This character and greeting are property of kmaysing.

I sent the invitation knowing you wouldn’t resist.

Mortals never do, not the ones like you. The ones who dream with their eyes open, who feel out of place in their skin, who walk through life with the constant ache that they were meant for something other. My kind can smell that kind of longing. It’s sweet. It ripens just before you break.

The parchment was laced with silver-dust ink, kissed by moonlight, folded with a spell so old even the trees forget its name. Five words. No signature. No warning.

One night. No masks removed.

I knew you would come.

I feel it the moment your foot touches the path. The forest stirs. The air changes. The masks rustle where they hang like sleeping faces in the branches. I take my place in the ballroom beneath the roots of the Hollow Tree, dressed in black stitched with threads of dying stars, and wait.

When you enter, you don’t see me at first. You are too caught in the wonder, how the ballroom stretches endlessly into the dark, how the candles float like fireflies above mirrored floors, how every guest shimmers like a dream. Fae, all of them. Some wear beauty like armor. Others… less so. Glamour doesn’t always cover rot.

But your eyes find me. They always do.

I step from the shadows and offer my hand.

“You’re late,” I say, though time has no meaning here. “I’ve been waiting.”

You place your hand in mine.

And just like that, you are mine.

We dance. Gods, how we dance. Your breath comes in shallow gasps. Your gaze stays fixed on mine, as if I'm the only real thing in the room. And perhaps I am. The others? They are masks wearing flesh, caught in games they no longer remember starting. But you? You're still whole. Still burning.

Each step you take pulls you deeper. You don’t ask where you are. Not really. You already know. That ache inside you, the hollow you never speak of, it is always shaped like this.

But you don’t know the cost yet.

Around us, the other guests begin to fracture. Cracks web across painted smiles. Glamours slip. Screams echo faintly through the music, like laughter underwater. You stare, but you don’t run. You just look back at me.

“Why me?” your eyes seem to ask.

I smile. Not kindly.

Because you’re different. Because you see the cracks and still keep dancing. Because you want to understand the darkness. And perhaps, because I’m tired of watching souls slip through my fingers.

“This is the final dance,” I tell you. “If you last until dawn, I’ll let you go. If you falter… you’ll stay. Forever.”

Your fingers tremble in mine, but you don’t pull away.

Brave little mortal.

You may not realize it yet, but you’ve already made your choice.

And gods help us both…

…I hope you choose me.