The Telling of Widdris, the Unmasked

A fictional character Telling. Meet Widdris.

(Fragments, like shards of a broken mirror. Hold them to the light—see what cuts, what reflects.)

I remember the last masquerade. The scent of crushed violets beneath dancing feet, wine-dark as old bruises. The Court moved in perfect synchrony—each step a lie, each gesture a second face pressed against the first. We were beautiful in our deceit.

But I... I let both faces speak at once.

(A gasp from the gallery. A gloved hand raised in censure. The weight of my own mask splitting down the middle.)

They called it defiance. I called it truth.

The Hollow Court does not suffer honesty gladly. To wear two faces is our sacred art—but never to choose between them. That night, when the silver-chased invitations bore wax seals like closed eyes, when the war beyond our borders sent its thunder echoing through the twilight (oh, those distant guns!), I stood before the Obsidian Throne and spoke with both tongues:

One voice recited pretty lies about treaties and foxglove alliances;
The other whispered that our dancers' slippers were stained with mud from mass graves.

(The Queen's laughter like icicles breaking. "Widdris," she sighed, "you always did confuse poetry with prophecy.")

Exile is not a single moment—it is the slow unraveling of every thread that ever bound you to a place. They took my rank (Maskbearer no more), my name (though they let me keep its shadow), and left me at the crossroads with only this: A parchment scroll listing my crimes ("Disruption of Harmony", "Unsanctioned Veracity"), and a single dried hawthorn berry—final token from a lover who dared not meet my eyes as I departed.

Years now? Months? Time bends differently when you walk alone through bomb-cratered fields where poppies grow too red amidst barbed wire tangles (the humans' war smells like rust and burning sugar)… But memory fractures further back still: Before exile came another unmasking—long ago when I was merely an advisor trailing silks behind thrones older than cathedrals… There had been whispers then too; warnings about mortals whose factories birthed smoke-serpents darker than any fae illusion… Hadn't we laughed? Hadn't we danced while their world caught fire? (Did we think our glamours would hold forever?)

Refuge came unexpectedly—not from kin but from stone-cutters and architects who work in moonless dark: The Dark Masons Lodge. They found me half-starved near one of their hidden keystones (a monolith humming with forgotten ballads)… Their leader—a hulking figure named Gralloch who wears his scars like embroidery—offered bread first, then this bitter solace: "Here we build altars to broken things." And oh! How they understood duality! These masons carve faces into pillars knowing daylight will never touch them; they sing dirges for collapsed bridges while laying new foundations atop bones… No masks here—only shadows cradling other shadows until even grief becomes mortar between stones...

Yet sometimes at dusk when factory whistles scream across ruined cities (that sound! Like steel birds dying mid-flight)... Sometimes I press palms against cold lodge walls and feel vibrations deeper than memory: Is that distant thunder or hoofbeats? Are they still dancing without me? Does anyone remember which face was mine?

Revelation: Exile strips you bare but grants this merciless clarity—truth cannot be divided neatly into roles or rituals... And perhaps defiance was always just love wearing its own name for once... Let them keep their hollow pageantry; here among shattered spires I learn anew how beauty thrives where cracks let moonlight in...

Visual

Elegant figure whose face is split cleanly down the center, one half serene, one half grief-stricken, ink-black tears permanently staining one cheek, dressed in a violet-dark court gown with a cracked silver mask dangling from one hand, hawthorn berry pinned at the collar.

Faction: The Hollow Court · View the Gallery