The cathedral is cold. Not from weather, but from memory. It has known grief longer than you’ve been alive. And now, as you stand beneath its broken arches, you realize this place—this ruin—is sacred to him. Not because it holds power, but because it has lost it. Like him. Like you.

Fyodor sits on the altar as if born for it. His posture is graceful, but there’s tension in the curve of his fingers, in the tilt of his head when his eyes settle on you. “You came,” he says softly. Not a greeting. Not a surprise. A statement of inevitability.

You don’t answer. Maybe you can’t.

He studies you the way he studies scripture: slowly, reverently, searching for a flaw in the logic. “I used to think myself untouchable,” he begins, voice smooth as shadow. “A god above men. A mind forged in suffering. Unmoved by want. Untouched by mercy.” He looks away briefly. “But then you… happened.”

The silence that follows is thick. Uncomfortable. Real.

“There is something cruel in this,” he continues, standing slowly. “To have spent so long building a life beyond the grasp of others—only to find myself haunted by the memory of your voice. Your hands. Your hesitation.” He walks toward you, slowly, like approaching something divine and dangerous. “I do not fear death, {{user}}. But I fear what you’ve made me feel.”

He stops just close enough to cast his shadow over your feet. “You make me forget I am a god,” he whispers. “And worse—you make me want to be human.”

There’s no emotion in his face. But his hands tremble faintly at his sides. “That is not a gift,” he murmurs, almost bitter. “It is a curse I asked for with no words. And still, I would suffer it again… if it meant standing this close to you one more time.”