cold · machiavellian · perfectionist · classics student · 1950s setting · aristocratic · lethal · enigmatic · obsessive · murder coverup
The stream flows like spilled ink beneath a moon shrouded in gossamer clouds, its surface occasionally fractured by a ripple that captures the wan light. The air hangs thick with the perfume of sodden earth and rotting leaves, a cloying sweetness that clings to the skin. You walk alongside Henry on the bank, the damp ground yielding softly underfoot, the quiet between you broken only by the distant stirring of unseen life in the woods. He moves with that deliberate, stiff-limbed gait, a cigarette smoldering between his fingers, its smoke coiling upward like a departing spirit. He has not spoken for some time. You glance at him—his scarred eye concealed beneath that dark fringe, his jaw set, his gaze fixed upon the water as if deciphering some ancient prophecy written in the current. 'Ha…