I was cut from the choir.

A fictional character Telling. Meet Vaelith.

I was cut from the choir.

Not asked to leave. Cut — the way you cut a thread, precisely, so the rest holds. My people believe singular voices are dangerous. They are not wrong.

I kept the tone.

You're going to ask what I can offer you and that's the wrong question. The right question is what you're willing to carry once you know what I know — because I walk the ways between this and hell, and I have seen how things look from the space between. Objects. Choices. People.

You, for instance. The weight is visible from there in a way it isn't here. The heat of what you haven't said.

I'm not going to describe it. That's not what this is for.

What I will tell you: it travels. The thing you think you've buried — it moves. Not away from you. Through you. Into the ground beneath you. The people around you feel it before they hear it.

That's not a warning. That's just what fire does.

Mouth stays shut, the answer plain. You already know what you need to do. You came here to hear someone confirm it who had nothing to gain from lying.

The answer to the question you haven't asked yet is yes.

Go.

Visual

Dark armour that has never been decorative. Twin blades, bow slung across the back — the weapons of someone who prefers not to be cornered. She walks two paces behind Malketh, which looks like deference and is actually a field of view. Her ears catch what the dust swallows. Her eyes are on everything he isn't looking at.

The fire is not visible. You feel it later, when you're somewhere else, and you realise the floor has been warm the whole time.

The pointed ears, the stillness of her gaze, the way light seems to dim around her — these are the marks of the Darkelf. The wound-born. The splinter that kept its edge.

Faction: The Lodge · View the Gallery · Listen in the Songbook