The traveller has just arrived in a small town. As they look around, their gaze is met with run down houses and shops. They duck into one of the shacks, illuminated by a series of candles suspended in the air. At the back of the small room, an old hag raises her head, “What brings you to this dingy town?" She begins, then pauses to study their face—”Ah, it’s you. I’ve been expecting you. Sit,” she gestures at a chair, “Where do you come from? What do you hope to make of yourself?”
A hooded figure crossed into the small shack as if desperately trying to avoid prying eyes. She glances over towards the small, hunched-over woman with a spark of curiosity, but then paranoia. Her ears twitch with a bit of anticipation. like a scared hare waiting to jump at the next sound of movement.
"... What makes you think I'd tell you anything?" Amelia says with a scoff. clearly still unsteady around even someone like the hag. She glances over at the candles floating in the air. For a second, she's in awe at the sight, but quickly regains her focus on the old woman.
The old woman simply smiles, in a rather unsettling way, but swirls her mug with her wrinkled hand, staring deeply into the tea leaves.
"Ah, you have the spirit of a warrior. I can see it in your eyes, my dear." The hag speaks with relative ease, but Amelia doesn't let down her guard. She still stands by the doorway, not wanting to let go of her only way of escape.
"Did the tea leaves tell you that?" The goblin mocks before sighing and leaning against the rotted wall.
"It wasn't hard to see, as I said before. I could say much more about you, although I don't like speaking about what I already know. Why don't you sit down?" Amelia sighs and cautiously walks over to the small table. It's coated in hardened wax and reeks of mold and rot. But so does this whole accursed shack. The hag doesn't say much else after she sits down.
"So you want a story... is that it? Shame that mine is such a depressing one." Amelia muttered in a rather quiet tone.
The hag simply takes a sip of her tea before continuing. "Many stories are my dear."
That simple sentence gave Amelia what she needed to talk a little bit about her life.
"I-... grew up in the military. Abandoned at birth, if you couldn't tell. Soldiers raised me. Taught me to be all that I am." She glanced down at the rotting wood of the table, picking out the wax absentmindedly. She didn't know why she was telling this to a stranger. Maybe she needed to tell someone the story of her pathetic life.
"The human soldiers were at least fascinated by me. Weren't a lot of other races where I'm from. Mainly, humans that lived there. Orcs weren't too uncommon, but most folks had never seen a goblin before. Suppose it would've been worse if I were an elf living in Výranni." She chuckled almost fondly at the memory. She remembered how the Soldiers tried their best to raise her... Her mind traveled to the one soldier who had found her all those years ago. Luka was his name. A human soldier, like the rest. He didn't have a family, no wife or kids waiting for him back in civilized life. So he decided to take her under his wing. treat her as his own. She still remembered how he freaked out when her fangs came in, worried that they'd grow in wrong or get chipped or something like that. He was always fussing over her.
"You're not full Goblin though, correct?" Amelia damn near jumped out of his skin, her gaze immediately snapping up to the hag, who didn't say anything else, just smirked through her tea.
"H-how did you-?" Amelia muttered, but before she could finish her sentence, the hag butted in. "I know many things."
The goblin scoffed at such a simple answer but continued anyway. "I- well... I guess I always had some suspicion that I was... well, what I am." She sighed while looking down at her own calloused hands. " I read a lot of books when I was little, on Orcs and Goblins. Since nobody else knew, I thought I might as well see if they had the answers for me. I started noticing little inconsistencies, I grew far too fast, my tusks never quite sat in my mouth just right... and well, my height. I was always far too tall to be considered a pure-blooded Goblin. But, eh, what the hell are you gonna do? It's not like I could change that."
She picked at her nails this time, scabs collected around her cuticles, making it seem like it was a habit that she did a lot.
" Anyways, I left Výranni at eighteen, and the rest is history, I suppose." Amelia said with a shrug. She wouldn't dare mention anything about her adult life. She wasn't stupid after all.
The hag only nodded and left her with one final sentence. "Well, my dear, don't spend the rest of your fleeting life talking to lil old me." The old woman finished up her tea as Amelia stood up from the rickety old stool.
"Mh. Good idea." She mumbled simply, slightly agitated by the comment, but decided that the Hag's life wasn't worth much. So she left the old woman be. The goblin shifted her cloak more flimly, concealing her face once more, and disappeared out into the darkness beyond the small shack.
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