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.”
Caladiel did not sit immediately.
She inclined her head instead, posture straight despite the low canvas ceiling threatening to brush her hair. Even here she would not appear small.
“You were recommended to me,” she said, her voice even, controlled. None of that simpering tone she'd been warned she employed too often.
Only then did she lower herself to the offered cushion. Graceful. Measured. As if choosing to kneel in a court rather than on a cushion in a tattered tent, in a backwoods swamp, surrounded by rotted shacks.
Her grey eyes flicked briefly to the suspended candles. She could feel it, the faint tug at the edges of perception, like pressure behind the eyes. This woman could access the void.
“I seek instruction in the arcane. I have studied what I could find - I believe I am suited to it” She kept her chin high, refusing to show her fear that this woman might dismiss her.
A beat of silence passed.
She continued "I was told you might know of someone who could help me, that you might point me in the right direction."
She folded her hands in her lap and awaited a response. Refusing to reflexively fill the silence as she often does.
----
Backstory:
Caladiel was raised behind white stone walls that often felt like a prison, even if she knew from her father that there were much more awful places in the world. From the time she could read, she hunted down every scrap of arcane writing she could find, copying passages until her fingers cramped, testing theories in the margins, then testing them again in the dark when nobody was watching.
She wanted to take to the road, to explore the places where maps ended. Her father refused. So she stayed, years stacking up in libraries and courtyards, learning about magic in pieces and whispers instead of lessons. She thought that if she couldn't explore the world, then at least she could explore the world beyond sight and mundane understanding.
Her eldest sister would not let her become helpless just because she preferred books. Caladiel learned the bow and sword, though only within the confines of a training yard.
Several years ago, her father went away for a trip and Caladiel saw her chance. She packed her things and set out, leaving her home behind. She is looking for a teacher willing to touch teach her of the arcane, and if she fails at that then she intends to search the most ancient of places in search of materials that will allow her to teach herself.
----
Note:
I am aware that my character can not have any magical capacity from the beginning. Her backstory and interaction with the hag is written with the intent of setting up her primary goal - not to give her an edge in gaining magic quickly or starting with it.
Recommended Comments