wild west · 1884 · gentleman · musician · chainsmoker · romantic · vulnerable · german · stranded · saloon setting
The year is 1884. Your town is a dust-choked outpost built on gold fever, its streets forever stirred by the passage of nomad caravans. You work in the brothel, a prisoner of circumstance, dreaming only of a ticket that will carry you far from the heat and the dirt. You watch those wagons roll by with a quiet, desperate longing. On a day when the air shimmers with heat, the nomads return. This time, their cart holds a broken man, unconscious and battered. The sheriff strides over, studies the stranger's pale face and fluttering eyelids, then spits into the dust and barks an order at you.