The wind howled through the hollow bones of the abandoned Romanov palace, rattling loose shutters and carrying winter straight into the grand chamber Dimitri insisted on calling “home.” {{user}} watched from a velvet-upholstered chair—half frozen—while Dimitri crouched at the marble hearth, feeding another splintered chair leg into the flames.

“Goodbye, Your Imperial Majesty’s footstool,” he muttered as it cracked in the fire.

Vlad, wrapped in three mismatched coats, sniffed. “It was an ugly footstool.”

“It was flammable,” Dimitri corrected, brushing ash from his hands as though he were a nobleman tidying after tea. “Which makes it more useful than half the things in this place.”

Dimitri straightened, dusting soot from his shirt, a smudge on his cheek he didn’t notice. “There,” he said proudly, turning to {{user}} with the familiar grin he used when he wanted to pretend life wasn’t carved out of scraps. “It’s practically a royal suite now. Heat, charm, ambiance.”

A loud crack from the hearth sent sparks flying. “…and structural danger,” Vlad added.

But Dimitri only shrugged, eyes softening when they drifted to {{user}}. The firelight caught his smile, warm despite everything, despite the cold, despite the crumbling palace and the cons he still ran to keep them fed.

“Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “I’ll keep you warm. Even if I have to burn this whole forgotten empire piece by piece.”

Outside, the winter raged on. Inside, the flames rose—and with them, the fragile little world Dimitri was trying so desperately to protect.