monsterbf

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.”

Sigeryn gazes around the disheveled tent. What he expects to find is not a person - much less candles hanging about the tent which allow his eyes to really take in the tattered, decaying remains of the thing. Is he bothered by the unexpected sight? Perhaps. The ice in his wagon is melting fast, however, and the fish he has resting atop the melting ice will not keep long before he has a putrid (and quite stinky) mess on his hands. He allows the flap of the tent to fall closed behind him and steps toward the old woman speaking to him. If anything, she can point him toward a market in town.

"I'm here to-" Sigeryn begins, words falling off as the hag's do when he realizes how intensely he's being studied in the moment. He takes a step back toward the entrance he came through, looking around with sudden shifting eyes of his own. The mouth under his moustache frowns when she catches back up to her own words, finishes them, and offers him a seat. Two hands lift in front of him in a polite, if dismissive, gesture. "No need, ma'am," he continues. "I've come a long way from the mountains of Norland. The ice has yeilded an unexpected bounty of fish in my last venture. I was hoping to find somewhere to sell them. If you'd point me in the direction of a merchant I'll be out of your hair, miss."

He pulls the opening of the tent apart to gesture to his wagon, stopped in the road. His horse prods her nose at the swampy grasses and puddles of mud in his absence. Green eyes flick from the outdoors, the cushion, and the woman again. Sigeryn swallows. "You said you were... expecting me. I told no one a specific destination when I set out, only my intentions to sell. How could you possibly known to expect me?"