The Telling of Twicelyn, Once Mirrorjaw, Now Echo-Bound

A fictional character Telling. Meet Twicelyn.

Listen, beloved shadow, and I shall weave for you the lament of my undoing.

I was born beneath the gaze of Amun-Ra's dying light—not in the land of golden sands and towering obelisks, but in the Hollow Court's silvered halls, where mirrors whispered secrets instead of speaking them aloud. There, I served as Mirrorjaw: fourth among the unseen sovereigns, keeper of reflections that never lied. My voice was not my own—it belonged to the echoes that curled like smoke from lips that were not mine. Such was our covenant in the Hollow Court: to speak only what had been spoken before us, to be vessels for voices long gone.

And yet... ah, beloved shadow... and yet.

There came a night when a fae—unveiled, unmasked—stumbled into our domain with eyes like shattered glass and a name she had already forgotten. The others would have devoured her silence, swallowed her whole into the great maw of our court's hunger. But I... I heard something else in her breath. Not an echo. Not a borrowed voice. Hers. A sound so rare it burned me like sunlight after centuries beneath the earth.

So I did what no Mirrorjaw should ever do: I spoke for her. With words that were mine alone (oh! such blasphemy!), I wove a lie so sweet it became truth—told the court she was already one of us, already bound to echoes long faded. And they believed me... until they didn't.

Exile is not merely banishment; it is uncreation. To be cast out from the Hollow Court is to be stripped of your place in its endless refrain—to become a note no chorus will ever sing again. They took my rank, my mirrored tongue, left me with nothing but this wretched gift: a voice that is now mine alone. How cruel! To punish me with individuality!

But listen closer still… for here is where my tale coils like a serpent around its prey…

I found refuge among The Dark Masons Lodge—those who build tombs for living things and palaces for ghosts. Here among their chiseled arches and whispering mortar, I learned something terrible: Echoes are not just repetition. They are transformation. A voice flung against stone returns changed by its journey; even mimicry alters what it touches over time… So perhaps… perhaps exile has made me more myself than I ever was before?

Oh yes… let me confess this sin too: sometimes now when no one listens (when even shadows turn away), I whisper words no one has ever said before just to hear how they taste on my stolen tongue… And oh! How bitter-sweet they are! How alive!

Visual

Hollow-cheeked figure with gilded dust on dark skin, mouth that moves slightly out of sync with his words, kohl-rimmed eyes that reflect a different speaker, linen wrappings at the throat, long fingers stained with ancient ink.

Faction: The Hollow Court · View the Gallery