Theren Thornehide.

Elf / Warlock / Bard

Submitted character story

You are the charmer who walked the Blackfen and talked past the Iron Matron, knowing persuasion opens doors blades cannot. What brought you back wasn't light or hope, but the darkness itself choosing to keep you. The curse isn't what you fear losing. It's what you fear wanting. Your table will remember the performance, the wit, the blade that whispers, and never quite trust which version of you is real.

Defining moment: Darkness.

Not the absence of light—no.
This was something alive. Breathing. Watching.

It began with music.

Theren remembers the hall first—their family estate, all polished marble and soft golden light. Laughter curled through the air like perfume, nobles and dignitaries gathered beneath banners bearing the sigil of House Thornehide: the black thorn coiled around a blooming rose. He had been at the center of it, as always. Smiling. Playing his part. Every word placed perfectly, every glance calculated and effortless.

They adored him.

Of course they did.

That was the point.

He remembers stepping away from the crowd, slipping out into the garden beyond the glass doors. The night air had been cool, the scent of roses thick and cloying. The Thornehide gardens were famous—cultivated to perfection, every vine pruned, every thorn controlled.

Or so they believed.

There was a voice.

Not heard—felt.

Like a thought that wasn’t his.

“You perform so well for them.”

Theren had smiled at first, thinking it some trick of wine or ego. But the garden had gone still. Too still. Even the wind had stopped.

The roses had begun to move.

Not sway—reach.

Thorns stretched, lengthening, curling toward him like fingers. The manicured beauty of the garden twisted into something wild, something ancient. Something that had never been tamed—only contained.

“Tell me… if they saw you without the mask… would they still love you?”

The voice wrapped around him, intimate. Knowing.

And for the first time—
Theren hesitated.

Because beneath the charm, beneath the performance…
he didn’t know the answer.

The vines struck.

Not to kill—but to bind. To pull. To open.

Thorns pierced skin—not deep, not cruel, but precise. Like ink finding parchment. His breath caught—not from pain, but from the feeling of something entering, threading through him. Magic. Old. Hungry.

The garden drank something from him.

And gave something back.

Visions flooded his mind—endless halls of shadow, crowns of woven briar, beauty sharpened into weapons. Power that didn’t ask. Power that claimed.

“You are wasted here,” the voice whispered.
“Let me show them what you truly are.”

Inside, something broke.

Or maybe it finally answered.

Theren didn’t scream.

He agreed.

The next thing he remembers is the silence.

The garden stood still again. Perfect. Pristine.

Behind him, the music had stopped.

When he turned back toward the estate, the glass doors were shattered from the inside out. Blood stained the marble floors. Guests lay scattered—some unmoving, others crawling, whispering his name like a prayer or a curse.

And in his hand—

A blade.

Slender. Dark. Breathing faintly, as though it had always been there.

As though it had always been his.

He didn’t remember drawing it.

He didn’t remember what happened inside.

Only the feeling.

Of finally being… seen.

Already paid the price