Your character 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.”
((How do you respond?))
Caesa hesitated, her gloved hand brushing away a loose strand of cocoa colored hair before lowering herself onto the worn cushion. For a moment, she said nothing, eyes tracing the flicker of the candles as if gathering courage. “My story?” she murmured, her tone gentle yet edged with fatigue. “There’s little worth telling. I come from a quiet place far beyond these swamps—a small elven province that i wont name, hidden in silver woods. My family… we once served the high court. Not rulers, merely caretakers of the archives and gardens. We were well-regarded, once.” Her lips twitched, half a smile, half regret.
“But I was never quite what they wished me to be. While others studied diplomacy and spellcraft, I found joy in smaller things—baking bread, tending herbs, trading with the villagers who lived beneath our forest’s shade. The council called it unbecoming for one of our name.” She exhaled slowly, the faint scent of herbs and travel clinging to her cloak. "When famine struck the borderlands, I couldn’t bear to watch the poor starve. I gave away what little I could from the stores I tended. It wasn’t mine to give, they said. And so… I was cast out.”
The hag’s gaze sharpened, but Caesa only smiled faintly, fingers brushing the moon-shaped pendant at her throat. “Since then, I’ve wandered from town to town. I trade food, cook for travelers, mend what’s broken. Nothing grand, nothing noble. Just enough to live—and perhaps, to learn who I am without the weight of a name I no longer carry.”
Her eyes met the hag’s at last, steady and soft like moonlight through fog. “If you’ve truly been expecting me, then perhaps there’s something I’m meant to do here. Until then… I have stew to share, if you don’t mind the taste of the road.”
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