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jcryptid · 7 months ago

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Short Story I wrote based on a D&D Character concept

Ophelia Carlisle was a liar.

She wore masks of mirrors reflecting back an image of yourself you could trust. Draped in fine golden chains, her eyes twinkling like jewels and dazzling the eye so that the dagger at her side remains unnoticed.

Be a rose her mother had said. Dainty and beautiful and the picture of grace. Be the rose, so that others may not see your thorns until it is far too late.

Ophelia Carlisle was a liar, but she was also the lie.

Ophelia the Tiefling, born into squalor and taken in by a family of nobles out of the goodness of their hearts. Raised and taught well in the art of politics and spinning dazzling words in a rich tapestry of conversation that would leave all who had the pleasure of knowing her enraptured. A child who grew and blossomed into a woman of great renown, once draped in golden finery and precious velvet, now travelling in relative secrecy, searching for a way to restore her family to the honour and favour of the crown they had so long dreamed of. Bravely choosing to take on her father’s dying wish and see his dream of their family finally stepping into the light of respect and recognition realised after so long in the dark.

But Ophelia Carlisle was a liar, and also the lie.

Thalia Drabek was taken in by a noble house, it’s true, but for a purpose. She was chosen for her beauty and her ability at magic and stealth off the streets by a family looking for a tool he could use in a giant game of chess. She was taken without her consent to a house laid in rich marble and dazzling sculpted fountains to be a spy in high society. Taught well in espionage and stealth so that she may assist them in their mission to clear out the corruption that permeated the royal courts. But their mission, as she discovered, was a lie. One told to keep her under their thumb and believing themselves righteous, fighting for good when in reality it was merely a bid for control. When she discovered this, she made preparations to disappear but was discovered. In the process of fighting her way to freedom from the family’s clutches she faked her death and resurfaced under the name Ophelia Carlisle. In hopes she could remain free.

Thalia Drabek, however, was nothing more than a fabrication and a falsehood.

Isla Blackthorne had never seen the inside of a ballroom until her late teens, and at the time she worked as a servant for the noble house of Drabek. Before then she had lived in squalor with an absent father and a mother who worked so hard for their lives that it killed her. Even as a child Isla looked upon the nobles who trussed themselves up in finery with an envy that went beyond the want of a poor child. She dreamed for so long that one day she might find herself whisked away to a home with a hall of mirrors and a table filled to the bursting with cakes and delicacies every morning for breakfast.

She snuck on grounds of a mansion whenever she could, and watched as people in glistening gowns twirled with partners on a marble tiled floor and her heart ached for the kind of luxury and comfort and joy they seemed to take so easily for granted.

But it always seemed like a pipe dream.

In the meantime, she learned well how to lie, how to sell a bottle of piss like it was the finest of wines. She swindled hundreds out of their coin, ran scams and tricked those same nobles out of their coin and all the fineries they enjoyed with wit and dedication. She learned well how to imitate their way of speaking, walking, acting. In time she found herself able to infiltrate even the most well-guarded of parties and events and convince people out of sizeable donations with a voice sweet as honey as she promised to pay them back in time. She took the names of noble houses and wore them like aging badges that could get her anything she wanted with just her words. But she always lived adjacent to their splendour. Never quite able to reach their level of honest respect and well-known golden reputation.

In her life she had made many enemies like this, flying too close to the sun and being burned one too many times. More than once, she’d been caught in the act, and only barely escaped with her life. Swapping out names and masks and clothes to keep herself safe. It’s easier to pretend after all, to be something you’re not, than to admit that every good quality about yourself is a lie, one borrowed from those who truly deserve their respect and admiration. However much she resents them for having what she never will. A stable household, a family that loves her and never had to worry about where their next meal would come from. A life lived like a fairytale, the same one she told herself every night as a child.

Isla Blackthorne, however much she swayed the hearts of many who heard her tragic tale, was nothing more than a fiction.

The once Lady Czarina of Whitehall though, played a dangerous game.

Born into wealth but nonetheless growing up believing in the lie her parents told her and everyone else to cover for their reputation. By the time she found out the truth, it was far too late to clear away the golden falsehoods that stuck and covered her history. Her father was a noble with close ties to the royal court, and her biological mother a woman made to sell herself for the privilege of bearing his child in secret, whilst his wife remained unable to bear a child for his purposes.

Czarina has no living memory of her true mother, and likely would not have known about it had it not been for her schooling. When she was a child, she knew a woman, who at times looked at her with an emotion she’d never been able to place. She was her primary nanny, who dressed her and made sure she was on time to all her summons. When she was six the woman gave her a gift, a little wooden bird she said her mother had carved for her that she was told to keep secret. Not even a few days later, when her mother spotted her fiddling with it during dinner, she clutched her hands with an iron tight grin and demanded to know where she’d gotten it. She cried and begged her not to be mad for bringing “her mother’s gift” to dinner and was demanded to explain herself. She would not know until far later that it would be the reason she never saw that nanny again.

Czarina, in time learned fast to keep secrets. As she grew, she was afforded more leeway and was taught well to treat life like a giant game of poker. Never letting anyone know the information in her hand, learning tricks and tells to accurately guess as to the cards held by those around her. Through her father she learned the complicated world of politics and the ruthlessness that lurked beneath the golden exterior. Through her mother, she learned how to weave a conversation with such intricacies that none could tell how empty the space behind her words truly was. From them both she learned how to tip the scales of any interaction in her favour, and that the only way to truly get what you wanted was to hold all the cards, and wait for just the right moment to use them.

In time when she looked in the mirror, all she could see was her mask of mirrors. A face that would show everyone just what they expected to see. And in time, she grew into the perfect picture of elegance, power and skill. The shining gem of her parents’ lives. A priceless jewel they could show off at extravagant balls to the highest of high society and use to not only gain their favour and respect, but also use as a tool to gather every dirty secret and manipulate their way to the top.

No one ever saw the true face of Czarina of Whitehall, likely not even herself; but there would always be the one who got dangerously close.

Isabella Wisteria was the daughter of a noble house barely a rung or so lower on the ruthless chain of renown that the Whitehalls so desperately sought to climb. She was a high elven woman with dark hair and sharp silver eyes framed in thin glasses who made Czarina’s heart flutter when she laughed and despite everything, managed to lift away just a little of the mask she had so long believed grafted to her skin forever.

That first night they danced, Isabella had stumbled her way into Czarina’s heart by making her laugh with a joke about the ancient wizards Ixhis and Melanoe that no one else seemed to understand. And after over 4 hours of deep conversation into various topics of interest and their theories, building towering cathedrals on the knowledge they’d collected over the years, Czarina could never forget her. Even if she wanted to.

They exchanged letters for what felt like a millennia, meeting up at events and after the mandatory greetings and small talk, sneaking away to a private alcove or the gardens to share conversation and deeper truths as the moon set. Isabella was a visionary at heart. A quick wit to rival her own and a never failing conviction in the face of injustice. A heart that longed for a world where the silenced could make themselves heard and the wherewithal to fight for it. Someone who looked at Czarina and made her believe, for the first time, that there could be more to herself than merely the empty husk of a glittering mask pulling the strings in her family’s favour.

The third night they met, hiding away from fellow partygoers and tucking themselves frantically away in a pantry to avoid notice, Carina found herself close enough to Isabelle that she could feel her warm breath on her face in the dark. She felt herself blush, against her will and all her carefully constructed composure slipped as the two locked eyes.

And after a moment’s hesitation, Czarina stopping halfway as she closed the gap between them, Isabella gave a small nod in unspoken consent, and, after tucking a loose hair behind Czarinas ear, the elven noble leant in and kissed her.

It was not Czarina’s first kiss by any means, nor the longest. But it lit up her world in a way no other kiss she’s ever shared, because for the first time it felt real. For the first time a kiss was shared not out of drunken haze, or to wrap someone tightly around her finger. For the first time it wasn’t an act that made her feel empty, and one she had to force herself to convince them she enjoyed.

This kiss was real, and so was the love they shared. And for the first time nothing else mattered, and everything could be okay in a way she’d never known before.

Because Czarina, just Czarina, with not even a touch of Whitehall ambition or influence, was in love.

But the tale of Czarina of Whitehall, was not a love story.

8 months later, Isabella received her final letter from Czarina. It barely explained a thing. Czarina did not tell her about the months of blackmail and manipulation from her father, nor did she tell her about her love being repeatedly leveraged against her. It wasn’t a problem of Czarina having found love with the wrong person after all, it was because Czarina had found love at all. Because now that she had a weakness, allowed herself to love and care for someone, her father was all too ready to use it to control her, to twist her arm behind her back and allow him to tighten his hold on her. So much so that every attempt to counterbalance the scales were met with nothing, and the only way to loosen his hold, she could find, was to cut Isabella out of her life forever.

It didn’t matter to him what Isabella meant to her. It wouldn’t have mattered if she had been just a common whore she’d been toying with, or a project she was working on for her own amusement, or even her most trusted confidant. All that mattered, to him at least, was that she cared about her, enough to make her willing to do anything to keep her happy and safe.

And whether it was because he couldn’t have that, jealousy on his part, a mere opportunity he couldn’t help but exploit, or simply to teach her a lesson; none of that mattered in the end.

All Isabella would know, was that they couldn’t continue as they once had. That Czarina had loved her, that it had been fun while it lasted, but whatever relationship they had couldn’t continue. That Czarina couldn’t allow things to go any further than they had, because it too was a mask.

And in catching tears before they could meet the paper, Czarina told the greatest lie of her life. The lie that she had never cared as deeply as she had for Isabella. That she never would.

Isabella tried many times to find and talk to Czarina about the contents of her letter, about what she meant by them. She tried for months to get her to explain herself, tell her to her face that every moment they’d shared, all the private admissions and connection they’d felt had been a lie.

But Czarina continued to evade her. Keeping her at arm’s length and plastering on the perfect picture of the play girl bastard ex her love would hate with every fibre of her being.

No matter how much her heart ached.

In the end, Isabella was no longer a piece of the game her father could manipulate, and though Isabella was confused angry and heartbroken by her love’s betrayal, Czarina continued to play her part well. Now with a hollow in her chest and the deepest of regrets, even though she knew there was no other move she could make.

In time, the rumour mill moved on from the scandal she had caused, and her father and mother did too. In time there came the last day her father would ever give so much as a passing mention of her love, and Czarina and Isabella both could be free.

But though the courts and nobles may have forgotten, though her father and mother and family had likely forgotten, though Isabella in all her heart wrenching hurt had grieved and been forced to heal from what she had done enough to cast it behind her….

Czarina would never forget.

And in time, when that seed of hatred and resentment at her situation and her father and all he had twisted her into grew, when she had finally finished the long game between them that had stretched through her whole life and pulled all the right strings to land her father swallowed up by fish so much bigger than them all, he asked why, and she didn’t tell him all she had done or why. Only left their house in ruins behind her as her father cursed her name and her once mother’s blood stained the woman’s own hands, and her father was drained of everything he was worth.

He died never knowing she was to blame for the destruction of their house, as did her mother. As far as her father was aware, her greatest betrayal was refusing to fetch the doctors as the poison his enemies slipped into his drink took effect and rendered him paralysed and unable to fight back in his bed. As far as he knew, she was a coward who just watched from afar while he was forced to sign away all of his assets in his final moments, who had the gall to kiss his forehead and smile before leaving them all together.

As far as Isabella or any of the other nobles or servants had heard some part of Czarina had died beside her only family, who’d died in shame as the poorly constructed facade of their wealth and success finally crumbled around them. That she had been whisked away to safety by a distant relative or married off to a man in another country in a desperate attempt to retain her standing in spite of this. That she remained desperate to spend her days in recluse healing from the trauma coming home to the sight of such a brutal loss had left her, and the shame that came when his lies to her were finally uncovered.

But the shadows lurking beneath the masks that pulled the strings had just undertaken a far loftier goal.

To find the Passerine, whoever they may be, and end them before they could use their secrets against them.

And as for Czarina herself well…. She had plenty of names and lies and the skills to wield them well enough to keep herself hidden no matter where she was. And Ophelia Carlisle was certainly far more appealing than the hollow space where the once Czarina of Whitehall had resided in ages past.

All that was left for her now, was to find the truth. Whatever it may be.

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