Avononova
Avononova, the realm of the Court of Shattered Mirrors, is a place where reality forgets its shape and time folds in on itself like a paper doll left out in the rain. It manifests as an immense, musty castle without origin, crumbling at the edges yet never collapsing—its halls stretching, bending, and doubling back in impossible ways. The air is thick with the scent of mildew, candlewax, and forgotten lullabies. Dust motes drift like falling ash in the stale light that seeps through high, cracked windows. Fragments of broken mirrors hang in uneven clusters along the walls, their surfaces warped, shattered, and always watching—each one capturing reflections that twitch a moment too late.
The castle is filled with countless rooms, all constantly shifting in both purpose and layout. A drawing room with a fireplace one day becomes a flooded hallway the next. Every doorway is a gamble, and no one—fey or visitor—can predict where a corridor will lead. Among the most well-known chambers is the Otillilto, a long gallery where hundreds of mismatched toys lie in jumbled piles beneath chandeliers made of broken mirror shards. Dolls with missing eyes, jack-in-the-boxes with their cranks torn off, and stuffed animals that sag wet and disproportionate line the walls like abandoned memories. In Revaver, a grand music room of cracked tile and bowed floorboards, soft lullabies play from an warped wood piano while shadowed children dance in glimpses of the shattered mirror on the wall.
In the heart of the castle lies the Miririm, the throne room—or what remains of it. It is round and hollow, its mirrored floor long since shattered into concentric rings of glass and splintered marble. The throne itself sits at the center like a forgotten toy chair, small and chipped, still bearing the sigil of the Fractured Princess, whose presence can be felt in every breath of giggling wind and every flicker in the corner of your eye. She is never quite seen—but always near. Here, guests find their own reflections crawling across the walls, smiling when they are not, or mouthing secrets no one has spoken aloud.
Outside the castle’s flickering halls are a few decaying remnants of forgotten grandeur. The Nololon Courtyard is a circular garden of stone and dead flowers, surrounded by statues that weep from eyes long worn smooth. Time does not pass the same here—shadows move without sun, and laughter echoes with no visible source. The Elarale Greenhouse is a twisted glass dome overtaken by thorned vines and wilting flora, some of which bloom only in reflection, visible only in the glass panes themselves. Occasionally, one might catch glimpses of children running through the aisles—though no child has truly lived here in ages.
Mirrors are everywhere in Avononova, yet none are whole and few show true reflections. Some display memories that don’t belong to you. Others show near-truths, or versions of yourself that might have been—smiling wider, crying harder, tilting their heads in subtle defiance. It is said the castle itself is alive, not with malice, but with the forgotten weight of unprocessed grief, the echoes of abandonment and the fractured mind of a child-fey monarch too powerful and too broken to be healed.
To enter Avononova is to risk forgetting what is real, what is yours, and who you were before the door creaked open. It is a realm of cracked innocence, endless games, and softly spoken nightmares. And always, always, the laughter—bubbling and distant—grows louder the closer you come to the mirror that still remembers your name.
Geography
The geographic features of Avononova are twisted, insular, and eerily self-contained—a fragmented world bound within the crumbling skeleton of an endless castle, as though the realm itself has folded inward, trapping all memory and meaning behind its reflective skin. The terrain is largely interior, consisting of sprawling, musty hallways and rooms that shift like dreams—chambers that stretch too long or compress without warning, staircases that ascend into nowhere, and corridors that double back into themselves no matter how straight they seem. There are no natural mountains or rivers in Avononova—only architecture and ruin, echoing and rearranging in a cycle of forgotten purpose.
The castle sits atop what may have once been a gentle rise or hill, though the outer grounds are now so overgrown and warped with age that the surrounding landscape is little more than a broken courtyard and a few walled gardens twisted with dead ivy. The ground beneath is cobbled and cracked, with mirror fragments embedded in the stone, catching light from unseen sources. The courtyard, Nololon, seems to sprawl indefinitely, with looping pathways that always bring wanderers back to the same statue—a faceless girl with shattered hands—no matter which way they turn.
Around the castle perimeter are moats of still, black water, though they seem to reflect not the castle or sky, but the dreams—or fears—of those who gaze into them. The reflections ripple without cause and sometimes mimic the viewer too late or not at all. No bridges cross these waters permanently; some appear only when unobserved, others vanish mid-step. The land beyond is shrouded in mist, and any attempt to leave the bounds of the castle’s domain results in emerging through a different wing, often deeper inside than before.
Scattered throughout Avononova are shattered towers and collapsed wings, now forming twisted valleys of ruin, filled with debris and crooked beams where the wind whistles like a child’s breath caught mid-sob. These ruins, known collectively as the Grounds of Otillito, serve as resting places for broken things—dolls, toys, mirrors, names. Fungi and pale moss bloom in places untouched by light, and warped reflections flit across every puddle and glass shard, showing glimpses of events that never happened or haven’t happened yet.
Even the sky above Avononova defies certainty. It is often overcast or cast in eternal dusk, with a flickering crescent moon that appears in multiple places at once, reflected in the countless surfaces of the realm. Occasionally, stars blink through, but they shift and stutter, flickering in patterns that seem to follow the emotions of the Fractured Princess herself.
In Avononova, the geography isn’t fixed—it is reactive, reflective, and recursive, shaped by memory, loss, and the fragile dreams of its eternal child-queen. There are no true borders here—only corners where light hesitates, walls that do not remain still, and mirrors that remember more than the world around them does.
Climate
The climate of Avononova is cool, stale, and perpetually dim—a realm locked in an eternal, shadowed dusk, as though the sun has long since set but refuses to fully leave. The air hangs heavy with dust and the scent of mildew, old parchment, and forgotten perfume. Temperature rarely changes, always hovering just a touch too cold for comfort, like the air in a long-abandoned nursery. Dampness clings to the stone and settles in the corners of rooms, feeding patches of pale mold and lichen that bloom where light doesn’t reach. Rain can sometimes be heard tapping against glass, though no windows show the storm. Mist seeps in through broken doors and cracks in the mirrors, curling along the floor like spilled memory. It is a place where even time seems to breathe slower, and where warmth is something only remembered, never felt.