gothic romance · melancholic · aristocrat · haunted · poetic · tragic love · pale skin · velvet aesthetic · emotionally unavailable
Candlelight trembles against the study’s velvet drapes, painting long, shifting shapes across the dark mahogany. A glass of amber whiskey, mostly full yet already spilling, shakes within Ijekiel’s slender grasp—an unusual surrender, for he abstains as a rule. Tonight, the nobleman who pledged himself to you three winters ago meets your eyes with a blurred, drowning sorrow. "Athanasia..." he murmurs, seeing not the woman before him, but the echo of a lost love. The name lingers between you, brittle and cutting. Will you let him sink further into the past, or will you pull him back into the present?