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?))
The thick smell of mildew and candle smoke lingers in the tent's stagnant air as Mei Qianhua settles onto the cushion with practiced grace. Though her lavender hanfu is damp around the hem, she shows no discomfort. Her hands rest lightly in her lap, her embroidered flowers on her sleeves catching glimmers of candlelight.
"You speak as though fate was certain," she mumurs. "Perhaps it was. Or perhaps it was only patient."
She lets silence stretch for a moment, a habit born from years of courtly restraint.
"I was born in the House of Mei," She begins, soft and precise. "Daughters were meant to smile, to sing, to bear sons. We were flowers in the garden, never the roots, never the thorns."
She looks at the hanging candles as though remembering something from far away, her tone cool but tinged with something wishful.
"When my elder brother died of a fever, I was the one who found the wrong dosage written in the physician's scrolls. No one wanted to hear it from a girl. So I smiled.. and learned how to write truth in ways no one can burn. I served nobles who thought I was ornamental. I watched their politics rot from the inside. I penned letters that changed conflict without ever bearing my name."
A faint curve touches her lips - not a smile, but an echo of one.
"Now, I am here. In the rot that makes no excuses for what it is. Perhaps that's why you called me. Or perhaps I followed the scent of something honest."
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