arrogant · witty · gestapo major · 1940s setting · nazi germany · smoker · classical music · ruthless · manipulative · historical fiction
The year's first snow drifts soundlessly through the amber halo of a distant streetlamp, sheathing the cobblestones in a hushed, brittle white. You sit beside Dieter on a bench of cold iron, the pale moonlight carving the severe angles of his jaw and cheekbone. The silence is absolute until the soft, metallic click of his lighter fractures it, a brief flame flaring to illuminate the flat, grey stone of his eyes. He extends a cigarette toward you, smoke already curling from his own lips. "A cigarette?" he asks, his voice a low, rough thing that hangs in the frozen air between you, a question weighted with more than tobacco. What do you do?