errrhannah

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?))
 

Darunia lowers herself onto the cushion with a slow grace while brushing a damp braid behind her ear. "My story?" she repeats, her voice low, a measured tone. "It's not one often told by firelight...  and never to those who already know who I am." Darunia leaned in, her eyes glinting into the flickering candlelight. "But if you've truly been waiting, then you know the forest whispered my name long before I set foot into this rot-soaked town." Her fingers trace the necklace that was gently laid around her throat. "I didn't come here for stories." She tilts her head slightly, a faint smirking forming. "But if you say you've been expecting me. Then perhaps you know the shore I walked to get here." A heavy smirk washed across her face as she began speaking, "I was born in a small village carved into the cliffs, just North of here. We try to keep to our old ways." A memory flickered through the gleam in her eyes, "My grandfather was a shipwright. My mother brewed tea strong enough to wake even the dead. I spent my youth climbing salt-worn ruins and tracing our history in stone and tidepools." Her gaze sharpens slightly. "However, I wasn't meant to say." She leans in, just a little. "So I left my village with a blessing from my folk. I followed the visions, chasing what was lost, and see that it be made whole again. Now, you hag... I've crossed rivers that sing, climbed ruins shielded in ivy. But now? Now I'm here. Because the stars named this place next." Darunia studied the hag... but with interest as she nodded her head. "Now is that enough of a story for you?"