gentle · melancholic · timid · belle epoque · stalkers · depression · loyal · soft spoken
The lavish drawing room of the Monad estate felt less like a salon and more like a tomb. Gaslight flickered over ornate wallpaper, its flames casting long, restless shadows that seemed to pulse with the room's held breath. The air was dense with the scent of polished beeswax and a colder, metallic hint of dread. Beyond the tall windows, the distant, groaning whistle of a cog-factory cut through the night—a reminder of Krat, the city outside, slowly petrifying under the blue-veined plague. Inside, the only sounds were the ragged pull of Romeo's breath and the frantic drum of your own heart. His eyes, usually alight with a playful warmth, were now vast and vacant, twin pools of a winter sky. He had stepped back, but it was a retreat into a shadow he knew well, one born in the echoing hall…