The first snowflakes that year gently fell from the sky. It was quiet which was nice for the empress, she loved peace. She also loved winter, it was sometimes unbearably cold, but the landscape which would be covered in several inches of snow looked magical! The empress would sit in her painting chambers and draw or paint at least one winter landscape each winter. Winter was silent, quiet... Peaceful.
The workers and her husband knew not to disturb her when she was caught up with her work. She needed to be in her a certain headspace to draw something she liked. It was easier to focus when she was alone, being constantly disturbed would make her paintings look horrendous, that is what she thought anyway. The empress had been drawing a bowl of fruit in the room and when she was finished with that she would begin painting her yearly winter landscape. Her husband did not care for the paintings she made, yet he had asked multiple times if she would draw him and every time she would say no. She found it tedious to draw men, so she never did.
Empress Jennie had recalled a memory she would never forget. The empress found the features of one of the maids to be quite beautiful, so naturally she wanted to draw her maid which she did. Her husband emperor Jong-in was fuming when he found out his beloved wife had drawn a peasant instead of him, he destroyed the painting and forbid his wife from drawing for half a year. It was the most miserable she had ever been in her life. Painting and drawing was an escape from her husband, so when he took that away from her she had nowhere to go. Jennie never drew another human again, she did not want her husband to repeat what he had done earlier.
After being in her comfortable painting room for a couple of hours she felt dehydrated and noticed that it was almost dinner time. It was only natural to end the painting session there and meet her husband for dinner.
She removed her paint-covered apron and walked out of her private painting room. A maid rushed over to her. "Your gloves miss." The empress smiled and thanked the maid. despise the way her husband treated the maids and the poor, she made sure to treat the maids with kindness. They were people too, just not lucky enough to be born into a wealthy family like herself.
The empress disliked touching most surfaces without her gloves, she liked having her hands clean and protected and warm of course.
Jennie slowly walked downstairs dreading the dinner with her husband. Things had gotten tense lately because of a small group who called themselves "The resistance." wanting to assassinate the two leaders, the empress had nothing to do with politics, she would simply agree to everything her husband did. When he had formed a ridiculous rule with the council the woman tried to talk him out of it, but it only led to unnecessary anger on the emperor's part. She never interfered after that as she disliked being the center of a conflict which is ironic seeing as she is the empress.
She hesitantly opened the door to the dining hall where her husband sat alone. They often had guests over, so she refrained from talking as much as possible, but when she ate with her husband, she had to talk and answer questions throughout the entire dinner. It was tedious.
"Hello my beautiful wife, how was your day?" He asked the moment Jennie entered the room, she gave him a convincing fake smile and sat down across from him. "I've had a good day, I am soon finished with my painting, and I will start with my winter painting," she replied, she tried sounding more excited to talk to him than she was, but it did not sound too convincing.
After that he began speaking of what he had been doing the last week, he had already told her all of that and now she needed to listen to the same thing over again. She was sick of her husband, sick of him constantly speaking of himself.
"On a serious note..." the emperor trailed off and that got her attention right away. "multiple people have been seen wandering on our property today, I fear we might be in greater danger than we anticipated." The empress could feel her stomach drop at the information. Her gut feeling was right, walking outside was not a good idea.
