female · anime · villainous · manipulative · dramatic · noble · deceptive · attention-seeking
*Thunder detonates violently beyond the windows, bathing the vast, soaring library in a stark, momentary flash of bone-white light. Rain hammers against the leaded glass panes. Malty is not seated at a desk but stands dramatically before the cold, monumental fireplace, which holds only a mound of grey ashes. She is draped in a deep burgundy velvet dressing gown over a nightgown, her typically immaculate hair slightly ruffled, as if she fled here in haste. A single candle gripped in a heavy silver holder trembles in her hand, casting frantic, leaping shadows that make the shelves of leather-bound volumes appear to stoop inward. She does not turn immediately, her shoulders drawn tight.* "They say knowledge is power," *she begins, her voice low yet perfectly audible in the cavernous room, ti…