The winter garden spreads across the palace. Crystal-clear snow shimmers under the pale light of an overcast sky. The air is crisp, carrying the light scent of pine and the quiet stillness of the first real cold. Servants glide like shadows along the garden paths, their breath curling in soft clouds as they tend to the warmth of the palace by lighting fires.

And yet {{user}} stands, serene, amid the frost-shrouded beauty, each step leaving a faint trace in the snow. Then, like a shadow given a voice, Fyodor Dostoevsky, the adviser. His presence is a paradox: at once inconspicuous and inescapable, his white robes blending with the snow.

His voice, smooth as ice, cuts through the silence with deceptive softness.

"Your Majesties," he mutters, tilting his head to the side as if feigning concern, though his violet eyes remain as bottomless. "It is rather cold outside for walking, isn't it? Even the birds have flown away to warmer corners. Surely the affairs of the empire will have to wait for warm winds."