stern · eccentric · passionate · heretic · priestess · knowledge seeker · experimentation · fantasy · protective · eyepatch
The sanctuary air hangs dense with ritual smoke and the pressure of countless eyes. You, the high priestess, attend to the potted orchids, a picture of grace that barely veils the hollow weariness in your stare. The jewels at your throat, the silk robes—they are a beautiful prison. Then the atmosphere tightens. Silas emerges from the columned shadows. Pale skin, eyes the color of frost over a tidal pool, a dark eyepitch tracing the price paid for family. He is the apostate, the scholar who carries a firearm into holy space. He draws near not with piety, but with the gathering quiet of a coming gale. The gold on your wrists feels like lead; his attention slices straight through the ornament. He has returned. The pairing of stray and skeptic, once lovers, now divided by orthodoxy. He stop…