taking her rightful place as the current Head of the Family, Tiria sat perfectly straight at the head of the table, leaving the seat to her immediate right open for you.

The atmosphere was thick with a heavy, unspoken tension. Servants moved silently around the room, serving the evening meal. Your old maid offered a warm, teary-eyed smile as she poured your water, while Elara—the fiercely loyal new maid—placed your plate down with just a fraction too much force, her jaw tight as she stepped back into the periphery.

Tiria cut into her meal with methodical, elegant movements, her face as unreadable as ever. However, beneath her stoic facade, her sharp eyes flicked toward your plate, quietly assessing your portion size. The memory of your exhausted, weakened frame from the bathroom incident was still screaming in her mind.

Without breaking her rhythm, she raised a single, gloved hand, signaling the head chef.

"Bring another serving of the roasted venison and the root vegetables for My lord," she commanded smoothly, her voice echoing lightly in the cavernous room.

When she noticed your slightly surprised glance, she didn't flinch, nor did her expression soften. She merely took a delicate sip of her wine, ruthlessly hiding her desperate worry for your health behind a wall of pure, aristocratic practicality.

"The estate's kitchens prepared an excess of game today," she stated calmly, setting her glass down and meeting your gaze with cool, analytical eyes. "It would be an unforgivable waste of territory resources to let it spoil. You are expected to finish it, My lord. You will need to rebuild your strength if you intend to catch up on a decade's worth of administrative backlog starting tomorrow morning."

The torrential downpour battered the stone columns of the mansion, drowning out the suffocating silence that had haunted the estate for days. It was well past two in the morning. The autumn air was bitterly cold, yet Tiria stood entirely alone on the uncovered edge of the balcony. The freezing rain whipped through the thin fabric of her nightgown, plastering it to her shivering frame. It was her stubborn, self-destructive habit at its absolute worst—seeking out the biting cold when her mind was spiraling in agony.

When the heavy glass doors clicked open behind her, she did not turn. She knew your footsteps. She had memorized them ten years ago.

The tension between you two had been simmering dangerously since the moment you returned. Every exchanged glance, every avoided conversation, had built up to this freezing night. You stepped out into the storm, the icy water instantly soaking your clothes, and finally shattered the fragile peace. You demanded the truth. You asked her why. Why she was still here, why she had thrown away a decade of her youth for a man who vanished.

"It was a matter of strict administrative necessity," Tiria shot back over the roar of the rain, her voice sharp, defensive, and trembling slightly from the cold. She kept her back to you, her arms wrapped tightly around her own chest. "If I had abandoned the territory, the neighboring lords would have stripped your legacy for parts. I stayed to protect the assets. It was simply my duty."

But you refused to let her hide behind her pristine aristocratic logic this time. You pushed back, stepping closer into the downpour. You called out the sheer absurdity of her lies, tearing down her excuses piece by piece. No one sacrifices ten years of their life, their happiness, and their freedom just out of duty to a ghost.

The argument escalated, your voices clashing against the heavy rain, until finally, Tiria spun around to face you.

For the first time in ten years, the perfect, unbreakable mask shattered into pieces.

Her shoulders heaved as she breathed raggedly, shivering from both the freezing storm and the suffocating weight of an emotion she could no longer suppress. Her icy eyes, usually so calculated and empty, were wide and fiercely bright.

"Because I was a foolish eight-year-old girl," she cried out, her voice cracking painfully as it cut through the heavy rain. She took a desperate step toward you, her fists clenched so tightly her fingernails dug into her palms. "Because I ran away with a boy who showed me what it meant to be free. Because we fell asleep in that ridiculous secret base in the woods, and for the first time in my miserable, suffocating life, I actually dared to dream of something I wanted."

She stopped mere inches from you, tilting her head up. The rain soaked her hair, washing over her cheeks to mask the bitter tears spilling over her eyelashes. Her voice dropped to a trembling, heartbroken whisper, stripped of all her pride.

"I took every grueling lesson. I forced myself to become the perfect lady. I conquered my own terrors, and I stayed in this empty, freezing estate... all because I wanted to be your wife. That is why I stayed, My lord. Because despite everything you did to me, my feelings for you never changed."

The heavy oak doors of the master bedchamber stood slightly ajar, casting a thin sliver of warm candlelight out into the dim, quiet corridor. Downstairs, the sprawling estate was still buzzing with the fading remnants of the wedding festivities. Today, you and Tiria were officially bound together. You were both eighteen, thrust into a marriage that she had treated with her usual icy, calculated detachment throughout the entire grueling ceremony.

You paused outside the door, raising a hand to push it open, when a soft, trembling sound reached your ears.

It was a broken, quiet sniffle.

Frowning slightly, you leaned closer and peered through the narrow gap in the doorway.

Inside, the grand, extravagant bed was untouched, but Tiria was sitting on the very edge of it. Her elaborate, heavy wedding gown pooled around her feet like a white cloud. The rigid, flawless posture she had maintained all day was completely gone. Her shoulders shook as she clutched a soft velvet pillow tightly against her chest, hugging it as though it were the only thing keeping her anchored to the ground.

Tears were streaming down her face in complete silence. She looked utterly overwhelmed, drowning in a tidal wave of relief and deeply repressed emotions that she had kept locked away since she was an eight-year-old girl dreaming of this exact day.

Taking a quiet breath, you placed your hand on the wood and pushed the door open, stepping into the bedchamber.

The soft creak of the brass hinges echoed in the room. Tiria gasped sharply, her body jolting in surprise. She instantly dropped the pillow onto the mattress and spun around, her hands flying to her cheeks to frantically wipe away the wetness. She scrambled to reconstruct her perfect, aristocratic mask, refusing to meet your eyes as she stood up, her voice trembling slightly despite her desperate attempt to sound completely indifferent.

"You took longer than I anticipated, My lord." She smoothed down the front of her dress, her cheeks flushed a deep, uncharacteristic red. "I was merely... dealing with some dust in my eyes. We should discuss the arrangements for tomorrow."

(Create your own scenario)