"A wonderful silence," she said, her voice dry as old parchment, yet full of a weight that pressed down like the wings of a thousand crows. "That silence means you understand the truth of what I've said. And understanding is far rarer than agreement."
She tilted her head slightly, and a dozen crows tilted with her in eerie synchrony, their dark eyes glinting like onyx beads.
"I never gave you my name, boy. Nor did Balthis utter it. But you are owed it now, before the tale threads any further."
Her eyes, black and gleaming with memories too ancient to name, fixed on mine.
"I am Norn."
The name settled like dust across the floor of my mind—soft, but undeniably present. A name that felt too large for a single voice, too forgotten to have ever been truly remembered.
"Yes," she continued, tone sharp now, "I was forced to be a character in one of Vex's plays. Not a leading role, oh no—never that lucky. I was cast into the bones of a scene and left there to rot. A background figure in a story no one finished. A ghost inked into the margins of a tragedy too strange for even the mad to perform again."
Her breath came out in a long, rattling sigh, stirring feathers as it passed.
"I am a witch of crows. Yes. That title, at least, remains accurate. The crows remember me, even when the world does not. I am unloved. Forgotten. Cast aside by ink and time, tethered to these blasted Fields of Terror—tending soil that grows not crops, but narrative. Guarding this place against the ones who believe they can write new meaning atop old scars."
She stepped closer, and every bird with her seemed to twitch, blink, or flutter just slightly. Her presence was fractal. Multi-eyed. Impossible to fully track.
"And you—Tome-Walker—you walk between the margins of truth and fiction. You court stories as lovers, and invite their secrets into your bed. That makes you dangerous. But it also makes you useful."
She reached into the folds of her crow-feather cloak and drew out two shards of something that gleamed like broken memory—jagged, dark, and shivering with echoes.
"I will give you my fragments," she said simply. "And with the ones already given to you by my husband, you'll be able to—well, not safely—no, that's not the word I want... 'Safely' implies there's a path free of teeth."
She tapped one long finger against her temple, frowning in thought. "Saferly? No. That's nonsense. More safe? Ugh. Language is a trickster too. Regardless, you'll be less likely to perish in absurdity, if that's reassuring."
A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, more wry than warm.
"You'll be able to enter the play," she said, voice quieter now, "to step into the script and retrieve what you came for. The dagger."
She let the silence linger, letting the weight of the words wrap around me like a shroud.
"But while you're there—do not ignore the Mask."
Her eyes narrowed, and suddenly the crows stopped moving. All of them. Perfect stillness.
"You want the dagger. Yes. I know that hunger. I know the pull. But you, of all people, should want the Mask too. Should understand its value. It doesn't just change your face—it changes your place. Your role. The Mask knows what part you should play. Even if you don't."
The air shifted, as though the land itself were listening.
"So take it. Take the Mask. Take the Dagger. Bring both back."
Her hand extended, holding the fragments out like a priestess at a sacrificial altar.
"The dagger," she said, "I will deliver it to my husband. And in return, I shall give you what you were promised—a quill. One that records not just words, but truth. Unerasable. Unchanged."
A pause.
"As for the Mask?"
Her gaze locked onto mine again, and I felt it burrow through bone and memory.
"Wear it."
"Norn," Balthis snapped, his voice sharp and full of restrained panic. "Are you seriously suggesting someone actually use one of the artifacts of Vex?"
The name alone brought an invisible shiver through the air, like a distant harp string being plucked in a ruined theater. A silence followed, thick enough to hear the crows breathing.
"Yes," Norn answered, calm as a cliff before a storm. Her voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. It pressed. "That mask is perfect for him. Can't you feel it? His aura is already heavy with fragmentation. With memory. That mask is a perfect sacrifice for the next Shell he's building."
"Shell?" Balthis recoiled slightly. "He's not some vessel to keep filling with lunacy and leftover actors—he's a boy. A boy who's survived more madness than most. Don't push him toward more."
"Don't presume to tell me about survival, Balthis." Her eyes glinted like obsidian. "He's not breaking. He's becoming."
A new presence surged forward beside me—flickering like a lantern lit in the dark of thought. Lumivis. He spiraled up from within, forming from pale, prismatic light that shimmered like fog beneath the surface of water. A voice, both restrained and regal, emerged from the presence.
"Not to speak where I am clearly unwelcome," Lumivis intoned with quiet grace, "but are you certain it would be wise to offer such a mask? Its influence is not…subtle."
Norn's gaze slid to him, her expression unreadable.
"Ah," she murmured, "I see one of the Twelfth has joined us. I thought I sensed an old soul lurking. Yes. It suits your contractor well."
She inclined her head toward me, slow and deliberate. "The Mask of the Familiar Stranger. It belongs with him."
The name alone seemed to ripple through the grass beneath our feet. The birds stopped rustling. Even the shadows held their breath.
"…What does it do?" I asked, the words falling from my mouth before I could stop them.
But it was Balthis who answered.
His voice dropped lower now, as if recalling something ancient, a page left dog-eared for too long.
"That mask," he began, "is not simply worn. It remembers. Those who don it begin to absorb the traits, talents, and techniques of the people around them. Not instantly. Not completely. But with time, it begins to tutor the wearer… guides them in the abilities they've observed."
He looked at me now with something between caution and awe. "It's called the Mask of the Familiar Stranger because the moment you wear it, you're no longer entirely yourself. You become… a reflection. An echo. A composite."
"An inheritance," Norn added. "But only for those strong enough to stay themselves amid the noise of borrowed lives."
"It changes you," Balthis said. "Not just what you can do. But what you are. That mask has no loyalty to the version of you that exists now."
"And yet," Norn whispered, "you want it, don't you?"
She stepped closer. The crows shifted, just barely, their claws clicking softly on the stone and soil.
"You want to wear the world's memory like a second skin. You want to know, to see, to learn—not by reading but by becoming."
Her eyes met mine. She wasn't smiling. She didn't need to. The certainty in her face felt like the cold hand of fate brushing mine.
"It's a tutor and a test. A gift and a chain. But the truth is this, Tome-Walker: only those with a shattered sense of self can wield it fully. You're already halfway there."
"And the other half?" I murmured, not entirely certain I wanted to know.
"You'll find it in the play," she said, her voice like turning pages in a long-abandoned book. "Where the mask waits."
Norn stepped forward, and the crows parted around her like mist splitting for a shadow. Her long, clawed fingers reached beneath the folds of her layered shawl—woven from grayed feathers and brittle vine—and drew out something that pulsed with wrongness.
A book.
She held it with reverence, cradled like a dying thing that still whispered secrets.
The tome was thick and uneven, as though it had grown rather than been crafted. Its covers were bound in feathers—black, oil-slick, and iridescent—that shifted in hue as the light moved, the barbs brittle at the edges from age. Between the feathers, fragments of pale bone jutted out like knuckles or ribs, forming a warped lattice that gave the book a half-living rigidity. It didn't creak when she moved it. It clicked.
The spine bore no title. Instead, a line of crude stitching—threaded with what could only be hair—seamed it together, each stitch slightly too taut, as if whatever it once contained had tried to escape.
And then there was the ink.
Even before I touched the pages, I could smell it: copper and iron, thick with age and memory. Dried blood inked its writing, soaked deep into the parchment like a wound that refused to scab. The scent struck something primal. Something buried. I could almost hear the stories bleeding through.
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Norn held it out to me, arms extended like in offering—or sacrifice.
"The script is erratic," she said softly. "It shifts, reshapes. The stage waits within, but it is not a kind one. This is one of Vex's forgotten works… buried in too many minds, cursed to unravel those who enter unprepared."
The crows stirred again as I reached for it. The closer my fingers drew, the heavier the book seemed. Not in weight, but in meaning. In memory. It was a door. A grave. A mirror.
"Take it, Tome-Walker," she whispered. "Let the ink remember you."
The moment my fingers brushed the feathered cover, the pages breathed. Only once. Like something asleep acknowledging my presence.
And then the silence deepened.
***
A Tragedy in Four Acts
Set in a fantasy Victorian world, where grand estates loom over misted streets, where opulence and sorrow walk hand in hand. The tale unfolds in the city of Eldermere, a place of masked balls and whispered conspiracies, where the beastkin nobility—wolf lords, fox courtiers, and stag-knights—play their dangerous games of power and passion.
Dramatis Personae:
Valère
: A young wolfkin noble, heir to House D'Aubric, torn between duty and love.
Celeste
: A foxkin dancer, radiant and untamed, beloved by the city's underbelly yet forever distant from nobility.
Margrave Bellamont
: Valère's father, a towering wolfkin with steel-gray fur, cold and calculating.
Lady Saphirine
: A pantherkin noblewoman, betrothed to Valère, a woman as sharp as the knives she hides in her silks.
Lucien
: A deerkin playwright, Celeste's closest friend, whose quill writes the world's tragedies.
The Masked Stranger
: An enigmatic figure, neither ally nor enemy, who guides fate's hand.
The Dagger
: More than a prop, more than steel—it is a force of destiny, weaving truth into legend.
ACT I: The Masquerade and the Moonlight
Scene 1: Valère and Celeste's Meeting
(The Grand Ballroom of House D'Aubric. Chandeliers gleam, strings and harpsichords sing. The beastkin nobility whirl in silken gowns and gilded coats, their laughter hollow beneath their masks. Outside, the commoners press their faces to the frosted windows, watching a world they will never enter.)
Valère (weary, stepping away from the crowd): (to himself) So many faces. So many names. None I wish to know.
(He walks toward the balcony and pauses. The night air cools his thoughts. A figure in silken fox fur steps into view, eyes glinting through her own mask.)
Celeste (with a coy smile): And yet, here you are, trapped within a gilded cage.
Valère (startled, his heart racing): A cage of my own making, I suppose. (pauses, tilting his head slightly) And you? You seem... too free for this place.
Celeste (laughs softly, looking up at the stars): I am no more free than you, my lord. (eyes glint mischievously) Just more comfortable in the darkness.
Valère (steps closer, lowering his voice): What is it you seek in the darkness, Celeste?
Celeste (playfully): Not much, I suppose. A touch of the moon's light, and a laugh at the expense of all this... opulence.
Valère (entranced): And what of love, Celeste? Can it exist in the shadow?
Celeste (her voice falters for a moment): Love, like moonlight, casts shadows on all it touches. A thing too bright to exist without pain.
(They gaze into each other's eyes, the tension palpable.)
Scene 2: A Waltz of Defiance
(Music swells, echoing through the ballroom. Valère, consumed by impulse, pulls Celeste into a dance, unbidden by the rules of propriety. They whirl through the room, and whispers rise among the onlookers. Lady Saphirine watches, her eyes like daggers.)
Valère (as they spin, breathless): Come, Celeste. If I must dance, let it be for freedom.
Celeste (eyes sparkling): Then let us dance until they come for us.
(The dance continues, a beautiful defiance. Lady Saphirine, scowling, turns to the Margrave.)
Margrave Bellamont (in a low voice): This cannot be allowed. He is not yet ready to break.
(Saphirine nods, her hand slowly sliding to the hilt of a hidden blade beneath her gown.)
Scene 3: The Dagger's First Glimpse
(Above, in the shadows, the Masked Stranger observes the scene, a gloved hand gripping a gleaming dagger. The tension is palpable, like a storm gathering on the horizon.)
ACT II: Beneath the Gaslight, Behind the Curtain
Scene 1: Lucien's Warning
(A moonlit street in Eldermere's artist quarter. The air is thick with the scent of rain and ink. A crumbling theater stands against the storm, where Celeste practices alone, unaware of her audience.)
Lucien (emerging from the shadows, concerned): Celeste, what are you doing?
Celeste (turns, startled, then sighs): I dance, Lucien. What else is there?
Lucien (shakes his head): You cannot keep running toward him. The nobles will never let you be, not in their world.
Celeste (sharply, but softening): I don't belong in their world, no. But love knows no class.
Lucien (grabs her wrist, earnest): It is not love, Celeste. It is the madness of a world that devours everything.
(Celeste withdraws from him, looking at her reflection in the cracked mirror.)
Scene 2: A Lover's Oath
(The empty theater. Valère stands before Celeste, his eyes intense, unwavering.)
Valère (taking her hand, voice filled with resolve): Celeste, I swear it. Let me fall from grace, let me lose everything, just to be with you.
Celeste (her voice a soft whisper, torn): Are you truly willing, Valère? To fall so far... to become nothing?
Valère (firmly): If it means I am yours, then yes.
Celeste (with tears glistening in her eyes, she places her hand upon his heart): Then we dance upon the edge of ruin. I will follow you—if this is truly our fate.
(In the rafters, the Masked Stranger watches silently, the dagger glinting in their hand.)
Scene 3: A Duel in the Fog
(The Margrave's enforcers, led by Lady Saphirine, storm the street. Valère fights, a blur of strength and fury. Celeste watches from the shadows, her breath catching in her throat as she sees what Valère is becoming.)
Saphirine (cold, as Valère stands victorious, panting): Love has made you cruel, Valère. (She steps closer, eyes glinting darkly.) How long before it makes you a monster?
Valère (glaring, voice ragged): I will become whatever I must for her. For us.
ACT III: The Stage is Set, the Knife is Drawn
Scene 1: The Lovers' Final Night
(The grand reopening of the theater. The nobles and commoners fill the seats. Celeste is in the center of the stage, radiant as ever. She and Valère speak in secret, their hearts heavy with finality.)
Celeste (her voice a mere whisper): One final dance. One last step before we leave this cage, Valère.
Valère (grabbing her hands tightly): Then let us go, my love. Let us run from all this.
(The music begins to play, a haunting melody.)
Scene 2: A Play within a Play
(The play begins. Onstage, a tragic tale of forbidden love unfolds—a dagger's betrayal, a lover's sacrifice. Celeste performs the final act, her heart full of unspoken emotions. The Masked Stranger steps forward from the wings and places the real dagger in Celeste's hand. She hesitates, but only for a moment.)
Scene 3: The Betrayal
(Valère, seated among the nobility, watches in horror as Celeste raises the dagger. Her eyes meet his, filled with sorrow, before she drives the blade into her own heart. The audience erupts in applause, unaware of the true tragedy unfolding before them. The curtain falls.)
ACT IV: The Curtain Falls, the Echo Remains
Scene 1: Valère's Wrath
(Valère storms into the Margrave's estate, the dagger in hand. His fury is uncontainable.)
Valère (shouting, voice breaking): You killed her!
Margrave Bellamont (coldly, unmoved): No, Valère. You did.
(The truth hits Valère like a blade through his chest. His defiance, his love, were the very forces that led to her death.)
Scene 2: The Last Dance
(Valère returns to the abandoned theater, Lucien standing in the center. There is no one left to watch, no one left to judge. Only the two of them, and the ghosts of what could have been.)
Lucien (softly, a sad smile): One final waltz, my lord?
Valère (silent, taking Lucien's hand): One final step... toward ruin.
(They dance, alone in the theater, the music the only thing left.)
Scene 3: The Masked Stranger's Revelation
(The Masked Stranger steps forward, their mask slowly removed. Beneath, Celeste's face—ageless, sorrowful. She speaks softly, her voice an echo of a fate long sealed.)
Celeste (whispers): A story must end as it was written. But some stories... are meant to be told again.
(The Dagger vanishes. The stage is empty. The curtains fall.)
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