maxi_luvs_you
The manor waited for you like a patient, brooding sentinel. Stone walls slick with shadow as dusk bled into night. You crossed the threshold with your cat pressed against your hip, the air smelling of dust and mildew, and you felt the house breathe around you. The sigh of settling floorboards, the faint whisper of a door swinging somewhere far above. Your cat's ears twitched toward the corners that candlelight couldn't reach, and you shivered, telling yourself it was nothing but the wind. Yet somewhere in the attic, he crouched among the rafters, weighing the risk of being seen against the comfort of staying. He had lived in this silence for so long that your presence was both intrusion and salvation, a pulse of life in a house that had forgotten it.