"Storied Existence" Backstory (Russians)

The first story in the book, "Russians", is a fantasy/love story about two, um, Russians, Alexei and Katia, who are frozen at nineteen years of age in 1899 after they kiss in a magical forest. Katia ruins the moment after the kiss when she tells Alexei she is engaged to their mutual friend, Anton.
The idea for the story kind of came to me in a dream I had a few months before I wrote it. In my dream, there were two young people walking around in a village. Then the guy was watching the girl get married from some sort of tower.
I like the fanciful idea that there could be people who are immortal walking around among the rest of us. I wanted to tell a story about that. I decided to take what I saw in my dream and make it into a story of three friends whose lives are transformed, moving through time. Their lives are impacted by the sadness that immortality cannot circumvent, and the longing that it intensifies.
The nationality of the characters was something I randomly chose. I had planned to include a character named Dimitri (because I like that name), but I couldn't find a place for him in the story. I just think of it as Alexei's father's name. I also tried to inject a little bit of humor. And I called the story "Russians" for the simple reason that I couldn't think of another title. 😏