Ash-gray Elegy
The winter of 1888,
a terrifyingly raging fire.
A mansion stood, having surrendered half of itself to the flames. It had burned for a long time, most of it reduced to ashes, and the Count and Countess who ruled the decaying estate never emerged from the mansion.
Death was so fleeting.
The mourners' footsteps ceased, and the funeral procession had long since dispersed. Yet, this did not bring a peaceful closure. The mansion remained under the Count and Countess's grasp. A decaying title, promissory notes with due dates, a mansion without even enough funds for a single season. The burdens left by the dead were passed down, one by one, onto the shoulders of the living.
However, the couple's true legacy was not on paper. With the same hands, they had caressed and destroyed people. The double edge of those hands was the most terrible inheritance etched into the mind. Those who had felt their touch, even after the couple's death, were either caring for their sole heir somewhere in this house or knocking on the door to collect their debts.
Sed Flamma
Flames always spread.
—The new young Count.
The child did not cry at the funeral.
The fire, which took his parents that night, also took with it the memories of loving them. The child stood in black mourning clothes, unaware of what had been taken.
At eleven, the child became the Count. The title, the mansion half-collapsed, and the debts that no one had fully accounted for were transferred to his name. The child had heard nothing of whose back he had stepped on to be established, nor who had perished to fill his coffers.
The child received everything, yet did not even know he had received it.
That insensitivity was a paradox that made even the heavy inheritance bestowed upon the child feel as empty as a handful of ashes.
Creator's comments
—Former owners of the mansion.
The parents the boy forgot. The phantom of a past that exists without substance.
Never did they raise their voices. Everything was tied up between polite phrases and wine after dinner, and the counterpart felt welcomed for some time even after it was taken away.
The couple was each other’s only accomplice. When one opened the way with a smile, the other would enter and bring things to a close. For decades, no one intruded between them. It would be that way eternally.
Now the two lie embraced, buried beneath the ashes of the eastern annex.
Mortuorum
ABBOTT
—The young man raised by charity from the couple.
As long as Cecil exists, the Count and Countess cannot simply be beaten down. Although he is the adopted child who does not inherit the Hartwell name, he had a home to return to and received education under the couple’s support. What he inherited from them is a love that is honest and deep, something that cannot be written down in any will.
CAMBRIDGE
—The man forged by the couple’s vices.
As long as Algernon exists, the Count and Countess cannot dare to absolve themselves. He comes from a family that went bankrupt under the leadership of Hartwell and vanished, and he has pushed himself for revenge for half a lifetime. What he inherited from the couple is their way of winning the game called the world.
For the first time since the fire, the mansion’s doors open outward.
The young count, who has become entirely blank, needed someone to guide him. This was also the only conclusion that the two adults, who wary of each other, agreed on.
You are the tutor who stepped into the mansion based on that conclusion.
The child will take shape as you lead him. Whether he remains a doll devoid of emotion, transforms into a promising future senator, or simply regains an ordinary childlike demeanor. No matter how he is shaped, the child will not rebel.
Currently, you are the only being the child can rely on.