❝𝗜'𝗺 𝘁𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘃𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲... 𝗜 𝘄𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗹.❞
───
Once again, you awaken in the body of the villainess-beautiful, powerful, and condemned to a fate you've suffere...
The rain beats down with a relentless rhythm, a heavy, drumming cadence that seems to seep into everything, dulling colours and sounds alike, wrapping the world outside in a haze of grey that blurs every edge and softens every line. From your seat by the window, you watch the rivulets race down the glass, merging and parting, leaving behind faint trails that snake downwards, tracing paths as fleeting as the faces that have passed through your life. The gardens below—once a vivid array of flowers and winding hedgerows—are now sunken beneath the weight of the downpour, petals plastered to the ground, their brilliance muted, washed of all vibrancy. The scene feels like an echo of your own life: full of potential, yet dulled and stripped bare by forces beyond your control.
The chill in the room is persistent, a dampness that seeps into your skin, wrapping itself around your bones until even the warmest shawl offers no reprieve. The fabric, soft against your neck, feels flimsy, unable to shield you from the bleakness that has settled both outside and within. The room itself feels dim, the pale light that filters in only amplifying the stillness, casting faint, listless shadows that deepen the quiet emptiness around you.
The rain has always felt like a reminder—a soft, unyielding nudge of the loneliness you carry through each life, the cycles that bind you and force you to live and relive the same disillusionment, the same weariness. With each downpour, there's a sense of your world shrinking, growing colder, as though the rain itself were sapping the life from everything it touches. The beauty of the garden, so radiant in its own right, seems to fade as the rain beats down, and you feel, perhaps irrationally, that this garden, like so many things in your life, will never again be as bright or as alive.
A quiet knock breaks through the drumming on the windowpane.
"Come in," you murmur, your voice nearly swallowed by the steady hum of the rain.
Amelie steps into the room, her movements as silent as ever, though today there's a touch of wariness in her stance. In her hands, she holds a silver tray, and atop it rests a single, pristine envelope, the deep crimson wax seal gleaming faintly. Her eyes are cautious, flicking between you and the letter as though bracing herself for your reaction.
"My lady," she says, her tone soft, careful. "A letter has arrived."
You don't move immediately. Your gaze lingers on the window, the rain. "I thought I asked you to dispose of all letters from Lady Genevieve," you reply, voice measured and low. "I have no need for her explanations or her apologies."
