Vind has just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As they look around, their gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. They duck and step into a tattered tent, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the tent, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town? She begins, then pauses to study your face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a cushion, “Tell me your story.”
Vind tilts his head slightly, studying the old hag with a measured gaze. His fingers brush the edge of his cloak, still damp from the swamp’s mist. After a brief silence, he lowers himself onto the worn cushion, exhaling as if the weight of his journey clings to his breath.
"My story… ah. It’s not one of heroes or grand deeds, if that’s what you’re expecting." — he says, his voice roughened by the night’s cold.
"I wasn’t born within city walls, nor in the comfort of a stone house. I grew up in a forgotten village, caught between the depths of the forest and the jaws of the mountains. There, I learned that meat doesn’t place itself on a plate and that winter does not forgive those who fail to read the wind’s warnings. I learned to track, to move unseen, to understand the whispers of the leaves before danger arrived."
His eyes darken for a moment, his hand tightening into a fist on his knee.
"But all of that ended the day fire reached home before I did." — he mutters, his tone unreadable between anger and resignation. "When war breaks between kingdoms, it does not distinguish between soldiers and children, between temples and shacks. There were no warnings. No rescue. Only ashes drifting over the snow."
He lifts his gaze toward the old woman, a faint smirk ghosting across his lips.
"Since then, I’ve never stayed in one place for too long. Safety isn’t found in walls or in the names of kings; it’s in movement, in adapting, in pressing forward. So I walked. And I kept walking. From forests to deserts, from valleys to ruins where the whispers of the dead still cling to the stones. No map marks the end of my journey… because I haven’t found it yet."
His eyes linger on the hag, a flicker of curiosity gleaming beneath their sharpness.
"But tell me, old one… were you truly expecting me, like so many other shadows who claim to have read my fate in the bones? Or does this swamp have something to tell me?"
He leans back slightly, watching her reaction, his body still alert—as if the story he had just told wasn’t merely words, but scars unseen by the naked eye.
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