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.”
[Disclaimer: Under no circumstances does my character genuinely possess magic. She's just a silly quack psychic for money. :)]
Jerdonna stalled, aroused by various trinkets and oddities beheld within the tent. Her gaze darted around like a fly's, physically restraining herself from laying any bony fingers on the curious artefacts. Alas she pinched her ragged dress upward and sat unnaturally with her knees and toes dug into the cushion, heels up. Sitting there still, she appeared long expired — folk usually concluded such before seeing her move. With a fever-dreamy haze in her eye, she cleared her throat.
"Such a... peculiar collection, madam," she murmured, "when we're done here, perhaps you'd let me take one of your beauties home." A grin tugged at her dark lips, too wide to be comfortable. Cogs were turning internally as she fidgeted with the twists of her gnarled hair. Her story, her story, herstoryherstory... if the old wished for a story, oh, she'd give her one!
"I see ghosts. They follow me, they speak to me... ever since my first sighting as a girl, I've been a most—most excellent diviner, yes. I can weave fortunes just from the power imbedded in my cards, why, I could put most sorcerers to shame!" With a cackle, Jerdonna forked a stale velvet bag from the rope around her waist, senselessly dumping a deck of what appeared to be hand-drawn cards before the hag. "I could perceive your own fortune, in the..." she swallowed thickly, "comfort of your tent."
The crone supplied a dissatisfied sneer. Such a foolish little quack, and a ghastly liar to boot. "Your story, not your fantasies," the haggard lady rasped.
Jerdonna picked at her grotty nails. "Ev'ryone I've met, they're soul-bound to their traditions," she said, "but they'll see. One day they'll learn my warnings were true all along, that poor little Miss Neirdre was a genius... and well beyond the fickle minds of her peers. My parents reckoned I wasn't mature enough for a mage, let alone a mage of Mysticism. They thought I'd be better suited for the blade, but nonono, that would require grace. Now you may believe I'm aimless, a fool, for travelling away from home to foster such an outlandish business. I refute! I say; I don't need to learn! I don't need Mana! I was born a spectacle and I shall perform 'til they lower me into my grave."
She hesitated, biting her cheek before hoisting herself to her feet and resuming a disjointed posture. Perhaps she had laid herself too bare — merely speaking down on her family felt like spilling her guts. A creature of habit, Jerdonna supplied a wry smile and shoveled her cards back into the beckoning abyss of their bag. "Well met," she creaked, then improperly snatched an artefact from the hag's collection on the way out. Between the rustling of jeweled insect wings attached to her belt, there was an oxidized ring with a signet engraved upon the center, strung covertly at her back.
The Mali'ker placed imperative importance on the successful growth of their youth, but not every family's approach will churn out perfect results. Jerdonna wasn't an outlier, no, but a black mark besmirching a line of young dark elves befalling a similar fate within her family. In a plea for her own autonomy, she rejected anything her authority demanded. Magic, swordsmanship, scholarly achievements—they paled in comparison to the wonderous storybook life she envisioned for herself since her days as a girl. Moons later now, some would say she'd obtained the future she grasped at, but that couldn't be true. She imagined it to be so much more... grand.
Miss Neirdre was nothing extravagant beyond her overzealous hunger for applause.
Recommended Comments