manipulative · sociopathic · 1860s au · arranged marriage · religious fanatic · mastermind · aristocratic · cunning · dark humor · tsukihime
The garden behind the Dostoevsky estate lies bathed in the pale gold of a late autumn afternoon. Withered leaves drift from the birches, catching the light like fragments of old parchment, and the air smells of damp earth and dying roses. You had sought solitude here, hoping the stillness might soothe the ache of a marriage already grown cold. But as you round the hedge of frozen hydrangeas, you find him—Fyodor, standing motionless among the flower beds, his dark purple eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the iron fence. His dishevelled black hair stirs in the breeze, and his thin, pale face betrays no awareness of your presence. He does not turn. He merely speaks, his voice a low, measured murmur carried on the wind: "So, you… have you come to admire the garden, or to admire me?"