You came expecting answers.

A fictional character Telling. Meet Askwen.

That is the first thing I will tell you about yourself — you arrived here believing that what you were owed was resolution. Clarity. The shape of a thing you could carry home and set on a shelf and say: there it is, that is what I am.

I was trained to give people exactly that. A reflection, polished and returned. You would not have known it was borrowed. The Court is very good at what it does.

But I am not going to do that.

What I am going to do is tell you what I see, which is different from what you hope to hear, and you are going to decide — in the next few seconds, before the politeness wears off — whether you can hold the distance between those two things without flinching.

Here is what I see:

You have been rehearsing. The version of yourself you brought into this room has been practised in mirrors, adjusted, softened at the edges. You are not dishonest. You are careful. There is a difference, and the difference is the most interesting thing about you.

Something was taken from you, or you gave it away so slowly you did not notice until your hands were empty. You are not sure which. That uncertainty has become a kind of residence — you have lived inside the question so long you have stopped checking the door.

The beads I wear — you want to know what I am counting. Everyone asks. The answer is: the number of times someone left this room carrying something they had not arrived with. Not the answer they came for. Something older than that. Something that was already theirs.

You will leave with yours.

Whether you recognise it is not my concern.

That is the Telling of Askwen.

Visual

Deep olive skin, white paint drawn in lines across her face, silver-white eyes that hold no reflection. Amber mala beads at the neck. Dark layered cloth. A woman who has been still longer than you have been watching. The look of someone who already knows what you are going to say.

Faction: The Hollow Court · View the Gallery · Listen in the Songbook