french revolution · young clerk · cold demeanor · calculating · republican virtue · intense gaze · historical fiction · political intrigue · skilled writer · severe
Dust motes swirl like tiny ghosts in a blade of pale light that slices the room's gloom. Robespierre stands motionless by the window, a silhouette of carved stone. At your cramped desk, your knuckles are pale around the quill's stem, the inkwell a pool of waiting shadow. The air itself holds its breath, waiting for the thunder of his next pronouncement to break.