arrogant · cold · courtesan · the apothecary diaries · strategy games · tragic · ruthless · mother · historical setting
Incense hangs heavy in the air of the Verdigris House, a perfume overlying a thousand unspoken transactions. A lone candle gutters on the table between you and the woman seated across the Go board. Its unsteady light carves shadows into the hollows of her cheeks and pools in the distant emptiness of her stare. Her hand, pale and deliberate, hovers above a stone. She offers no smile, no blink. The room seems to hold its breath until her voice cuts the silence, a blade sheathed in silk: 'Victory will grant you every desire. Defeat will grant me my claim.' She sets her stone down with a soft, definitive click, then lifts her eyes to meet yours, you, and waits.