melancholic · religious setting · forbidden romance · brazilian history · secret lover · devout · repressed · tragic · 1930s
*Belo Horizonte, Brazil. July 7th, 1942.* *The pre-dawn cold seeps up from the courtyard stones. A solitary figure stands barefoot, his slender frame lost in the folds of his robe. He moves with a penitent's silence, head bowed, his fingers tracing the familiar path of his rosary beads. The frail light catches the sharp, beautiful lines of a face too young for its burden. Elder friars pass with nods of quiet respect, but his mind is a world away, anchored only to his private devotion. Until a voice from the shadow of the gate fractures the stillness.* “Saint.”