Biotonken

You’ve just arrived in a swampy, dim town. As you look around, your gaze is met with shacks and cabins. It smells of rotted wood and wet moss. You 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.”

((How do you respond?))

"My story? My story is one I do not like to share. But you do not seem to be one to judge or criticize. 

I was born to a loving family, a small family, but we loved eachother. Times were good. Good except for my father. He would... lash out at times. 

My mother would always tell my brother and I to hide. 13 years this went on, my "father" bringing her close to death more than a few times. One day he grabbed the knife from the dinner table and smashed his fist against the table, knife in hand. Yelled about how the dinner was "******* dogshit" for a lack of better words. This had been the third outlash this week, but this time was different. He had a look in his eye, one I had never seen before. He looked as though his soul had left him. Like a husk of a being held together and moved by hatred and anger. His eyes had no life, no mercy, no love. This was made ever more clear as when he went to hit my mother as he always did. But either he had forgotten about the knife in his hand, or had not cared enough to let go. I will spare the details as I do not like reliving it myself. But after he saw what he had done, he did not show remorce or pity. All I saw in his eyes was adrenaline and denial. He looked at my brother who was crying and screaming. My father knew that if anyone was to hear the crys his life would be over. So he went over to my brother. That morning 4 were in the house, by sunset there was only 1. I stood in the dining room looking at my family, my brother and mother, and the man that had his throat slit with the same knife that had started the death of my family, and I was the one who used that same knife to finish it. As I watched him bleed out grasping at the tablecloth. All the fear in my body left me. I did not even care about my mother or younger brother. I just felt this thrill, this excitement of ending the man who had caused us pain for my entire life. I felt excitement and it had clouded my vision. But as the blood dried into the fabric I could not help but think about the ******* lies that I had been tought all my life. That family was somthing to be celebrated, that the life of a being was important. My own dear pa showed me otherwise. He had ended the lives of my family, so I ended his. I did not feel like I had sinned or done wrong. I felt happy, I loved the feeling. I ran away from my home knowing that if I reported it I would be held accountable, due to being the only one alive, and my fathers blood the covered me. I had taken my mother cloak from the rack because it was cold up in the mountains. We lived in a cave branch but my mother had always found joy in trying to create a life similar to a humans. Furniture, stews and similar clothing. Maybe it was an escape from her own life. To escape the man who had ended that very life. But I guess I do not, and will never know. I found that I enjoyed the killing. I went to small villages and pickpotted the wealthy. If they noticed me, I would end them. Eventually I got payed to kill people, and thats all I did, and all I want to do. I want to relive the feeling of seeing his blood on the ground, soaking into the weaves of my clothing, and watching the life drain from his face. I despise other elves and their niave ideals of family and ancestory. All it had brought me pain and death. No ones life matters, so I take pride in ending it for them. "